Honey!

For a few days in June, some fellow volunteers came to my village to collect honey and hold a beekeeping workshop; when asked if I'd like to join I replied: "YES."

I'm actually going to write enough about this adventure to require multiple paragraphs of sizeable length. A nicer person would even transition these paragraphs nicely from one to the other. I just wanted you to be aware that I've made no attempt to do so.

I always wondered how people got stung beekeeping, because the head-to-toe suit looks pretty secure, but now I know. You get stung because at some point you remove the suit. You might wait and wait before removing the suit, but the bees will also wait and wait because, after all, you’re covered in stolen honey. And once the suit is gone... Also, you might get stung because, as happened to one of the village beekeepers, there might be a tear in your suit that you don't notice until a mass of bees finds it, flies into your suit, and stings your face. I didn’t get stung on my face (Allah, jaraama!) and escaped with just two refreshing stings on the back of my neck and one on my right thumb.

I like the suits. They’re white with elastic in the legs and arms. Around our feet we wrapped empty rice bags, secured with thick black elastic. On our hands we had rubber gloves, similarly secured with the thick elastic straps. I felt like I was about to conduct experiments on Ebola infected blood samples or something because I was stark white from head to toe except for rubber gloves the color of biohazard bins. The suits were fun at first because you could pretend you were a scientist or an astronaut or a beekeeper but after a short while they got hot and heavy. Worst was after we’d finished collecting the honey and were just standing in the field waiting for the bees to fly away. There is nothing to distract you from how uncomfortable the suit has become, only evil little breezes that remind you how fantastic you’d feel if handfuls of buzzing bees weren't preventing you from stripping off the suit. But even though the end of the honey-collecting excursion is miserable--you’re hot, thirsty, tired in an unhappy way and you’d love to just collapse--the beginning is so fantastically magical that the next day when you’re asked if you'd like to collect honey again this evening you forget all about the ending.

Levi came along the first day of honey collecting. Several bees stung him but he refused to run away for at least a full minute. Instead, he yelped and bounced around in twisty comical leaps. He was probably in a lot of pain but I could only laugh and shout, "Levi! A hootata? Won't you go home?" (I'm training him to be bilingual). The next day he followed us again but this time he sprinted away after the first sting and didn’t slow down until he was nearly out of sight.

There was this moment when a screen of honey had been lifted and a flashlight shone behind it and someone was pumping smoke over the whole thing and it was beautiful. Just fantastically beautiful and the honey looked like glowing, dripping, amber, the kind without dead bugs.

I left school early on Tuesday to help them process the honey. It was okay because I wasn’t teaching any classes that day anyway, since the twelfth graders were finished with final exams. When I got to the agriculture center, the Gambian men were churning honey combs through a machine that’d been donated to them, while us toubabs did it the old-fashioned way. We scooped dripping honey combs from one bucket  and squeezed the honey combs over another bucket covered with fabric. Squeezing the honey combs until oozing, glistening honey drips between your fingers is really really fun. Then we swirled the honey around on the surface of the fabric with the excuse that the swirling helped push the honey through the fabric but with the real reason that we liked the feel of honey running through our fingers.

I am addicted to honey now. I'll scoop it into my oatmeal every morning, or I’ll spread peanut butter on bread and dip it into honey, or I’ll just eat the honey plain. But nothing tastes as good as that first taste did, after our first night collecting honey. We’d taken off our suits and our bodies were cool again and we were about to part ways and return to our respective compounds when someone pointed out that we should get to taste the honey so someone handed me a honey comb and I bit into it and honey poured into my mouth and oozed out of the wax and it was glorious.

One afternoon a few days later, E.B. asked if I’d ever tasted honey. I told him yes and he said before you eat honey you should add sugar. I questioned the need to do this and Pippi Isatou agreed that even honey alone is sweet.

Zed!

Julia and I are teaching a Saturday morning computer class for the teachers, but one of the twelfth grade boys has decided to join us.


Julia: You can also undo by pressing “control z” on the keyboard.
Student: See?
Julia: Zee.
Student: What is “zee”?
Me: Zed.
Julia: Right, zed.

The student laughs, and for the rest of class, whenever he needs to undo something he giggles and exclaims, “control zee!” Sort of how I silently giggle every time I say "zed."

Photos of the rain! (with some goats for good measure)

The other day one of the teachers at my school sent me an e-mail, wishing me a pleasant vacation and rain. He was writing from a place where the sun is hot, so he wished me rain with all the best intentions. I, of course, no longer want anything but sunshine day and night, so I was little sad when it rained later that afternoon.

But anyway, here are photos from that once upon a time when rain was all I dreamed about.

