Attaya 101

This is Malayan, our day watchman and friend. One rainy Saturday he taught us all how to brew attaya which is very popular in The Gambia. We had drank attaya before during orientation, but did not know how to make it. Simply put attaya is tea, even though the process of making the attaya is more important than the tea itself I'm still going to try and explain it. We have a gas stove here (side note: we don't have an oven so we can't bake goodies :( ) and that is what Malayan is posing with here. There is a tea pot on the stove and he's holding an attaya glass. this is the general set up. People usually brew attaya outside, but since it was raining our lesson was indoors. People will brew attaya along the side of the road or outside their house and anyone who walks by is welcome to join the attaya party.

Brewing attaya is an intense process. You put lots of Chinese Green Tea and a lot of sugar in the tea pot along with water then brew it. This is what it looks like while it's brewing which is pretty gross atually haha but it ends up looking better I promise! As you can see it's not tea bags like most people are used to in the states, but actual tea leaves called warrga here. Gambians add LOTS of sugar. Attaya glasses full. They are known to add a lot of sugar to anything and look at us Americans funny when we only ask for a scoop of sugar in our coffee or no sugar at all.

The more bubbles in the tea the better so you have to pour it from one glass to another (like Malayn is doing here) in order to get the bubbles. Then you pour it back in the pot and brew it some more and then you repeat the process. Like I said it's more about the social aspect so while this long process is going on people (mostly men) sit around the pot and discuss sports or anything in general. 

This is the finishing product! You are supposed to add more water to the pot after the first "batch" of attaya is made to make another "batch" and you're to do this three times. So the first round is stronger and then it gets weaker each time. Depending on how fast people move brewing attaya could take hours. If you want to know more about it click here!

Wait we have to go to school?

So it's not all fun an games here in The Gambia, believe it or not we actually have to go to school and work as well... We registered for classes (which took a whole day) during our orientation period. My schedule is as follows:

Mondays and Thursdays 9:30 to 10: 45 - Sociolinguistics

Mondays and Thursdays 11:00 to 12:15 - Poverty and Development

Wednesdays 12 to 1:30 - Africa in the Diaspora

I'm pretty excited about it. I took Archaeology of the African Diaspora at St. Mary's so I am interested to compare the two courses. In general I'm excited to experience college courses outside of the U.S.

So the week after our two week orientation is when classes "began." I say "began" because things rarely begin on time here and it is a known problem at University of The Gambia (UTG) especially for the first week of classes. So needless to say I went to class Monday, Wednesday and Thursday the first week, but I did not have one single class. There are so many little things that went wrong it's not worth saying them all, but I'll try to list of events to give you an idea of what it was like that first week of school:

1. Fortunately since there are 4 of us going to school Mondays and Thursdays we had a van take us there (it's about 40 minutes away depending on traffic and how fast the driver drives)
2. We went to the International Relations Office so one of the assistants could show us where our classes are
3. There were people everywhere trying to get to class or sitting around. We went to Sociolinguistics first cause 2 of us are taking that class. Another class was in the classroom we were supposed to be in.. 
4. We found the "teachers aid" luckily who had us put our name on a list to say we showed up to our first "class"
5. Since I didn't have class we went to the library to read (the other two students had real class)
6. At 11 we went to find our second class of the day, again there was another class in our classroom
7. So we got to go home early, but it made me worried for the rest of the year
8. On Wednesday there was no sign of the teacher or classroom for Africa in the Diaspora.. We found a very nice staff member to call our professor for us. The professor told her that the school had gotten the schedule wrong. We got his phone number and we called back and forth multiple times. Eventually he decided to stick with the original schedule...
9. Thursday was the same thing as Monday
10. But finally on week 2 I had "normal" classes. It's always up in the air where the classroom will be and I'm still confused as to how the UTG students always know where to go, but I'm catching on to the pattern myself now (it's week 3 already!). You just have to stand outside the classroom it's supposed to be in and wait for the professor or other students to tell you what to do.

Well I hope that wasn't too confusing and you can kind of catch on to what it was like at the beginning. I love all my professors; two males and one female. All three are African but I believe my female professor is form Senegal and the other two form The Gambia. 

The cafeteria at the university is good also and very cheap (about one American dollar for a meal) so thats convenient. And the university is very easy to navigate now that I've been there a few times.

