A banta le!

Mandinka for "It's done/finished."

Just finished the WFP Food Security and Livelihood Assessment trek.  We went around the country taking surveys to help the World Food Programme figure out what the food security status of The Gambia is. I've thrown the term food security around a lot, so here's an official definition:
"Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietart needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life"- World Food Summit, 1996
As one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, and one of the smallest, food security is a big concern here. Gambia is a net importer of food, which means the country doesn't produce enough food to support itself and has to buy almost half its food from outside its borders. And being among the poorer countries, affording said food is sometimes an issue for people.  So the survey is supposed to help inform the government, NGOs (non-profit organizations, etc) and the UN on what their plans should be to address this in the future.

My team covered the West Coast Region. It was me and 7 guys in a minivan for about 10 days. Me, a driver and 6 interviewers (mostly university students.) Treks get better with time, so for the first few days, I was super stressed and running around like crazy, but by the end it was fun.  My role was organizer.  I had to plan the days, keep the team moving and check all the surveys for obvious errors.  I just did the background work. I had a great team. We got along great, spent a lot of time together, and were all a little sorry to see the trek end.

Pictures and hopefully an amusing story or 2 to follow...

Buying Bracelets

Going to the market is always interesting.  You never know what you're going up against.  Maybe you'll be followed by a flock of young girls attempting to "help" you, maybe you'll get kicked in the shin by a crazy man or maybe you'll find a friend you hadn't seen in months. Maybe you'll get what you want or you might walk around for an hour and never find what you need.  My friend Katie and I took a trip to the Serekunda market a couple of days ago.  Our mission was bracelets for a friend and 2 meters of Fula fabric for me.  At our first fabric shop/stall, Katie greeted the workers in Pulaar, picked some fabric and asked the price. They gave us a price 3 times what the fabric actually sells for.  (Because we're white. Apparently knowing a local language isn't proof enough that they shouldn't rip us off) When we told then they were crazy, and then another man from the road came up to yell at the workers for us, they reduced the price to only twice what the fabric is worth.  We walked away throwing exclamations back toward the shop about how they were just trying to cheat white people. Guy who came off the street to yell at the workers for us decided to take it upon himself to show us al kinds of places to buy honestly priced fabric and eventually escort us to the bracelets.  Conveniently enough, his wife was selling bracelets. She didn't have what we were looking for but we got some bracelets from a deaf and dumb girl.  It was really interesting. We ended up negotiating the price with another lady and then just paying that girl whatever the other lady decided on.  First goal accomplished!
Katie still wanted to look at fabric.  On that journey, I found some fabric with the president's face on it.  I'm not going to wear it when I'm in Gambia because I don't want to be associated with any political views but its one of those things i had to get because they don't have anything remotely like it in America. Along the way, we picked up another guy off the road that wanted to show us where to look for things.  This man was actually really helpful. He showed us where to get Fula fabric. There was a huge selection and they gave me a fair price.  Fula fabric is hand woven fabric made in The Gambia.  Its nice and I found the exact kind of pattern I wanted- black and white plaid with colored stripes in it.  After that, it was popsicle time; then we escaped from the market!

A Visitor

I just had my dad in to visit. It was really fun having him here and doing all the Gambian stuff (the great and the less than great) with him. We did a lot, ate a lot, walked a lot, saw a lot of animals, rode in a lot of vehicles, and survived a lot of nights without air conditioning.  And I know I had a lot of fun.
We did a bit of traveling around the country. We spent a few days in the city going to the monkey park, the beach and the nature reserve. During this time, Dad and I saw tons of monkeys both wild and too tame, found out how big hayenas really are and Dad got to encounter his first bumsters (boys whose "job" is to hang out on the beach and try to make any unwitting tourist, especially older white women, their ticket to a new life in Europe. Next we traveled to my village. We were welcomed by all the children, who still managed to really like Dad even though none of them could understand anything he ever said.  Dad picked up a few words of Jola in our time in Saliyaa, so he could at least greet people and by the end he even got some "na jamjam"s meaning "he can hear the language."  We went to see the river and all the cool trees of the area. I took him to the school, so he got to see what a day of school-based confusion/work looks like.  He even got to help in the garden a little.  Mostly though, we just hung around the village so he could get to know the people I'm with all the time.  We took a break from village to go to Janjangburreh (JJB), where we took a boat trip to spot hippos and got to spend some time with the monkeys at our hotel. We even got part of our breakfast stolen by one highly skilled monkey.  On the JJB trip, Dad got a good taste of gelly riding.  Its a rough and dusty off-roading with sheep on top of your car experience and we made it through.  We even made it home on time.  The last leg of our trip was Kartong. We hung out on the beach a lot. We happened to be there for Tobaski, the biggest Muslim holiday of the year, so we spent the day with the family of a friend in the village.  It was a nice experience, and the food was great.  We had so much beef: chunks of beef and onions, beef and rice, and beef sandwiches. It was unbelievable. Then the next day we went on a long walk on the beach to walk off some of the excess food from the previous day of gluttony.  Then, all too soon, it was time to go to the airport again.