This is Buba, standing where I wish I'd
been standing.

That's my bed in the top right corner. This picture would probably
be more impressive if this caption could tell you just how much rain had
piled up in my backyard, but at the time I was too excited about RAIN
to think about rulers.

There was a frog hovering at the edge of my pit latrine!
And then he fell in.
What a horrible horrible way to die.
Unless he didn't die. There are certainly plenty of bugs down
there for him to eat. In which case,
What a horrible horrible way to live.

Levi's impression of the rain.

This was several days after the rain, or several days before.
Anyway, it wasn't raining this day; I just wanted to include a
photo of the day the twin goats wandered into my house.

Art Museum!

To make up for yesterday's ugliness (I'm in front of the computer again, yay!) I've decided to post some pictures of the drawings at my local art museum. Unfortunately, all of the works are Untitled  and all of the artists are Unknown.

Ugliness

I'm in front of the computer, and decided to upload some photos! And I'll bet you're pleased as punch that I chose to upload the ugliest photos first!

Okay, so I actually find this photo of Ugly Dog and E.B. highly amusing.

Eeew... Levi, stop sharing saliva with that hideous friend of yours!

Ugly Dog. The ugliest dog on the PLANET.

This is the best photo I ever got of the shrew,
 all wedged in and gross in my bathing area.
I wish you could see his face better, but if
you saw it you'd probably vomit, so it's probably
for the best.

Noses!

Here are two short stories about noses.

The afternoon Buba got a peanut stuck up his nose his mom was mad. She tried to pick the peanut out herself and tried getting Buba to blow his nose hard enough to eject the peanut. Neither plan worked so with a sigh and some angry mutterings she strapped him to her back and walked to the hospital. Everyone else was holding back laughter, though, because we knew Buba would be alright and there's no funnier object to get stuck in your nose than a peanut.

...


The second nose story is a conversation with Rugi:

Rugi pulls a sizeable piece of snot from her noseand displays it to me.

Me: All that was in your nose?

Rugi, matter-of-factly: Boogers, yes. I have a cold.

And then she sets to work extracting more snot.

Sunglasses!

One afternoon I invited E.B. to come fetch water from the pump with me; so he carried the empty bidong and his spoon rode on the back of the bike. While I was pumping water two guys came by, one whom I’d seen before and the other presumably his buddy from the Kombos. I assume this because his buddy was wearing sunglasses and his greeting was, “Hello Boss Lady.”

Me: Boss Lady is not my name. Please call me Binta.

City Dude: You do not want to be called Boss Lady?

Me: No. I want to be called Binta.

City Dude: But Boss Lady is a promotion!

Me: But still, Boss Lady is not my name.

Village Dude, as he walks over to pump water for me: Her name is Binta.

Then City Dude tried to convince me that I was earning a lot of money and I tried to convince him I was earning nothing at all. Then:

City Dude, suddenly: What about Princess Binta?

Me: Okay.

City Dude: But I think Princess Binta is also not good.

Me: No, you can call me Princess Binta.

Pants!

E.B., picking up an adult-sized pair of jeans from the ground: Who owns these pants?

Me: I don’t know. Not me.

Mamadou: A donkey.

E.B: That’s right, a donkey.

Me: A donkey? But a donkey has four legs. Pants have two legs.

Mamadou: A donkey has two legs.

Me: Noo…

Mamadou: Three legs.

Me: Noo…

E.B: Binta, bring your spoon, dinner is ready.

Hippopotamus!

One evening, just before night, several people in my compound started shouting, “A hippo is coming! A hippo is coming!” I didn’t know what to think, so I thought ridiculous things like that a hippo was walking our way from the river. But the road to the river was empty so then I thought maybe someone had killed a hippo and now people were walking our way bearing plates of hippo meat.

But a hippopotamus, dead or alive, never entered our compound; just one of my namesakes and another neighbor coming to fetch water from our well. I thought maybe I'd heard wrong or maybe someone had a name similar to "ngabbu."

BUT THEN (ten minutes later when it was too late to laugh) I realized my pregnant namesake was the hippopotamus.

The next day, entirely by coincidence, the conversation also turned to hippos. Gaye and Amadou were looking through the Travel Africa magazine from one of my care packages.

I learned this about hippopotami:

• A hippo will kill a person but not even eat the body.
• A hippo only wants what is inside the stomach.
• A hippo will kill a person and eat only the stomach and it will chew the body but not eat it.

Välkommen till Sverige!

Hej! Don't get mad at me for writing a post while on vacation (I'm in front of the computer right now, by the way) because I just want to say two things:

1) Despite the numerous opportunities to do so, I did not get lost, not even a little, and made it to Sweden safe and sound.

