Games Weekend

This weekend was games weekend for Peace Corps The Gambia volunteers. Those who chose to participate met up in Juffareh, the site made famous by the novel Roots. Juffareh is where Kunta Kinteh was stolen from before being sold into slavery. It’s one of the most famous tourist sites in The Gambia, and each year lots of African Americans come to this little village to see where their ancestors may have come from.

Because it gets so much tourist activity, there is a little eco-lodge there called Kunta Kinteh camp. This is where we stayed. It’s right on the river/ocean/inlet/whatever that body of water is called. It had a pool. It had a bar. It had lots of tables where tons of nerds could play all sorts of lame games.

But before we could test our individual wit, strategic skills, and dungeons and dragons tolerance, we had to have the real contest. The contest that shows true will, true grit, true spirit, true desire. We had to have a mango eating contest.

The first round of the mango eating contest involved everyone who was interested in participating. Everyone was given a plate with slices of mango, adding up to about two to three entire mangoes. When the signal was given, everyone would eat the mangoes as quickly as they could… without using their hands. And if you’ve ever eaten a mango, you know that they are slippery. To get your teeth into one was way more difficult that getting it down your gullet.

If you know my desire to compete, my appetite, and my affinity for mangoes, hopefully by now you will have guessed that I was one of the people who ate their mangoes the quickest. I finished in second to a mango eating machine.

So, the first three to finish moved on to the real contest: a timed challenge in which each person tried to eat as many mangoes as they could in a two minute time period.

The large, burly, bearded mango eating machine was contestant number one. He has been mistaken for Bigfoot and is known for his eating abilities.

Contestant number two was a tall, thin, wiry guy. He looked beatable, but his resolve was strong.

And then there was me. The lone female, representing half of humankind, and about 70% of Peace Corps volunteers in the Gambia.

The contest began, and I shoveled those mangoes as fast as I could into my mouth. I had a counter on one side, and a coach on the other, guiding me on which pieces looked most mash-able, and which pieces were smallest, to maximize my eating potential.

The winner, Bigfoot, ate 26 pieces of mango, which according to my calculations, is about 5 mangoes. In two minutes.

Slim and I tied for second place, with 21 mango pieces, or about four mangoes. Two mangoes a minute. Not too bad, eh?

After that contest, the other games began. Think of a nerdy game, and we had it. French settlement building, German property trading, world conquest, railroad maximization, dungeons, dragons, munchkins… we had it all.

Late that first night, I played a game called Munchkin. Basically, it was a tryout to see who could hack it to move up to the big leagues of actual dungeons and dragons. And I failed MISERABLY. It was a ridiculous game, involving warriors, clerics, elves, and Halflings, where people obtained items like the “Boots of Running Really Fast” and “Huge Rock” and fought monsters like “the Floating Nose” and “the Plutonium Dragon”. It took forever, you had to wait your turn, and there were a lot of rules to learn.

Since I found out early I would never cut it for D&D, I decided to play a fun game and eavesdrop on the kinds of ridiculous quotes that are bound to come up during a game of intense Dungeons and Dragons. Here are some gems.

“Before we open the door, does anyone need to do anything to buff themselves up?”

“Well… maybe… I could call an extra creature to help us fight…”

Discussing a murder scene with dust, woman’s clothing, and is assumed to be the death of a vampire, “Is facial hair left behind?”

“Obviously, the vampire was a woman.”

“I’m not gonna mess around, I’m gonna go ahead and take out my sword and slice the carpet.”

“I think the mayor’s daughter might be queen of the vampires.”

“They’re a medium humanoid.”

Also involved in the weekend was tarot cards. I had a lot of skeptical fun, which in turn entertained my Buddhist, hippie, fellow volunteer.

I drew a lot of cards throughout the weekend to inquire and get insight about many different aspects of my life. My favorite was the “existence” card. This card basically says that the universe, all of existence, is not full with me. The universe would be missing something were I not in it.

Not only does the universe need me in it, but also the mango market would decline greatly in the Gambia were I not around, although Dungeons and Dragons would gain a lot more respect.