People.
You need to mobilize yourselves.
We have a serious issue on our hands.
THE PACKERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!
I, the biggest Packers fan in America, am in WEST AFRICA, about as far from Green Bay as you can get - in every way possible; Weather, demographics, language, foods available, longitude and latitude.
I need people to take initiative. Contact Ben Adams to take responsibility for one of the following.
- write to Delta Airlines and tell them the situation, and make sure you mention I live in a hut with no electricity or water. And that my birthday's coming up.
- call Aaron Rodgers. He needs to know that his #1 fan and future wife is stuck in West Africa. If anybody can save me, he can.
- Contact everyone I've ever known. Tell them if they each gave $20, I could be home and go to the superbowl.
- Talk to whoever planned the heist in Ocean's 11. If we cannot obtain tickets legally, we'll have to get in somehow.
- Find someone to stay with in Texas.
- Write sob stories to the 18 richest people in the world. Tell them time is of the essence. Tell them of the boils. And the rats. And this morning I woke up and there was a cockroach in my mosquito net. THEY NEED TO KNOW.
- Wardrobe - I need a Sam Shields jersey STAT.
- Cheer hard. Like insanely hard. Throw things. Squeal and screech and yell and growl and get angry and cry with joy. Leave it all on the field.
GO PACK GO.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
A Wedding Story
Some people say that “most unique” is an illogical phrase, because uniqueness can’t be quantified. I respectfully disagree. I think that if you’ve done something that very few people have done, like climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro or been eaten by a shark, then you’ve achieved a higher level than someone whose uniqueness comes from having cross eyed or using words like “serendipitous”.
I think my unique-ity shot up about 4000% this weekend, because I attended every minute of a traditional Gambian wedding. How many people have done that?
Throughout the proceedings, I was mostly thinking about how to accurately contain all of the cultural anomalies in one blog post. I carried a notebook and wrote down anything that my previous All-American self would be shocked at. It came to a mighty list, which I will try to categorize and organize in a logical way.
Background: A friend of mine in village, Mariama, is getting married. She has been promised to this man for a while, but he lives in Switzerland and has just returned. Lamin, Mariama’s now husband, lives in a village about a 45 minute drive away from where Mariama’s family lives in Nyakoi.
Marriage in the Gambia, as in many Muslim countries, is a status symbol. A man also gets married so that his wife can take care of his mother – cook and clean and wash for her and the rest of the compound – and to have children - so those children will eventually cook and clean and wash for his compound when he’s old.
SO – even though he lives in Switzerland and has two wives already, Lamin called on Mariama to marry him, to move away from her family and friends, and to work and live in his mother’s compound in Jah Kunda.
You probably don’t need me to, but let’s put this in an American context: Bill, from Philadelphia, wants to marry Sharon, from Denver. God knows Bill doesn’t want to stay and live in Philadelphia, where he grew up, so he moves to sunny Orlando, Florida. Sharon has no choice but to agree to marry Bill, and moves into a house with his mother in Philadelphia, despite never wanting to leave Denver. She sees Bill once every five years or so.
Night 1:
So lungtangoes (strangers) start arriving on Wednesday evening, because the events start on Wednesday night. There’s no time schedule for anything, so everybody pretty much just sits around and waits for someone to tell them to go somewhere, do something, or eat. I’m sitting talking with a few students who speak English, and they’re asking me questions about America.
We’ve already established that I don’t know Michael Jackson or Rambo. One girl asks, “Do you know chalk?” I asked her to repeat, and then said, yes, we have chalk in America. I went and got a piece and she said, “No, CHALK”. It took a while, but I finally got it when she said, “Chalk Noss”. I told her, unfortunately I have not yet had the opportunity to meet the man who caused Waldo to hide, the man who holds air hostage instead of breathing, the man who can win Connect Four in three moves: Chuck Norris.
My Gambian friends were very disappointed when I laughed for an hour, and divulged that I didn’t know Chalk. They were also shocked that I hadn’t met Van Damme, Komando (who, from what I gather, is a character played by Van Damme), or Alex (who is Komando’s twin, apparently).
For the weekend, I have chosen an English-speaking grade nine student named Maimuna who is to lead me around and tell me exactly what to do for the entire weekend. She is to tell me what to eat, when to stand, where to sleep, and what to say. I make her overly aware that if she leaves me to fend for myself, I will only sit in one location and wait for her to come and guide me.
So, we’re sitting around waiting, when finally a ghostly figure crosses in front of the compound, and everybody gets excited and runs to follow. Here comes the bride, dressed in tight pink pants, a frilly pink shirt, but who’s wrapped in a white cloth that covers her entire head.
Maimuna grabs my hand and runs to catch up. We follow and enter Mariama’s bedroom, with about 30 other girls. The bed is disassembled, which I thought was weird for a second, but then was distracted because of the white silhouette of the bride lying on her mattress on the floor, her face entirely hidden.
I had heard that night one was the night of wailing, but didn’t really know what that meant. I assumed it would be a solemn and sad affair. So I entered the room, stood in the corner, and watched people come in. I was a little offended when people were laughing and joking with Mariama lying hidden on her mattress, but didn’t think much of it.
A few minutes later, a horde of younger kids try to enter. Maimuna is flung into the role of body guard. She stands at the door, all of her weight against it, as preadolescents throw themselves at the door. Suddenly, they overpower Maimuna, and dozens of them rush into the room. I am immediately pushed up against a wall, wide eyed, afraid, and looking for guidance from Maimuna. She’s pretty busy trying to quell the flood of kids.
Now there is an uncomfortable number of people in the room, Mariama is still lying unmoving on the ground, the door has been forced closed and locked, and people are quietly looking at her.
The relative silence is SHATTERED when a woman outside the room yells something and then beats a drum three times. Every girl in that room starts screaming. And this isn’t like, “I saw a spider!” screaming… it’s like “I’m a thirteen year old girl, I’m flying down the highest drop on a roller coaster, AND Justin Beiber is performing next to me, and OH MY GOD, HE JUST TOUCHED ME!” That kind of scream. At the same time as the screams erupted, everybody started jumping flinging flailing. It was EXACTLY like the most brutal mosh pit you’ve ever been in. I found out later the bed had been disassembled because so many beds have been broken by over enthusiastic wedding attendants.
The sounds waves flattened me even further against the wall of the room – I held my ears, which left my middle unprotected. As my midsection was bashed mercilessly, I closed my eyes and tried to wake up from this nightmare. Then, I hear a new sound over the cacophony of wails. It’s the unmistakable sound of a Gambian using an object to beat another human.
I open my eyes and two of Mariama’s closest friends are wielding a wooden piece of the deconstructed bed and a sturdy piece of plastic. They have a fiery rage in their eyes, and they are BEATING these girls to get them out. Maimuna opens the door, and suddenly those being beaten are trying to flee, and I continue to be flattened to the wall.
Eventually, those that are supposed to be there are there, and those that aren’t supposed to be there are broken, bleeding and their voices are hoarse from the screaming. With the hooligans gone, the solemnity that I was expecting arrives. The older women of Mariama’s life gather around her, her friends sit near her on the bed. For some reason, I’m given a spot of honor, sitting right next to Mariama on the floor, when all I really want is to lean against a wall and observe.
Women start singing songs. I don’t know what they mean, but hear later that they’re talking about the history of Mariama’s family, and the members of her family in Nyakoi that will miss her. This starts Mariama wailing. It’s like crying, but in between each sob, there’s this high pitched note. It’s kind of how babies cry, except in an adult. So once Mariama starts, everybody is wailing. It’s not nearly as loud as the recently-finished wailing session, much more heart-wrenching, and although I’m not, in general, a wailer, I started getting a little teary eyed about how unfair it is she has to move and marry a man she doesn’t like and leave her family.
There are long silences where I just sit and stare at nothing. The atmosphere was so depressing and down, many times I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, but chickened out before I could start the first verse of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
Eventually, the old women are like, ok. That’s enough. Let’s go party. So they all leave to go a program of dancing and singing, and Mariama and her friends continue to sit around and cry.
And that’s how night one ends.
Night 2:
Night two is when we all leave to go to Jah Kunda. But before that, it’s the most important part. It’s the actual wedding. I was excited to see what a legitimate Gambian ceremony would be like. I kept wandering from compound to compound, wondering when Lamin, the husband would arrive. I kept saying “Lamin lee? Lamin lee? A man naa foloo?” or “Where’s Lamin? Where’s Lamin? He didn’t come yet?” Finally, someone made me understand that he would not be coming. I thought my Mandinka translation was just exceptionally poor, and that of course he’d be coming for his own wedding, but I soon found that the wedding doesn’t require the man to be present.