2) Several weeks ago I wrote up many posts to be displayed in the future, so they might last a few more days yet, and just a reminder to not be confused by this. I will be in a land of birch trees and blonde children (och våfflor! och skinka och OST och gurkor och fil och smör och... och tack så mycket, Google Översätt, because although I am remembering these important Swedish words, I never knew how to spell them) for awhile, so when those posts run out you may not hear from me in awhile, as I will be too busy consuming the aforementioned items (minus the trees and children) but maybe I'll take advantage of functioning internet and post some photos.

Hairless!

I notice that Buba’s head has been shaved.


Me: Buba, you shaved.
Buba: I shaved.
Me: Where is your hair?
Buba: [silence]
Me: Did you eat your hair?
Buba: Yes.
Me: You ate your hair?! But your stomach is not hurting?
Buba: Is not hurting.
Me: It is not hurting?
Buba: Not hurting.

I notice Saliou, who has also been shaved.

Me: And my husband’s hair, did you eat his hair too?
Buba: Yes.
Me: And Adama’s hair, will you eat that too?
Buba: Yes.
Me: Hup!

Mud like chocolate

One day after a big rain Buba was playing in the mud and he’d churned up a nice pile so it looked like chocolate nougat and when he scooped a bunch into his hand it looked like chocolate nougat dripping off in clumps and when he threw the mudball, after molding it into a more-or-less spherical shape, it looked like chocolate nougat, light and fluffy, flying through the air and spraying across Yaya’s chest.

In colder climates kid’s get into snowball fights, but mud works just as well. The mudball rarely hit anyone directly, except for the one Buba threw at Ali Bojang, who got mad and stalked off towards his home, pointedly shaking off flecks of mud. Everyone got hit with the mud spraying off from the mudball, though, and no one besides Ali Bojang cared.

I wish I could've been a Gambian boy, just for that afternoon. The mud was glorious.

Tongue twister!

Matu mu bagu no bakani bagu baka bagi om bagi mo matu bakani bagu no baki.

Neene told me it's something to do with tie-dying fabric, which really isn't any stranger than selling seashells and a good deal less strange than picking pickled peppers, which is the tongue twister I told Neene. She repeated, "“Feter fifer ficked a feck of fickled feffers." For lots of words in Pulaar “f” and “p” are interchangeable, so it’s really not so strange.

However, I suspect I've recorded an incomplete Pulaar tongue twister because after I’d finished writing down what Neene dictated to me, she held up the paper like she was reading it and recited something probably twice as long as what I’d written.
 
Oh well.

Conversations with Mamadou: When I was alone in the compound...

One night Mamadou told me the following story:


Mamadou: Aunt went to Janenjallah--

I interrupt, not yet realizing he’s narrating “past” events.

Me: She went there? Isn’t she here?

Mamadou: She went to Janenjallah and I was the only one here. And Kangado.

I never completely figured out who Kangado was. At first I thought Kangado was the dog, because I thought that was the most recent name he’d given the dog, but as the tale progressed I became less sure of this.

Mamadou: Kangado and I went into Aunt’s house and Kangado had a gun and I had a slingshot. And K-- (I forget this other character’s name but it also began with a K) came and shot Kangado and he died.

Me: Who died? Kangado? Isn’t that Kangado there? [I point in the general direction of the dog.]

Mamadou: He died.

Me: But now he is not dead?

Mamadou: Yes. Then the paramilitary came and they locked him up.

Me: Who came?

Mamadou: The paramilitary.

I forget exactly how the rest of the story goes, but at one point Mamadou’s buddies Ali, Ali Bojang, Yaya and Ousi come and at another point Mamadou kicks K--- in the leg and he runs away but does not cry even though it hurts.

Grown-ups!

But grown-ups are boring because here’s what we (I guess I have to include myself among the grown-ups now) do when it rains and we’re outside. We huddle tighter against the table under the covered walkway. We zipper up a windbreaker. We rescue the books and papers hanging out into the rain.

But here is how children respond to rain: Children run into the middle of the muddy road. Children strip off all
clothing except underwear, if they happen to be wearing any. Children jump up and down in the pouring rain in the growing puddles like clumsy storks trying to take flight.

D.I.Y: Bodacious Bubbles!

Materials: Flying termites.

Step 1: No preparation needed! Once you realize the flying termites have begun to emerge, simply chase them about and try to smash them between your hands!



