In New York

In Sami Koto just about every compound has at least one person who lives abroad. Most people live in Europe, but a few have come to North America. A few times those people even came home and I got to speak English with them and hear about their life and experience. When it came time to leave Sami Koto I went around collecting people's numbers so that I could stay in touch. One number I got was my good friend Ensa's uncle: Sanna Kanuteh. He has been in New York City for 20 years. He had a twin brother who came over first, but he passed away about ten years ago. Since coming over Sanna hasn't been back to Gambia. I was really good friend with all of the people at his compound, although since he hasn't been there in twenty years it's not really the same compound he left. After spending two years getting to know his old family, I was really excited for the chance to meet him and tell him all about it. I left Gambia on Wednesday, December 9th, and called him the day after arriving in New York City. He told me exactly which subway stop to get off at, right on the edge of little Senegal in Harlem. I got all ready, and took the train to the spot he told me. I came up, and couldn't find him. I walked around for about 20 minutes, and decided that I  would only spend another few minutes looking for him before going back to my room at the YMCA. As I walked the streets, I looked over and saw his name in big letters on the front of a booth in an African goods market that I somehow had overlooked before. (Below)

Then I walked in, walked up to him, and we just greeted each other for about 30 minutes. He got out his phone and called home, and told everybody in his compound that I was there visiting him. It was late on Sunday night, but we walked around the craft market and he introduced me to all of his friends there. We talked for another few minutes before I said goodbye, and started to make my own way back home.

Bitiks

The local shops within a village are called Bitik's. I think this comes from the French word Boutique. They are small rooms usually on the end of a compound, run by a main shopkeeper with a little help from others in the family. The goods you can purchase are pretty standard from bitik to bitik. The most popular things bought are tea and sugar for brewing attaya, oil and seasoning for dinner, biscuits or hard candy for little kids, and cigarettes. Other luxury items sold are batteries, candles, canned milk, soap, and incense.  Not all goods are available at all times from all bitik's so a trip out for sugar and tea is liable to lead you to each of the three shops comparing varieties, prices, and quantity. It's not really too big of a problem for an adult though, because when you need something you just call a little kid over and give him or her the money to go to the shop for you. This is actually referred to as sending a "small boy." Nothing is bought in excess and saved at home, so whenever a slight desire arises to have something from the shop, a kid is called over and sent out. They come back with the goods and the change, or another small boy is sent out to investigate.

Newly built shop. It started out with this guy- Lamin Fatty- just sitting on the road and selling things off of a table. It's run and tended by Lamin with guidance and construction from his father Musa. It's going places!

This is Siaka Fatty's. His dad ran it for a long time but he is now too old to work. It's the biggest, oldest, and most reliable shop but clear on the far side of town.

This is Forday Danpha's shop. It is the closest shop but he works quite a bit out in the bush and his supply sometimes runs a little low, but sometimes he has bread.

Our Gambian Wedding

Dillon and my recognized union as partners in the form of a Gambian wedding has been 8 years in the making, felt right, and was nice while not having to confront a fear of legalized U.S. marriage. It was also slightly pushed on us from Dillon's Gambian family because they wanted to have an excuse for a party and to have their beloved Dillon married under the eyes of the village. The first step we took was finding wedding fabric we could agree on, and getting fitted at a tailor. Next, Dillon and I made a list of needed items to feed people for 2-3 days: compound residents, guests, village visitors. I would have been stressed, but we just  arranged a donkey cart to meet us in the nearest town, Garawol, to haul the goods back to Sami Koto: Palm oil, rice, mayonnaise, tea (attaya), sugar, evaporated milk, produce, huge tub of peanut butter, and some matching head wraps for the family. We also arranged with his host father to have a resident goat be slaughtered for the event, of which I watched in the main courtyard. The food was really good, and the women worked really hard in the heat of the day cooking all this food over a fire.

Dillon also had a meeting with his family about Mandinka wedding rituals and which one's we felt comfortable with. One tradition is where the bride is taken into the bush and washed by an elder and told the village secrets. This would have been super cool, however, I can't understand a lick of Mandinka and they would not allow any non village women translators to come with me. And I wasn't sure all what "washing" entailed. The second one is where the bride has to stay in her hut for a week after the wedding. After Dillon and I visited two other Gambian brides, I decided this wasn't my cup of tea. It was so hot, the brides were exhausted from guests in their room, and I was already going out on a limb here.

