Warning -- Tobaski Ramicide Pictures

I talked about Tobaski in an earlier post before I went to Mariama Kunda for Tobaski.  Tobaski arrived and was a bright, sunny, hot day.  It took me 2 taxi rides and 2 gelly rides to get to Mariama Kunda.  I found that riding in air conditioned splendor in a Peace Corps vehicle is definitely a preferable way to go.  But when I arrived my family was glad to see me and I was made to feel very welcome.  There were 3 of us PCVs there, Xander who stayed with my family a year and a half before I did, Rita a PCV who is in training and staying with them, and me. My family was happy to get the pictures that I had had printed but Xander had even more special pictures.  When he was there they had a six year old son who died about six months before I arrived.  I had no idea there had been another child until I had left their village and another volunteer filled me in on the details.  Apparently when someone dies people do not talk about him -- and they did not.  But Kumba was very excited to get the pictures and told me these were .pictures of her son who had died.  I think he died of liver disease but they said yellow fever.  The Peace Corps doc said that when someone is jaundiced they will say it is yellow fever, but yellow fever has been eradicated in The Gambia.

Since I am not a Muslim the interesting part of the day (other than seeing my family) for me was the slaughter of the ram.  The ram had been washed and was clean and snowy white.  They had dug a small pit in front of where the ram's neck.  In the photo below Xander and Momodu, my host brother, are holding the back of the ram.  My host father is hold the ram's mouth and is reaching behind himself for the knife.  I am happy to report that he used a brand new knife for the ramicide.

In the next picture he has cut the wind pipe and arteries and is allowing the blood to flow into the pit, which you can see is right in front of the clothesline (??? -- not where I would have placed it).

In the last picture they have broken the ram's neck.  Apparently they are not allowed to break his neck until he has bled out into the pit.  That is a part of the tradition that is not so humane because our ram actually tried to get up before they broke his neck.  But he did not make one sound.

Once they had finished, they skinned him and prepared him for cooking. Another part of the tradition says that the heart and liver must be cooked and served first. Here is the plate they served to us.  The yellow things are french fries (even in the Gambia), there is a rib visible that was tasty and a couple of bites of mutton, but the rest were bites of liver.  I am proud to say that I ate several bites of liver without a fuss and it turns out that Xander did not even eat one.  .

During the preparation.and meal, neighbors were over with platters of ram meat and Kumba prepared platters to give to the neighbors.

After the liver and potatoes was gone they served the main dish meal which was more palatable than the liver. Meanwhile the Gambian sun was at its peak with not a breath of wind.  Sweat was poring off everyone.  I was leary about leaving too late so I left about the time that the neighbors were arriving in their fancy dress.  The same group of women who had been there for Ramadan showed up for Tobaski.  They are Kumba's buddies.  I was so hot when I got back to Fajara that I went straight to the transit house to sit in air conditioned splendor.  One of the PCVs there said that the heat index that day was 124.  Now that is hot..  Enough said.

Buying a Bed in The Gambia

I am now safely ensconced in a new home in The Gambia but getting to this point was has not been an easy process.  I will post more on that later but one of the things I needed was a bed.  I did not realize that this was going to be a difficult thing to find but it was.  A Peace Corps driver took me shopping in the Serrekunda market which deserves a whole post on its own.  We drove around looking for beds on display on the side of the road and found several used twin sized beds.  However Peace Corps had said to bring queen sized sheets so I wanted to get a bigger bed then twin sized.  Finally the driver spotted these beds on the side of the road.  They at least were big enough and were 1500 dalasi -- $50.00.  So I said fine.  Then the driver had to go find the man who had made the beds.  He turned out to be a white haired man who looked to be about 70 or more.  After we said that we wanted the bed, he had to nail boards onto the dies of the bed to hold the slats,

Then he had to cut the boards that served as the slats using a handsaw.  If you look closely at the picture below, you can see that some of the boards end with a diagonal cut.  What you can't see is that  the ends of a couple of the boards were lying in a puddle of urine.  I was starting to back out of this because I could not see how 7 boards were going to support a mattress when the carpenter said we needed to buy a "cardboard" to fit on top of the boards.  This could be procured at the mattress store across the street.  

The cardboard turned out to be a thin sheet of masonite so the mattress would be evenly supported on the cross boards.  Then it was time to get a mattress.  The mattresses are made of foam and I don't mean memory foam ala Tempurpedic.  I made the mistake of getting a thicker one so that my sheets would fit better.  These are super memory foam, in other words they don't forget.  There is a big crevice in the mattress from where I have been sleeping and another from where I sit on the side of the bed.  Not to mention that the foam is sweat inducing.  Thank goodness on some very sage advice, I purchased a wonderful fan that will build up a charge while it is plugged in and run off the charge if the power goes off.  So far I have always had enough charge to run the fan while I sleep.