Note: No, flying termites bear no resemblance to bubbles, but when swarms of termites started flying about, the neighborhood children acted exactly as American kids would if I were to pull out a wand and start to blow bubbles, i.e. they ran frantically about and clapped the termites between their hands. No child actually blows bubbles to admire their sparkling iridescence, and unlike bubbles, termites are free!

Gums!

I was sitting with my neighbor Sini one afternoon; she breaks the silence by talking about her gums. Previous to the silence I’d been teaching her random English words. “Mbewa?” “Goat.” “Goat….E nage?” “Cow.” “E sukabe?” “Children.” But we’d quickly pointed to everything within sight and lapsed into the silence. So I get to hear about Sini’s gums. I assume there is a problem with her gums because:
    1) the conversation about her gums starts completely out of the blue
    2) she says, “It is black” and points for me to look
    3) she said, “It hurts!”
     4) she describes brushing vigorously and using a thread until there is blood (I thought, “Awesome! Gambians know about flossing!”). I assume she is discussing dental hygiene.
I ask, “Didn’t you go to the doctor?” and she looks at me kind of funny and says, “No, I wanted it like this.”
That’s when I realized Sini wasn’t talking about cavities or gum disease, she just wanted to tell me about the day she got her gums tattooed. She had been describing how it is done—burned millet was somehow involved—but I’d been too busy trying to figure out why she was telling me this story to devote any concentration to understanding what she was saying. I’ll have to ask her about it again sometime. And I can tell her in America, we also do this, but with machines.

Conversations with Rugi: Hoop and stick!

One afternoon, Rugi comes into my compound playing that hoop and stick game popular among colonial American children. But whereas colonial children used wooden hoops (made expressly for that purpose?) and a stick, Rugi uses a bare bicycle rim (no spokes) and the palm of her hand. She rolls it into our compound until it stops against the mango tree. “Hup!” And then she turns around and rolls it out. A few minutes later she’s back:
Rugi: Good evening! Binta, I’m going home.
Me: You’re going home?

But she’s already gone.

A few minutes later Rugi returns, still rolling the be-spoked bicycle rim.
Rugi: Good evening!
Neene: Good evening.
Rugi: I’m going home now! Until tomorrow!
Me: Okay!
Rugi: Until later!
Me: Okay!

Anti-giraffe!

One afternoon in grade eleven:

Student: Miss Jallow, look at Isatou’s shoes.


[I look at Isatou’s shoes, which are sort of in the style of gladiator sandals]

Student: They are soldier shoes!

Another student: She is anti-giraffe!

(the only explanations I can offer for “anti-giraffe” is that it either comments on Isatou’s height, or I misheard).

Me: But I like her shoes. They have these on them [I point out the stars studding the sides] Also, a soldier would not wear shoes like this, with the toes like this. It is too dangerous.

Yet another student: Yes, I have seen soldiers wearing shoes even like this [he shows me the flip-flops on his feet] when they are running on the road.

Me: Yes, but if they are fighting they will not wear those shoes because the toes could get cut off.

Isatou’s friend: They are just jealous.
Student: I am not. Those are girls’ shoes. Anyway, I would not wear them.

Liquide de frein!

One Sunday at the weekly market, I bought a wanjo juice icee. It was not an icee, however, so much as a former icee, because anything ice-like about it had melted awhile ago. What was more interesting than its debatable icee status, however, was the container it came served in. Prior to containing melted wanjo juice icee, this opaque white and red bottle had contained 250 mL of LIQUIDE DE FREIN. What is liquid de frein? I wish I knew. I’ve probably consumed some. I tried to read the writing printed on the back but between half the letters being rubbed away and my having only half a semester of middle-school French, I understood only enough to feel alarmed:

“Liquide de frein…normas…FM?SS…NI640-IS04925. Miscible avec tous les autres…norms SAE mais ne doit pas être utilise…certains…deles CITROEN nécessistant on liquide mineral (LHM).


UTILISATION
Stocker ce liquide uniquement dans son bidon d’origine, fermé hermétiquement.

PRECAUTIONS D’EMPLOI
-Ne pas laisser à porteé des enfants.
-No cif par…gestion.
-Eviter le contact avec la peau et les yeux.

Fabriqué en Holland par VPS International bv”

I gathered that it’s a unique liquid that you should keep in its original container, away from children, and not ingest. Also, it was made in Holland, but that was the non-alarming part.

Anyway, as Julia reassured me, the bottle has probably been reused so many times since it contained “liquide de frein” (it was a bit scruffy and scratched-looking) that I’ve got nothing to worry about.

I’m still really curious, though.

...
 
I remembered I have internet access, as I am currently on the internet. Google Translate answered my question: BRAKE FLUID.

Insect!

