Too close to look back

I came on the site in all earnestness to write a blog about the snow days we have had here lately. When I got to the sign in page, I remember all the memories of Gambia that are here, and my heart speeds up a little. I get signed in, and go to view the blog and scroll down just a bit. I can't help myself and start reading the blogs. And when I reach the end of the scroll bar on the page, I realize one thing. That soon, if I keep writing new blogs, those memories will slowly shift to further in the past. I know in all reality I cannot stop the time passing of that period of our lives, but right now.. I can't push those memories down. A snow blog or whatever it may be will have to come when I am stronger and able to look at my pictures from that experience without crying and when I can go back and read all of my paper journals that I wrote while there. Right now, it feels too close to look back.

Immerging from the past

It happens several times a day in this town. A pause in time for all people present. You first hear it, then, more indicators emerge. Lights flashing, red and white striped gates coming down, long draws on the horn and the signal dinging. And it doesn't matter if this train will make you late for your job, the bus, etc. you are (forced or willingly) thrust into a moment of time that feels like you have gone back into the future. People try to avoid it, racing through the last chance light, riding the side street to get ahead of it or around it. In most cases it is so long you just can't reasonably avoid it. The cars stop, just feet from the enormous machinery clanking along. You stand on the sidewalk thinking how insane it is that you can get this close to something so large, potentially dangerous and awesomely powerful. As you watch the cars go by you, like all of the people stopped, you read the sides. Some say things like, "Molten Sulfur", "Edible or Inedible Tallow", etc. For a moment it crosses your mind what it would be like if the molten sulfur were spread all over the road in front of you and what exactly your escape plan would be for that. The ding dinging of the train warning signal reverberates through the downtown parking garage and the early morning silence contribute to the feeling that the train pushed its way through a time portal, freezing modernity, stopping time, for all to see. About 80 cars, ten minutes and the train completes its pass through that part of town. The last car passes, the dinging stops, and the lights start working again. The cars are off, people are rushing across the road and back to reality. But now your late.

Land of the free

Let me tell you about Bob and Sue. They are my new neighbors. Bob lives directly above my apartment and Sue. Sue lives just beside Bob. (These names have not been fabricated) I don't know why, but Bob coughs a lot and loudly. But Bob and Sue each have a quirkiness that seems to compliment them to each other. In the morning I've heard Sue come out of her apartment and yell to Bob, "Good morning Bob!"
I guess the other day they were having lunch together, Sue was riding her bike down to the nearby local grocer and calls out to Bob, "Do you want anything else? Chips?" Later on that day, "Ok Bob, I'm going, I'll be back around 5." Bob answers back "Ok Sue" I was sitting reading on the outside hallway of my apartment today and heard Sue go from Bob's apartment to hers saying she was going to get something. Bob calls out after her, "You need help?" Sue declines, and as she comes back to Bob's expresses her wishes that her potato salad is good.
The other day, my brother and I were walking around town, kind of wandering and taking turns whenever we felt like it. We turned a corner onto the campus here and saw bicyclists racing around the oval in front of a campus building. We walked further in to investigate and came upon a full fledged bike race. As some of the racers went by, I thought out loud, "It doesn't look like they are taking it too seriously, look, they are wearing long skinny jean shorts" We walked to a side and sat down in the grass amongst families watching the racers. I soon noticed that many of the spectators were also in biking gear of some sort. After a serious looking set of bikers, (all in spandex get ups, clip ons, etc.) there was a cruiser bike race. Everyone laughed good naturedly at them. There were children that were so small they wouldn't come up to my hips, riding in the grass on the tiniest bicycles I've ever seen. It's like if you grown up here you are born with bicycles in your blood. Only in Fort Collins could you wander around on a Sunday and happen upon a bike race.
Being new here I notice the amount of bikers around town. I notice the type of bikers, everyone from moms with tiny children following, to old people on tricycles, to teenagers wearing neon checked vans.
The other night we walked two blocks from our street to a park and listened to a blues band in the company of families with children of all ages, their pets, and every generation in between. The local ice cream shop had a stand, (of course I had to get some) and the kids were dancing in front of the stage.
Today I walked to one of the many nearby parks and saw little boys on the lakeside fishing. A small girl and her two brothers came on their bikes to feed the ducks.
I went out to the grocery store today (fixed my new pannier on my bike, strapped on my helmet and set off)...Three blocks down and there is lighting crashing and thunder. As soon as I spot a building I head towards it. As I set my bike against the wall a mother (pushing a stroller) and her two little girls (who were on bikes) came to the door asking, "Are you hoping its open like us?" We walked in and I instantly realized it was the local performing arts center. They had a gallery of painted fabric from a Coloradoan artist. Impromptu gallery viewing.
There are fountains in the old town area near my apartment. There are blocks of some sort of rock with swirls carved in the tops of them and water comes shooting out and goes from one block to another, sending the water over several feet in an arch to the next block. Children put on their bathing suits and head down to them with their parents. But I think the dogs get the most enjoyment out of them. Trying to bite the water mid-air.
Dogs. Dogs seem to be everywhere. They are their owners companions when sitting in the outside cafe. They are the passengers in front bike baskets with their ears flapping in the wind. They are everywhere, it seems, that people are. This is definitely a dog friendly community.
My point in all of these observations which are especially poignant just coming back from The Gambia is that these people in this town seem to be a different type. It is like the Truman show town, but real. The only thing about it is that I don't think these people realize that not everyone grows up in this sweet, quant, hip, environment. An environment that seems genuinely and wholly focused on raising families and enjoying nature (with their endless bike paths bordering the Cache La Poudre and beyond). These things seem to make everyone nice and happy. And I’m glad for that.