Anyway,  my total cost for the bed, "cardboard", and mattress was 3400 D or $113.33.  Just for grins I went into furniture store and priced a bed.  Now any furniture store in the Gambia caters to foreigners and wealthier Gambians.  I was looking at a bed that had a mattress, box springs, and headboard with built in side tables.  I asked the salesgirl how much it cost and she said 75000 D or $2500.00 US.  I am sure there was bargaining room there but obviously not enough room to meet a Peace Corps volunteer's budget.  After sleeping on the foam I am a little jealous of the innerspring mattress though.

Rams and More Rams

Id al Adha is the second great celebration in the Islamic calendar.  It is celebrated in The Gambia using the name Tobaski.  It celebrates the fact that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son to God and God allowed him to sacrifice a sheep instead. Traditionally the head male of the family will buy a ram and ritually sacrifice the animal in remembrance of the mercy of God.  It is also the time to bring out the fanciest clothes that people have, preferably new ones.  The tailors around the city have all been working overtime to make the new Tobaski clothes. 

But another new thing has crept up around the city -- rams of all shapes and sizes.  Last weekend I was walking down the main drag of Fajara and came upon the Africel headquarters. (one of the phone companies)  They had been advertising Tobaski ram giveaways to random customers.  On Saturday they were giving out rams to some of the prize holders.  There was a large holding pen in the front of the store.

Each winner was presented with his ram and had his picture taken with the ram and being congratulated by an Africel employee. 

Once the picture was taken it was time to take the ram home.  From the rams I saw, they were not particularly willing to go with their new owner, though I am sure they had no inkling of their intended demise.  Here is a ram being dragged down the street to its new owner's car.  Once there the man opened his trunk, unceremoniously dumped the ram in, slammed the trunk shut and drove off.

Below is a random flock of rams that I pass on my way to work.  There is another one at one of the busiest street corners in the country and others throughout the city.  By Sunday there will be no more random flocks around. 

My current plan is to spend Tobaski with my old host family in Mariama Kunda.  Hopefully I will not be there for the slaughtering.  One of the PCVs who has been here awhile is a veterinarian and has been in slaughter houses in the United States.  According to her the sheep in Tobaski have a much more peaceful death than the animals in our slaughter houses.  When sacrificing the animal, they use a sharp knife  (though I am not sure such a thing exists here) and Allah's name is spoken. After the animal is slaughtered, large portions of the meat are given to the needy so that nobody misses out on the celebration. Then meat is given as gifts to friends and relatives and the rest is reserved for the family. The idea of sharing is the what the feast is all about.

Omar's Peace Corps Kitchen

One of the happy bits of information passed onto volunteers is Omar's Peace Corps Kitchen.  Omar is the owner of a small, very reasonably priced restaurant -- can you guess the name?  I use the term restaurant very loosely because it is tiny, my kitchen in my condo may be bigger.  The building is only the kitchen, all of the seating is outdoors.  But from this little kitchen Omar has been able to make some of the best food I have had in The Gambia.  He has a large tree in the courtyard, under which he has placed an assortment of plastic tables and chairs.  He usually has an assortment of friends sitting and kibbutzing in another group of chairs.  Then there is an assortment of chickens of various sizes plus a couple of dogs who also add to the atmosphere.  His food is very reasonably priced.  There are two African specials every day that run about $1.00.  He makes a mean plate of lentils with tomato sauce and cheese, for $1.65.  Other specials run between that and $3.35.  My favorite meal he makes is Ginger Chicken -- yummy.  So, the long and the short of it is that I have yet to cook anything in my new "kitchen".  When I get around to  posting a picture of my new digs you will see the reason for the quotes.

But before that happens I wanted to post a picture of Omar himself.  He is wearing a chef's jacket in the picture, which is what he wears everyday, along with the black cap.  He apparently learned his trade in a hotel kitchen.  You may be able to tell that he has the Peace Corps insignia on his pocket. You can also see some of his tables and chairs and the new overhead screening he recently put up.  He is an incredibly sweet man.  I spent most of my cash before I came to his place last night and he told me that I did not have to pay him until today even though I had the money in hand to give him.  But I paid him, my trusty Gambian ATM card came to the rescue this morning.

The picture below is obviously Omar's Peace Corps Kitchen.  It was built with the help of Peace Corps volunteers.  It is a relatively easy walk from the Peace Corps transit house and from my new house.

One of the things Omar always gives you is a placemat and a bag of water.  Most of placemats are a little worse for wear, but the water is always cold.

Here is a plate of lentils to which I have already done significant damage.  The silverwear is in a cup of hot water, so it has a reasonable chance of being clean.  The bread is the standard tapalappa, the local bread, and excellent for mopping up lentils.

The last picture is of the crazy chickens.  These birds spend a lot of time up in the tree.  And when I say up in the tree they really get up there.  They also run around on the ground so I am not sure what makes them head for the tree.  But it does mean you should be careful where you sit.  One time one of the dogs was lying peacefully at my feet when one of the chickens came up and attacked it.  The dog ran a respectable distance away and stayed there.  I must say chickens have been a real learning experience here.