A troupe of girls took Mariama, hidden by a veil of old cloth with palm trees on it, and walked about 0.03 mph through the village. Mariama’s mother, aunts, grandmother; none of them came. We took a long way, and I thought that surely there must be a destination, a purpose to this walking. As we’re walking, we’re singing. We finally stop at a random point and Maimuna informs me that this is the place.
It’s just dirt. There’s nothing here. But she says that this is it.
Then we continue to walk. We walk in a circle three times, and then turn and go home. I asked Maimuna why we did that, and she said, “Now she’s married.” So, for those bachelors and bachelorettes, NEVER walk in a circle three times near Gambians – you could get married. I have a loop that I jog when I go running… I wonder how many Gambians I’ve married…
On the way back, I see a whole huge group of people, STARING at me. This is like staring like I would stare at Aaron Rodgers. They have creepy smiles, and they whisper to each other, they turn so they can always keep me in their peripheral vision, like if they take their eyes off of me I might disappear. I feel very, very, very uncomfortable, and I ask Maimuna who these staring grown people are. She says they’re from Niger, and they probably had never seen a white person before. They’re gaping at me wide eyed, their kids are cowering behind legs, but never lose sight of me. Their mouths are wide open, shocked and awed, and I can see exactly what’s running through their minds and mouths, even though it’s in French or some tribal language I don’t speak – “They do exist.”
We return to Mariama’s compound. The whole trip would have taken someone strolling about ten minutes, someone running about two minutes. It took us over two hours.
Throughout the day, people bring over wedding gifts and present them to Mariama’s mother. I was trying to explain to some Gambians about American weddings, and the concept of a gift registry. If I were to make a gift registry for Mariama, here’s what it would look like.
- forty spoons
- fifty cheap plastic cups
- 15 gaudy plastic platters that have “Made in China” printed prominently over the ugly flowers
- 10 brooms
- 10 sifters
- 4 cooking pots big enough to cook a fourth grader in
- 4 cooking pots big enough to cook a baby in
- A spoon big enough to serve that cooked baby with
- 4 Spoons and stirrers over 3 feet long
- BOWLS
There were an insane number of bowls. If I had a penny for every bowl that Mariama was given, I would have almost $2. If bowls were assigned a value based on the number of pennies that they could hold, I’d probably have thousands of dollars. I was sitting there writing in my notebook about my incredulity at the number of bowls, and a ton of people gathered around – I guess it’s kind of a novelty to see people writing, especially the quick messy notes of a person trying to write down funny things before they forget. I looked up and like fifteen Gambians were watching me… I had to say something so I said, “Bolo siata!!” which means, “Lots of bowls!” Someone asked me if, when I get married, won’t I have this many bowls. I said no. Then someone asked, on that note, where is your husband. I said, “M kewo be bolobaa kono!” which means “My husband is in the big bowl!” (I think). They laughed for like an hour, so either I really messed it up, or they thought that was hilarious.
There were some more ceremonial type things. All the interested parties (except the husband) went to the alkalo’s (village leader’s) house, and the wife got advice from the alkalo and the men and women of the village. Most of the messages amounted to “Submit to your husband.” I’m no feminist, and I understand there are cultural differences, but by the end, I was pretty finished with hearing their domestic advice.
The advice was over when the car came. When I say car, I mean that it had an engine and held passengers. The thing that makes this car different is that its normal passengers are cattle, rams, sheep, or other varieties of livestock. People grab all their stuff, and start piling into the back of this cattle truck. When the car is about ¾ filled, the people in charge realize there’s no way we’re all going to fit. I’ve seen Gambian fights before, and it’s epic, so I timed the exact moments that the following events occurred.
10:14:28 – The man who seems to be in charge of the people of Jah Kunda who came for the festivities, says, hey. Guys. We can’t all fit. Everybody get out, and the people of Jah Kunda should get in. People who don’t fit can figure out their own way. The people of Nyakoi, especially the ones already on the car say, hell no. No one moves. Fighting ensues.
This man is saying, in effect, Nyakoinkolu (people of Nyakoi): Everybody move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks, anyone? He runs around in circles, stopping at anyone who is willing to argue with him.
10:37:16 – The bride has had enough. Her family takes her to her home until this can be sorted out. Fighting continues. I stick around hoping a fist fight will break out. I also make a deal with myself. If this car has not left by midnight, I’m sleeping in my bed and will ride my bike to Jah Kunda tomorrow morning.
10:54:10 – I haven’t eaten any dinner and go eat a Clif Bar to delay death by starvation.
11:07:49 – Apparently, the people of Nyakoi won the battle, so the people of Jah Kunda get off the cattle truck, Nyakoinkolu get on. I have no idea where Jah Kunda nkolu will stay, but in Muslim communities, you are bound by Allah to take in strangers. They’ll be fine.
So, it’s time to go. I think, YES. Finally something truly exciting, and I start to climb into the back of the cattle truck, but my host mom and the bride say NO! The back of the cattle truck is no place for a toubab. Get in the cab with the bride. I cannot describe my disappointment.
11:26:31 – We leave Nyakoi.
12:06:08 – Arrive in Jah Kunda.
Because according to Allah, we have to be taken in by strangers, we sleep in a strange bed as hard as a rock. The only reason I can sleep is that my fearless guide, Maimuna, is sleeping next to me, and she’d never lead me into harm.
Day 3:
We sit around most of the day. The bride lies in her bed in her new home ALL day. Other people cook food, slaughter animals, and unload the millions of bowls and obscenely huge spoons. I lay on the bride’s bed, take pictures, and read 200 pages of my book. I try to pretend that I don’t see the rats that scurry around the compound.
Since NOTHING happened that day, this is a good time to talk about the treatment of toubabs at Gambian weddings. I’ve been thinking since the end of the wedding about a good analogy for it.
At first, I thought, it’s kind of like inviting a really really attractive person to your wedding – they’re bound to take some of the attention off of you. But that sounded too vain.
Then I thought, it’s a little like inviting a famous actor to your wedding, but that doesn’t capture the fear that some children have of me.
So, it’s kind of like inviting an alien to your wedding. But a not scary looking alien. Just different. Some people keep their distance, because they’ve never interacted with an alien before. Some people greet the alien endlessly, because, oh my god! It’s an alien! And it can speak a little bit of our language! Some children are afraid of the alien and cry when it comes near. Some folks wonder how they can get a visa to visit the alien’s home land. Some people, especially the caretakers of said alien, worry endlessly about the well being of the alien. She can’t drink our water, she doesn’t like our food, she doesn’t like eating with her hands, OH MY GOD, WHERE WILL SHE BATHE! The alien is given a spot of honor in all pictures and meals, normally right next to the bride, because you want as much documentation and face time to prove that you ACTUALLY met an alien. A chair is always vacated if she is standing, and she is given a first serving of all attaya, juice, milk, tea, or bread with mayonnaise. Because this alien came from far away, she could go back home if she wanted, but she is choosing to be here with us.
So, literally, we sit around all day. Occasional dance parties break out, which makes me a little uncomfortable since the bride is laying in bed and crying morning, noon, and night.
Finally we sleep. This night I sleep on a wooden pallet in a room with bags and bags of rice and other foodstuffs. I assume the rats will hang out in those edible things before they mess with me. Plus, my trusty sidekick Maimuna wouldn’t let a rat gnaw on me.
Day 4:
We wake, eat breakfast. Around 11, the car comes, and the wailing starts again, because now everyone the bride knows is going home, and she will be left alone in her new village.
It was truly heartbreaking. I know it’s their culture, but I couldn’t stop thinking how much this aspect of it sucks. She seemed miserable.
So, we all left in a kind of depressed mood. My mood immediately lifted when I saw the cattle truck again! And this time I would not take no for an answer. I rode in the back, flew up and down when we drove through giant ditches, ducked under trees, and waved at farming Gambians.
I have never been happier to see my hut than I was when we returned after this trek.
Am I glad I went? Yeah. I learned a lot about the traditions, I got to hang out with my friend in a really hard couple of days in her life, and I have some crazy stories to tell.
Would I ever attend another one again? Never.
I think my unique-ity shot up about 4000% this weekend, because I attended every minute of a traditional Gambian wedding. How many people have done that?
Throughout the proceedings, I was mostly thinking about how to accurately contain all of the cultural anomalies in one blog post. I carried a notebook and wrote down anything that my previous All-American self would be shocked at. It came to a mighty list, which I will try to categorize and organize in a logical way.
Background: A friend of mine in village, Mariama, is getting married. She has been promised to this man for a while, but he lives in Switzerland and has just returned. Lamin, Mariama’s now husband, lives in a village about a 45 minute drive away from where Mariama’s family lives in Nyakoi.
