Mom and Dad do The Gambia

I have been looking forward to my parents coming to visit me here in The Gambia pretty much since my second month of service. Every time I would talk to them, I would struggle to put this experience, this life I am living, into words and time and time again I fell short of adequately describing this life to the people I loved the most. I desperately wanted them to hear the call to prayer each morning, feel the warmth radiate from the smiles and greetings of my fellow villagers and see the incredible odds my friends and colleagues here are up against. I couldn't make them understand the complexities of my life here no matter how many pictures I took, no matter how many descriptions of projects I gave, no matter how many times I complained about being called toubab. To understand all these things and really get a taste for what my life if like here, they had to come and experience it for themselves. And they did. I am so thankful that they did.

They were only hear for eight days which made it a whirlwind trip of a trip to my village, a visit to an eco-lodge and boat trip down the Gambia River with some fellow PCVs and family, and then back down to the city and a sort day trip to see some beautiful and undisturbed beaches. I forced them to hit the ground running and we went straight from the airport to my village after they had been on a plan for about 20 hours. Despite my insistence on pushing them to experience as much as possible, they were absolute troopers. They were always willing to try whatever was thrown at them with a smile, whether it was drinking liter upon liter of palm wine with PaSaine or complete lack of water at our last hotel, which ironically enough was in the city and the only one that was actually supposed to have hot water.

We started in my village and everyone was as equally happy to meet my parents as they were to meet the people I have been living with for the past year and half. We toured my schools, rested under the mango tree, ate way to much fancy food that Ansel prepared with true dedication, visited the women's garden, laughed as women danced in their honor, chatted with my teachers, snapped pictures of the kids in my neighborhood, and they even semi-mastered the art of bucket baths.

After village it was off to explore the interior of the country with a wild sept-place ride to Janjanbureh. The lived through the 15 minute bush taxi ride to my village but I didn't want to put them through that pain for the 5 hour trip to the island so we took a 7 seater station wagon instead. We only had to switch cars 3 times before we found one that ran properly and then were off, it ended up spewing diesel fumes for the entire 3 1/2 hour ride but you can't really get to picky about your transport options here. We arrived on Janjanbureh (the island) and went to the camp on the far end where were to spend the next two days in peaceful relaxation. The camp was beautiful and a great started point from which to take out day long boat trip down the Gambia River. Rachel's parents were there at the same time so we got to share the day with them and also Carson, Dan and Jim who came along for the ride. We saw hippos, crocs, and lots of monkeys and birds. It was a great day! After getting in touch with the limited biodiversity of The Gambia we headed back down to the city, which we used as a base to explore another nature reserve (Abuko), the markets (you can't go to Africa and not go to a market) and a day trip to the beautiful beaches of Kartong.

It was a great trip and went by way to fast. I loved having my parents here and playing tour guide but it was also a little weird at the same time. Weird because they are so obviously part of my American life. I would constantly stare at them when they were here with awe that it was actually my mother who was holding my host sisters baby or that was actually my father towering bravely as he wound his way through a packed fish market. It was great to introduce them to my counterparts and friends and village and hear them praise me for my dedication and work, praise that is never forthcoming in this culture. It was nice to see their faces light up with recognition and sometimes dread. "Oh this is Jainaba, the little girl you always talk about" or "This is Barra! You walk through here by yourself!" I am happy that they can finally really understand a slice of this life changing experience in my life, happy that we can now laugh together about the absurdity of getting a simple ride to the next village or the recall the unbelievable brightness of the stars in an unpolluted night sky.

I am happy and also proud of them, of who they are and how far they have come. Proud that I have parents that will travel half way across the world for me, braving cold showers, questionable water and food and a week without a good beer or steak. And I am so very thankful to have people in my life who support me through daily struggles and big accomplishments - even if those things take me a world away from them.

Five months.....

The hilarity of Pa Saine

My host father is probably my favorite person in The Gambia. He is a wonderful mix of friendliness, exuberance, piety, protective father, comedy act, fashion statement, inquisitiveness, wisdom, tolerance, and honesty. I often sit with him at night and we just chat and enjoy the radio and the night sky. Sometimes the chats are serious and thought provoking for both me and him and sometimes they are just filled with riddles and funny stories. He usually likes to talk about things that he sees me knowing lots about because I am white - like flying airplanes and what it is like in space, how to fix his government or why they seem to be so many more women then men in the world. But sometimes he also likes to impart his wisdom on me and will recall what it was like to grow up in Senegal, or the traditions of the Sereer and the ways in which Muslims and Christians are the same and should really just get along. I always come away from chats feeling enlightened or just able to look at the topic in a new and interesting way.

As far as the most popular bar scene question in America - "so....what do you do?", which incidentally is a really rude question to ask here, Pa doesn't do much. Most of his days consist of waking up, eating some millet, sitting in his chair, eating lunch, laying on his mat, checking on his donkeys with occasional trips to the bantaba to chat with other old village men or mixing of some traditional herbal remedies if he wants to have a really crazy day. Pa has official senior citizen status here as all his children are grown with good jobs and can thus support him and his wife. Pa used to work very hard farming, but now he just gets to sit and enjoy life and do funny things for all of our amusement.

Funny/Memorable Things Pa Saine has done/said:

1. walks around the compound in his boxers searching for cellphone network
2. repeats "jerejef Haddy" (thank you Haddy) for everything I do or say, sometimes even as a morning greeting. I attribute it to his good natured laziness.
3. insists I take shots of vodka or brandy with him during the cold season so my body "stays strong"
4. spends 2 hours translating a dream interpretation book written by a sheik in Guinea-Conakry from French to Wolof to English. Then helps me find an auspicious day on which to bear children.
5. teaches me how to make herbal remedies from plants in the bush and calls it my marabout (mystical Islamic holy men who do traditional medicine) training
6. sent me home to America with a bag full of leaves and strict instructions for how to make medicine for my grandfather's bad lungs
7. gave me two mango seeds to plant in my back yard with the instructions that I should name each seed after a man I want to marry. Which ever seed grows the tallest and the fastest is the man I should choose.
8. "Which is better, fire or water...." and other crazy either/or questions
9. The "How much this cost in America" game
10. Sound advice - it is better to marry an ugly man who is poor because you will be the only one to love him. If your man is pretty and rich you will always have to fight jealous people. This was his reasoning on why my friend Rachel should marry Pa instead of her current rich, pretty toubab husband.
11. has in depth discussions with me on his thoughts of taking a second wife because "YaBoi is tired." Despite his being Catholic and his plan to have her live in a new compound in Senegal which would not really help ease YaBoi's workload. In the end, he decided new wives cost to much money.
12. Explanations of Muslim holidays, tinted with Catholic guilt and judgement, to be sure I understand what is going on at all times. Ex: "They think it's Ismail but it's Isaac, it's Issac! Ismail is a bastard!" on Tobaski and Muslims (mis)interpretations of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice of his first son.
13. watching him "heal" various villagers and their aliments with his leaves from the bush
14. his cell phone calls in broken English to wish me well and check up on me when I have been gone to long.
15. conversations about the possibility of people living on the moon and Mars one day. "What, there is not water there?! That is not good, we must take it!"