It’s the day before I leave the Gambia, and I can’t believe that soon I’ll be back on the other side of the Atlantic, in a place where it rains regularly, where I’ll experience four seasons, where you don’t haggle for better prices and where men don’t push women out of the way for a seat on the bus.
What I’ll miss…
I was going to do a list of things that I am fairly excited to return to back home (movie theaters, air conditioning and hot showers, having consistent power), but to be honest, when I think about going home, I just get very sad because it means I’m leaving here, I’m leaving amazing people and all of my new friends, I’m leaving a place I’ve grown to love in all its imperfections. For someone as neurotic and shy as me, this place has been a true lesson in personal growth and what my own capabilities are. Gambia, I’ll be back someday, I promise. <3
These past few weeks have been kind of weird and, well, maybe not the best overall (though I would by no means say I haven’t been enjoying my time here still!). There were the parasites in my thigh, and the mice that cuddled up with my legs in Janjanbureh. This week is no exception: on Tuesday, having finally decided on a topic for my culture paper (the final paper of the semester to write!), I joined Shelby and Holly at the Butcher Shop to grab lunch and utilize their wireless internet and electricity. Unfortunately, three computers on one table can cause some chaos, I guess, because as the waitress was setting down our water glasses, one of them tipped over and broke, and the water just so happened to inundate my computer. It wasn’t just that water got on it, but inside the computer as well. It wouldn’t charge anymore, nor would it turn on. I set it on a separate table to try and dry out, and the waitress, who was mortified, gave me the name of a place I could go to that could check and see if my computer was salvageable.
I think that how I handled the situation says a lot about how much more patient and maybe even understanding I might have become while in The Gambia. I knew that yelling at the waitress wouldn’t fix anything, because if I was in the waitress’ position, the last thing I would be able to handle would be a screaming, angry customer who would cause such a scene that she’d surely get fired. I’m guessing she needs her job more than I need my computer. She honestly looked more distraught about the situation than I did. Perhaps I am not truly Gambian, because we joke about how Gambians seem to yell all the time, but if anything I’m realizing that the things I would freak out about at home—a broken computer or charger or whatever—are things that, well, just don’t really matter that much in the end, especially when I realize that I’m lucky enough to know that when I get home, I’ll have a computer at home to use, and before the next semester at Juniata begins I’ll have a new laptop. Certainly not a lot of people here are able to say that.
After we left the restaurant, Holly and I decided to call a friend of ours who himself uses Apple products and thus probably has had to get some repaired in the past. We asked him if he could think of what we could do for my computer. He gave us about fifty different solutions, one of which was to go down to this one place, I-LINK, and ask for his friend Danny who could potentially help me out. We did just that, after grabbing some much-needed ice cream, and Danny said to leave my computer with him for a couple of days and he would try to see if he could do anything. I called back this afternoon and, sadly, he told me that it is damaged beyond repair.
Computers have been having some nasty luck here at Club Toubab. Dylan’s was stolen (along with his entire backpack, which included his iPhone and his journal as well) a few weeks ago, and Bridget’s is broken in that she can still use it, but if she tries to close it, the laptop will snap in two. Though, while it isn’t shocking that my computer went kaput here, I wasn’t expecting it to be because of a glass of water. I expected something more like a power surge.
And actually, it’s not just Club Toubab that seems to be having computer issues: one of my Gambian classmates at UTG texted me yesterday and told me that his computer screen broke and that he couldn’t study for his last final exam of the semester because of it, nor does he have the money right now to fix it.
It’s funny how we place such sentimental meaning on material items. I instantly began thinking things like, “Oh, this computer was bought with money made from my first job,” and “it saw the final draft of the essay I had published in RED,” and “it saw the writing of the novel I wrote in high school, and all of the papers I’ve written in college….” Is it silly to get sentimental about these things? Maybe I’m just crazy nerdy, thinking of all of these things, but I guess it just goes to show the value we place on things that, in the end, don’t matter so much. It’s only a computer. The files from my hard drive may be retrievable, and even if not, all of the important stuff was backed up months ago before I left for the Gambia. And the fact of the matter is that I know that I’ll get a new computer when I get home. I can’t say that my Gambian classmate is as lucky as I am in that regard, as he has to go who knows how long before he can have a working computer again. All I have to do is wait three weeks.