Marriage in the Gambia, as in many Muslim countries, is a status symbol. A man also gets married so that his wife can take care of his mother – cook and clean and wash for her and the rest of the compound – and to have children - so those children will eventually cook and clean and wash for his compound when he’s old.
SO – even though he lives in Switzerland and has two wives already, Lamin called on Mariama to marry him, to move away from her family and friends, and to work and live in his mother’s compound in Jah Kunda.
You probably don’t need me to, but let’s put this in an American context: Bill, from Philadelphia, wants to marry Sharon, from Denver. God knows Bill doesn’t want to stay and live in Philadelphia, where he grew up, so he moves to sunny Orlando, Florida. Sharon has no choice but to agree to marry Bill, and moves into a house with his mother in Philadelphia, despite never wanting to leave Denver. She sees Bill once every five years or so.
Night 1:
So lungtangoes (strangers) start arriving on Wednesday evening, because the events start on Wednesday night. There’s no time schedule for anything, so everybody pretty much just sits around and waits for someone to tell them to go somewhere, do something, or eat. I’m sitting talking with a few students who speak English, and they’re asking me questions about America.
We’ve already established that I don’t know Michael Jackson or Rambo. One girl asks, “Do you know chalk?” I asked her to repeat, and then said, yes, we have chalk in America. I went and got a piece and she said, “No, CHALK”. It took a while, but I finally got it when she said, “Chalk Noss”. I told her, unfortunately I have not yet had the opportunity to meet the man who caused Waldo to hide, the man who holds air hostage instead of breathing, the man who can win Connect Four in three moves: Chuck Norris.
My Gambian friends were very disappointed when I laughed for an hour, and divulged that I didn’t know Chalk. They were also shocked that I hadn’t met Van Damme, Komando (who, from what I gather, is a character played by Van Damme), or Alex (who is Komando’s twin, apparently).
For the weekend, I have chosen an English-speaking grade nine student named Maimuna who is to lead me around and tell me exactly what to do for the entire weekend. She is to tell me what to eat, when to stand, where to sleep, and what to say. I make her overly aware that if she leaves me to fend for myself, I will only sit in one location and wait for her to come and guide me.
So, we’re sitting around waiting, when finally a ghostly figure crosses in front of the compound, and everybody gets excited and runs to follow. Here comes the bride, dressed in tight pink pants, a frilly pink shirt, but who’s wrapped in a white cloth that covers her entire head.
Maimuna grabs my hand and runs to catch up. We follow and enter Mariama’s bedroom, with about 30 other girls. The bed is disassembled, which I thought was weird for a second, but then was distracted because of the white silhouette of the bride lying on her mattress on the floor, her face entirely hidden.
I had heard that night one was the night of wailing, but didn’t really know what that meant. I assumed it would be a solemn and sad affair. So I entered the room, stood in the corner, and watched people come in. I was a little offended when people were laughing and joking with Mariama lying hidden on her mattress, but didn’t think much of it.
A few minutes later, a horde of younger kids try to enter. Maimuna is flung into the role of body guard. She stands at the door, all of her weight against it, as preadolescents throw themselves at the door. Suddenly, they overpower Maimuna, and dozens of them rush into the room. I am immediately pushed up against a wall, wide eyed, afraid, and looking for guidance from Maimuna. She’s pretty busy trying to quell the flood of kids.
Now there is an uncomfortable number of people in the room, Mariama is still lying unmoving on the ground, the door has been forced closed and locked, and people are quietly looking at her.
The relative silence is SHATTERED when a woman outside the room yells something and then beats a drum three times. Every girl in that room starts screaming. And this isn’t like, “I saw a spider!” screaming… it’s like “I’m a thirteen year old girl, I’m flying down the highest drop on a roller coaster, AND Justin Beiber is performing next to me, and OH MY GOD, HE JUST TOUCHED ME!” That kind of scream. At the same time as the screams erupted, everybody started jumping flinging flailing. It was EXACTLY like the most brutal mosh pit you’ve ever been in. I found out later the bed had been disassembled because so many beds have been broken by over enthusiastic wedding attendants.
The sounds waves flattened me even further against the wall of the room – I held my ears, which left my middle unprotected. As my midsection was bashed mercilessly, I closed my eyes and tried to wake up from this nightmare. Then, I hear a new sound over the cacophony of wails. It’s the unmistakable sound of a Gambian using an object to beat another human.
I open my eyes and two of Mariama’s closest friends are wielding a wooden piece of the deconstructed bed and a sturdy piece of plastic. They have a fiery rage in their eyes, and they are BEATING these girls to get them out. Maimuna opens the door, and suddenly those being beaten are trying to flee, and I continue to be flattened to the wall.
Eventually, those that are supposed to be there are there, and those that aren’t supposed to be there are broken, bleeding and their voices are hoarse from the screaming. With the hooligans gone, the solemnity that I was expecting arrives. The older women of Mariama’s life gather around her, her friends sit near her on the bed. For some reason, I’m given a spot of honor, sitting right next to Mariama on the floor, when all I really want is to lean against a wall and observe.
Women start singing songs. I don’t know what they mean, but hear later that they’re talking about the history of Mariama’s family, and the members of her family in Nyakoi that will miss her. This starts Mariama wailing. It’s like crying, but in between each sob, there’s this high pitched note. It’s kind of how babies cry, except in an adult. So once Mariama starts, everybody is wailing. It’s not nearly as loud as the recently-finished wailing session, much more heart-wrenching, and although I’m not, in general, a wailer, I started getting a little teary eyed about how unfair it is she has to move and marry a man she doesn’t like and leave her family.
There are long silences where I just sit and stare at nothing. The atmosphere was so depressing and down, many times I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, but chickened out before I could start the first verse of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
Eventually, the old women are like, ok. That’s enough. Let’s go party. So they all leave to go a program of dancing and singing, and Mariama and her friends continue to sit around and cry.
And that’s how night one ends.
Night 2:
Night two is when we all leave to go to Jah Kunda. But before that, it’s the most important part. It’s the actual wedding. I was excited to see what a legitimate Gambian ceremony would be like. I kept wandering from compound to compound, wondering when Lamin, the husband would arrive. I kept saying “Lamin lee? Lamin lee? A man naa foloo?” or “Where’s Lamin? Where’s Lamin? He didn’t come yet?” Finally, someone made me understand that he would not be coming. I thought my Mandinka translation was just exceptionally poor, and that of course he’d be coming for his own wedding, but I soon found that the wedding doesn’t require the man to be present.
A troupe of girls took Mariama, hidden by a veil of old cloth with palm trees on it, and walked about 0.03 mph through the village. Mariama’s mother, aunts, grandmother; none of them came. We took a long way, and I thought that surely there must be a destination, a purpose to this walking. As we’re walking, we’re singing. We finally stop at a random point and Maimuna informs me that this is the place.
It’s just dirt. There’s nothing here. But she says that this is it.
Then we continue to walk. We walk in a circle three times, and then turn and go home. I asked Maimuna why we did that, and she said, “Now she’s married.” So, for those bachelors and bachelorettes, NEVER walk in a circle three times near Gambians – you could get married. I have a loop that I jog when I go running… I wonder how many Gambians I’ve married…
On the way back, I see a whole huge group of people, STARING at me. This is like staring like I would stare at Aaron Rodgers. They have creepy smiles, and they whisper to each other, they turn so they can always keep me in their peripheral vision, like if they take their eyes off of me I might disappear. I feel very, very, very uncomfortable, and I ask Maimuna who these staring grown people are. She says they’re from Niger, and they probably had never seen a white person before. They’re gaping at me wide eyed, their kids are cowering behind legs, but never lose sight of me. Their mouths are wide open, shocked and awed, and I can see exactly what’s running through their minds and mouths, even though it’s in French or some tribal language I don’t speak – “They do exist.”
We return to Mariama’s compound. The whole trip would have taken someone strolling about ten minutes, someone running about two minutes. It took us over two hours.
Throughout the day, people bring over wedding gifts and present them to Mariama’s mother. I was trying to explain to some Gambians about American weddings, and the concept of a gift registry. If I were to make a gift registry for Mariama, here’s what it would look like.
