The next two pictures are of his two daughters, Sukai and Mariama. I will leave for you to guess which one's ambition is to be a model in Atlanta. (I know, why Atlanta???)
Next door to me is a family with 6 children. The youngest is Mohammed who enjoys being the baby of the family and is somewhere around 2 by my guess. I can hear him throwing major hissy fits on occasion. Kids seem to be the same every where. The first picture is of him with his tricycle. He enjoys pushing it around and putting his flip flops on the seat to give them a ride, but so far I have never seen him ride it.
The next picture is of Mohammed with his mother, Haddy. When he saw her walk into the compound he dropped everything and went running to mom. As I said, kids are the same everywhere.
The next one is a picture of the two oldest girls in the next door family, Houja on the left and Derok on the right. Derok is my favorite of the kids. When I come in the compound she will take my hand and curtsey. The girl knows how to act in the presence of royalty.
Derok is in the next picture, too, along with her younger sister Isatou. They are on the way to Arabic school which they attend on Saturdays and Sundays. The boards have Arabic on them for the things they are learning. When the board is filled up, theold writing is sanded off and they start anew. As you can see, their heads are covered when they go to Arabic school. I walked by Arabic shool today and there is a lot of repetition going on -- as there is in regular school.
The next pictures are from a night that I came home and found a braiding party going on. The first is Haddy braiding Isatou's hair. Her two older girls had their hair braided in a shop and had little plastic charms braided in. However that had not happened at the time I took the pictures.
The next set are sisterly devotion. In the first Sukai is showing off her model pose again.while she is working on Mariama's hair. In the next picture you can see a little more of how it was done. She had a mass of fake hair and was creating dozens of long braids in Mariama's hair. It took many hours to complete. Note the short shorts she has on. I have never seen her wear them outside the compound but have seen her with the many times inside the compound. Pa appears to be quite religious so I find it interesting that Sukai wears those skimpy shorts and tank tops.
Whie the braiding was going on music was being played. Derok, Mohammed and Baitam decided to bust some moves. Kids (and adults) love to dance here. And they also love to be photgraphed dancing.
The picture below is The Gambian version of South African house protection. This is the common wall that we share with the next door neighbor. He must have been nervous about the front gate being open in our compound because he put big shards of glass all along the top of the wall. It is interesting to watch the cats walk carefully along the top. So far they are all still alive.
You will have to look closely in the picture below, but one day I passed two rats standing on their hind legs fighting each other on my way to work. I stopped to take a picture but someone came along and saw me. I was too embarassed to check to make sure that I got a good picture. But I think you can get idea of the size of them by the trash on the ground around them. Thank goodness we have the 4 cats in my compound. Rodents are not much of a problem. Lizards and roaches, yes, but not rodents.
So that's all for now from the hood. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment from The Gambia.
