How The Name of This Blog Came To Be

This blog was created nearly a fifth of a decade ago, and I'm not sure I ever explained why it's called what it is.

Most members of my Peace Corps training class had never heard of the Gambia when they received their invitation to serve here, much less knew where it lay geographically.

I however, was well versed.

I took a class in college called the geography of conflict, and although we talked mainly about the middle eastern conflicts throughout history, my professor was from Kenya, and he thought it was important we know exactly where all the countries in Africa were. We would have pop quizzes occasionally, asking us to identify ten or so countries on the continent.

In our studying, the way I chose to remember The Gambia was this: The outline of Senegal looks like a pudgy whale, and the little wiggly insignificant bit encapsulated within it is in the perfect position to be its mouth. So, to remember the Gambia, we would always say, "It's in the whale's mouth."



So, not only did I know exactly where The Gambia was nestled geographically, but I also had a flashy catch phrase to go with it when I first got my assignment.

Thus, Abby's Adventures in the Whale's Mouth.

Some Weird Things I’ll Do When I Get Home That You’ll Just Have To Deal With

A few weeks ago, we had our Close of Service conference, where the people who came to this country with me all met to discuss leaving this country. One night, we all got dressed up and went to a fancy restaurant in Kombo to celebrate all of our accomplishments. I filled my plate with delicious goops and full grain rice, and lots of Tandoori chicken. As I started to eat the chicken, holding it in my hand and gnawing at it like a Gambian is wont to do, I thought to myself: Is this what I did in America? Is this what Americans do in a fancy restaurant? Is it inappropriate to do such a thing? And honestly, I can’t remember. The fact that it came off of my own plate instead of a communal food bowl was enough formality for me. I started asking people around the table. I started with those lucky girls who had gone to cotillion, or been trained in the art of manners. They both said they thought no. I asked the American, here subbing for only a few months. He said it depended on the situation.

So, this is my warning to you. I will most likely need to be retaught the most basic of manners and etiquette principals, or at least be de-taught the Gambian way.

Here are probable problematic areas.

- As discussed, I will have horrendous manners. In this country, it’s accepted and expected that people will eat with their hands, gnaw off a hunk of meat and throw the rest back into the middle, and to spit bones on the floor (which also happens to be the ground) around them. Tables are never eaten upon, spoons are rarely seen, and forks and knives are unfamiliar tools.

- I will speak in strange language. I think it’ll be pretty easy to switch back to English full time, but I know some stuff will stick. For example:
o Iyoo (pronounced ee-yo): used instead of ok or booyah.
o A banta: means it is finished. This phrase can be used for everything from the food on a plate to the time remaining in a movie.
o Inshallah: this phrase is proof of my living in a muslim country. It means, “If Allah wills it” or “hopefully”.
o There are a bunch of simple phrases that we use with other Gambian Peace Corps volunteers that no one else would understand. Asobe means things that look the same. Bumsters are the delightful beach dwellers who just want some attention. Gatorade is so much more than it actually is.

- Here, I sweat almost every hour of the day – and I STILL wear clothes at least two days in a row, just like my Gambian counterparts. I recognize the stigma Americans have of wearing the same thing two days in a row, and therefore, the region known as “wardrobe purgatory” – where the clothes are not totally clean, but they definitely do not need to be washed yet – will grow even larger.

- Clicks. Although Mandinka isn’t a language with clicks, Gambians use clicks to say all sorts of things: “I disapprove”, “Yes”, “No”, and “That’s way too expensive”. In a year of teaching fourth graders with attitude I didn’t pick it up, but after two years living with a Gambian family, and now I commonly make the sucking click-y nose that indicates disgrace or disapproval.
Also, I can’t explain it, but I have subconsciously picked up two distinctive clicks: one which means yes and one which means no. I can’t explain the difference now, but you’ll see when I get home.

- Shamelessness. Here in the Gambia, we tell it like it is. If you have diarrhea, you literally say your “stomach is running”. If you have to relieve yourselves, you say in Mandinka, “Pee is mine” or “Poop is mine”. It is important to mention exactly what is yours, because each of these bodily functions requires a different facility. People will tell you exactly what’s up. In addition to the influence of Gambians, Peace Corps volunteers are also free about telling their poop stories. I probably will proudly announce or tell the tales of my gastronomic woes – stop me if you don’t want to hear them. The same goes for stories of strange rashes or skin infections.