- forty spoons
- fifty cheap plastic cups
- 15 gaudy plastic platters that have “Made in China” printed prominently over the ugly flowers
- 10 brooms
- 10 sifters
- 4 cooking pots big enough to cook a fourth grader in
- 4 cooking pots big enough to cook a baby in
- A spoon big enough to serve that cooked baby with
- 4 Spoons and stirrers over 3 feet long
- BOWLS
There were an insane number of bowls. If I had a penny for every bowl that Mariama was given, I would have almost $2. If bowls were assigned a value based on the number of pennies that they could hold, I’d probably have thousands of dollars. I was sitting there writing in my notebook about my incredulity at the number of bowls, and a ton of people gathered around – I guess it’s kind of a novelty to see people writing, especially the quick messy notes of a person trying to write down funny things before they forget. I looked up and like fifteen Gambians were watching me… I had to say something so I said, “Bolo siata!!” which means, “Lots of bowls!” Someone asked me if, when I get married, won’t I have this many bowls. I said no. Then someone asked, on that note, where is your husband. I said, “M kewo be bolobaa kono!” which means “My husband is in the big bowl!” (I think). They laughed for like an hour, so either I really messed it up, or they thought that was hilarious.
There were some more ceremonial type things. All the interested parties (except the husband) went to the alkalo’s (village leader’s) house, and the wife got advice from the alkalo and the men and women of the village. Most of the messages amounted to “Submit to your husband.” I’m no feminist, and I understand there are cultural differences, but by the end, I was pretty finished with hearing their domestic advice.
The advice was over when the car came. When I say car, I mean that it had an engine and held passengers. The thing that makes this car different is that its normal passengers are cattle, rams, sheep, or other varieties of livestock. People grab all their stuff, and start piling into the back of this cattle truck. When the car is about ¾ filled, the people in charge realize there’s no way we’re all going to fit. I’ve seen Gambian fights before, and it’s epic, so I timed the exact moments that the following events occurred.
10:14:28 – The man who seems to be in charge of the people of Jah Kunda who came for the festivities, says, hey. Guys. We can’t all fit. Everybody get out, and the people of Jah Kunda should get in. People who don’t fit can figure out their own way. The people of Nyakoi, especially the ones already on the car say, hell no. No one moves. Fighting ensues.
This man is saying, in effect, Nyakoinkolu (people of Nyakoi): Everybody move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks, anyone? He runs around in circles, stopping at anyone who is willing to argue with him.
10:37:16 – The bride has had enough. Her family takes her to her home until this can be sorted out. Fighting continues. I stick around hoping a fist fight will break out. I also make a deal with myself. If this car has not left by midnight, I’m sleeping in my bed and will ride my bike to Jah Kunda tomorrow morning.
10:54:10 – I haven’t eaten any dinner and go eat a Clif Bar to delay death by starvation.
11:07:49 – Apparently, the people of Nyakoi won the battle, so the people of Jah Kunda get off the cattle truck, Nyakoinkolu get on. I have no idea where Jah Kunda nkolu will stay, but in Muslim communities, you are bound by Allah to take in strangers. They’ll be fine.
So, it’s time to go. I think, YES. Finally something truly exciting, and I start to climb into the back of the cattle truck, but my host mom and the bride say NO! The back of the cattle truck is no place for a toubab. Get in the cab with the bride. I cannot describe my disappointment.
11:26:31 – We leave Nyakoi.
12:06:08 – Arrive in Jah Kunda.
Because according to Allah, we have to be taken in by strangers, we sleep in a strange bed as hard as a rock. The only reason I can sleep is that my fearless guide, Maimuna, is sleeping next to me, and she’d never lead me into harm.
Day 3:
We sit around most of the day. The bride lies in her bed in her new home ALL day. Other people cook food, slaughter animals, and unload the millions of bowls and obscenely huge spoons. I lay on the bride’s bed, take pictures, and read 200 pages of my book. I try to pretend that I don’t see the rats that scurry around the compound.
Since NOTHING happened that day, this is a good time to talk about the treatment of toubabs at Gambian weddings. I’ve been thinking since the end of the wedding about a good analogy for it.
At first, I thought, it’s kind of like inviting a really really attractive person to your wedding – they’re bound to take some of the attention off of you. But that sounded too vain.
Then I thought, it’s a little like inviting a famous actor to your wedding, but that doesn’t capture the fear that some children have of me.
So, it’s kind of like inviting an alien to your wedding. But a not scary looking alien. Just different. Some people keep their distance, because they’ve never interacted with an alien before. Some people greet the alien endlessly, because, oh my god! It’s an alien! And it can speak a little bit of our language! Some children are afraid of the alien and cry when it comes near. Some folks wonder how they can get a visa to visit the alien’s home land. Some people, especially the caretakers of said alien, worry endlessly about the well being of the alien. She can’t drink our water, she doesn’t like our food, she doesn’t like eating with her hands, OH MY GOD, WHERE WILL SHE BATHE! The alien is given a spot of honor in all pictures and meals, normally right next to the bride, because you want as much documentation and face time to prove that you ACTUALLY met an alien. A chair is always vacated if she is standing, and she is given a first serving of all attaya, juice, milk, tea, or bread with mayonnaise. Because this alien came from far away, she could go back home if she wanted, but she is choosing to be here with us.
So, literally, we sit around all day. Occasional dance parties break out, which makes me a little uncomfortable since the bride is laying in bed and crying morning, noon, and night.
Finally we sleep. This night I sleep on a wooden pallet in a room with bags and bags of rice and other foodstuffs. I assume the rats will hang out in those edible things before they mess with me. Plus, my trusty sidekick Maimuna wouldn’t let a rat gnaw on me.
Day 4:
We wake, eat breakfast. Around 11, the car comes, and the wailing starts again, because now everyone the bride knows is going home, and she will be left alone in her new village.
It was truly heartbreaking. I know it’s their culture, but I couldn’t stop thinking how much this aspect of it sucks. She seemed miserable.
So, we all left in a kind of depressed mood. My mood immediately lifted when I saw the cattle truck again! And this time I would not take no for an answer. I rode in the back, flew up and down when we drove through giant ditches, ducked under trees, and waved at farming Gambians.
I have never been happier to see my hut than I was when we returned after this trek.
Am I glad I went? Yeah. I learned a lot about the traditions, I got to hang out with my friend in a really hard couple of days in her life, and I have some crazy stories to tell.
Would I ever attend another one again? Never.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Blind Date: Gambian Style
Do you all remember the stupid game show on UPN at like 4, 4:30, 5, and 5:30 every weekday, and for about 3 hours every weekend? I think it was called Blind Date, but it involved one girl and three dudes, or one dude and three girls. The set for the show was incredibly simple. It was four chairs, and a wall separating one from the rest.
The premise of the show is to have a potential suitor REALLY get to know the people that they want to date. They’re allowed to ask about six questions: as long as it fits in the 22 and a half minutes allotted for the show, given breaks for commercials. And since they can’t see their interviewees, they must be choosing who to date based on the quality of their character, and not the shallow exterior… Right? At the end of the show, they choose the one they like the best, and then the show pays for them to go on a date and see if they’ve really made a love connection… maybe the show was called Love Connection…
Anyway… Let’s play.
Following are two letters received by my 18 year old, 9th grader friend who lives next door. Notice the intricacies of the vocabulary, the hidden inflection, and the sincerity inherent within each letter, and at the end, please decide who you would choose to date.
*Disclaimer* These letters appear exactly as written. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, everything is true to the original letter. Although it hardly matters in a country where 2/3 of the people are named Lamin or Fatou and whole villages have the same last name, I have changed the names to protect the innocent.
Letter #1
Hi Girl. is me Michael Smith *not his actual name* I am Hear by writing you this letter to you and the rest of your friends in favor.
SO Haw are you are you find as I am. and you are about to inform you inform you about very importance thing or manas is all about Love you know if you love some one you should tell hem that I love you weather you love me or not but me I love you too much in my life today SO if I don’t see you I will not sleeping at night every day. SO if you see this letter you answer me befor Friday 2011 to Tuesday 2011.
Thank you
is your lover
I love you girl 100% of love and like you please uerrold
Letter #2 (when viewing the format of this letter, please know that teachers DRILL how to format a letter into students head. They may not know how to format a sentence within that letter, but they know exactly where the date, salutation, and location go)
Kerewan Village Wuli West
District Upper River Region
13th January, 2011
Hi My love
is a longtime I, miss you. How are you and rest of your family. I hope they are find. Is me your lovly boy Howard Figgenbottom *not his real name* I love you enver order girls in world only you place love me. enver day I, don’t see you that day I, on miseserable all the day you I, love you too much in my life today. So if I, did see you enver day in the nigh I, can’t sleep so please love howard. Why don’t you love me why. Before maday 2011 you Answer me ore going to see frighting
I love you
love me <3 Howard and Kim Jones *not her real name*
Good girls
Good by
It should be
Wow, right?
Please comment right now with your choice, Howard or Michael.
I will personally analyze them now.