MaBintou

Meet MaBintou,
Better known as Adja.









Ok,... she gets a little camera shy if she is not "ready"


Adja, 16 years old. An entrepreneur. Sells ebbe (Andy's favorite fish type stew) on the road. Likes to wear Western clothing makes great efforts to speak English (when Fatou Matta corrects her English, she says "Well, at least I'm trying!") Has a good way of easily seeing other peoples points-of-view. She is now the "curator" of the family library (its the girls room). She is one of the main cooks for the family, she asked us this weekend to show her how to make cornbread, so Andy and I showed her the Dutch oven style, it went very well.

Me and Adja waiting for the cornbread to cook.








She looks so proud! (Mama our grandma was very excited too!)

Night time at the market

Last night, Andy and I once again embarked on what has become a seasonal tradition. Strolling around the market at night. The scene always fascinates me and last night there was added magic because the moon was so full casting a bright white glow on everything. We usually start off going through one of the dark neighborhood streets before popping up on the main drag. The air is still cool at night and even last night Andy said he wished he had brought his long sleeve shirt. Our feet pushed and propelled us through various depths of sand. "It's like being at the beach everywhere you go!" While walking we cross paths with people out and about and they don't notice the color of our skin. Ahhhh. We are somewhat incognito.
We approach the first street to turn into the dense area of the market. Most shops are closed. Empty wooden skeletons where goods are usually dripping from it line the sidewalks. Goods are carefully placed at the days beginning and removed at night, each and every day. Painted metal doors secured with heavy chains and padlocks. Cats, dogs and some people scour underneath the empty vegetable stands.
As we walk along this section my primary focus is to avoid stepping in the rubbish piles in the gutters. Everything from bits of cloth, rotten vegetables, and sheep horns can be found in the mystery piles.
I glance up as I hop on the curb and see the largest fabric shop in the market still lit. The doors are half closed but through one door I see the piles and piles of every kind and color of fabric. A man behind the counter flips up a long piece of golden fabric making it snap before letting it float back down.

We keep walking.

We round the first bend in the market. This is always the best place to see and hear Brikama’s bats. Mangoes are on the trees so they are in happily making noise, sweeping between the towering mango trees.

The clouds cross over the moon casting shadows on the sheep sleeping on the sidewalk. Their white coats contrast with their chosen sleeping place, the charcoal vendors’ area. During the day about 10 vendors sit spaced out along this sidewalk are with piles of charcoal displayed in front of them. Their children are always the most pitiful looking just because of the charcoal smudges they get all over their bodies as they play near their mothers. Now the sheep will surely have these smudges too.
We approach one stall that has a crowd gathering outside it. They are all staring at a small TV set mounted on the shelves amongst the wares.

We keep walking.

A lone donkey is pushing his nose through a pile of trash in the gutter. Every time I see a donkey I always think the exact situation it is in at that moment makes it seem so melancholy. Eeyore.
We approach the next corner and turn left. There are two tailor shops open. The men busy, bent over their work, their machines zipping along. They often work through the night, especially if there are approaching special occasions. Right next to the tailor shops is a sort of "tailor supply store" with lengths of colorful ribbons hanging from the walls and spools of thread in every color lining its shelves. Turning once again we approach a small taxi car park area, which, like most carparks here, is actually just a stretch of dirt road where all the taxis park and wait for customers. Even at night it is still bustling.

We keep walking.