Unfortunately this was a lot of words and not a lot of pictures :( I don't have any photos of the university. But here's the website if you want to know more about it! http://www.unigambia.gm/

Juffure and Kunta Kinteh Island

This is a picture of us on the boat traveling to Kunta Kinteh Island from Berefet!

This is the view of Kunta Kinteh Island (previously known as James Island) from the boat. It's a very small island where slaves were kept before they were shipped off to the Americas. It became famous through Alex Haley's book Roots. It is said that his ancestor, Kunta Kinteh, was kept here before being shipped off to a port in Annapolis, Maryland, USA then sold to a plantation owner from Virginia. This is why it was renamed Kunta Kinteh Island. Roots is also a popular television mini series if you are interested in watching the series or reading the book to find out more about this.

This is part of what is left of the fortifications on the island. After it was used for the slave trade the fort was used as a court house where laws regarding the abolition of slavery were put forth.

This is a small room where slaves who misbehaved would be kept. They'd fit 20 men in this room and give them enough food for only a couple. It was not a pleasant place to be kept. If you'd like more information on Kunta Kinteh Island here is a link to some information provided by UNESCO. The island is very small, but it was a very powerful spot and holds a lot of powerful history.

My friend Sam and I climbed to the top of this tower where there was a beautiful view of the whole island.

 This is one of the first things you see when arriving at Juffure. It is only a few minutes boat ride form Kunta Kinteh Island. It is the town on the mainland where Kunta Kinteh is said to be born. This is an amazing statue erected to signify that slavery shall never happen again.

This is the group outside the Roots Heritage Trail. This is said to be the last trail that slaves walked on Juffure before being taken to Kunta Kinteh Island and then the Americas. It was a long walk past rice fields and river. 

Getting back on the boat was an adventure...

 ...but there was a beautiful sunset over the River Gambia upon our departure. The sunset boat ride was amazing, but we all knew it was imminent that we would eventually be boating in the pitch black. There were no lights on the boat, no civilization for miles and they did not have any navigation tools. I was nervous to say the least, but knew what was coming and tried not to think too hard about it. When the stars starting coming out it was absolutely beautiful. At first there were only a few, but then all of a sudden there were thousands. I couldn't spot a moon anywhere (making it even darker) but for the first time ever I saw the milky way. We were all in awe. It had been a frustrating weekend with not much to do and the boat ride had to be pushed back hour after hour. But this made it all worth it.

Up country in Berefet

 

Berefet is a village up country (about 2 and a half hours up country from Happy Camp). We got to meet the akolo of the village who is the village elder and many other families in the village who were very kind. We also visited the school. Berefet also has an eco village lodge where people can come and stay. They mostly have Peace Corps volunteers and students of archeology stay in the eco village with the very occasional tourist. Our experience at the eco village of Berefet was very interesting. This is a picture of the restaurant/main house of the eco village.

This is what the guest houses in the eco village look like. They had two rooms per house and two beds per room.

This is a close up of one of the houses we stayed in. We were taught how to do the monkey dance by our language and culture teacher Daniel and that's what we're doing in this photo. The dance is you make this pose then squat and repeat the action. We make people do the monkey dance if they do something "bad" (like curse) as a joke. We look pretty crazy tho..

Inside the houses was very different than we're used to. Dirt floors and our bathroom was very bleak. The toilet didn't work and the shower spat at you loudly which was scary, but it's better than a hole in the ground (which happens) and buckets to bathe in. It put Happy Camp in perspective though. We used to always get frustrated when the power was out, but we only had power for an hour a day here plus the other accommodations made us very thankful for Happy Camp. And Berefet is just the beginning so we'll be experiencing other villages that are even less luxurious.

Kaylie and I took a walk to explore around the village. We had a lot of free time during our trip.. Along the way we came across a lot of cute goats and HUGE trees. We even saw some monkeys!

Berefet is just off the River Gambia on a side body of water so it has a beautiful view. We had a lot of free time to explore the small area, but found some good views. From Berefet we took a boat ride to Juffureh and St. James Island!

The Beach!

The first time chance we got we went to the beach. 

Little did we know the first chance we got would be on the rainiest day so far. A few of us still went swimming and the water was like a bath. It was rainy and windy when we got out, but it actually felt really good to be cold! And I would not ever say that in America.. I'm not much for the cold. But here any moment it's cold is a good one. It was the same day as our naming ceremony so getting out of those hot, constraining clothes and into a bathing suit then jumping in the ocean felt like heaven.

