The American Holidays

Coincide with the end of the rainy season here. That means crops are harvested and there is plenty of food. Temperatures are cooling down enough to cover up at night, and trees are losing their leaves. Its enough to give you some holiday spirit, though the fact that no one else is making any holiday plans means the actual days can sneak up and right by you without ever noticing it.
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving there was a small get together in Basse. I didnt consider going, until the day of when I talked to somebody there and thought about how it might be nice to be with people, eating alot, and enjoying the day like Im used to. So on Thanksgiving day I told my family it was a holiday, and took off on my bike to meet Malcolm for a holiday ride. We took a big loop around the area -one we had done before- a little slower though and talking about home and people we know a little bit more.
By the time Christmas came around I considered taking a vacation to Senegal and completely foregoing the holiday to visit some people from my village who were working there. Im glad I didnt make it though. Selina -whom I came here with and lives an hour down the road- invited me over to her house. She had Malcolm and Alicia, who used to live in our area too, over as well. On Christmas day I met Malcolm on the road and we rode to Selinas in the late afternoon. Her and Alicia were in the backyard getting dinner ready. On her clothesline hung a picture of a Christmas tree, one of a bicycle for me, and one of Black and Mild cigars for Malcolm. We sat outside talking and keeping an eye on the food as the sun went down. Then two of Selinas local friends came over, and she served us all dinner. We had beef, macaroni salad, stuffing and potatos for dinner. Everything was either expensive or imported. I was full after one plate but ate until I had three. Then the six of us laid out on a mat in the backyard talking and looking at the sky.
I really enjoyed Christmas because it was small, but still felt like a holiday because we got together. It was also neat because her host family got to be part of the celebration and wish us all a Merry Christmas without having to do anything out of the ordinary. A few days later a volunteer from Soma called and said he wanted to come visit. I told him to come for the next holiday, New Years, and invited Malcolm and Paige - a close volunteer who lives in Alicias old town- and told them to come over too. I let my family know I wanted to have guests. They were thrilled and showed it by cooking a huge dinner of rice, green sauce and fish for New Years. Then we all sat outside drinking attaya and hot sweetened condensed milk until a couple hours past when we would all normally go to bed. Then me and my guests went in to my hut and sat around on the floor talking until the last of our watches said it was 2015.

 Our Christmas Presents

Selina working on dinner

Fatoto Lumooto

Every Sunday morning I load up my bike and ride about 40 minutes east to the town of Fatoto. Its the last sizable town in Gambia, and every week it hosts a market or lumoo. There are two roads that get me there, one winds through the woods and brings you along the riverside. The other was is due north out of Sami Koto through Garawol, and then a left onto the main highway. The town of Fatoto also has a police department, high school, and a ferry crossing.
On a normal day you can get most things in town which means rice, oil, peanuts, attaya, sugar, batteries, lamps, soap, and maybe some onions. Lumoo days bring mobile phone and radio sellers. Used clothing, fabric and soccer jerseys are available. There is jewelry and makeup, soccer balls, cleats and flip flops. This is also the day to buy iron cookware. Vegetable sellers bring all their produce, and in each corner in town women are selling bananas, beans, and pancettos. Although my list never includes some of these special items, its the only day I go to do my shopping.
Malcolm and I started meeting up here on our first Sunday in the villages. On the first day we were quickly overwhelmed and looked around and left. We went down to the river side and sat for the afternoon. Sitting by the river has become a full day activity in itself, as has being a part of the lumoo. I leave the house early to bike ride, read, write, or call Zabeth while its still early. When I arrive at the lumoo around noon I park my bike at a tailor's- Bakary Camara. Its next to a small shop that serves hot water for coffee. After greeting the tailor and having a snack I move up to the produce to buy peanut butter. I greet most of the women  selling and move on to buy coffee and powdered milk for the week. I always make at least one lap around greeting the people from my village and picking up anything else that comes up.
After the shopping is done I walk up and sit with another tailor I know. Hes in 12th grade and speaks good English and lets me sit inside of his shop for the afternoon. I'll get up when the market starts to shut down around 5. Then reverse my lap saying bye to the produce sellers, then the shop keeper that serves coffee, and on to Bakary before buying tea and sugar to take back to my family from the market. Then I get on my bike and try to ride home in time for dinner.