Slowly Dillon's friends, of whom I became really close to, started arriving to Sami Koto. The first day three Peace Corps lady friends showed up to help me during the time when I was to be alone with village women (Dillon and I weren't supposed to see each other) by translating, and helping me figure out what the hell is going on. The first day we all dyed our feet in -Dillon’s sister- Seedah's hut with henna dye. It was really cool looking! Then once it cooled off enough all the women got together and started drumming and dancing! Dill and I were still not supposed to see each other, so we slept separately that night. At  2am, I could hear music, so a few of us wandered to the center of the village where two other brides were sitting and watching a bush monster dance.. It was really bizarre, but also also quite beautiful. The next day was the actual marriage, I didn’t know of any plan or organizing of the event, things just happened when they did and not in any specific order. Me and my cohorts were ushered into the middle of the compound where Seedah braided my hair. She is the best in town. I think it was really hard for her because of the obvious difference in hair texture and it was her first time working with my hair type. After a few hours, I was rushed off with a bunch of Gambian women and Dillon’s mom's to a random compound. It was funny because I could tell they wanted to be careful with me and weren't sure how to go about changing me into my wedding clothes. They put on my skirt, shirt, (Dill's mom sewed for me) put jewelery on me and then as a final touch covered my head with a hot, thick material. The fabric was really nice, but also turned my skin blue, so we joked about my similarity to an avatar. I met the two other brides outside, and as a huge group of women we walked to all the compounds in the village. We would go to each man in the compound, usually the grandfathers, and would bow to them. They would give each bride 5 to 10 dalasai (money). This whole time I was tripping, holding on to the woman next to me because I can hardly see under the head garb. Then, to my surprise I am led to another compound where there are a bunch of curious on-lookers waiting to greet me, the other brides, and to get a look at the other American guests. This time period is traditionally when the grooms are to search the village, like an easter egg hunt, for their bride. Haha but this message was not relayed to my groom. I sat there with my good friends Beth, Alyssa, Lizzie, and Paige laughing and kind of sighing in relief that nothing crazy happened. The last part of the wedding was actually meeting up with Dillon. We all walked back to Dill's compound and met him, but first, I had to "bow" to all the father's and mother's of the compound. Everything is kind of a blur after that, but I do remember a lot of of guests, I mean a lot, came to our hut to congratulate us and then a day or two after Dillon and I made our rounds to the New and Old Sami in our wedding garb. People were really nice and wanted to talk to us and also were generous by giving us bags of peanuts, and money. 

The rest of the time that I was in Gambia, I always wore my wedding necklaces and noticed I was treated differently. Women would randomly grab and admire them, calling out MANYO (bride), and I think people just appreciated that we respected their marriage traditions. Our Gambian honey moon was spent appreciating Gambia's own Stone Circles - Wasu, visiting PC friend's villages, getting a 101 african beekeeping lesson at BeeCause, and lastly spending a few days at an eco-resort called Sandele! 

the Town Weeding

All the men weeding the town, just in front of our compound.


During the dry season, all of the unmarried men and women meet every Thursday morning to sweep the town. Its called Sate Fito- or town sweep. They tackle all the main streets, and a few side ones. The trash and leaves they sweep up will eventually blow back in by the time the next week rolls around, but thats okay. After breakfast someone will go through town with a whistle that notifies everybody to meet in the center of town and start work. The men carry rakes, and the women bring brooms, dustpans, and buckets to put the trash in. The men go first and rake everything into piles, then the women come behind, sweep up the piles and take them out of town. Since the rain started, all of the work has been on the farm, so no one was around and the tradition kind of dies down for a while. With the rains though, also come alot of weeds. So the edges of all the paths in town were grown over in grass. After all the fields are plowed, planted, and then weeded there is a little break from farming while plants mature and people gather their strength for the harvest. It also is a little time to catch back up on town chores. On this day all the men, married or not, went through the whole town weeding. Sate Baro it was called. It was the week before Tobaski, the biggest holiday here. We had a fresh town to celebrate on. Our compound is at the far end of town, once people reach our door they are done for the day. Consequently, the job is not always super thorough, but the town looks nice.