But you know what? This just means that I need to focus on making sure these last two and a half weeks are awesome and fun-filled. All I have is one more paper to write, and as you’ve probably guessed (since you’re reading this blog post that I obviously didn’t just handwrite and mail out), my housemates are kind enough to let me use their computers. Today, I used Holly’s computer and wrote four pages of my final paper. I think that’s enough homework for the next week now.
I paid a woman in a village 150 dalasi to cut me with a razor and cover it in peanut ash. This is how it turned out. I’m pretty pleased with it! I am Gambian now.
Anonymous:Hi, Amy! I enjoyed reading your blog segments! What is the most memorable site that you have seen in travels in Africa?This is a hard one to answer! So much of this trip has been memorable, and for so many different reasons.
Our second or third week here, we attempted to make it to the festivities of the Roots festival in Kanilai, President Jammeh’s home village, but our bus broke down on the way there. As we waited for the bus to get started up again, we danced with the women and children in the village we found ourselves in. Though we were stressed and exhausted from all of the craziness of the day, we were surprised and pleased with how that part of the day turned out—the fact that we could roll up to a village and be welcomed with a dance session.
In Dakar, Goree Island and the Monument of the African Renaissance both stand out to me. Goree Island, because of its history in the slave trade and of signares (prosperous women involved in trade and commerce in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), and the Monument because of its immensity and frivolity (a multi-million dollar statue designed and commissioned by Senegal’s president—I’d call that frivolous, because I don’t understand why he would see the construction of that as more important than perhaps improving upon infrastructure, education, etc).
And this past weekend, when we stopped by the Wassu Stone Circles, it was a wonderful reminder of the richness of history in the Gambia, in West Africa, in the entire continent. When we learn about world history in schools at home, we really don’t look much at Africa. Even if you do, you generally learn some pre-history (our predecessors found in Africa, the archaeological excavations) and then skip right to colonialism. Even in my archaeology and pre-history class at Juniata, I don’t remember discussing the Senegambia stone circles, instead focusing on megaliths in Europe. Why is African history, and the African perspective, so frequently ignored or put on the back burner?
Everywhere I’ve visited has left some impression on me for different reasons. It makes me really sad when I remember that in three weeks I’ll be leaving, because there’s so much more I still want to see and do. I guess that just means I’ll have to come back, right?
This past weekend, we spent a few days up river in Janjanbureh, an area in the Gambia that, historically, was an integral part of the slave trade. Originally named Georgetown, the British there established the Gambia’s first church and schools. On the drive to Janjanbureh, we stopped at the Wassu stone circles, part of a larger collection of the Senegambian stone circles and one of the UNESCO Heritage Sites in the Gambia. They’ve been referred to as “the Stonehenge of the Gambia,” since that’s pretty much what it is: megalithic burial grounds. We hung around, got some group pictures, and continued on our merry way to Janjanbureh.