- There are a variety of useful hand motions I will probably retain when I return to America. If you’re too far away from someone to properly greet them with a handshake, you can clasp your hands high above your head and then shake the whole thing at them. A hand signal my dad can vouch that I have down is the finger wag. It means, You’re bad, or, I don’t agree, or, I don’t want that, or, No thank you. My favorite hand signal is done by simply putting your hands to your sides with your palms facing down, and then flipping them over, with as much of a flourish as you want. This literally means ANYTHING. In whatever situation you’re in, it asks the obvious question. If it’s a car approaching and you do it, it means, Where are you going? If a phone is ringing and you can’t find it, just flip over your hands and people will understand you mean, Where’s the phone? It works great for those of us with mediocre to poor language skills.

Stay tuned for the second installment of “Weird things I’ll Do When I Get Home”.

Why It’s Hard To Teach Gambians Using An American Textbook

For the past two years, I have tutored one man in my small community in reading. His English was already pretty good, but he couldn’t read or write at all really. He has improved remarkably, but there were certainly difficult portions; usually caused by the cultural differences between what he was reading – a fourth grade American reading textbook – and his life, culture, and everything he knows.

There are the obvious things: he knows the concept of snow, but has never experienced it, so the idea of earmuffs was lost to him.

He knows that tall buildings exist, but has no idea of the scale of our skyscrapers. For a dude who has probably never gone up stairs – at all – the concept of an elevator to take you hundreds of feet in the air was baffling and terrifying.

Some examples:

- Red Riding Hood: One story took a twist on a bunch of different fairy tales. To a fourth grader, it would have been a clever and funny story. But to a Gambian without any introduction to or experience with the original version, it makes no sense. When Little Red Riding Hood erases a part of the script and instead of coming to her house dressed as a grandmother, the wolf turns into a ballerina and starts pirouetting around the stage, it wasn’t cute or clever or funny: It was baffling. Plus, try to get an early reader to decode “pirouette”.

- There was one story about inventions, and man, did that make Americans look lazy and superficial. One girl invented a combination washer and dryer so the tired American worker doesn’t have to lift wet clothes into a new machine. He responded with a laugh, and I quote, “A machine to wash cloth? How is that?” After I explained, he clucked his tongue as Gambians do, and said, “No, no, I don’t think so.” He didn’t say anything, but when I described a clothes dryer, I could see the disdain on his face and I know he was thinking, “Stupid Americans! Building a machine to do what the sun does for free…”

- Another boy invented a special, super effective sprinkler. You may think a sprinkler is a simple thing to explain but to get to the sprinkler itself, I first had to discuss what a yard is, what our grass is like and why we like it, the prevalence of running water, and the fact that, in general, we don’t have anything like their rainy season. For a man who pulls 20 liters of water a day for EACH of his banana TREES, it all sounded heavenly – and far out of reach.

- There are a lot of stories about baseball in American textbooks – and a lot of associated baseball jargon. I know any baseball story will take twice as long due to all the unfamiliar phrases – home run, short stop, pitcher, fly ball, line up, bull pen, etc.

- There are some times when he knows EVERYTHING though. There was one story about a kid who went to visit his mother’s provincial family in Thailand. They described a life where all cooking is done in a special house on an open fire, they eat with their hands, where people gathered water from a well, and where they had no electricity. But when they made these statements, they ended everyone with an exclamation mark. The textbook looked like this:
“His grandfather hauled water from a well for bathing and everything! His grandmother cooked on an open fire inside a special house specifically for cooking! When the food was prepared they ate with their hands! At night, they chatted by candlelight only!”
If Mawdou wrote the story, it’d probably sound more like this:
“His grandmother hauled water from a well for cooking, washing, bathing… Duh. The women cooked on an open fire inside their cooking house… of course. They ate with their hands… like EVERYONE. At night, they chatted by candlelight… obviously.”

What I'm Doing Now Now

It’s been a while since I last posted what I’m working on, and now that I’m winding down to the end of my service, I’d give you another update on what I’m working on in my superheated tiny corner of the Gambia.

The thing I’ve been most proud of this year is my reading contest. Students are given prizes when they reach certain benchmarks – at five books they get a pencil, at ten books they get a certificate, their picture taken, and some other small prizes, like a minty or a pen or an eraser.



I know you’re all thinking, “That’s bribery!” And it is. But that got them in the door, and now I have kids filling the library at all hours of the day, because they’ve realized how fun it is. They come in with their friends, they share books, they sound out words, and even grade one students point out numbers and letters that are familiar to them. It’s sweet.

I’m planning an epic Reading Day for at the end of the school year. It going to be GREAT. I’m going to raffle off everything in my house that I don’t want anymore – every book you’ve read throughout the year gets you one raffle ticket. I’m going to give awesome prizes to the top readers in the class and school, and we’re going to have a read aloud and fun literacy games. The class who’s read the most books will get some sort of treat, and hopefully crowns to wear on their heads proclaiming that they’re the reading champs.