Oh, Michael. You write a convincing letter, but the fact that you don’t mention the girl’s name to which you are writing makes her feel like she’s not special. Also, you tell her that you’re writing to the rest of her friends as well, like she’s just another fish in the pond. Your lack of punctuation was probably unintentional, but she could read into it as a stream of consciousness, like you can’t hold back your feelings for her any longer, you just had to get them all out at once, and wouldn’t pause for anything – not a breath, not the end of sentence – you never stop loving her. I like that you give her some time to think about her feelings, but you need to be more specific. There are about 52 Fridays and 52 Tuesdays in 2011… to which ones are you referring? Lastly, as a minor note, you have an awful lot of cross out. Next time, write a draft and make the final copy as neat and sure as your feelings for your love.
Now, Howard. You are very formal in your letter, which can be seen as good or bad. It shows that you respect this girl, but also that you may be hiding some feelings. You start off with greeting her family, which is very culturally appropriate… well played. Her father will probably like you. As a complete opposite to the letter that Michael wrote, you place a comma after every “I”. If this were read as a spoken word, with some inflection, perhaps it could be construed as poetry. However, the halting after every few words makes it seem like you’re not sure about your feelings, and are hesitating every few moments. Make up your mind. Your misspellings make the reader overly aware that you use the word “enver” - which I believe is supposed to be “every” - far too often. Your poem at the end, while it shows effort, does not make a lot of sense, and comes off as pretty desperate. Rethink how you’re being perceived when you write this. You also finish the letter with a threat – a girl should not be afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t love you. Real love doesn’t respond to threats.
The key to Howard’s essay, and what makes him my ultimate choice despite his misspelling of third grade sight words and his horrendous misinterpretation of the use of a comma, is the final sentence that he wrote. I can almost imagine him lowering his eyes, working up the courage, then raising his head confidently, and whispering while holding eye contact…
“it should be”.
The premise of the show is to have a potential suitor REALLY get to know the people that they want to date. They’re allowed to ask about six questions: as long as it fits in the 22 and a half minutes allotted for the show, given breaks for commercials. And since they can’t see their interviewees, they must be choosing who to date based on the quality of their character, and not the shallow exterior… Right? At the end of the show, they choose the one they like the best, and then the show pays for them to go on a date and see if they’ve really made a love connection… maybe the show was called Love Connection…
Anyway… Let’s play.
Following are two letters received by my 18 year old, 9th grader friend who lives next door. Notice the intricacies of the vocabulary, the hidden inflection, and the sincerity inherent within each letter, and at the end, please decide who you would choose to date.
*Disclaimer* These letters appear exactly as written. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, everything is true to the original letter. Although it hardly matters in a country where 2/3 of the people are named Lamin or Fatou and whole villages have the same last name, I have changed the names to protect the innocent.
Letter #1
Hi Girl. is me Michael Smith *not his actual name* I am Hear by writing you this letter to you and the rest of your friends in favor.
SO Haw are you are you find as I am. and you are about to inform you inform you about very importance thing or manas is all about Love you know if you love some one you should tell hem that I love you weather you love me or not but me I love you too much in my life today SO if I don’t see you I will not sleeping at night every day. SO if you see this letter you answer me befor Friday 2011 to Tuesday 2011.
Thank you
is your lover
I love you girl 100% of love and like you please uerrold
Letter #2 (when viewing the format of this letter, please know that teachers DRILL how to format a letter into students head. They may not know how to format a sentence within that letter, but they know exactly where the date, salutation, and location go)
Kerewan Village Wuli West
District Upper River Region
13th January, 2011
Hi My love
is a longtime I, miss you. How are you and rest of your family. I hope they are find. Is me your lovly boy Howard Figgenbottom *not his real name* I love you enver order girls in world only you place love me. enver day I, don’t see you that day I, on miseserable all the day you I, love you too much in my life today. So if I, did see you enver day in the nigh I, can’t sleep so please love howard. Why don’t you love me why. Before maday 2011 you Answer me ore going to see frighting
I love you
love me <3 Howard and Kim Jones *not her real name*
Good girls
Good by
It should be
Wow, right?
Please comment right now with your choice, Howard or Michael.
I will personally analyze them now.
Oh, Michael. You write a convincing letter, but the fact that you don’t mention the girl’s name to which you are writing makes her feel like she’s not special. Also, you tell her that you’re writing to the rest of her friends as well, like she’s just another fish in the pond. Your lack of punctuation was probably unintentional, but she could read into it as a stream of consciousness, like you can’t hold back your feelings for her any longer, you just had to get them all out at once, and wouldn’t pause for anything – not a breath, not the end of sentence – you never stop loving her. I like that you give her some time to think about her feelings, but you need to be more specific. There are about 52 Fridays and 52 Tuesdays in 2011… to which ones are you referring? Lastly, as a minor note, you have an awful lot of cross out. Next time, write a draft and make the final copy as neat and sure as your feelings for your love.
Now, Howard. You are very formal in your letter, which can be seen as good or bad. It shows that you respect this girl, but also that you may be hiding some feelings. You start off with greeting her family, which is very culturally appropriate… well played. Her father will probably like you. As a complete opposite to the letter that Michael wrote, you place a comma after every “I”. If this were read as a spoken word, with some inflection, perhaps it could be construed as poetry. However, the halting after every few words makes it seem like you’re not sure about your feelings, and are hesitating every few moments. Make up your mind. Your misspellings make the reader overly aware that you use the word “enver” - which I believe is supposed to be “every” - far too often. Your poem at the end, while it shows effort, does not make a lot of sense, and comes off as pretty desperate. Rethink how you’re being perceived when you write this. You also finish the letter with a threat – a girl should not be afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t love you. Real love doesn’t respond to threats.
The key to Howard’s essay, and what makes him my ultimate choice despite his misspelling of third grade sight words and his horrendous misinterpretation of the use of a comma, is the final sentence that he wrote. I can almost imagine him lowering his eyes, working up the courage, then raising his head confidently, and whispering while holding eye contact…
“it should be”.
Why All Kids Should Grow Up In Africa – For Mom
Mom, you tried to teach me a lot of things when I was young. One thing that you tried to teach and drill into our brains was the tendency to clean up after ourselves. You tried numerous tactics – five minutes of clean up, pick up ten things before you move on, bribing us, yelling at us to get us to do chores – but even after 18 years of that, my dorm rooms and apartments were always untidy.
That’s all changed now. When I use a dish, I wash it immediately, sometimes before I even eat the food I’ve prepared. Food is always hidden, closed in a container, and then put in a trunk. After I wear clothes, I put them in the dirty laundry immediately, or if they can be worn again, I hang them up on my line. After I use a pen, I put it back in its holder. I make sure all of my doors and drawers and lids are closed and that there’s nothing on my desk when I go out of my house. Everything has its place, and everything is always in its place. Papers are never scattered or left out. I sweep once or twice daily. I still don’t make my bed (sorry, it’s hard with a mosquito net) but I do make sure that my net is neatly tucked in on all sides whether I’m inside or outside of it. I weed my backyard, and hang my towel up to dry instead of leaving it in a heap. Nothing is ever left on the floor.
What has led to this unexpected change of character? What has suddenly made messy, childish Abby, into the responsible and clean person she is today? The answer is one word:
Infestation.
I do all of these things, because if I do not, mice or bugs will eat, crap in, or try to inhabit things that I would prefer to be eaten by me, not crapped in by anyone, and uninhabited.
If every time a child left crumbs on the kitchen table, it meant that a new horde of mice would move in and eat their food (this food being special food that they could only buy in a certain corner of the country, hours and hours away from the certain corner of the country in which they live), they would probably wipe up the crumbs.
If every time a child left his bed unmade, mosquitoes would get in and buzz in his ears all night, or mice would get in and eat his earplugs, he would probably make his bed.
If their favorite clothes or important papers were eaten once after a child left them out, that child would probably make sure to put them away the next time.
There may be holes in my theory. Gambian children grow up in Africa, and they are always dirty and breaking things. Maybe maturity and caring for objects is vital for this method of child rearing to be effective, but it has undoubtedly worked for my 25-year-old self. I don’t know what would have happened if I was sent to live in a hut with no water or electricity when I was 8 years old, but I may have saved my mom a lot of grief.
That’s all changed now. When I use a dish, I wash it immediately, sometimes before I even eat the food I’ve prepared. Food is always hidden, closed in a container, and then put in a trunk. After I wear clothes, I put them in the dirty laundry immediately, or if they can be worn again, I hang them up on my line. After I use a pen, I put it back in its holder. I make sure all of my doors and drawers and lids are closed and that there’s nothing on my desk when I go out of my house. Everything has its place, and everything is always in its place. Papers are never scattered or left out. I sweep once or twice daily. I still don’t make my bed (sorry, it’s hard with a mosquito net) but I do make sure that my net is neatly tucked in on all sides whether I’m inside or outside of it. I weed my backyard, and hang my towel up to dry instead of leaving it in a heap. Nothing is ever left on the floor.
