Moving In and On
on Lynn Sellwood (The Gambia), 24/Aug/2010 17:33, 34 days ago
After 20 minutes of rain!Rain like I have never seen before! It comes down so fast and furious that the roads become impassable and impossible. There are no pavements so the walking thing becomes really hazardous because you miss potholes and cars drive off the road. I have experienced the most thunderous storms with lightening filling the whole sky. All a bit scary, really.I have been learning Wollof and it is really slow going because I just can’t retain it. I think it is because it is just another thing to take in and at the moment just about everything is new. I can say "saleem aleekum" with confidence and return the salutation if it is said to me, which is "maleekum saleem". An interesting point for those with friends from Barbados....you know when someone says something like “What are you doing now?” and Bajan men say, “I’m just here” well they say the same in Gambia in Wollof! I might say, as part of the traditional greeting, “na nga def?” which means “How are you?” and the reply is “mang fi rek” which means “I am here”.I really don’t know what to concentrate on, everything is new and unfamiliar. I am learning the geography of the place and I have a couple of routes to my name; the route to the supermarket and the internet cafe,La Parisienne, and the route to the VSO office, where we do our lessons! Each journey results in me looking a bit chavvy with the sweaty head, neck, bosom and thighs. If nothing else will make me lose weight, experiencing this degree of discomfort will! I have now taken to walking around with a flannel in my hand!I am settling into my house but I need a couple more items of furniture and new curtains so here is a photo of the before and I will post the after when I get it done.This is the outside of my little placeThis is the kitchen; note the two ring gas burner, no oven!This is the centre of the compound, there are lots of trees, mangoes, grapefruit and coconut!This is my living room, one table, two chairs and a bookcase.My bedroom, new mattress, mosquito net and a glimpse of the en-suite with only cold running water!I share the house with a few nice animals, lots of lizard things and a small skink, I have a couple of varieties of ants, cockroaches and was surprised to find a couple of slugs in the front room this morning. Luckily, the children in the compound love using the dustpan to scoop them up and take them outside!!Perhaps the most amazing thing I have done is to go on a group visit to a village a couple of hours up country. I was not looking forward to it because I thought it might be a cringeworthy“let’s look at the natives” sort of event. It wasn’t. The village is called Ndemban and has about 1500 inhabitants. The leader of the village is called an Alkahlo and he acts as the chief and representative of the government. The Imam is also important (he is wearing the green robes), as isthe chairperson of the Village Development Committee. They all came to welcome us and took us on a tour. Of course it is poor and they get their water from wells (some are solar powered thanks to some money from our Big Lottery fund and the EU), their houses are basic and the school is a shell with desks but the resourcefulness of the women is amazing. They have their own gardens and grow vegetables to feed the village and to sell. I have to say the men of the village were less obviously active than the women who were amazing and very friendly and interested in us all.The village is mostly Muslim (as is the country) and so the men can take up to four wives! I was given my Gambian name on this trip. We had all been warned that it would happen at some point in our stay. Often the name is given to you by the owner of the compound, or by your work colleagues but mine came from the Village elder, who said I reminded him of his first wife. So I am now Meta Sanjang. Sanjang is a big clan of the Jola tribe and I am told that the surname indicates that I enjoy eating good food!! Nothing new there then!On the tour we walked down to the river Gambia and passed the sacred well, protected by a truck tyre..... The man in the picture gave me my name. Apparently this well is entirely fresh water despite being near the river and people from Mali regularly come to the well because of its special powers, one of which is to get you pregnant, so I quickly moved on!But the landscape was beautiful, cotton trees, baobabs, lush grass, birds, butterflies and endless skies! Amazing, wonderful, breathtaking!I have also been eating out and sampling local food. Perhaps the most entertaining is Omar’s, a small shack in a car park by the main traffic lights in the Kombos. For 25 delasi (60p) you can get a plate of food and VSO and Peace Corps people use it often. You can imagine that I am really used to this sort of fine dining, and for thse who have been to Barbados it makes a rum shop looksumptuous!I am really enjoying myself, despite the power cuts and the ridiculous heat and wet, humid atmosphere,the constant hassle from street vendors, the dirt and sand roads and the noise of the taxis and the need to haggle. I want to start work and I wish I wasn’t struggling with the new language, though. Keep posting your comments, I really appreciate them!