The beach we went to is called Lebayto. It's a tourist destination for sure. We sat down for lunch at a resort type of place so it was very nice, but too touristy for my liking. I'd like to find a beach that isn't so touristy. There were a lot of tubabs there. But if we're looking for luxury it's a good place to go.

We played tossed around an American football and played some wiffle ball which was lots of fun. Very American, but lots of fun. 

It was at Lebayto that I fell in love with Gambian beer. It is locally brewed, called Julbrew and only 30 dalasi or about 1 American dollar. This fact just added to my excitement. 1 dollar beer, not bad. Plus it tastes really good. I can already tell I'm going to miss it when I go back home.

The next time we went to the beach it was sunny and beautiful.

We jumped in the water then sat in hammocks with our books. It was heaven on Earth.

Madeleine and I.

This is the view from our hammock. This sunny day we went to the beach was right after our visit to a village up country so we had just experienced a whole other different way of living and were happy to pamper ourselves at the beach. Stay tuned for the story of us at the village!

The Naming Ceremony!

It was a very exciting time for the seven of us when we got our Gambian names! We had a non-traditional naming ceremony (or Ngente) close to 8 days after we arrived in The Gambia. The picture above is of all of us in our Gambian outfits at our naming ceremony posing with the kanyaleng who sing and dance at these events. 

Traditionally a child is named 8 days after birth. Family and friends will gather in the yard outside of the families home on the morning of the 8th day to celebrate the occasion. Food and drink is prepared for the guests. The babies head is shaved and water washed over it's head because the hair it is born with is considered impure in Islam. The father is responsible for naming the child and keeps it secret from everyone until the ceremony where it is announced for the first time. First it is whispered into the child's ear and then it is announced to the family and friends by the griot. Children are almost always named after a family member or close friend of the family who is their namesake or toma. Some of this information I got from my own knowledge of the naming ceremony (I went to a real naming ceremony as well as attending my own mock one), but some information I got from accessgambia.com so click here for further information. 

This is a picture of the group after our naming ceremony with some of the girls tomas 

For the sake of our group our tomas family is the family we consider to be our Gambian family. Typically while studying abroad students may have a host family. You could call our Gambian family our host family, but we do not live with them. We live at Happy Camp so our family doesn't have an extra mouth to feed and so that we have a space of our own. My Gambian name is Angela Jallow. Angela is a Christian name and not a Muslim one so it is less common in The Gambia, but there is a population of Christians in The Gambia (Christmas is celebrated here actually!). Jallow is my surname and surnames are very important in The Gambia because it indicates what is your ethnic background. My ethnic background is Fula and I will come back to this later. My toma is 9 years old and she is the biological daughter of my language and culture teacher Baboucarr. I was pretty excited about this because this means that I am now his daughter and occasionally I call him papa. But it's also nerve-wrecking because he is a strict papa and I think I give him a run for his money. I indicated that she is the biological daughter because the Gambian family structure is much different than what I am used to in America. I know that my parents siblings and their spouses are my aunts and uncles and that their children are my cousins. However, in The Gambia your mothers sisters kids and your fathers brothers kids are also your sisters and brothers. Going along with this, your mothers sister is your mother also and your fathers brother, a father. This is a little confusing I know! A little bit more information on this can be found at this link. It's very cool though because the extended family is of such high importance here. At least in my own Gambian family many members of the family live in one compound. There are kids EVERYWHERE. More about my Gambian family later!

Our naming ceremony took place in Bakau right outside of the crocodile park there. So after our naming ceremony we all went to go pet a crocodile! It felt like what I could only imagine a dinosaur would feel like. Creepy.. but cool.

Then we visited the Bakau cultural museum. It discussed the history of Bakau and different cultural traditions of the ethnic groups there. Here I am posing with a Mandinka mask, the kankurang. It comes out in ceremonies associated with the circumcision of boys. I did a presentation on this mask in a class I had last year and I found it incredibly scary, but now I'm getting used to it. More information on the kankurang can be found here.