What has led to this unexpected change of character? What has suddenly made messy, childish Abby, into the responsible and clean person she is today? The answer is one word:
Infestation.
I do all of these things, because if I do not, mice or bugs will eat, crap in, or try to inhabit things that I would prefer to be eaten by me, not crapped in by anyone, and uninhabited.
If every time a child left crumbs on the kitchen table, it meant that a new horde of mice would move in and eat their food (this food being special food that they could only buy in a certain corner of the country, hours and hours away from the certain corner of the country in which they live), they would probably wipe up the crumbs.
If every time a child left his bed unmade, mosquitoes would get in and buzz in his ears all night, or mice would get in and eat his earplugs, he would probably make his bed.
If their favorite clothes or important papers were eaten once after a child left them out, that child would probably make sure to put them away the next time.
There may be holes in my theory. Gambian children grow up in Africa, and they are always dirty and breaking things. Maybe maturity and caring for objects is vital for this method of child rearing to be effective, but it has undoubtedly worked for my 25-year-old self. I don’t know what would have happened if I was sent to live in a hut with no water or electricity when I was 8 years old, but I may have saved my mom a lot of grief.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Africa Service Project: I've Been Set Up
*This blog post is very geared toward ASP people. So, people who are not familiar with the wonder of ASP, I apologize. However, if you don’t know what it is, you should visit the website (asphome.org), and VOLUNTEER!
It’s January, and you know what that means… it’s SAW season! For the last six years, in January and February, I have been either excitedly awaiting or anxiously and exhaustedly facilitating a Staff Applicant Weekend for those brave souls who want to be ASP staffers.
One of the tasks of these hopeful-future-staffers is to plan a day of runs, given certain restrictions – construction materials have to be there at a certain time, everything can’t be carried at once, meetings are scheduled, etc. Although never actually confirmed (why didn’t we ever do this?), it is highly theorized that the scenario that we give these eager youths is actually impossible to complete while meeting all of the requirements of safely loading vehicles, being on time, and having materials to people when they need them.
The ASP scenario seems daunting and unimaginable… but you ain’t seen nothing yet. Check it.
SCENARIO:
It’s Beautification Day at the Basse House! You decide that the shelves need to be shored up in the kitchen or else they will topple to the floor within a few days! You decide it can be done with a few 2x2’s and some nails. How will you complete the task?
Seems easy right? But wait!!! Everyone who’s been to a SAW or who’s been on ASP staff knows that there’s always something unseen and unpleasant that springs up, and our scenarios are no different. So…
SURPRISE SITUATION!
Oh, guess what. You’re in Africa. You have no car. You’re in a town that barely qualifies as such. You have no materials, and don’t know where to go to get them. You don’t know what’s available or how much to pay for it. The shelves you have to shore up are nailed to a concrete wall, which the nails do not stay in. Deal with that, sucker.
Here’s how this sucker dealt with this situation.
Since the shelves could not be nailed into the wall effectively, we decided to build a support in the front of the shelves, and then put a similar support on the first shelf to support the second, immediately above.
Without a tape measure or measuring equipment of any kind, we took craft cord and measured from the shelf to the floor. Was the shelf level? No. Was the floor level? Most decidedly no. Was the craft cord hanging plumb? Please. Was the craft cord pulled to the extent of its tautness? Doubtful. Was anything about this accurate in any way? Take a guess.
So, then, I take our six lengths of purple craft cord, and start riding towards Basse. I ride until I see a man with motorcycle equipment and bike tires our front, and say, maybe this man will know where they sell wood… As you are undoubtedly questioning my logic at this point, let me tell you, thinking back on it now, I feel the same quizzical look crossing my face.
But, eventually this man found me a carpenter. This man didn’t actually sell any wood, nor speak English, but he was a carpenter. I was getting somewhere.
Eventually, this carpenter brought me to a man that does sell wood. I know what most of you are thinking. Even bad Appalachian hardware stores have wood in uniform sizes, that’s been planed and maybe treated in some way to make it look the same. And they have some sort of selection in terms of length.
This man had ten pieces of wood. That’s it. If I didn’t want one of them, I had to find somewhere else to go. These ten splintery pieces of wood, which he called “1x6” varied in width from three to seven inches. They were all about fourteen feet long. He wanted 190 dalasis for the piece of wood that I thought could make this shelf stand. Then, I talked to the carpenter who had come along. I asked him how much it would be for him to rip it in half, and then cut it into six pieces. So altogether, seven cuts, although one would be very long.
He said 3000 dalasis.
I cannot put enough punctuation in that sentence to adequately convey how aghast I was at that price. That’s the equivalent of about $120.
I laughed in his face, shook my finger at him, and told him he was a bad man in two languages he didn’t understand, and then he said, “Ok. 300 dalasis.”
I wanted to properly punish him for his trying to rip me off so extravagantly, so I left, thinking I could find wood elsewhere.
I went to two different shops that had plywood out front, but neither had planks of wood. I tried to explain to one shop owner what I wanted by pointing at the planks of wood covering the two-foot-deep gutter full of garbage that act as a bridge for potential patrons. He immediately tried to sell me those pieces of wood.
Feeling downtrodden and slightly ashamed, I returned to the original shop, and said agreed on the price, which I still think was too high.
The carpenter took the piece of wood, and set to work. Interesting note – carpenters here don’t have chalk lines. They take a bunch of scraps of fabric, and tie them together to make a long rope. Then they dip it in oil. Then they wrap it around a stick. When it’s time to make a long cut, they unroll it, stretch it and snap it, and boom! Straight line. Less environmentally friendly, less temporary, and more flammable than its American counterpart, but it worked.
Now, I still wish I didn’t have to pay him 300 dalasis, but the way that that man ripped a 14 foot board in half using a hacksaw was pure magic. With this man’s skills with non power tools, I think he could do construction good, fast, AND cheap.
I pulled out my daintily pieces of purple craft cord, stretched them what I thought was the appropriate amount, and allowed him to cut the pieces.
Finally, I had six pieces of correctly cut wood, and two longer pieces. And one bike. And a two kilometer walk back to the construction site.
I strapped the small ones on the back, still making me about 4 feet wide. I balanced the longer two precariously on the seat and handlebars, and struggled through the sandy roads back to the Basse House.
Now, all we had to do was slide the boards into place, hammer in a few nails, and our shelves were good to go!
However, something about the craft cord plan didn’t go exactly right. All the boards were about an inch or an inch and a half too long. That meant, we had to use the tools that we had, which included.
- 1 hammer
- 1 hacksaw that was the equivalent of a butter knife.
- A handful of nails
- A surprisingly nice level
The first tool to be deemed completely unnecessary was the level. I think the level was a cruel joke that someone wanted to play on anyone trying to do construction in the Gambia. If you think Appalachia is not level… I promptly banished that level to a shed, never to be used again for anything related to construction.
Next, I tore into those boards with that hacksaw, but I’m no Gambian carpenter. My cuts were wiggly and of poor quality, and took a long time and most of my energy. Eventually, we ended up with some shelves that bend slightly less when you put dishes on them than they did yesterday.
Although the construction related differences between the Gambia and America are staggering, there is one construction tactic that works in both settings.
Shimming is global.
It’s January, and you know what that means… it’s SAW season! For the last six years, in January and February, I have been either excitedly awaiting or anxiously and exhaustedly facilitating a Staff Applicant Weekend for those brave souls who want to be ASP staffers.
One of the tasks of these hopeful-future-staffers is to plan a day of runs, given certain restrictions – construction materials have to be there at a certain time, everything can’t be carried at once, meetings are scheduled, etc. Although never actually confirmed (why didn’t we ever do this?), it is highly theorized that the scenario that we give these eager youths is actually impossible to complete while meeting all of the requirements of safely loading vehicles, being on time, and having materials to people when they need them.
The ASP scenario seems daunting and unimaginable… but you ain’t seen nothing yet. Check it.
SCENARIO:
It’s Beautification Day at the Basse House! You decide that the shelves need to be shored up in the kitchen or else they will topple to the floor within a few days! You decide it can be done with a few 2x2’s and some nails. How will you complete the task?
Seems easy right? But wait!!! Everyone who’s been to a SAW or who’s been on ASP staff knows that there’s always something unseen and unpleasant that springs up, and our scenarios are no different. So…
SURPRISE SITUATION!
Oh, guess what. You’re in Africa. You have no car. You’re in a town that barely qualifies as such. You have no materials, and don’t know where to go to get them. You don’t know what’s available or how much to pay for it. The shelves you have to shore up are nailed to a concrete wall, which the nails do not stay in. Deal with that, sucker.