We approach a friend’s stall to say hello and I grab a small boiled potato and egg from a lady nearby. Vendors along the sidewalk sell things like sandwiches (tapalapa), bananas, peanuts (groundnuts), and right now...cashews! They light their stands using make-shift lanterns made from various things like old plastic bottles with a candle inside keeping it in place with sand. To protect it from the wind they add a little scavenged clear plastic packaging. The glow is cast across their wares sometimes disguising the flaws in their bananas or the bruises on their apples.
Grilled meat vendors are also present. Subsidized chicken, grilled, then topped with a heavy dousing of mustard, mayo, and raw onions, all wrapped up in a foil package, to go.
We stop and buy some of the best and biggest cashews we have had so far this season. We are almost home when Andy contemplates out loud whether or not he should splurge on some fire grilled goat meat. He says, nah, and we pass the vendor. A few meters pass by and he slows down, stops and turns back around, no doubt thinking about his constant pursuit of more protein.
The vendor cuts up a piece of meat on a square of cement bag paper and asks Andy what accoutrement he wants. Jumbo (msg bouillon) ? Canno (hot pepper)? Pobaro (black pepper)? To which Andy says yes to all. The vendor wraps up the package in another piece of brown paper because the grease has made it translucent, twists them both up tight and hands it to a grinning Andy.
One last stop at the bitiki that sells a slightly varied type of bread and we are home.
The compound is quiet and we go inside the house to feast on our fresh market snacks.

Meet Muhammed Lamin

Aka:
Mo Lamin
Age: 6

Baby of the family (and knows it!) Classic rough and tumble boy but also likes affection, has a great grin and likes to be tickled and swung as high as Ansumana (Andy) can throw him and flown like an airplane. When he thinks I’m doing something weird or silly, he has a great way of making a “disapproving” face angling his head down and saying, “Borry, Borry Borry”. (my Gambian name). He really likes food and is adventurous enough to try what things I give him from our own kitchen. (Really likes tortillas). When we are studying he is all about the “high fives” which he says in his language, (translated, says, “Borry, hit my hand!”). Started playing alphabet bingo with the older kids ever since we started playing more than a year ago and he wins often!

Meet Fatou Bintou

Meet Fatou Bintou (Aka: Fa Bin)



7 years old

Introvert, but you can tell what she is thinking because it is written on her face, she scrunches up her face when disapproving. She can also be dramatic when hurt and stubborn. She likes to come over for quiet, alone time and sometimes falls asleep on our floor. It would take a bulldozer to get her up. I have even picked her up to a standing position and she still doesn’t wake up! She likes to come and help me do things like cook, prep materials for teaching or just watch whatever I’m doing.

Alieu

Alieu

11 years old.

Has good male role models, like his father Sanusi and Ansumana (Andy). Looks up to Ansumana greatly and likes to help him and tries to work-out like him. Likes to compare Andy and I to each other (“Ansumana can do 20 pushups how many can you do Borry?”) Is very dedicated to studying and learning to read and tries incredibly hard. Has a great huge grin and likes to kid around.

Back home

We just got back into the city from Dakar today, we had a great time and just wanted to let everyone know we were back in Gambia. It will be nice to sleep in our lumpy bed, wake to the sounds of our compound, and take bucket baths once again! Tomorrow is the Gambia's Independence day,.. I will ask our host family if there is anything they know of that is going on, but right now I don't know of anything. By the end of the week I will post Alieu's bio and maybe if I'm feeling it, a little about our Dakar trip.

Our Gambian Family

Jalika

14 years old.

Pretty much like me. Pretty tom-boyish, likes to pull up her fano (wrap skirt) and run. Strong minded and willed-with attitude to spare. She likes to joke around with Ansumana (Andy). Her nickname for him is “Bread” (because he likes to eat bread all the time). Her nickname for me is “Groundnut” (because I’m always eating peanuts called groundnuts here). We call her “chocolate” (because she likes to eat chocolate on her bread).

Her favorite book is The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. She has been running the library night for a few weeks, she is very good at being in charge and checking for damage in the books.

**Her outfit in these pictures was bought especially for her schools "InterHouse" sports competition. Girls don't normally wear Western style dress, but for some occasions they choose to.
***Next Post: Meet Alieu!

Millet is a staple crop grown here. Here, it is called coos.After it is taken from the field and the first husk is removed it looks like this.

This is the form I found it in when I bought it in the market. I decided I would try to make pancakes with the flour from it. We had them at the place we stayed in when we were in Mali and I really liked them. Even though I don't have a recipe to go by I am just going to wing it. So, Friday I got this home and asked Jalika, what do I do with it now? And in Mandinka and some English I got to where I had a little more than a clue on what to do. We washed it a couple of times and then she told me to let it sit and then we will pound it in the mortar and pestle. I was thinking, I want make these pancakes on Saturday morning....How long is this going to take? How long to I let it soak? Won’t pounding it when its wet not be effective? Ndea (our host mom) came over to explain it again.....ok, I think I understand but I still don’t think I will be able to make pancakes in the morning....But to be more clear I went to ask the better English speaker FatouMata to explain it to me in again!I let a portion of the millet in the bowl over night to soak after washing it a few times. And high on uncertainty I went to bed. In the morning, I woke up and got started on it right away. I poured off the water and tried to start pounding it in the mortar....And soon enough everyone in the compound had their ears pricking up, thinking, what is that? Is that Borry pounding?! And I had a whole slew of Gambian women in the house. Needless to say, I wasn’t doing it right and they just kept asking why I hadn’t taken it to the mill?