One morning, while sitting outside at the teachers' table:

Teacher 1: Binta, what is this insect called?


There is a large black insect hovering about the  table.

Me: That is flying? Will it sting you?
Teacher 1: No, it will not sting you, not usually.
Me: Because it looks sort of like a wasp, and it makes these nests like a wasp, but if it will not sting you then I do not know.
Teacher 1: No, I know these wasps. It is not a wasp.
Teacher 2: But there is something that doubts me. I have never seen two of them fly together.

I give a why-should-that-matter type of puzzled look.

Teacher 2: The people, they say this type of insect will not reproduce.
Science Teacher: Is it an insect? Maybe it is an arachnid. We need to see, does it have two pairs of legs or three?

We busy ourselves trying to get a close enough look to determine the number of legs.

Teacher 1: I saw three pairs of legs.
Science Teacher: No, I think those were antennae. I think there are only two pairs of legs.
Teacher 4: The belief with the people is, this insect does not reproduce.
Teacher 2: Me too, I will believe it, because I have never seen two of them fly together.
Teacher 1: I am a conservative, so I must believe the tradition.
Teacher 2: This insect, they are all male.
Teacher 4: Or females.
Teacher 2: Yes, or all females.
Me: All male or all female? But how does it make more of itself?
Teacher 2: After it kills an insect of a different species, it will make it into its own image.
Me: And bring it back to life?
Teacher 2: Yes.
Me: Hep! But I think that cannot be.
Science Teacher: Yes, of course, that cannot be. God made two of every creature.
Me: And if you look inside that thing [I point to the nest] won’t you see eggs and, what are they called, larvae?
Teacher 4: Yes, the worms, they are there.
Teacher 2: Of course.

The discussion continues, with Teacher 2 unconvinced that eggs and worms are sufficient proof of reproduction. It’s decided that I should try to catch one, both so we can determine once and for all whether or not it is an insect or an arachnid and also so we can examine it for the presence of a reproductive system. Naturally I declined to do anything more extensive than swat at it half-heartedly.

Good morning!

While waiting outside for dinner one night:


Sellu: Binta, good morning!
Me: Peace only. But it is not morning. Good night! [in Pulaar there’s a “good night,” that’s a greeting, not a leave-taking]
Sellu: Peace only. Trouble didn’t wake you?
Me: Peace only.
Sellu: I hope you drank cous porridge?
Me: Yes… this morning I drank cous porridge, but now I did not drink it because it is night.

Sellu laughs, and then addresses the rest of the compound: Did you hear Binta? Binta hears Pulaar now. I asked did she drink cous porridge, she said in the morning she drinks cous porridge but at night she will not drink it. Me too, I hear English now, “come and eat.”

Me: It is your stomach that hears English.

"The American people do not cook?"

I’m sitting in my neighbors’ compound with Levi on my lap. The village alkalo is passing through.


Alkalo: Give me your dog. (I guess since he’s the alkalo he can forgo the usual greetings if he wants to)
Me: No, he is my baby.
Alkalo: Will you take him to America?
Me: No, he will not like America because there is no bush there, just houses, and he likes to run.
Alkalo: Ah, only villages?
Me: Yes.
Ado, who is sitting nearby: The American people do not cook?

I'm puzzled how her question relates to our conversation, but she is pretending to cook benichen out of dirt, so maybe the answer was relevant to her game? Or maybe it doesn't relate. Ado has a habit of asking me random questions about America.

Me: No, American people will cook.
Ado: But there is no bush, how will they cook?

I pause to consider the connection between the bush and cooking. Gambians don’t go to the bush to cook, they go to their cooking huts. Wait…aha! The wood for their cooking fires is gathered from the bush!

Me: American people will cook but they will not go to the bush. They have a machine for cooking, I don’t know what it’s called…
Ado: Gas.

And by “gas,” she means a gas burner like the kind I’ve got in my hut.

Me: Yes, gas.
Ado: All American people cook with gas!
Me: Yes, all the people.

Because how was I going to explain microwaves? Or ovens, even?

And you thought mango season was over...

I'm at the computer, typing this sentence this very instant! Tomorrow morning I'm going back to site, inshallah (because you never know if you'll be abducted by aliens or something). I would write more about what I've been up to during my week in the Kombos, but it was mostly lots of American rushing around alternated with American lying around doing nothing. Which was fun for me, but not particularly fascinating reading material.

My favorite part of the week has probably been the past three days, when I went with the new trainees (just a week old!) to introduce them to the training village where they'll be staying for the next two months. I went with the three new Fulas to my old training village, where I hadn't been since my visit in December.

