Little Tugs On The Heart Strings

As the Gambians would say, life here "it's not easy, man." Agreed, Gambians. Agreed. Life here is pretty damn difficult. But every time the heat, gigantic bugs, the harassment, the bitchy women and annoying children, the disgusting unvarying food, and the failures at work start getting me down, something always happens. It may be big, or little, but its enough to keep me going here. I thought I'd share just a few of the ridiculously cute moments I've experienced here in The Gambia with you. Enjoy...

Right after I moved into the compound my host mother invited me to a naming ceremony with her and my sister, Mama. It's become common here for people to hire photographers (usually just a friend who owns a digital camera) to come to their program, take pictures, and then return at some future date to sell them the prints. So I went to the ceremony and had my picture taken, never expecting to see it again. About a month later I went into my families house to greet them and noticed that a picture of me, Mama, and my host mother was framed and hanging on their bare wall. I got excited, started pointing and saying "Sali fele! Sali fele!" Sali is there ! Sali is there! My host mother just nodded and said "yes Sali, it's you."

Fatou, my favorite of all of the renters, is at the college right now training to be a teacher. One of their assignments was to make two teaching and learning aids to turn in for a grade. Fatou, having seen me make teaching aids before, came over and asked me to draw out a picture of a frog and a lizard for her to make into a diagram. I told her that I wouldn't do it FOR her, and that she needed to try first, but I would help if she needed it. She got kind of irritated, but still allowed me to sit with her and give her advice. Turns out, that girl can DRAW. She turned in the teaching aids and got As on both of them. A few days later there was a knock at my door. It was Fatou. She said that she wanted to come over and thank me for not doing the teaching aids for her like she had wanted because she said that now she knows she can do it, and if I had done them for her she would have never known she can draw.

Usually when I walk down the street I'm followed by a chorus of "Toubab! Toubab! Any minti!? Toubab!" wherever I go. Every now and then, midst toubab shout, one of the kids will recognize me and start calling my name. The rest of the children always follow suit.

One afternoon, I was sitting outside with my host mother and one of my host sisters, Siboo, just chatting. I was telling my host mother to name off all of her children so that I could work on learning all of their names. Siboo was laying on the ground next to her, face-down on a prayer mat. My host mother starts naming them off "Omar, Radja, Niema, Siboo, Mama, Sullyman, Muhammed, Abdulie..." then she stops and then Siboo, still laying face-down says "and don't forget Sali."

I taught a teaching and learning aid workshop at school one day. I spent weeks preparing and talked the principal into making attendance mandatory. All of the teachers came, didn't really listen, but were really enthusiastic about making the teaching aids. We made a ton of poster teaching aids out of fabric so that they would last longer than the paper ones. And although they didn't follow any of the tips I gave them , at least they were doing something. Anyway, after the workshop there were only a few teachers who really caught on to the idea of using teaching aids in the classroom. One of which was Mr. Nyassi, the head of the science department. Now, from time to time I see Mr. Nyassi strutting to his classroom, with one of the fabric teaching aids tied around his neck like a cape, on the way to teach.

There is a child that lives on my street. I don't know his name, or where he actually lives, but I do know that his only article of clothing is a purple and pink striped onesie and he works that think like I've never seen!

The children on my street are big on running hugs. One or two might see me turn from the main road and two seconds later there is a stamped of fifteen children running straight at me yelling "Sali naa ta, Sali naa ta" Sali came! Sali came! When they get to me the first one slams into my legs and hugs them with all their might. The rest dance around waiting for their turn to hug. At first, I was convinced they were doing this because they thought I would give them candy or money. But now, after almost one year, and not having given out a single dalasi or piece of candy, i've realized that because I'm nice to them, they are genuinely excited to see me. My favorite hugger is one three-ish year old boy who always runs and hugs with too much momentum and knocks himself down off my legs every time. Never learns, and I hope he never does.

At this point my Mandinka has plateaued, it's not bad...it's not good, but at least I'm still trying. My host father notices this so every time I greet him and say a complete sentence he starts clapping and dancing about proclaiming that I am a Mandinka genius. Every time. It usually goes like this. I'll go through all of the greetings with him and then I'll say something like "the sun is very hot today", or "yes, I am from school. the children were very bad" and then he starts with the praising. "Ohhhhhh Sali can hear mandinka now! Very good Sali, very good!"

The first few months at site, I was terrified of one of the renters. Her name is Mata, short for Fatoumata. She's a college student, gorgeous, but also very very scary. I was convinced that she hated me. Usually when this happens I take the defense and avoid the person at all costs. This is difficult when living in the same compound in a culture where it is incredibly rude not to greet someone for at least 5 minutes whenever you see them. So, I would greet Mata, she would usually ignore me or mutter something under her breath. I'm not sure what changed but I knew I had cracked her hard bitchy shell when one day she walked up to me and put an orange in my lap, and walked away without saying a word.