Here’s how this sucker dealt with this situation.
Since the shelves could not be nailed into the wall effectively, we decided to build a support in the front of the shelves, and then put a similar support on the first shelf to support the second, immediately above.
Without a tape measure or measuring equipment of any kind, we took craft cord and measured from the shelf to the floor. Was the shelf level? No. Was the floor level? Most decidedly no. Was the craft cord hanging plumb? Please. Was the craft cord pulled to the extent of its tautness? Doubtful. Was anything about this accurate in any way? Take a guess.
So, then, I take our six lengths of purple craft cord, and start riding towards Basse. I ride until I see a man with motorcycle equipment and bike tires our front, and say, maybe this man will know where they sell wood… As you are undoubtedly questioning my logic at this point, let me tell you, thinking back on it now, I feel the same quizzical look crossing my face.
But, eventually this man found me a carpenter. This man didn’t actually sell any wood, nor speak English, but he was a carpenter. I was getting somewhere.
Eventually, this carpenter brought me to a man that does sell wood. I know what most of you are thinking. Even bad Appalachian hardware stores have wood in uniform sizes, that’s been planed and maybe treated in some way to make it look the same. And they have some sort of selection in terms of length.
This man had ten pieces of wood. That’s it. If I didn’t want one of them, I had to find somewhere else to go. These ten splintery pieces of wood, which he called “1x6” varied in width from three to seven inches. They were all about fourteen feet long. He wanted 190 dalasis for the piece of wood that I thought could make this shelf stand. Then, I talked to the carpenter who had come along. I asked him how much it would be for him to rip it in half, and then cut it into six pieces. So altogether, seven cuts, although one would be very long.
He said 3000 dalasis.
I cannot put enough punctuation in that sentence to adequately convey how aghast I was at that price. That’s the equivalent of about $120.
I laughed in his face, shook my finger at him, and told him he was a bad man in two languages he didn’t understand, and then he said, “Ok. 300 dalasis.”
I wanted to properly punish him for his trying to rip me off so extravagantly, so I left, thinking I could find wood elsewhere.
I went to two different shops that had plywood out front, but neither had planks of wood. I tried to explain to one shop owner what I wanted by pointing at the planks of wood covering the two-foot-deep gutter full of garbage that act as a bridge for potential patrons. He immediately tried to sell me those pieces of wood.
Feeling downtrodden and slightly ashamed, I returned to the original shop, and said agreed on the price, which I still think was too high.
The carpenter took the piece of wood, and set to work. Interesting note – carpenters here don’t have chalk lines. They take a bunch of scraps of fabric, and tie them together to make a long rope. Then they dip it in oil. Then they wrap it around a stick. When it’s time to make a long cut, they unroll it, stretch it and snap it, and boom! Straight line. Less environmentally friendly, less temporary, and more flammable than its American counterpart, but it worked.
Now, I still wish I didn’t have to pay him 300 dalasis, but the way that that man ripped a 14 foot board in half using a hacksaw was pure magic. With this man’s skills with non power tools, I think he could do construction good, fast, AND cheap.
I pulled out my daintily pieces of purple craft cord, stretched them what I thought was the appropriate amount, and allowed him to cut the pieces.
Finally, I had six pieces of correctly cut wood, and two longer pieces. And one bike. And a two kilometer walk back to the construction site.
I strapped the small ones on the back, still making me about 4 feet wide. I balanced the longer two precariously on the seat and handlebars, and struggled through the sandy roads back to the Basse House.
Now, all we had to do was slide the boards into place, hammer in a few nails, and our shelves were good to go!
However, something about the craft cord plan didn’t go exactly right. All the boards were about an inch or an inch and a half too long. That meant, we had to use the tools that we had, which included.
- 1 hammer
- 1 hacksaw that was the equivalent of a butter knife.
- A handful of nails
- A surprisingly nice level
The first tool to be deemed completely unnecessary was the level. I think the level was a cruel joke that someone wanted to play on anyone trying to do construction in the Gambia. If you think Appalachia is not level… I promptly banished that level to a shed, never to be used again for anything related to construction.
Next, I tore into those boards with that hacksaw, but I’m no Gambian carpenter. My cuts were wiggly and of poor quality, and took a long time and most of my energy. Eventually, we ended up with some shelves that bend slightly less when you put dishes on them than they did yesterday.
Although the construction related differences between the Gambia and America are staggering, there is one construction tactic that works in both settings.
Shimming is global.
Field Day
Field Day. Those of us who were lucky enough to, one glorious day a year, experience the joy and wholehearted competitive spirit of Field Day probably remember stations, with a few minutes spent at each of your favorite activities: bozo buckets, relay races, playing with the parachute, Frisbee tosses, etc.
At Nyakoi Lower Basic School, it’s quite a bit different.
Let me preface all of the action by saying that there is no such thing as a “waiver” or a “permission slip” in Gambian schools. Teachers do what they want, students do what they want, and if a student goes missing or gets hurt, it’s the kids fault. I could decide one day, to take my class, leave school, walk to the river through a field of ravenous hyenas, take a swim amongst crocodiles and hippos, and if a kid or two happened to not make it back, I am not accountable. Knowing all that, let me describe the events of the day.
SPRINTS
By far the most popular event, every student wants to be the fastest. Children line up on the dusty football field, filled with large, dead, scratchly weeds, and race until the teachers tell them to stop. Of course, since the footwear of choice in the Gambia is flip flops year round, students race barefoot. Being conscientious teachers, most races are run on the relatively weed-free dusty parts of the field, but for the longer races, there just isn’t enough space. “Oh, you must have a spare pair of shoes for students to wear – even jellies would do!” you might say. While we don’t have shoes, we do, for some reason, have like 18 pairs of men’s navy blue dress socks. So, to protect these young children’s tender feet, they must don these ridiculous socks. Seeing Gambian children with tattered school uniforms running in argyle socks is one of my favorite moments thus far.
Another of my favorite moments is seeing the full-caftan-wearing Koranic teacher, a usually somber and solemn man, high stepping in circles and screaming in glee as his student (members of the Yellow Kunda) finished the race in first place. He led the rest of his kunda in lifting each winning yellow racer and chanting “YELLOW, YELLOW” until the next race was about to start.
We also had a teacher race. I don’t want to go into it, but let’s just say that Gambians are fast. Very fast. And I overestimated myself. And I now have to get water for one of the teachers whenever he wants it for the next week.
BUCKET RACE
From a young age, girls are expected to carry large amounts of water, groundnuts, firewood, and dinner on their heads. The competition has a race specifically designed to play to those young ladies’ strengths. Students must carry a bucket on their head for sixty meters, as fast as they can, without using their hands. In a foot race, with me running, and them balancing buckets, I would win – but it’d be close.
LONG JUMP
For the long jump, we all went to the sacred ground where daily, the whole school gathers to pray at two and five o’clock. We immediately dug up that holy ground, and shoveled together enough sand for students to land safely in. During this and the high jump competition (see HIGH JUMP) one teacher was in charge of re-raking all of the sand back together after each jump. Occasionally, students who were observing would start to encroach too close to where the jumpers were jumping. And that’s just not safe! So the teacher in charge, upon noticing this, would immediately start spinning around, darting from one side of the course to the other, wielding his sharp and exceedingly dangerous rake, and alternating between shrilly blowing his whistle, and bellowing, “N ko! N ko!” which is the equivalent of “I say! I say!” If it were a British man doing it, it’d be the most hilarious act of slap stick ever, but in this situation it was slightly more menacing.
Another dangerous highlight of the long jump happened as I was looking at my records, writing a students distance. I heard a collective gasp/scream go up from the crowd of students, and heard a gradual stampeding away from the jumping grounds. I looked up and three full grown horses were rampaging towards all of our students! Right in the middle of field day! A few teachers got them under control, and escorted them out of school grounds. In all the excitement however, one horse forgot his manners, and crapped right in the middle of the landing pad. Oh, Africa.
HIGH JUMP
The high jump is the most dangerous event thus far. The rake is still present, along with the spinning “N ko”-ing teacher, but now we have two wobbly wooden poles with numerous nails sticking out of them. Supported by those nails is a huge bamboo pole that goes flying into the crowd of spectating students anytime an athlete doesn’t clear a height.
But good god. These kids can jump. Just like I wrote about in my blog about Gambians playing basketball, these kids have never seen these sports that they’re attempting to do. They’ve never been properly trained in the technique and finesse involved in events like the high jump. All they’ve been told, and all they know is in the name.
Jump. High.