 My family's got a generator now, and a light above their porch! And Hawa (who I hadn't seen since August) has a baby (who hadn't yet been born in August)! And the bean sandwiches aren't topped with spaghetti! And I got to be a fount of knowledge!

And: there were mangoes.

Even though The Gambia's an itty bitty country, it's large enough that the end of mango season at one end of the country is the start of mango season at the other. In honor of these last mango bites I enjoyed, here is my mango identification guide.

A Super-Scientific Guide to Mangoes of The Gambia:

Mango Mangoes: The mangoes that used to fall into my backyard. These mangoes were the size, shape, texture-- and if they ripened in the sun, also the color-- of a mango I might find at Super Stop and Shop.

Icee Mangoes: You can squish and slurp these small and squiggly mangoes like an icee.

Basse Mangoes: These are the only kind of mangoes I've ever seen for sale in Basse. They are round, medium-sized, solid orange and have a smooth, creamy texture.

Sour Gummi Bear Mangoes: These mangoes were the last to ripen in our compound. Neene doesn’t like them because they’re too sour, and I don’t like them because they’ve got the weirdest texture I’ve ever encountered in a fruit, but they were better than nothing and at least they're still around.

Smoothie Mangoes: My former training village family handed me one of these two days ago. It's large with a particularly flat pit and has the flavor of a mango smoothie YUM.

Purple mangoes: OMG. They're real. I've never tasted one, but they're purple beyond belief.

Bakadaji!

For a few days during the between-terms break in April I visited Effo in Bakadaji (and you can read about her adventures in Fatoto here)! Bakadaji is a Mandinka and Fula village, but her host family is Mandinka so I didn’t have much to say to them. I’m jealous because Effo’s neighbors have a monkey named Mabintu with Frida Kahlo eyes—and I’m not just saying that because she had a unibrow. Her face was itty-bitty and freakishly human-like and also very wrinkly. Not that Frida Kahlo was freakishly human or wrinkly, that's why I specified eyes. It’s unfortunate the only pictures I have of Mabintu are ones where she’s got dried mango stuck all over her face. There was a day when she was clean and eating banana bread and looking Adorable, but my camera was nowhere to be found.


Yes, you read that correctly! Banana bread! We succeeded in baking banana bread. Sure, it didn’t taste exactly like banana bread, but that was probably due to us using under-ripe bananas instead of over-ripe ones. The important thing, to me at least, is that it had the texture of banana bread and as a bonus, the loaves were shaped like giant muffins because we'd used large aluminium cups instead of baking pans. Effo lives near the baker, who speaks better Pulaar than Mandinka but speaks both languages with a stutter. When we first asked him if he could bake bread for us, he told us to come in the evening, but when we came around six he told us to return at nine. So we did. When we showed up he pulled the burning logs out of the oven so only the hot charred pieces remained. He put our future loaves of banana bread inside and closed the door. Then, for an hour and fifteen minutes, we sat in the dark and made awkward conversation with the baker. Whatever Effo said she needed to translate for me and whatever I said I needed to translate for her. The baker’s surname was Bah, so I mostly talked about his fat stomach because my last name is Jallow and I never miss an opportunity to tease Bahs about their inability to stop eating. I love these joking relationships with the surnames!

Here's what we learned during our conversation with the baker:

• He bakes bread for the whole village and has been doing so for the past twenty years, or maybe he said the oven has been around for twenty years, because he also told us he’s twenty nine years old. But who knows, maybe he has been baking bread since he was nine years old.
• The name of the singer whose song he hummed along to on the radio (since forgotten)
• He would like an English wife.
• He would like to learn how to make this bread, but he told us this before it’d even finished baking so I said wait and taste it first. We tried to bring a piece of it to him the next morning, but only met his father, so I never did learn his thoughts.

Returning from Bakadaji we wandered some fabric shops in Basse. We did not buy the fabric patterned with: lobsters, Mary and Jesus, the Taj Mahal, irons, high-heel shoes, corn-less unicorns.

After I’d visited Bakadaji, Effo came to Fatoto. We were unfortunate to ride there in the same gelle that once took three hours to get there from Basse (it should take one hour, tops) and the same one (I think) that I also lost my water bottle in. I’ve now taken note of how to recognize this unlucky gelle: blue vinyl seats, two neon red triangles leaning against the windshield, and a driver with a permanent grimace and a Frankenstein’s monster forehead. However, the only thing recognizing this gelle will allow me to do is mentally prepare myself for a long and uncomfortable trip because with only one gelle leaving for Fatoto at a time and with hours in between gelles, there’s not much choice for the next time I show up at the car park and find the blue-vinyl gelle waiting for me. This time, the problems were:

•  the car wouldn’t start and needed to be pushed
• the car kept needing to make stops and men would jump out and open the hood and fix stuff or maybe just peer intently inside
• the driver needed to stop so he could spend several minutes haggling with roadside mango vendors and then return with an armload of mangoes
•  the woman sitting behind Effo kept resting her arms and head on the back of Effo’s seat so that she couldn’t sit comfortably.

