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