Culture

When coming to Gambia I knew the first and only  thing to learn was its culture. We were actually given a book called Gambian culture, and there is a lot of cultural information in the Gambia travel guide. But the hard part is finding the meaning in all those words. Its impossible to know what is written because it was observed at one point in time, and what is written because at every hour of every day it is ingrained in everyone.
One paragraph in the book might mention drinking attaya. It is green tea and sugar brewed over coals, and it is everywhere you go in town. People sitting, drinking attaya and chatting.  You could write a whole book about it. The next paragraph might mention seeing hippos in the river. While that may be a possibility, it involves alot of money for a boat ride to a specific place where you might see one. Hardly as important as attaya.
Now that I have been here for a while, I could probably tell even less about the culture, as the more i learn the more I realize I don't know. Its not what you plan for or anticipate, its the things which just are.
When I went to Japan, I didn't do any real studying on the culture. I had a free pass with Zabeth and her friends who have already done the work of figuring things out there. After three weeks there I felt like I could go back and read the guidebooks, and maybe begin to understand a little bit more. Having a point of reference made watching Mr. Baseball just as insightful as visiting the Imperial Palace.
What has meant the most to me about realizing what culture is- aside from getting three dinner plates on holidays, or smoking cigars indoors in Japan- is realizing my own culture. Sometimes I just want to be inside reading a book for three hours. That doesn't make me a bad person or volunteer, its just part of me and the culture I come from. There's no harm in being myself.