One Year!

I can't believe that one year ago today, I was arriving in Philadelphia, getting ready to start Peace Corps The Gambia. Eating my last American meal, making my last phone calls, meeting lots of new people... It's one of those times where you feel like you've been at it forever, but also like you just started.
This year has been really great, and I can't believe that I'm almost halfway through my service.  In fact its a little terrifying- I'm still just getting started!!!
So, lots of love to everyone I said goodbye to a year ago. Thanks for the support. And again thanks for not crying in front of me!

Once Upon a Ramadan Afternoon

One day during Ramadan, I went with some of the girls in my compound to collect leaves for the dinner sauce.  Turns out, they had more plans than just collecting some leaves.  This was one of the most fun afternoons I've had in Salliyaa.

Fanta posing where the journey all began

Can you find the girls hiding in this picture?  Siabatou and Nyima hid from us in the shoulder-high weeds, but eventually we tracked them down.

Here's the crew-  (L-R) Nyima, Fanta, Sibo and Siabatou in the back

Trekking through the bush

Sibo and our bowl ready for harvesting

A big termite mound.  This thing is as tall as me and much wider.

Sibo and Fanta fighting over the bowl (and the camera shot) at the quarry.



Nyima and Fanta swimming in puddles at the quarry.  When we got to the quarry, the girls stripped down and went nuts- swimming and running around.

Here they've switched puddles.  You can see the road right behind them.  I scared them a couple of times yelling that a car was coming.

By this point, we'd collected enough leaves for the sauce for dinner and the girls found some bush vegetable that looks like a green grape but tastes like okra and started collecting that.

On the way home with our harvest.  There was some song and dance going on in this picture.

The girls decided that they would try and hide the bush vegetabe so they wouldn't have to share any of it and could cook all of it for lunch the next day (Remember how the girls cooked for just the kids for lunch during Ramadan?) and it was decided that under Nyima's shirt was the most inconspicuous place.

Bike Trek

A couple of weeks ago I went to a few villages in my area to teach how to make mosquito repellant out of local materials.  All it takes is soap, oil and some specific leaves from around the area to make a batch of this "neem cream."  Here, getting bitten by mosquitoes is not only uncomfortable- it's a health issue because malaria is spread through mosquito bites.  So for these dual reasons, people are enthusiastic to learn about "tule ay bawolop" as we call it in Salliyaa.  I went by bike and was escorted by a man from a village near mine who worked basically as my assistant for the trek.  He set up all the engagements and showed me how to get to the villages he had talked to.  This was originally going to be a one-village, one-day trek, but Ablie got enthusiastic on the scheduling so it expanded to a 2-day, three-village trek.

This is perhaps the nicest road in the country.  This is an offshoot of the Gambia's south bank highway, and all the villages I went to are off of this road.......

Some of them way off the nice road.  Here we are wading through a flooded rice field with our bikes to get to waht is supposed to be our first village.

Still on the way...

 

Things don't always go as planned in the first village.  It was funny- this village that had been our original target bailed on our meetings twice!  This is a picture of the second day when we have resorted to searching for women in their rice fields asking why they aren't showing up for the meeting they scheduled.  This is my frustrated face and Ablie's 'what is she doing now? I am trying to talk' face.

 

This village was the first where I actually got to do the demonstration.  The location was really picturesque, but the people didn't speak any jola so I was really glad Ablie was there to translate into Woloof.

 

Here I am with some of the participants.  The girls on my right are shaving up bars of soap to add to the recepie.  The people from this village were so nice and really came out for the demonstration.  I really wish i could understand them so I could do work there more often. 

 

Finishing up the mixing and getting ready to distribute. A man from this village actually came to Salliyaa to thank us the next day for teaching this in his village.  He told us how well it worked and how excited the whole village was about knowing how to make neem cream.  Its great to hear that something made of things everyone can get locally for a reasonable price is actually working!  Hopefully when I go around on a follow-up visit everyone will have made a new batch when they ran out.  I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Wuli bay jaw kamojak- We're going to fetch water

The pump in my village is out of commission for the time being so everyone is going to the wells in the garden to fetch water for drinking.  (Except for me. I'm taking the safer route and going to the pump in the next village, which really isn't as far as that makes it sound.)  I followed along with my camera on a water run.

Sibo and me on the way

Sona (with Joma on her back), Binta, and Seedy in the back with a bucket on his head