What Better Place Than Here, What Better Time Than Now?: January 2011

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Pictures from January (continued)

Our village is sponsored by a “sister village” in Wales that sends our village all sorts of stuff and sends representatives for a visit once a year. They also pay the school fees for all the kids in village and have contributed significantly to a skill center here. Good stuff! The Welsh representatives came with a huge container of stuff and a tractor last week, so our village had a big party welcoming them. Here are some pictures from the party:

Getting ready to unload the container. Did I mention they brought a tractor? Very exciting.

Unloading the container

Look...a workbench!

Count on the small boys to always be in on the action

Jacob and Wuyay, who worked his butt off to get ready for this donor visit

Sonka and Jacob

Hawa/Adama (I can never keep the twins straight) and a friend in their school uniforms for sponsorship pictures

Umie and me

Umie and Jacob

A few of my favorites

Punk hair braiding!

Front shot

Sarjo showing off her new completo Umie made her at the skill center. I told Umie I want a matching one my size!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Pictures from January

An old woman at Fatou's grandmother's 40 Day Charity (like a funeral)

A slightly crazed looking Aja with a less than pleased looking SeedyBuloo and Mohammed

Jeneba and baby Muddy

Me and Jacob with Mohammed and SeedyBuloo

Believe it or not, getting in line like this was their idea. Well, except Mohammed refused to stand in his place at the end of the line. I guess he doesn't like being the shortest :-)

Ida and Ramo

Mariama with Hawa and Adama and Aminata. As usual, Hawa is crying because she is still terrified of me, even after all this time.

Hawa...seriously...I don't bite!!

Mike, the only dog in the village that is treated remotely like an American pet. Since his family actually feeds him, he's twice the size of most of the other dogs. Go figure.

Caught you! Fatou checking herself out in a rear-view mirror.

Ramo brewing attaya. You see a LOT of this here!

Kaddy. Love this girl!

The small boy army in Fatou's compound

Hawa wanted me to take a picture of her pounding rice for some reason. Too bad my camera couldn't keep up with the speed of her pounder!

Hawa sitting pretty

Mariama making porridge for her husband for dinner

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Marriage Practices (written December 31)

Early this morning I was doing laundry in the back yard when I heard my friend Bundung calling my name. I went out front to see what she wanted and found her red and teary eyed. Choking back tears, she explained that she was leaving for Casamance (the part of Senegal south of the Gambia), immediately. After asking a few questions, I learned out that her husband-to-be's brother came to collect her. He arrived last night and they left early this morning to make it back home before night. So he whisked Bundung away and now she is gone. No one knows if or when she will be able to come back to see her family and friends, as that will be decided by her husband and his mother. She has never met her new husband or his family and I doubt she has ever been as far as Kombo (the urban area around the capital of The Gambia), much less Cassamance. Her new husband apparently spent some time in “toubabadou” (white man land) though, so he most likely has money, making it a "good match" for her.

Now, I didn't even know Bundung was getting married, and she's only 16 or 17 years old, so, as you might imagine, this all came as quite a shock. I tried to ask her how much warning she had of this impending crisis (if any), but even with assistance, the message didn't compute. I realized later why. It's irrelevant. Everything from circumcision ceremonies to religious holidays to trips to visit friends or family is announced at the last minute here. The concept of having more than a few hours to prepare, either physically or mentally, just doesn't exist. When it's time, you drop everything and switch gears. Why should a new wife being taken away to her husband's family be any different?

Arranged marriages and the practice of new (and often very young) wives being taken away to live with their new husband's families are far from unique to The Gambia. Looking back at history, as well as at modern marriage practices around the world, what we consider “normal” is, in fact, very much the exception. Young women in our culture are incredibly fortunate to have the control we do over our own futures and we shouldn't for a minute take it for granted.