*Cheese (or any other food besides rice and fish)- Since I would have to travel an hour to get it and it costs about half of my living allowance each month and I have no way to refrigerate, fake circle cheese has been my saving grace. It never goes bad, probably doesn't even contain anything dairy related in it, but it's about as close as I'm going to get to real cheese here.
*Real Pillows- Looking back, this is one of the things that tops my list of things I should have brought. "Pillows" in this country are just cylinders of foam that leave your neck at a 90 degree angle. It's actually the one thing that has taken my attention away from the stifling heat. I have found that jumping on the "pillow" does decrease its height by 1 inch for every hour of jumping. It's starting to look more like a real pillow now, although as it gets flatter it also becomes more rock-like.
*Sidewalks- Nope, no sidewalks here. Walking in ankle deep sand/mud (depending on the season) is no fun at all...but I have decided that it will give me some killer legs by the time I leave.
*ICE- or even anything cold for that matter, drinking nalgene after nalgene of 100 degree water everyday can get pretty old so on particularly hot days I walk to the car-park where the little girls walk around selling bags of filtered water in bowls on their heads for 2D each AND I have figured out that if I get there early in the day they are still partially frozen and it is absolutely glorious.
*Silence- not much of a solution for this, but those few moments a day where there aren't children screaming, drumming, prayer calls blaring, roosters and donkeys and goats being louder than I ever thought they could, rice being pounded...I appreciate it so much more than I ever have before.
*Money that doesn't make my hands smell like fish-And you thought American money was dirty. Most of the time Gambian bills are so dirty I cannot tell whether it is a 5, a 10, 25, 50 or 100...which has surprisingly never worked out in my favor because Gambians can always seen to tell what kind of bill it is. This is one of the rare times I will give my immune system a rest and pull out the hand sanitizer and sanitize away.
*Using contractions and still being understood - There's nothing like throwing out a good "can't" or "don't" ...but they do not understand!! I do take full advantage of this though when some asshole refuses to slow down their Mandinka, knowing full well that I don't understand. When I finally do catch on to what they are saying I respond in English with as many contractions and as much slang as possible.
*Liquor that comes in a bottle- While I do miss this bottled form, I do not know what liquor in packet form hasn't caught on in the US. It's so fun! Nothing classier than hiding in a bar bathroom in Senegambia with a newly bought coke, emptying a very convenient packet of five dalasi whiskey into it.
*Being dry- I hate you humidity. After my bucket bath every night I dump baby powder all over my body which keeps me dry for a good 15 minutes before I'm sweating like usual again.
*Wounds that take only a week or two to heal (instead of months)- But because they take so long to heal...and maybe also because my bicycle hates me, I have cuts and scrapes all over my legs and feet. But you know, I think they give me character. Maybe even make me look scrappy? Hey, anything to look more tough next to Gambian women, who I'm sure could take any man in the Gambia, much less me.
*Petting cute cats/dogs without the worry of getting ringworm, rabies, etc etc- Instead I've taken to petting them with the tip of my pointer finger and then again, scrubbing it furiously with hand sanitizer.
*Movies- not a single movie theater in the country, and I refuse to venture back into a video club anytime in the near future. I have a neighbor who has a generator which she turns on at night and sometimes I walk over to her house to watch the Brazilian soap operas that they show on the Gambian TV station. My favorite? Dos Caras de Ana (The Two Sides of Ana).
0 comments:
Post a Comment