Markets, Toubabs, and 20 minute greetings....

This lovely picture or our mango tree is being blatantly stolen from my site mate Evan as he is the only person that seems to be able to get his pictures uploaded. We have training sessions under this tree everyday and it seems at least 10 degrees cooler than everywhere else. I am in the orange shirt diligently studying Wolof with Jim. Jim and I are trig to memorize the very lengthy list of questions and responses that comprise greetings in this country. Greetings are very important to Gambian culture and can go on for 10-15 minutes even if you just saw the person an hour ago. If you don't greet someone it severely offends the other person. I will be sure to write a more detailed description of the importance at a later date because the whole practice is quite complicated. The whole "greeting everyone I see for at least 10 minutes whenever I pass them on the street" will definlty be a challenge for this city girl who is used to walking down streets with blinders on making as little eye contact as possible. This pratice will be a huge cultural shift for me but one that I am sure will have positive effects.

This morning we got a break from endless sessions to head to Serekunda market (the largest in the country) to practice our respective language skills and haggling. All goods in The Gambia can be bargained for and it is expected that the shopkeeper will start ridicously high and you will have to work down from there. They even try to rip off Gambians so high prices are reserved just for toubabs (any foreigner), which is comforting in a strange way. We went to the market with our LCHs (language and cultural helpers) and they helped us get good prices for items and navigate the intensely crowded area. I bought two meters of fabric to get a skirt made, some kola nuts (a required gift when visiting families in the Gambia unless you are totally rude) and a plastic mat for sitting, exercise or anything else that it may be useful for. I got really good prices for everything and had a lot of fun haggling. The market here is a lot less intense than East African or Indian markets where the people tend to grab your arms and shout at you. Here they are pretty mellow and just joke around with you till you decide whether or not you agree with the price.

After a lovely morning at market we had more super long medical sessions to teach us how to avoid the multiple causes of illness. The medical sessions are far from an inspirational experience and can be quiet depressing. These sessions have finally made the whole "living in Africa for two years" seem much more real. Till today I felt like I was on vacation, nothing really shocked me yet and I didn't feel like there was a possibility I couldn't handle what I signed up for. After listening to a nurse and other volunteers describe in detail the symptoms of dystentary and other fun GI diseases -it became real, maybe to real. I am glad that I experience this first shock and got it out of the way at least for now. There will undoubtedly be many more such moments but they have drilled us on many different coping mechanisms and so that we are prepared when we hit bumps.

Tomorrow I am off to visit a school, cram in a couple more sessions than pack everything up to head upcountry to the training villages Friday. This may be my last post for a week or two but I will try to update when I am near internet again.