When we arrived in Janjanbureh, Dylan told a few guys there that we had been interested in getting Fula scars or peanut ash tattoos while we were up country, since we knew we were in the region that a lot of Peace Corps volunteers go to in order to get their Fula scars. To them, it’s kind of become like the mark of their time here, and we decided that we liked the idea of that. The guys told Dylan, oh yeah, there’s a woman in town who does that, we can take you. All of a sudden, something we thought we wouldn’t get the chance to do—since we didn’t know where the Peace Corps folks went and didn’t know where else we would go—became a huge possibility. After moving our belongings into our rooms and watching the boys take a quick dip in the river, we ventured back into town and into a random compound where we found the woman who would do our Fula scars. “This is all happening really fast,” I thought to myself, but I knew that if I actually had time to think all of this over, I would probably wimp out. No, I wanted to get the peanut ash tattoos, because I knew it would be a great way to remember this trip to Janjanbureh and the entirety of my time here in the Gambia. We walked into the corner shop, bought a pack of five new razors, and brought them to the woman who proceeded to cut the three lines into the five of us getting the scars—Dylan, Shelby, Bridget, Holly and me. The process was surprisingly quick and not that painful. She cut the lines, wiped away the blood and applied the peanut ash, all within a minute or two. Usually the Fulani, especially Fula women, get the tattooing (also usually elaborately designed) done on their faces, but we decided against that placement. Mine went on the back of my left shoulder, Dylan also got his on the backs of his shoulders, Bridget’s on her lower back, Shelby’s on her side, and Holly’s on her ankle. After we were all finished and had paid the woman for her work, she gave us more peanut ash to continue to rub into the scars for the next few days, and to kept them out of water until at least Monday.
The next day consisted of a boat trip, three hours to River Gambia National Park and three hours back to our lodge. The trip was relaxing, the cook came along and cooked us a delicious lunch, we spotted hippos and baboons (but sadly no chimpanzees), and generally relaxed along the river.
In all of our downtime at the lodge, we spent a lot of time reading and chatting and relaxing by the river as Gavin swam (none of the rest of us, since we had our scars to tend to), as well as playing with the monkeys. Gavin especially loved feeding mango pieces to them and made tons of friends of the monkeys. We met a Chilean couple spending a night there, who we talked to for a while (the woman used to be the Gambian country director of UNICEF)—when they sat down to breakfast the next morning, a monkey quickly ran up and stole half of the food off of one of their plates. We spent most of our meal times shooing them away, but the rest of our time at the lodge having fun with them and admiring the adorableness of the mothers and their babies.
However, the most memorable part of the trip—at least for me and Shelby—came from our first night, involving some middle-of-the-night critters. The night was off to a great start when Shelby nearly lit herself on fire tying to light our candle. She collapsed to the floor and we gave up on that endeavor, instead keeping to just my flashlight. That night, it was hard to sleep, what with the sounds of monkeys and bats and who knows what else outside our door. I’m easily freaked out by just about everything, so I mostly just wanted to go to sleep and sleep through every single thing that could possibly creep me out. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite happen, because at 5:30 I woke up and noticed Shelby shuffling over to the door and opening it. At that moment, I also felt something on my leg, and had for a few minutes already. I asked Shelby, “What are you doing?”
“I’m bringing the lantern in here, there’s something in my bed.”
“…was something touching your leg, too?”
“I think it was a mouse.”
I bolted out of bed and proceeded to freak out. Was that a mouse getting cozy with my leg? We looked around the room, didn’t find the mouse, but decided that we should vacate the room as soon as possible. We got dressed, gathered some belongings, and headed out to the riverside to wait out the sunrise. Of course, it’s pitch black, we can barely see anything even with my flashlight, and as we approach the table and chairs, a dog starts barking at us. Just what we need to soothe our frazzled nerves. We sit down, jumping at every dog barking and monkey screeching, watching as the night turns into morning. At 7:00, we decide to head back to our room because it’s light enough outside and we think we can handle the rest of the wait in there. Unfortunately, when I pulled out my mosquito net in order to sit on my bed but still with the possibility of making a quick escape, out scattered pellets of what was probably monkey poops across my bed. Great. So I crawled onto Shelby’s bed, reading and keeping watch for any mysterious activity in our room. Boy, were were excited when breakfast time finally rolled around. Exhausted, but ready to exit the room and never go back.
The next night, we tried to get ready for sleep in that room (with new, clean sheets on my previously pooped-upon bed) but decided that we were just too freaked out. We switched rooms and, while we still each had a terrible night of sleep, we at least had mosquito nets without giant holes and did not cuddle up with any mice.