This van is parked in front if the vegetable stand and is loading up sellers and  their goods to travel back to Basse.

peanut work

 People working behind a peanut stack

My brothers putting peanut stalks on the donkey house

The Peanut Harvest

Is an entire family affair. Up to this point the peanut work has been mostly the women's responsibility, while the millet fields were worked by the men. Each woman in the compound has her own field. After a few weeks of rain, they will go out and begin weeding. Its a lot of work so generally two or three women will team up to work on one field. When it's clear the men lend a hand by driving the plows through before each woman plants. Women then weed their own fields ( or in teams) until the peanuts are big enough to out compete the weeds. The men are doing the same in the millet fields. When everything has outgrown weeds, there is a break in work until it stops raining. Then when it stops,  each woman is responsible for getting her own peanuts out of the ground. Since the millet takes longer to mature, the men will go out together every day and help pull peanuts in one woman's field. It takes 2 or 3 days in each field before all the peanuts are up. They rotate through the fields by age of the women, oldest first. The days when men aren't in a woman's field she will still work pulling more up, stacking them to dry, or sweeping the ground for loose nuts. When all the peanuts are up a woman will stack them in a big donut, then the men will come around and build a big huge mound for them to dry out. The mound is covered with thorns and grass to keep goats and cows out. When its time to work the stack, all the men and women take two sticks that look like canes held backwards and pull peanuts off the top of the stack. They walk backwards beating the pile they pulled down until the ground is a a carpet of peanuts, and the stalks are stacked behind you. The work divides again as women pick up and drop bowls of peanuts letting the wind blow away the pieces of dirt and stalk. The men do the opposite, dropping the stalks to clear out peanuts so that they can carry home a big mound of stalks for the donkeys to eat. It goes until all the nuts are cleaned and bagged. Then the men load up the donkey carts and the women head for home on foot

The Harvest

I have never been part of a harvest before and its that time of year in Sami Koto. About 1 month ago people started pulling peanuts out of the ground, but that was less of a harvest than just another step in processing them. Now that all the peanuts are up the real harvest has started in the millet fields. The millet stands about 8 or 9 feet tall and has been drying out since the last rains well over a month ago. Every morning around 630   all the males leave the compound on the donkey cart. When they arrive at the fields, they walk through and knock down all the stalks they plan to harvest for the day. Our family is working with our neighbors, the Keita's. So all the men spend 2 days working one of their fields, and then 2 days working one of our fields. The work in the field is divided by age. All of us in our 20s and 30s will cut the grains off the stalks. When you fill your non cutting hand up, everyone makes a pile on the ground. Then all the kids will pick it up and carry it through the field to a shade tree. Under the tree is a big tarp made of rice bags. All the grain is stacked there, where the oldest men from each  compound sit on the ground tying all the stalks into bundles. Everyone moves pretty quick at least early in the day. The men are walking and cutting and the boys are almost running to move the grain before it piles up in the field. Though everyone is moving, there is a lot more joking and talking than there was while pulling peanuts. Around noon or one when all the during is done everyone moves under the tree to finish tying. Someone will go tie the donkeys to the carts and walk them over. We load each cart with about 40 bundles, and each day we have around 90 bundles. When all the millet is up, we parade home on the carts, on bikes, and on foot. Everyone arrives home and stacks the bundles on the donkey house to dry in the sun before its put up for the year. Whichever compound gets the harvest that day will serve lunch to all who worked, and everyone rests til tomorrow.

Barnum

On Tuesday evening (dates irrelevant) as I was walking by my dads hut he said to me: Tomorrow, we are going to greet a visitor. He doesn't ask much of me so I said sure, I'll be there. He told me the name of the village and the name of the man hosting the visitor. The host cones by our compound quite often to say hi, so I was happy to be returning the favor. My dad also let me know the guest was from Germany, which I took to mean as a Gambian who had found work in Germany.
I got up extra early Wednesday morning, and made a point to come outside before 7 30 to let my dad know I was up and ready. At 8 he said let's go, so I pulled out my bike as he strapped a chicken across his handlebars to give to his friend. On the way I considered things like do I have enough water, what would I be doing at home right now, and how long do I have to stay. The usual considerations when someone else asks you to do something. I figured none of the answers mattered too much as I could handle anything for one day. When we pulled in, I saw a pair of white legs standing across the compound. I thought oh, I guess the guy from Germany brought a friend too. But as it turned out he WAS the visitor from Germany. He was married to a woman from the village, and it wasn't the first time he had been to visit, as my dad knew his name, Barnum. After they served us breakfast, I sat down with him and talked for almost two hours while my dad waited as a patient observer of the conversation. Its the spot I'm usually in, and had assumed I would be in again. Then my dad gave me the signal, and we departed with an invitation to come back and stay the whole day.

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.