A New Roof

The old roof coming off

 My brother and uncle unrolling grass

The roof almost done

What it looked like inside

Just before the rainy season my dad had my brothers put a new roof on my hut. The old one seemed to me to be working just fine, but everyone who came over would mention that it was old and should be replaced. There was only one spot where water came in, but every time I left, lots of dust and stray grass would fall down on the floor. The roof is made from a thick, long grass. Its not the nice soft stuff that grows around town. It comes from the swamp and is pretty thick. After the harvest and rainy season are over, people will pass by the swamp as often as possible to cut a donkey cart full of grass and bring it home. They leave it out for a while, and then they start tying it together by braiding a long peice of bark through a handful of grass at a time. When they finish the grass lays out like a long rug, and then it gets rolled up and put on top of the donkey house until its reasy to be used. All of the thatched roof huts have to be replaced every few years, and there are a few others in my compound that seem worse off than mine. The rains werent very heavy last year, and so there wasnt as much grass available this year. Since Im the guest I got the new roof, while  others just got some patches. My unle and brother began by climbing up to the very top of my roof, then  they just start rolling the sheets of grass off and throwing it down. On the ground my uncles kids and my other brother roll it back up, and carry it off to use for something else. They peeled it all the way down the last few layers, and then they knocked the frames all over with a hammer to knock off all the termites and dust. Then one by one a fresh roll of grass gets thrown up and rolled out, until it reaches the top. The top point is then tied together and bound either with a bottomless bowl, or old tire. The alternative to these grass roofs is corrugate. The corrugate buildings get really hot during the day in the hot season, and I wondered why anybbody would want one. After seeing all the work it takes to replace a grass roof though, I understand.

Killer Goats

The above goats are muzzled and tied to the fence. They are muzzled with plastic cups, that have holes punched in each side and a string tied through the holes. They look kind of like the oxygen masks that are supposed to drop down on you in an airplane cabin. Most of the time all the masks are hanging in the women´s huts. When the women head to their oeanut field in the morning, they will take all their goats with them. They tie them up with these masks though to keep them from eating peanuts, corn, and millet as they make their way out to the field. Once they get out to the field they will tie them up near a patch of green grass and take the mask off, letting the sheep or goats graze while the women work in the field. During the dry season all of the animals are left to their own devices. When they wake up in the morning they all leave, and return slowly in the evening. The only help they get is a bucket of water when they get home, or congregate near the well. Once the crops are planted and start to come up, a village law goes into effect that all animals have to be tied up. If you find someone elses animal ranging free, you are suposed to corral them and take them to the alkalo (village mayor). The owner has to pay 25Dalasi to collect the animal. It seems to me most people avoid this fine and take the animal straight to the owner. There they often yell at the owner and tell them that next time its staright to the alkalo.

Tida's New Baby

While Zabeth and I were gone for some errands and a weekend in Basse a new baby was born in our compound. It is my dad’s son Sinjang Sanuwo and his wife Tida Fatty’s second baby. The first is a stout little girl about three years old named Fatou. Sinjang is actually not home right now. He came for last year’s rainy season, and then after the work was done returned to Senegal to work in a town called Kaolack. We came back from Basse on Saturday June 13^th, and the baby had arrived early that morning. It was a baby boy, born in our compound in the hut almost right across from mine. When a baby is born here it is not named right away. It is just called new boy, or new girl. Most people that come by and see it will also call it ugly and tell the mom to throw it away. It’s a superstition that if the baby is cherished or complimented that it will be taken away, so no one is offended by the back handed compliments. For one week the baby won’t have a name and the mother will sit in the room with the baby without leaving. During that week people are coming by to greet and hold the baby and check on the new mom. I personally liked to go and hold the baby after dinner and relaxing, the last thing before going in for the night. On the one week anniversary of the birth, there will be a naming ceremony which is a nice one day party. The elders come over and shave off all the baby’s hair and then it’s got a name. Since Tida’s new baby was born right before Ramadan and his naming ceremony fell during the fast,  the party would have been kind of subdued. So it is delayed until Sinjang comes home and the fast is over.  It still gets a name though and Tida still got dressed up to walk around the compound and village, introducing people to her new son Musa.

 Zabeth and I holding Musa, and Tida standing behind Fatou

Paige, my neighbor in Garawol came down to see the baby

 The baby, Musa Sanuwo