After briefly meeting our host family, we spent most of Sunday afternoon unpacking, organizing our house, and doing our best to quell periodic bouts of intense nervousness/overwhelmedness. This is where we will be spending the next two years of our lives - that is an intimidating thought. Our trainers emphasized throughout our time in our training village that it was essentially a dry run - that it was a safe place to make mistakes...all that is over now. No pressure, right?
Monday morning we finished up unpacking and going through the items the previous volunteer left for us. We feel incredibly lucky that our house came fully furnished! The trainees in our group who are not replacing past volunteers are not as fortunate and have to start from scratch. Our new house is very nice and even has electricity and a mini fridge! Here are a few pictures:
Front room
Bed (in the back room)
Other side of the back room
Rice bag lower ceiling
Back yard/pit latrine
Monday we emerged from our house around 9am, hoping breakfast would be ready, and were immediately told in rapid-fire Mandinka that we needed to go to the center of the village "saaying saaying" (now, now). A few minutes later, after a confusing exchange that shed no light on what was going on, we were trailing behind several members of our compound twisting and turning along the narrow sand paths of the village. After 10-15 minutes, we arrived at a compound and were told to sit on the front porch. Over the next 30-45 minutes, a large number of magnificently dressed people arrived and greeted us profusely. At some point it became clear that the men were sitting on the right side and the women were sitting on the left. Jacob was moved over to the men's side by a friendly English-speaking gentleman who proceeded to explain to Jacob what was going on (out of earshot for me, of course).
Shortly after Jacob moved, people started passing small amounts sof money up to the front of the crowd via children. not knowing this would be occurring, I had no money on me. Uncomfortably, I tried several times to catch Jacob's eye to make sure he was giving money for both of us. At some point during all of this, I realized this was the type of ceremony where women must cover their heads. As discreetly as possible, I retied my small hair tie to cover as much of my head as I could, but I knew it wasn't enough. thankfully, someone passed me a shawl a few minutes later and helped me arrange it correctly after I did it wrong the first time. After what seemed like an eternity, as if on a cue, the group started praying. After the prayers concluded, several young men started distributing handfuls of a pounded rice and sugar mixture that is commonly eaten at ceremonies. Once the distribution was completed, everyone greeted us again and the group dispersed.
Just as I finally made my way over to Jacob, we were introduced to the alkolo (village chief), who is also our host father. He spoke good English and explained that the ceremony we had just witnessed was part of the celebration of the Islamic new year and had nothing to do with our arrival. Our host father took us back to our compound and offered to take us around to meet important people in the village, which we gladly accepted. One of the perks of having the alkolo as your host father! He took us to meet the Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA), the head of the Village Development Committee (VDC), the Immam (religious leader), and a retired Community Health Nurse (CHN) who is good friends with our Peace Corps program director. They were all very welcoming and happy to meet us. Once we returned to our compound and ate lunch, our Peace Corps trainer arrived to help us settle in. He helped us explain to our host father that we needed to meet many more people still, so he called a meeting for the following evening so we could meet all the key people in the same place. Our trainer also arranged a trip to several nearby villages for the following day.
Tuesday morning, a Peace Corps car arrived and took us to visit the closest police station, the Department of Community Development, the Rural Development Institute, and the closest ferry crossing to get to the north bank of the river. When we got back, we met with a carpenter to negotiate some work, then our host father took us to meet the district chief and see the village skill centeer. When we returned to our compound, it was time to start gathering for the meeting. True to Gambian culture, people trickled in over the course of an hour and the meeting started about an hour late, but it was quite successful and a great opportunity for us to meet many more important and influential people in the village. After the meeting, a facilitator from the skill center took us back to skill center again, where we met sever more of their staff who were hard at work (in the dark!) on a new building and bathroom in anticipation of an upcoming donor visit. We will be returning to our village in two weeks and we are hoping we will get there in time to meet the donor representatives.
We went to bed last night quite pleased that we had already completed the long list of assignments Peace Corps gave us for our site visit (mainly a list of of people to meet). Today we are relaxing, doing some laundry, and preparing for our departure to Kombo (near the capital) tomorrow morning. All in all, it has been an incredibly productive and successful visit and we can truly say we are looking forward to spending two years here :-)
Some of our new host family...our awesome host mother, Fatoumata, her younger sister Joni, and a few of kids - another Fatoumata, Isa, and Sidi
Joni
Jacob with baby Lamin fast asleep (and not scared anymore!)
2 comments:
OMG! I can't imagine what it felt like initially when you were dropped off and realized -- this is it! This is your new home, your real village and you're alone -- just the two of you to make of this experience what you will. Thank goodness you have each other to steady your nerves. Hopefully, one of you will be calm whenever the other is temporarily getting that awful pit in the stomach!
Dad loved the photo of Jacob holding a sleeping baby. You looked as relaxed as the baby, Jacob.
The house looks really nice. We're amazed you have a real floor. The furniture is pretty and the dropped ceiling both looks better than corrugated metal and should keep some of the heat out during the summer months. The bed net is also much bigger than I realized. It is like sleeping in a canopy bed with sides!
Your photos are wonderful. It is particularly nice to see the members of your host family.
Dad wonders whether the word "toubab" comes from the Arabic word "tabib" which means "knowledgeable person" or "doctor." "Tabib" is used in French for "doctor." Wikipedia also suggests it might come from the Wolof word for "convert" since the early white doctors and missionaries during colonial times tried convert people.
Your description of your feelings about the New Year ceremony was vivid. I got a real sense of how you must have felt. You're both having so many new experiences that are undoubtedly initially difficult to understand.
I had one thought about your comments regarding arts and crafts. I remember growing up in Miami watching immigrants from the Caribbean weaving palm fronds (single leaves from coconut trees, not the entire branch) into baskets of all sizes, bags (i.e., pocketbooks) and sun hats. I'm not sure if the products were waterproofed or oiled to help with maintenance, but I thought this might be of interest to you.
Thanks for writing all these blogs and posting the photos. We really get a better sense of your lives there.
Debbie,
So glad to hear you're enjoying our postings! It's really challenging to try to capture this experience in words/pictures, so it's encouraging to hear we're having some level of success at it.
RE the rice bag ceiling, it's fun to look at, but unfortunately it does a very good job of trapping hot air during the day and letting it slowly sink down into the house as it cools off into the evening. Luckily we have plenty of time before the next hot season to explore solutions.
RE the word "toubab," we have no idea where the word came from, but all of Walter's suggestions seem possible.
Finally, RE the palm frond weaving, it's a good idea and definitely one we will keep in mind. Gambians make bee hives from palm fronds and grasses, and we already were thinking about the possibility of using the technique to make baskets.
I hope all is well stateside!
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