I’d never had a real-live guest before (or a dead one, for that matter) and I liked that I could wander the village photographing trees and cows and nothing in particular without feeling strange, because I was just showing my guest around town, obviously. So if I ever get an internet connection that will allow me to upload photos, you’ll get to see photos of stuff other than children or puppies. Not that children or puppies are unworthy subject matters, but variety is nice.

Lost!

Are you aware that I have a horrible sense of direction? It’s atrocious, possibly non-existent. I like to pretend my brain has more important matters to concern itself with than where the rest of the body might be located. Anyway, I’ve recognized this fact for awhile, but only recently realized that since I cannot prevent myself from getting lost, I should at least try to prepare for finding myself again. One day in May, I wanted to bike to Sami Koto to attend a marriage ceremony there with some other volunteers. I knew I’d never find my way without Julia, who was still in Basse, so I pulled out my mP3 player and tried to learn some Serrehule.  Garawol, which is the main village I would need to pass through on my way to Sami, is a Serrehule village and if there are Pulaar speakers there, I have not met them. Before I'd left for The Gambia I’d downloaded language files teaching basic phrases in the major languages of The Gambia. So I listened through the Serrehule recordings and managed to learn two greetings and how to ask the question, “Where is Sami Koto?” Then I filled my water bottle to the brim, slathered myself with sunscreen (who knew how long I would be biking in circles?) and headed off.

I made the correct turn from the main road, due to me remembering a billboard (there were actually two billboards) and due to me not remembering biking past Isatou’s village, Kumbel, on the last visit to Sami (Kumbel was a little past the billboards). But after that first success, I either turned too soon, or maybe I wasn’t supposed to have turned at all, because instead of riding through the garbage dumps of Garawol, I found myself smack in the center of town. I was dodging masses of school children, speeding past storefronts and nearly crashing into displays of fish and vegetables laid out in the market.

Even though I’d taken the time to learn Serrehule greetings, I mostly  stuck with “Salaam Maalekum” because I didn’t trust I’d learnt the greetings correctly, but a few of the times I did attempt a “hootaranta” people replied “majam,” which is Serrehule for “peace only.” All of the times I tried a Pulaar greeting, just for kicks, I got blank stares. At every split in the road I would ask for Sami Koto, and when I couldn’t understand the answer (i.e. all of the times) I gestured, in a Dorothy-and-the-Scarecrow fashion, “this way? or this way?” Wait, do Dorothy and the Scarecrow do that? Or am I thinking of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland? Anyway…

It would be nice to know why I have such horrible sense of direction, so that maybe I could work to improve it, but on the other hand, this alternative route was much more pleasant, and not only for the lack of garbage. It was smoother and less sandy, and there were lots of exciting things to see, as long as I remembered not to get distracted to the point of running into a small child or something.

Toothless old men!

I'm in front of the computer, yay!

This past Tuesday, the day before I left site, I had the longest conversation I've ever had in Pulaar. I was talking with ten-year-old Pippi Isatou. Our conversation was about a toothless man who lives in Basse.

Here's what I remember of it, complete with footnotes:

Pippi Isatou: Tomorrow you will go to Basse?

Me: Yes.

Pippi: There is a person in Basse whose mouth does this [she sucks in her cheeks]. His cheeks enter his mouth. If he will talk—blah blah blah.

Me: He cannot speak?

Pippi: Blah blah blah and his mouth is like this [she sucks in her cheeks again]. And he does not have many teeth.

Me: How many teeth does he have?

Pippi: Two here [points to her top teeth] and two here [points to her bottom teeth]. Two above and two below.

Me: Only four teeth? Two and two?

Pippi: Two above and two below. You have never seen him?

Me: It is a man or a woman?*

Pippi: A man. He will chew kola nuts. He chews them like this with his teeth [she delicately nibbles the air]

Me: He is able to chew kola nuts? With just a few teeth?

Pippi: Yes.

Me: Slowly, slowly? Will he spit out the kola nut juice?

Pippi: [confused expression] Will he do what?

Me: Will he do this [spit] with the kola nut juice or will he swallow it?