Come to find out I needed to let it dry before I pounded it. So I had to put it in the sun for a while and then later in the early evening I started pounding it. After my arm was aching I put it through a sifter (locally made from bamboo and window screen).

After moving it around the surface of the sifter I got it to where only larger pieces of the millet were on the top of the screen. I looked underneath in my bowl and I have only a few dustings of coos powder (or flour).
The portion that was left on the top I put back into the mortar and wailed on it again. I went through this routine about ten more times. I looked in my bowl and I now have about a….. cup of coos powder....
I was just thinking Geesh, this is a lot of work for pancakes! But I also couldn't help feeling very proud and excited that I did the process. And I went out to find Andy to show him proudly our bounty.
Maybe tomorrow I will get to make pancakes...
Maybe tomorrow I will send Alhagie to get the rest of my millet ground in the machine!

Inaguration Day

This guy is really nice, he owns the "Barack Obama Stationary and Bookshop" it is on our way to the college.
Above, here he is, making an "O" with his fingers for Obama

Yelling to his friend across the street, "hold on a minute I'm taking a picture!"

Yesterday a group of PC volunteers gathered at a place in Brikama that has satellite tv and watched the inauguration, it was great. Every time I see something like that on television now, (which isn’t that often, but the other week Andy downloaded the college championship football game to watch) I find myself hardly paying attention to whats on the screen, but focusing my attention on the amazing orchestration of organization that America represents. I just think of it in relation to, if that many Gambians were assembled in one place it would be sheer anarchy and chaos. Considering that grown men elbow and push pregnant women, grandmothers, children, to get a place in a gelley, I would not even consider attending such an event in those contexts. hehe.

So, last weekend, some friends of ours invited us down to go camping near their village. We woke up Saturday morning and just before lunch hopped on our trusty PC issue bikes and rode about an hour to our friends house. They had prepped a set of delicious snacks for us, employing the use of their own solar cooker, and we rode out about ten minutes from their house to the camp site.
The camp site is actually just a spot their host father has of empty land, near the river. It is close but you can't get too close because of the mangroves. There was a slight elevation and you could see across the water to the Barra Ferry in Banjul. Andy brought his binochulars and we got to check out some monkeys near the mangroves and look across the water.
Our sleeping accomodations were simple, but nice. Because it is chilly, sometimes verging on cold, to us here, (70 degrees!) we brought a heavy blanket to keep warm. We put a plastic woven mat, (used here for everything, praying, sitting, sleeping, etc.) and strung up a large mosquito net underneath a cashew tree.
When it started to get dark, we started a fire and did the thing that people do when they sit around fires.......
Stare into them, and sometimes talk. hehe.
Sometimes villagers would walk by on their way home from watering and tending their gardens nearby and they would greet us and question us, "Your going to sleep out here? why?! " It is funny, because even though they live in a place that most westerners would consider "a little scary" all the time, they think it is crazy to sleep out in the bush and that a bad elf, or something will come get you at night if you sleep outside. This is why often times, even on the most sweltering nights, people don't just don't do it.
Well, the only thing that bothered us over night was the full moon shining in our eyes and the blowing winds. I pulled my bandana over my eyes and Andy used my headwrap to cover his. The winds woke up our fire that wasn't quite out and Andy and I got up in the middle of the night to put it out and went back to sleep again. When we finally woke up it was a beautiful morning near the river.
We rode back to our friends house, and they treated us to homemade pancakes, and some fresh roasted and ground coffee.
The coffee was a myth come true. Because as people who have been here, or anywhere in W. Africa, know, typically the only option for coffee is the dreaded, Nescafe! So, a volunteer discovered that there were actually coffee beans in the unroasted form sometimes found in the market, but you had to really search it down and ask around. Our friends that had us over did just that, and after going all over our local Brikama market, found them when a little boy took them to a particular stand. They bought a kilo or so and roasted and ground it.
Overall it was a nice time. Still to come later family pics and bio....

Going Camping

I hope you all enjoyed reading Andy's great blog about our trip to Guinea, I won't even try to top that... so moving on.
We have been busy doing the same activities with work, except now that the second term in school has started it is getting a little bit scary thinking about how short our time is here. Between being stressed about finding a job and leaving our family and friends here we do find times to be really excited and visualize our future plans back in the states.
This weekend, I am really happy to be going camping out by the river with another PC couple. It will be a nice chance to relax. We miss camping a lot!
I am planning on doing a sort of picture and bio of some of the people in our compound. This may help you connect the stories and blogs with the people in our daily life here.
Have a good weekend