Hey Boss Lady!

New country, new language, new village, new name.  I am now Mariama Sarr (essentially the Jane Doe of names), I speak Wollof (sort of), and I live in Changai, The Gambia.  I would never want to generalize and lump all the people of West Africa together, but seeing as the people here think all toubabs (white-people) are the same, I’m going to.  The major difference I have noticed between my village here and my village in Mali is that the men gather firewood, not the women.  And that’s pretty much the only difference.  The jokes are the same, the clothes are the same, the food is the same, blah, blah, blah.  It might sound crazy considering there are so many different tribes, but somehow they’ve all managed to morph into one culture.  I would feel a lot worse for making these blanket statements about West Africans if every time I left my site everyone didn’t get me confused with my site-mate FatSo ( I kid you not this is her Gambian name) who is a fairly tall, fairly fair, red-head who speaks a completely different language than I do.  If we’re all the same (and I mean ALL of us, every white-person in the entire world), then they too must all be the same.

Let me revisit the name thing.  Just like in Mali there are very few names for a large number of people.  Fatoumata, Mamadou, Mariama… I’ve pretty much exhausted the list right there.  However, The Gambia does have a few special differences.  The real Jane Doe of names here is Fatoumata Sowe, a.k.a FatSo when abbreviated, a.k.a Stephanie, my nearest volunteer.  Another very common last name is Fatty, as in Mamadou Fatty.  You get pretty accustomed to hearing the same first names and surnames and then you meet someone named Ibraima Garcia and you’re like wtf?!?  There are a handful of Gambians with Hispanic surnames, evidence of Spanish missionaries and all the amazing work they did here.  Well that’s globalization for you all wrapped up into an Arabic first name and Hispanic surname. 

Another amazing thing about The Gambia is the diversity of languages and the ability of local people to speak them.  There are a ton of languages in Mali as well, but they seemed to be a bit more geographically separated.  I think that due to Gambia’s size, all these languages coexist within one small area.  For example, I have two volunteers relatively close to me: FatSo is about 12 km away and Aminata is about 15.  Neither of them speaks Wollof, nor does either of them speak the same language as each other.  In my first few days at site, I went to a pseudo parent/teacher meeting at the school that was being given in Mandinka and translated into Pulaar, neither of which are languages that I’ve learned.  There are also only about 600 people in my village.  The average Gambian must speak at least 3 languages.  I feel like this would be a linguist’s Disneyland…or Target.

Here are a few Gambian-life highlights from my first few weeks:

• Dancing to club music in a Muslim community is every bit as awkward as it sounds.  The only freak dancing that goes on is between people of the same sex, usually young men.  If you’re still having trouble visualizing this situation, just imagine me getting down to Akon’s “Smack that Ass” with a group of 7-9 year old girls, all of whom are significantly better dancers than me.
• Went to a cashew training and had to sit through almost a week of trying to keep my composure while various Gambians were saying things like this:

            -“Farmers shouldn’t wash their nuts to get the sticky stuff off.”

            -“I hate it when kids play with my nuts.           

            -“Farmers should inspect their nuts, maybe by hand.”

• Sex-tourism is a huge here, can’t wait for my mom to come visit, she’s exactly the right demographic is she we’re 15 years older and 100 pounds heavier.  The bumsters (young, attractive Gambian “tour guides”) will likely try to woo her with phrases like “Hey boss lady, what is your sweet, sweet name?”

• Aside from sex-tourism, the only other tourist-y action The Gambia gets are bird-watchers. It is quite likely that there is no other country in the entire world that gets less attractive tourists: Bumster chasers (fat, elderly British women) and bird-watchers (fat-elderly British men).  Awesome.

• Found a snake in my laundry basket this week and discovered that there are in fact hyenas in my hood, so if this is my last blog post, it’s probably no real great loss, but I hope the 5 of you that read this enjoyed it anyway.

Coup Runnings

COS Prom 2012

Well, I did it!  I am officially a returned Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (or RPCV in PC speak, where one, eats, sleeps, and breathes acronyms) from Mali.  To those of you who saw me off in the states, you’re probably thinking, wow that two years went really, really fast.  You would be wrong.  My first attempt at PC was a huge failure thanks to an unplanned coup and an increasingly violent and dangerous war in the north of Mali only aided by said coup.  The last few weeks has been pretty wild.  Everyone was consolidated shortly after the coup (except Koulikoro region, my region).  I was left at site to dabble in bi-polarity.  It’s not so bad, who wouldn’t want to feel so emotionally volatile that you want to kick puppies and flip off children, who just will not stop standing at your gate and watching you do nothing more than read for hours at a time?  Every few minutes I was going back and forth on whether or not we were going to be evacuated.  I kept working, but I found that devoting myself to language and/or putting up with the subtly annoying things was nearly impossible.  I was running out of money and sanity, so I crossed the river and went to my site-mates site.  We went and camped by the river with two other of our closest volunteers.  We thought we were being so smart to set up our tents before it got dark, which was smart, but that’s where forethought stopped.  We immediately ran to the riverbank and started cocktail hour to dull the pain of not knowing what our immediate futures held.  It got dark, we were relaxed, and then we realized we had only one headlamp for four people (mistake #1).  As we were single-file searching for our tents, being blindly led by our fearless leader Anderson, he spotted the area where our tents had once stood only to discover that they had of course blown away because it was crazy windy and we did nothing to weight them down (mistake #2).  It was a much-needed break from site that did not go off without a hitch.  About a week after that they finally made the decision to evacuate us, which was bitter sweet to say the least.  I think we were all happy to not be living in limbo anymore, but at least I personally was very sad to not serve out my full two years in Mali.  It’s truly a lovely country with the most welcoming people I’ve ever had the chance to meet.  I sincerely hope Peace Corps makes it back there very soon.