Pippi: He will not do this [spit]. He will swallow it. But the ____and ______ (the blanks were words I didn’t know, but are presumably parts of a kola nut** ), he will do this [spit, spit]. And the ____ in his mouth, he will do his [runs finger along bottom gums] and then this [shakes imaginary chewed bits of kola nut from finger].

Me: Ah, I understand.

Pippi: He has a lot of clothes…men’s clothes, women’s clothes… in a sack. You know what a sack is? For your baggage.

Me: Yes, I know what it is. He will sell the clothes?

Pippi: Yes. And the Serrehules will come. You know the Serrehules? From Koina and…

Me: Garawol.

Pippi: And Garawol. They will go to ____ (a village I'd never heard of) and buy clothes. And on Sundays, on Sundays they will go to the weekly market.

Me: The weekly market where?

Pippi: The weekly market.

Me: Fatoto’s weekly market?

Pippi: Yes.

Me: But the man who has only four teeth will not come? To the weekly market?

Pippi: He will come! You have never seen him?

Me: No. He is an elderly man, or … ?

Pippi: Yes, an elderly man.

Me: Is he tall?

Pippi: He has many years.***
Me: But, is he tall, or…?

Pippi: No, he is short.

Me: He is not tall?

Pippi: No, he is not tall. But his teeth are long.**** The teeth above are like this, from here until here [indicates the distance from the fingernail to the first joint of my index finger].

Me: Heh!

Pippi: And one of the teeth below is big. And his teeth do this [sticks out a finger to indicate that the tooth sticks out sideways]

Me: It does this? [I do the same]

Pippi: Wait. [she grabs a small twig, snaps it so it is relatively ooth-sized, holds it up to her own teeth and makes the twig stick out sideways] They do this. And his teeth are very dark.

Me: They are dark?

Pippi: They are like this [she points to a yellow stripe on the wrap-skirt I’m wearing]. Yellow.

Me: He will not brush his teeth?

Pippi: I don’t know. I don’t know if he will brush his teeth.

Me: I think he will not brush his teeth. If his teeth are…

Pippi: Do you have a tika boroos?

Me: Do I have a what?

Pippi: Tika boroos.

Me: I do not know what a “tika boroos” is.

Pippi: For doing this [uses her finger as an imaginary toothbrush]. You have a tika boroos and soap?

Me: Yes, yes, I have that. A toothbrush.

Pippi: In the morning you will do this [pantomimes brushing teeth and spitting out a gob of toothpaste]

Me: Yes, I will do that.

Pippi: Morning only?

Me: No, night also. Morning and night. Two times.

Pippi: But you have only one “package”?

Pippi said “package” in English (as she had been saying “toothbrush” in English) but I was spared trying to figure out her question by her mother calling her away.
 
 
 
The footnotes:
 
*Remember, Pulaar uses the same word for he/she/it. In translating to English, I didn't want to use "it" to refer to a person, so I used "he," even though at this time in the conversation I did not yet know we were talking about a man.
 
**This is interesting, because I didn’t realize kola nuts had separate parts to them.
 
***Let me explain Pippi’s misunderstanding:
1) I unexpectedly changed from a question of age to one of height
2) In Pulaar “tall” and “years” are similar-ish, “juutde” and “duubi” respectively
3) I probably phrased the question wrong, I think I asked “Does he have tall?” instead of “Is he tall?” or “Does he have height?”
 
****Let me also explain that in Pulaar the words for “tall” and “long” are the same, so the
logical connection between a person's height and his tooth-length is more logical...maybe. But why wouldn’t we return to talking about his teeth?

Electric fans!

This post is not about electric fans, but I AM IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER RIGHT NOW and there is an oscillating fan that sometimes oscillates in my direction. I'm in Kombo, which means I can buy ice cream whenever I want but I think I've lost my taste for ice cream. The same thing happened in March, but I bought ice cream anyway thinking surely when I've tasted it I'll remember I'm supposed to like this stuff. This time I've decided to save my money. So far the only American foods I've eaten have been a cheeseburger with fries and a Twix chocolate bar. For breakfast today I ate an egg sandwich from the bitik and for lunch I bought some fish meat pies from a lady at the market. This is a problem. Oh, and I passed on buying ginger ale. Ginger ale! I'd been craving ginger ale just a few weeks ago. Instead I bought a bag of water. What is wrong with me?!

Fortunately, I can buy ice cream in Basse now (although I haven't done so yet), so if my taste buds ever return to semi-normalcy, I won't have to wait until my next trip down-country. Actually, I won't even have to wait for normal taste buds, because the Basse ice cream is made with powdered milk!

Okay, it looks like rain so I've got to hurry back to the house.

Oh! But mango season is just beginning in Kombo--YAY.