On a different note, notice the green decoration on my dress. The tailor did that detail all himself, the actual fabric I bought in a market and showed him the style I wanted. He did such a good job stylistically. The outfits are so beautiful, but it was incredibly hot and uncomfortable because the skirt is so long and the shirt is tight. I hope to get more fabric and choose a different style of dress/pants/shirt next time! I hope I don't embarrass my Americana friends too much when I wear my beautiful African clothes around :)

The Art Village

We took a trip to two of the coolest places on Earth:

We only spent a little while at Mama Africa because the artist was not in, but we did get to see the work displayed. Here is some information on Mama Africa from accessgambia.com but I took the photos there:

'"Mama Africa' Women's Museum & Art Centre was opened in February 2010. The centre was founded and is managed by the celebrated Gambian artist Mrs. Isha Fofana who returned home after spending nearly 10 years operating her German gallery as well as making overseas displays. Her artwork is primarily done on large canvasses using vivid colours and she has painted and had exhibitions in Asia as well as Europe. 

The art gallery displays sculptures, paintings, and installations from artists working in the West Africa sub-region. It is part of a loose, worldwide network of Women’s Museums, initiatives and museums dedicated to women." 

The next place:

One of my favorite places in the world now is The Tunbung Art Village. It is located in the Tujereng Village in Kombo South aka 40 minutes from Happy Camp. I found a good brief description of the village on at accessgambia.com :

"The Tunbung Art Gallery & centre displays the painting works of the locally renowned artist Baboucarr Etu Ndow who also displays fine sculptured works which are discreetly and prominently displayed in various parts of the garden grounds of his work studio. Some are decorated in natural and vibrant colours such as ochre, mustard, bright blue and olive green.

Etu Ndow also runs special educational art workshops for students to encourage them to discover their creative side.

You can even stay at the gallery for a few nights in their purpose build traditional African mud huts in which the facilities are fairly sparse. There is a water from their local well placed in a receptacle, mosquito net over your bed and a lamp fueled by kerosene."

The man above is Baboucarr Etu Ndow. He is an amazing man and this is a manmade well that he himself created. He is so creative!

Etu Ndow is a professional tie dyer. He made the colors in a bucket, adding chemicals to the dye that had a very strong smell and we were told not to breath in but that it would never fade! He taught us some cool techniques to make amazing patterns and all our shirts turned out great. I was so surprised, I had never done a good tie dye before..

See they actually turned out good!

The whole village is incredibly relaxing. You're breathing in natural aromas (besides the tie dye chemicals... but that faded fast), everything is green around you and there is no sign of city life. There is no way anyone could ever be stressed out there. 

I'm not sure if you can tell but there is a chair up there in the tree haha I thought this would be the perfect reading spot. Too bad it was too wet to climb up there! Even though it was raining hard for most of our stay, I still loved it and can't imagine I'd ever wanna leave if I was there on a nice day!

We all hope to go back and stay the night there sometime before the end of our trip! I'd also like to go back to Mama Africa to meet the amazing artist. There's so much we wanna do, I hope it happens tho!

Banjul: A Visit to the Capital

Our next trip was to Banjul which is the capital of The Gambia. We live very close by (about a 15 minute drive), but public transportation here can be difficult so sometimes it could take an hour getting there or back. We had drivers during orientation who would take us all in a van, but otherwise you would take a taxi from Happy Camp (or walk) to the main road in and out of the city, then take a gele gele or a large public transportation van. They'll pack a lot of people into one van and stop along the way to do so. I was talking with a student of UTG on the gele gele to Banjul one day and he said it would be much worse in other parts of West Africa. They'll put people on the roof or hanging out the doors of the vans, but he still didn't appreciate being packed in like sardines and told the driver so. It really isn't so bad sometimes, but other times you'll be on top of each other. They do have regulations to how many people they can put in one vehicle, depending on the size of the van. There will also sometimes be cattle in the road or other obstructions that could cause traffic jams. 

Banjul is located at the mouth of River Gambia and the Atlantic Ocean. This is a picture of the girls at the mouth of the river. One minute you're at the river and the next you're in a crazy market.

The Banjul market was less overwhelming than the Serekunda market, but we were told it's more expensive because it is in the city. I got a free token from a woman. She put a bracelet on me and when I insisted I wasn't interested in buying it she told me "No, this is a gift. You remember me." I felt bad, but I could tell she would find it rude if I refused. She ended up giving two other girls a bracelet as well.

This is called Arch 22. The "Arch 22 was built to commemorate the military takeover of government on 22nd July 1994. It was built in 1996 by the then military government and marks the entrance to the city of Banjul. It was proclaimed a National monument in 2002." This information is from the National Centre for Arts and Culture which is the national museum of The Gambia. We visited that as well and it had a lot of historical information about the different ethnic groups in The Gambia and the history of The Gambia in general. It also had a silversmith that was making beautiful rings. I might have to go back there before the end of my stay... St. Mary's students have worked there in the past for the internships and one student this semester is doing so. 