Another thing I’m pretty proud of is the library itself. Last year, when I began, it was a lizard infested pit of dust.





It was dirty, and nobody had been in there for probably a year. It’s still really dusty, but there are some corners of the room where you can look and think that you’re in an American classroom. It’s colorful, it’s educational, and it’s a good example to teachers of things they can put up in their rooms. Which is why, I’m sure, when I go, teachers will all clamor to steal the things I’ve made that aren’t nailed down in the library. Which is why I’ve spent so many hundreds of dalasis on nails. 





I’m also just starting a library club. Basically, I wanted a group of kids to help me put books back on shelves, clean up, etc. But also, we are trying to do things that enhance creativity. I’ve picked 3-4 students from some of the upper grades, and we meet once a week, put books away, and then we make something, or we paint, or we collage, or do something that they would never get a chance to do in class. It just started, but I’m excited about it.

Finally, I’m teaching a computer class for grades 10-12at the Senior Secondary School. No, I’m not qualified at all. Kids had to tell me what CPU stood for. But, I’m walking them through basic typing by giving them printed and laminated keyboards to practice on when they can’t get on a computer. We practice typing, simple word processing, and paint. And that about the extent of my computer knowledge, so it works out great. 

In my last few months, this are the things I’ll continue doing. Hopefully, I can spend some more time training teachers to take over the things that I’ve been doing, so that it doesn’t stop with me. But if it does, at least a few kids like reading a little more, and at least there’s a lot of cool stuff nailed on the walls of the library.

March Madness in Africa

*This is a letter I tried to send to some choice analysts who head up ESPN's high quality programming. Apparently none of them accept email from common folk. Lame. If you happen to be on speaking terms with Rick Reilly, Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Joe Lunardi, or the rest of the gang, pass it on.

It’s the month of March. At home, spring is springing, and the chosen teams – the best of this season – are preparing themselves for the tournament. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Here, in my second home, its hot season. In the afternoon, the temperature routinely reaches 120 degrees. The harmattan winds have blown in the dust for the past few months, and now they’re spewing Saharan heat. I sweat through every minute of the day. It’s unquestionably the least wonderful time of the year.

I’m a Peace Corps volunteer, serving in The Gambia, a tiny West African country. I’ve been here for nearly two years – through two Christmases sans snow, two Thanksgivings without turkey, two birthdays but no gifts. But the hardest month to be here is March.

Knowing the basketball fervor that is sweeping the nation – MY nation – makes it harder to be here. There’s no electricity, no running water, much less internet or TV to keep me updated on basketball – I probably own one of only four basketballs in my whole region.

During March, I go to bed under the stars, dreaming of upsets and buzzer beaters. I roll out of my hammock in the morning, already sweating, and turn on my phone, desperate for sympathetic souls in America, or lucky volunteers in the capital, who may have texted to quench my thirst for news of multiple overtimes, freshman phenoms, and the underdog prevailing. These texts of a few hundred characters hardly capture the glorious celebrations and heart breaking defeats that epitomize every weekend in March.

When these beatific texts come, I rush inside my hut, grab some chalk from its rightful place tucked within the thatch in my roof, and fill in my homemade 7 foot x 4 foot bracket, gleaming proudly from the wall of my mud hut.



I have seen exactly zero NCAA basketball games this season. I have read exactly one basketball related magazine – a preseason edition that I perused in early February.

When you have literally no intel, no insight into who’s hot and who’s not, you have to consider other things to make your picks. For example… I killed a gigantic hairy spider right on top of Syracuse’s spot in the bracket. Do I take this as a sign of lackluster defense, or crushing offensive firepower? There’s a pitifully wilting candle nailed into the wall in the elite eight (where last year Florida floundered against those mighty Bulldogs). Do I take this as a sign of that quadrant’s drooping chances at making the final four? Or maybe I should ignore it – everything melts during hot season.

I’ve heard the statistics on a perfect bracket. I have no way to look them up right now, but I know perfect brackets are rare – perhaps even only a legend that has never actually happened. I’m sure the chances of getting a perfect bracket are like one in 212 trillion. (Right before sending this email, I looked it up – one in 9.2 quintillion… Oof)

So - bracketologists, former college players, scouts, and experts in general - I have a proposition to make. If I – Abby Adams: rural literacy volunteer, teacher trainer, and die hard college basketball supporter – compose a perfect bracket, I want you to put ME on ESPN. Not as an expert, or an analyst, but as the voice of one girl who listens to her gut. For one year, I ask to be treated like a SportsCenter anchor – go to games, give my thoughts, predictions, and proclaim my biases and prejudices as truths. Because if, with no experience or knowledge, I create a perfect bracket: maybe it’s meant to be.