We were evacuated to Ghana not too long after the decision was made.  Peace Corps chartered a flight for us from Bamako to Accra, which was just plain ridiculous.  To say people were drowning their sorrows in the duty free would be an absolute understatement.  We arrived safe enough and man is Accra ever humid.  It felt like swimming on land.  We got to the hotel and were all very surprised to discover our digs for the week.  This hotel was bananas.  It was nicer then almost any hotel I’ve ever been to in the states.  I guess that was our consolation prize.  After being told there was no way, no chance at all for any of us to transfer, they presented us with several options.  I had to decide what I wanted to do for the next two years in the matter of a few hours.  I was very stressed on top of the extreme exhaustion I was feeling from the late nights with nearly 200 confused, happy, and sad volunteers deciding their next steps.  Life is pretty wild, I certainly was not expecting to be uprooted so soon, but here I am.  I chose The Gambia pretty much blindly and for basically no real reason at all.  I probably had never heard of it before last week and now I’m here.  You’ve probably never heard of it either.  It’s maybe one of the strangest countries I’ve ever seen.  Google it if you’re curious.  Several others of my friends transferred to Senegal and being literally completely inside Senegal lends itself to some crass, but hilarious jokes.  I’ll leave you to fill in the rest.  It seems like a lovely place so far.  The transit house is a mere five-minute walk from the beach, so that’s not too shabby.  That’s also something I would have never enjoyed in Mali. It is certainly going to be hard not to compare the two, but I’m going to try and think of this as a fresh start and since I am sort of joining the new training class, it is literally a fresh start.  I feel a lot more tired, a lot less nervous, but also a lot less excited this time around.  I’m going to be the newbie for almost a year!  It’s groundhogs day.  Hopefully I learned a thing or two the first time around.  I made some good friends and now I have plenty of places to stay all throughout West Africa (silver lining).  I might have to learn a new language and get used to all new germs, but when I’m old and grey I’ll be able to say I survived a Coup d’État.  

Drunk Goggles and Mad-Hatters

The real beginning has arrived.  We are done with training (pre-service training or PST) and will soon be actually living at our sites.  It’s crazy!  I’m scared and excited and sad to leave all the wonderful people I’ve gotten the chance to get to know little by little over the past two months.  We got sworn in at the US Ambassador’s house.  There were speeches made that I didn’t understand (including one in the language I am now supposed to understand).  I’m thinking the test is rigged because there would probably be very few volunteers here if it weren’t!  We all got dressed to the nines in Malian garb and therefore looked like a Discovery Zone or a Chuck E. Cheese with all our crazy patterns and colors.  We took many a photo and then went to the American Club, which is some pretty incredible irony if you ask me.  We ate pizza and hamburgers, drank beer and went swimming because what else could we possibly do the second after we officially become Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa?  I fell asleep watching Beauty and the Beast in the theater room and had sweet dreams of how different the next two years my life is going to look from that moment forward. 

Saying farewell to the lap of luxury did not end there my friends.  We continued to take full advantage of our new status as PCV’s and go to a swanky hotel (and by swanky I mean, well we’re in one of the poorest countries in the world so you could maybe use your imagination on that one) and then we went out and danced the night away like the crazy American fools we are.  All the groups (or stages as they are called) of volunteers are given a name by their trainers at the end of PST, so we were of course all anxiously awaiting ours.  As it turns out we as a group are a bit bat-shit crazy and incessantly late for very important dates, therefore, naturally, we are now officially the Mad-Hatters.  My name is Fatamata Traoré, I live in Niagadina, Mali and I am a Mad-Hatter.  Thank you very much for tuning in, nice to meet your acquaintance.

I am very fortunate to not have to buy anything for my new site because my precursor left everything I could ever want and more.  The one thing he did not leave is a bed frame.  I thought to myself, I can’t believe this kid slept on the floor for two years especially with all the rats and what not running amok. So now I’m back to putting the puzzle pieces together of this guy’s life.  I start to ponder what would inspire someone to buy a juicer, but not a bed frame.  And then it hits me: fitting modern day furniture and appliances into a round hut is literally like trying to fit a square into a circle.  It’s an absurd waste of space.  Plus, in talking to other volunteers I have discovered that I will be doing a great deal of sleeping outdoors once the unbearable hot season hits and a bed frame will only serve to be an obstacle to moving my mattress outside.  Therefore, I have to purchase not one thing for my new house.  Thanks Josh a.k.a Drissa Traoré, a.k.a my husband according to most everyone in my new village.  Until I return to the Internet and the world of connectivity I bid you farewell.  This is likely going to be the longest 3 months (and by 3 months I mean 2 years) of my life.  

The beautiful rocks in my home-stay village (I know, it looks like AZ right?!?)

Me making tiga dege (peanut butter) with my host family.

My gwa (kind of like a ramada or hangar depending on where you

re from and what language you speak) and one of my 3 papaya trees.

My new home and a beautiful sunrise.  Thanks to the 5 am prayer call, I probably won't miss very many of these.