We made a lot of friends outside of the Arch 22. There were lots of children. Many of the children we come across will yell at us "Hello tubab" and sometimes ask for menti which means candy. 

I held hands with one girl all the way down the street. We had a conversation in English/Olof and she was very nice. There were a couple other girls with her holding hands with other students. We gave them gum after they said they had to go home.

And then I taught another girl how to use my camera right outside the Arch 22. Kids love to ask to either take pictures or have their picture taken and then look at them.

You are allowed to go up the Arch 22. You can take an elevator up or use a spiral staircase that was pretty dark and scary. We opted for adventure and took the staircase. There were some nice vantage points along the way like the one above.

This is the view of the entrance to Banjul from Arch 22.

It was quite a beautiful view from the Arch 22. As you can see there aren't many high points in the city, no skyscrapers or anything overwhelming like that. But a lot of green. And you have The River Gambia in the background. Quite a beautiful city with lots of friendly people. We visited the mayor, Samba Faal, on our way in. He was very very kind to us. He had studied in the US and had St. Mary's students work with him the past. It was a nice visit.

A Market Experience

Our next field trip was to the Serekunda market. This market was significantly bigger because it is not just a craft market, but an anything-you-could-possibly-imagine-and-then-some market.

This is how the market is set up. Really a bunch of shops lined up against one another along a dirt road.

Some parts of the market were more crowded than others, but when it was crowded it was crowded! So many people trying to get you to buy things or just talk to you. It was crazy overwhelming. It is also very very big or at least it seemed that way. The whole thing was a complete maze and I have no idea how I would be able to navigate it by myself (our language and culture teachers were showing us the way), but I hope to be able to one day!

After walking around a while I got this great idea for a great gift for a friend of mine and I told Madeleine about it. Afterwards I was talking to a man outside a shop who was very friendly, he said it was his sisters shop and he asked me where I was from, I told him America and he said he had lived in America before (many of the Gambians we have met have family or friends in the Americas or Europe or have been there themselves for long periods of time). When I told him I was from Maryland he said he had lived there before! I was so surprised he knew of this little state and asked where in Maryland he had lived, but he said he didn't remember. At this point in the conversation Madeleine called my name and told me she found the gift I was looking for! I went down a narrow part of the market where she was and found the perfect gift. The man followed me and told me to go to his shop instead, but the woman who owned the shop Madeleine showed me already had me by the hand. The woman and the man started to fight and then a couple other women shop owners got into involved. I had no idea what they were saying, but they were all very loud, sounded angry and the woman had a good hold on me as if to say I wasn't to go with him. I wanted to go to the mans shop because he had been so nice to m, but then our language and culture teacher Daniel came to help me. He told me the women were saying he doesn't even have a shop and they were telling me I shouldn't go with him. This took me back a little bit and I didn't know what to think. I then had to start bargaining with the woman shop owner. This was my first experience bargaining and I have never been good at it. We were told to start very very low. She asked for 350 dalasi (about 32 dalasi equal 1 dollar) I looked to Daniel for advice, but he shook his head letting me know I was on my own. I offered 100 dalasi thinking this was a good deal, but Daniel shook his head indicating it wasn't. It was too late for me to change my mind now.. We went on for a short while, but eventually she gave it to me for 100 dalasi. I know next time to offer even less than that for a trinket. But every day is a learning experience no matter where you are!

I was still happy with my purchase and am very glad that I had my first experience with Daniel helping me out. He told me that sometimes shop owners have apprentices who help them get customers and the two share the profit. The man who I had been talking to was probably one of those. I understood this and I am prepared now to be cautious of this when I go to the market on my own. Needless to say it was an interesting experience, but I can't wait to go back again and put my new language skills to use as well as my new knowledge of market culture.

The next time we went to the market we had to buy cloth for our naming ceremony outfits (wewill all get Gambian names!). This is a picture of Daniel (the language and culture teacher who helped me in the market before) and in a shop with a bunch of beautiful Gambian material. There are so many different patterns you can choose from and then you take the material to a tailor where there are endless styles you can get it made into! I am so happy with how my naming ceremony outfit turned out and I can't wait to get more! Stay tuned to see!