At the beginning, the students could jump high enough so that all they have to do is get a running start, leap over, and land on their feet. As the bar moved higher and higher, the acrobatics and their in-air form got more and more Superman like. Kids were getting running starts of twenty yards, and then vaulting themselves, completely horizontal, hoping to clear the bar, or die with honor in the process. There were some spectacular misses, and some ridiculously close calls involving rakes, careening bamboo, and toppling towers of nails.
Overall, it was a success. I laughed A LOT, I saw students enjoying themselves at school, and I had undoubtedly, my favorite day in the Gambia thus far.
At Nyakoi Lower Basic School, it’s quite a bit different.
Let me preface all of the action by saying that there is no such thing as a “waiver” or a “permission slip” in Gambian schools. Teachers do what they want, students do what they want, and if a student goes missing or gets hurt, it’s the kids fault. I could decide one day, to take my class, leave school, walk to the river through a field of ravenous hyenas, take a swim amongst crocodiles and hippos, and if a kid or two happened to not make it back, I am not accountable. Knowing all that, let me describe the events of the day.
SPRINTS
By far the most popular event, every student wants to be the fastest. Children line up on the dusty football field, filled with large, dead, scratchly weeds, and race until the teachers tell them to stop. Of course, since the footwear of choice in the Gambia is flip flops year round, students race barefoot. Being conscientious teachers, most races are run on the relatively weed-free dusty parts of the field, but for the longer races, there just isn’t enough space. “Oh, you must have a spare pair of shoes for students to wear – even jellies would do!” you might say. While we don’t have shoes, we do, for some reason, have like 18 pairs of men’s navy blue dress socks. So, to protect these young children’s tender feet, they must don these ridiculous socks. Seeing Gambian children with tattered school uniforms running in argyle socks is one of my favorite moments thus far.
Another of my favorite moments is seeing the full-caftan-wearing Koranic teacher, a usually somber and solemn man, high stepping in circles and screaming in glee as his student (members of the Yellow Kunda) finished the race in first place. He led the rest of his kunda in lifting each winning yellow racer and chanting “YELLOW, YELLOW” until the next race was about to start.
We also had a teacher race. I don’t want to go into it, but let’s just say that Gambians are fast. Very fast. And I overestimated myself. And I now have to get water for one of the teachers whenever he wants it for the next week.
BUCKET RACE
From a young age, girls are expected to carry large amounts of water, groundnuts, firewood, and dinner on their heads. The competition has a race specifically designed to play to those young ladies’ strengths. Students must carry a bucket on their head for sixty meters, as fast as they can, without using their hands. In a foot race, with me running, and them balancing buckets, I would win – but it’d be close.
LONG JUMP
For the long jump, we all went to the sacred ground where daily, the whole school gathers to pray at two and five o’clock. We immediately dug up that holy ground, and shoveled together enough sand for students to land safely in. During this and the high jump competition (see HIGH JUMP) one teacher was in charge of re-raking all of the sand back together after each jump. Occasionally, students who were observing would start to encroach too close to where the jumpers were jumping. And that’s just not safe! So the teacher in charge, upon noticing this, would immediately start spinning around, darting from one side of the course to the other, wielding his sharp and exceedingly dangerous rake, and alternating between shrilly blowing his whistle, and bellowing, “N ko! N ko!” which is the equivalent of “I say! I say!” If it were a British man doing it, it’d be the most hilarious act of slap stick ever, but in this situation it was slightly more menacing.
Another dangerous highlight of the long jump happened as I was looking at my records, writing a students distance. I heard a collective gasp/scream go up from the crowd of students, and heard a gradual stampeding away from the jumping grounds. I looked up and three full grown horses were rampaging towards all of our students! Right in the middle of field day! A few teachers got them under control, and escorted them out of school grounds. In all the excitement however, one horse forgot his manners, and crapped right in the middle of the landing pad. Oh, Africa.
HIGH JUMP
The high jump is the most dangerous event thus far. The rake is still present, along with the spinning “N ko”-ing teacher, but now we have two wobbly wooden poles with numerous nails sticking out of them. Supported by those nails is a huge bamboo pole that goes flying into the crowd of spectating students anytime an athlete doesn’t clear a height.
But good god. These kids can jump. Just like I wrote about in my blog about Gambians playing basketball, these kids have never seen these sports that they’re attempting to do. They’ve never been properly trained in the technique and finesse involved in events like the high jump. All they’ve been told, and all they know is in the name.
Jump. High.
At the beginning, the students could jump high enough so that all they have to do is get a running start, leap over, and land on their feet. As the bar moved higher and higher, the acrobatics and their in-air form got more and more Superman like. Kids were getting running starts of twenty yards, and then vaulting themselves, completely horizontal, hoping to clear the bar, or die with honor in the process. There were some spectacular misses, and some ridiculously close calls involving rakes, careening bamboo, and toppling towers of nails.
Overall, it was a success. I laughed A LOT, I saw students enjoying themselves at school, and I had undoubtedly, my favorite day in the Gambia thus far.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
An African Christmas Story
Most Christmases involve gifts, family, snow, Santa, and lots of food. This Christmas, here in the Gambia, differed slightly from the norm.
Same: We started with a giant breakfast.
Different: In order to cook this giant breakfast, we had to open dozens of eggs, and dispose of the ones that were fertilized. It was one of the most disgusting experiences I've ever had, and I, therefore, did not partake in any of the egg dishes. I did have plentiful pancakes, fruit, and juices of numerous tropical fruits.
Same: There were gifts involved.
Different: It was a White Elephant gift exchange, and the gifts were very different from normal Christmas gifts of books, CDs, movies, and other useful things. This involved mainly alcohol, some cheap African cookies, and underwear that says Obama on the waistband. There were also some fire crackers, which we promptly blew up bottles, cans, and various other items with. And most likely terrified the entire neighborhood.
Same: In the afternoon, you play outside in the elements.
Different: In America, the elements involve bundling in various layers of clothing, and sliding down snow covered hills, squealing with glee. This Christmas, we went to the beach, and played in the hot, hot sun, and swam in the ocean. We concluded the day by watching the African sunset with some strong Africans doing push ups. Weird.
Same: There were some Christmas characters strolling about.
Different: In America, Santa and his elves are shown everywhere. Here, I didn't see Santa throughout the entire Christmas season. However, when walking back from the beach, we saw two different Konkerands, which are people that are supposedly possessed by spirits, and walk around with a troupe of drumming children, trying to scare money out of people.
Same: Christmas movies are viewed, including Home Alone and A Christmas Story.
Different: This year, I watched these movies in an old, infested frat-like house, instead of snug on my couch. Instead of watching with the Adams family, I watched with the Peace Corps the Gambia family.
Same: We eat a big Christmas meal.
Different: Just like in the end of the Christmas story, this meal was Chinese food at the only Chinese restaurant in town.
Was it the best Christmas ever? No. I miss snow and family and breakfast pizza.
Was it the most unique Christmas ever? At least until next year.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Same: We started with a giant breakfast.
Different: In order to cook this giant breakfast, we had to open dozens of eggs, and dispose of the ones that were fertilized. It was one of the most disgusting experiences I've ever had, and I, therefore, did not partake in any of the egg dishes. I did have plentiful pancakes, fruit, and juices of numerous tropical fruits.
Same: There were gifts involved.
Different: It was a White Elephant gift exchange, and the gifts were very different from normal Christmas gifts of books, CDs, movies, and other useful things. This involved mainly alcohol, some cheap African cookies, and underwear that says Obama on the waistband. There were also some fire crackers, which we promptly blew up bottles, cans, and various other items with. And most likely terrified the entire neighborhood.
Same: In the afternoon, you play outside in the elements.
Different: In America, the elements involve bundling in various layers of clothing, and sliding down snow covered hills, squealing with glee. This Christmas, we went to the beach, and played in the hot, hot sun, and swam in the ocean. We concluded the day by watching the African sunset with some strong Africans doing push ups. Weird.
Same: There were some Christmas characters strolling about.
Different: In America, Santa and his elves are shown everywhere. Here, I didn't see Santa throughout the entire Christmas season. However, when walking back from the beach, we saw two different Konkerands, which are people that are supposedly possessed by spirits, and walk around with a troupe of drumming children, trying to scare money out of people.
Same: Christmas movies are viewed, including Home Alone and A Christmas Story.
Different: This year, I watched these movies in an old, infested frat-like house, instead of snug on my couch. Instead of watching with the Adams family, I watched with the Peace Corps the Gambia family.
Same: We eat a big Christmas meal.
Different: Just like in the end of the Christmas story, this meal was Chinese food at the only Chinese restaurant in town.
Was it the best Christmas ever? No. I miss snow and family and breakfast pizza.
Was it the most unique Christmas ever? At least until next year.
Merry Christmas everybody!
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