After all, what are the odds?

Thank you very dangerously (as they say in the Gambia),

Abby Adams

Redefining Man

Throw out everything you knew about men, manliness, and the kingdom of manhood.

Meet the men among men of the Gambia – wrestlers.

While some men are muscle bound, tall men with chiseled arms, it’s not a necessity. There were tiny sixteen-year-old-looking twigs who commanded the same amount of respect as the mighty men.



Manly men wear flannel; they wear jeans; they wear something to show their chest hair. But not here in the Gambia. Here, the shorter your skirt, the skimpier the shorts, and the more colorful and shiny your spandex, the manlier you are.



When manly men want to fight, they glare at each other, perhaps shove each other, and maybe pass some gruff and angry words to their opponent. Here in the Gambia, to indicate you want to fight, you approach another man, grab his belt, and pull your loins together. Manly.



As a sign of the fight about to begin, boxers and wrestlers will shake hands or knock gloves. Here in the Gambia, you gaze at your opponents eyes, and walk purposefully and swiftly towards them. As soon as you get within reach, you bend down and dip your hands into the dust, never straying from your rival’s eyes. Then, hands full of dust, you gently stroke your dusty hands down the chest of the one you are about to fight. It’s on.

When manly men celebrate a win, they leap in the air, they pump their fists, they roar ferociously. Here in the Gambia, the manliest of men who wins a match gets his four traveling minstrels, and he slowly does a jig around the arena.



When a manly man gets in injury, as in a scorpion bite (which we actually witnessed), they screw up their faces, grimace, wrap it, and get back out to the field. Here in the Gambia, the men writhe on the ground, and call over the village marabout, who proceeds to rub the injury and chant prayers and spells over it, until he’s carried out of the arena.

Manly men drink Gatorade for the electrolytes. Here in the Gambia, they drink a tea made by boiling the roots of a magic tree.

Manly men proclaim their arrival to the arena with lights, clouds of smoke, screaming fans, intense concentration, and occasional a ripping off of their oversized warm ups. Here in the Gambia, they enter the arena accompanied by shrill whistles, walking proudly beneath a banner bearing no words, but made of a sheer pink fabric overlaid with shiny golden hearts.



Manly men play until one victor prevails. They will fight to the death, hoping to be the one remaining – the best of the best. Here in the Gambia, they don’t push it. They will battle as long as it pleases them, but as soon as someone says, “I’m tired” in their language of choice, the signal is given to everyone. It’s over.

How a Village Celebrates a Birthday

When I first came to village, I asked my host grandma how old she was. She responded, “Oh, Abby… I’m at least 120.”

I then asked a grade nine student how old he thought she was, and he said, “Probably like 100.”

It’s an accomplishment here if you know the year you were born, much less the day and month. So, needless to say, birthdays are not seen as a very important day in the course of a year.

Last year, I told people it was my birthday, expecting some sort of reaction. They responded with either confusion that I would recognize such a day as different than any other, or apathy.

This year, I told no one about the anniversary of my birth. I decided to use it as a test to see if there’s some sort of benevolent birthday spirit out there whose job it is to make sure birthdays rock.

On the eve of my birthday, I got two pre-birthday delights. 1. They extended the traditional wrestling contest for another day, so I got to watch not two, but THREE days of wrestling. 2. We had domoda for dinner.

Maybe the birthday spirits got the days mixed up. The actual day of glory was not nearly as good as birthday eve. I arrived at school in the morning, to be greeted at the gate by a guard armed with a giant, antique looking rifle/machine gun. Turns out I was born on pay day, because the money truck was there to deliver the teachers their salaries. Armed guard surrounded by 400 young students – just another day in the Gambia!

I’d been planning a trip to Senegal with one of my friends. We were going to go to Dakar, stay with a family we knew there, eat ice cream and go to the beach, while we waited for our visas for our later trip to Ghana, Benin, and Togo. I got word at about ten in the morning that because of Senegalese election/demonstrations/corruption, all travel to Dakar is forbidden. Thus, my week break was also cancelled. Thus, and most devastatingly, our trip to Ghana and Benin may also be impossible.

To make up for this, the birthday spirits must have had some mercy on me, because they brought domoda for lunch… but this happens every Tuesday.

Mail run had come in the middle of February, and I had saved three packages for birthday presents. Because of this, I had cake and ice cream on my birthday (oreo cakesters and ice cream sandwich flavored snack packs). I got enough calories and sugar to last weeks and weeks and weeks. So basically, I had a birthday like every eight year old wishes for: Candy, cake, ice cream, and not much else.