Rich White Woman

As I previously mentioned, I have started working at the United Nations and most of the people with whom I will be working are on trek up country.  The result is that I have spent a lot of time reading documents on the shared drive that pertain to my subject area. On many of the documents there is a background section telling about the poverty statistics in The Gambia.  One sentence that is always there is:

“53 percent of the population lives below the US$2 per day.”  (Okay, so sometimes the sentence is more or less grammatically correct but this is it copied from the current report.)

I decided to calculate how I compare to that.  Right now, Peace Corps pays me my stipend plus a supplement because living in the city is much more expensive than anywhere else.  Also WFP will be paying my rent.  Adding this money up and converting it to dollars comes to roughly $12.85 per day.

That’s pretty impressive considering the $6 a day I would get if I was living in village. Of my $12.85, $4.35 goes to rent, which leaves me $8.50 for daily expenses.  I am RICH.

But trust me, it does not feel rich. You really have to think about every purchase.  But where I am thinking, can I afford this bottle of beer that costs a dollar, the poor are worrying about having enough to feed their families.  In the time before the harvest comes it a meal will often be rice with greens that they have foraged.  Protein can be a luxury.  One of the volunteers said yesterday that she always loses weight when she is at her site.  She shares the family food bowl (she pays the family) and the bowl is not large.  In addition they have a teenage son sharing the food bowl.  For those of you who have had teenage sons you understand why she loses weight. The fact that so many people are living on a such a small amount of money is why they have the World Food Programme in The Gambia doing school feeding and emergency food relief.  Hopefully, next week I can start making a bigger contribution.

Marathon March Redux

Just wanted to show you a little proof of the Marathon March.  This is a picture of the group of us at the start.  I am the woman who is wearing a hat.  I would not want to damage my dainty complexion.  We are missing the older man volunteer in the picture and have added a random Gambian guy.  But otherwise this is the group of PCVs before our big adventure.  By the way, even though this looks like a down and out area, this is a fairly normal look in a village.

The next picture is shortly before lunch when we were still slogging though water.  You can just see my hat as proof that I was in the water.  This was not the worst of it but wisely most people did not have their cameras out in the worst of it.  You can see the water where the water had been on the pants of the last woman in line.  She is 5'10" so you can see what it was like.

We had lunch in a village that had been "invaded" by British artists who did super duper graffiti all around the village.  Obviously it was planned out but it was very impressive.  Here is a cool example painted on the routes of a baobab tree.

It's About Time

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.  I just got a little lazy about doing a new blog.  But the title of the blog relates to the real subject of the email, my swear in as a PCV.  It still is appropriate though, because even though I have been a full fledged PCV for well over a month I am still living at the transit house and just sort of started my job.  I have signed with a landlord for a house.  It is probably about 2 miles from the UN but that will mean that I get some exercise.  The transit house is also about 2 miles away so I know what it is like.  Right now it is the hottest time of the year so I might be taking a few 7 7's.  No, I am not talking about the drink,  7 & 7. In The Gambian 7 7,  the taxi's will take people to a pre-determined spot for 7 D.  They will fill the cab and stop and drop/pickup more people along the way.  7D is worth about 25 cents, so a bargain it is.  However, so far I have hoofed it both sweaty ways.  I said that I sort of started my job because everyone who knows about what I will be doing is on trek up country.

Anyway, I digress, the subject at hand is the swear in.  The main event took place on August 31, at the home of the US Ambassador to The Gambia.  The Ambassador, our program director, our country director, and the head of the Gambian University all gave talks.  Then PCVs who were good at language, obviously not me, gave talks in the local language.  Then we actually raised our right hands and were sworn in.  This was all done at the ambassador's house which overlooks the Atlantic ocean. This is the view from the backyard.  He also has a lovely swimming pool and big tennis/sport court.  We were not invited into the house so I can't give you any commentary on that.  However his house is a quick walk from the Peace Corps transit house.  I have gone to the beach below his house several times.  The water is warm and the surf is moderate

The gentlemen below are all Peace Corps staff.  They are wearing the traditional Gambian dress for men.  As you can see the men's dress is much more comfortable than the woman's'.

These were all the main dignitaries at the event.  Starting with the man in white at the left and moving to the right, the first man is the vice chancellor of the Gambia University, the next is the second in command at the embassy, the next is Leon Kayego, the Peace Corps country director, and the man in grey is the ambassador. 

Here we are at the actual moment of swear in.  As you can see we are all in matching fabric.  This is a Gambian tradition and the fabric is called an asobi.  Not this specific fabric, but anytime a group gets matching fabric for something. Unfortunately for the picture they seated us alphabetically. As Stewart I was the last person in the group so I was in the very back on the right hand side sitting behind the girl with sunglasses.

The people below are my fellow Wolof trainees and the two instructors.  Mine was Haddy Sowe, the woman, and was a force to be reckoned with.  I will cheerfully admit that I was the bottom of the group.  Learning a foreign language at 65 is not very easy.

In the picture below, it is immediately after I received my certificate proclaiming me a Peace Corps volunteer.

And finally, the celebratory plunge in the Atlantic.  Trust me, I went all the way in, but this is the only one that you can tell who I am (the one in the back right)

So now you know that I have not been faking it.  I am really no longer a trainee and am a PCV.