Tobaski - spending a holiday in The Gambia

Friday October 26 was Tobaski (or Eid al-Adha in Arabic). It is a Muslim holiday celebrated throughout Gambia by praying, slaughtering a ram, eating a lot of food, wearing new clothing, visiting friends and family and receiving/giving gifts. The day before Tobaski

According to accessgambia.com :

The occasion of Tabaski is in commemoration of Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his own son, Ismail, in the name of Allah. It coincides with the end of the annual Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca.

 The day before Tobaski I spent with my Gambian family. There were no classes Thursday through the following Monday so a few of us decided to spend it with our families. Luckily my family lives in Bakau which is usually a half an hour walk from Happy Camp. Madeline, Austin and I share the same family compound, but we are in different nuclear families. Kyle came with us Thursday to hang out! On Thursday Madeleine and I helped my sister Adama cook benachin (tomatoe and spices based sauce), while Austin and Kyle helped Austin's mom cook domado (which is a peanut-based sauce, yummy!) because we're all curious about how to make Gambian dishes.

Here is Adama in our cooking station. A pot over a fire in a little area with a roof so it gets super smokey!

I helped pound together some spices! It's one of my favorite things to do to help out. Obviously I enjoy it a lot..

I helped clean the dishes too! It was a hot day and Adama put me to work, but it was such a great bonding experience.

This is the finished product. It's called fish benachin. Its rice cooked with a lot of spices and tomato paste topped with fried fish and vegetables. They eat out of community bowls so that's what is shown here. It was very tasty!

When I wasn't helping Adama cook I was taking pictures and hanging out with other family members:

Here is my Gambian mother with my little sister, Bintou! Yaay didn't want me to take her picture because she said she looked ugly (she had been working hard all day cleaning her house for Tobaski) but I disagree!

Here is my papa hard at work. Everyone in the compound was doing something to prepare for Tobaski.

This is Mariyama, she is so sassy. She looks very angry in this picture but she's actually a very friendly girl who always gives Madeleine and I hugs when we come to visit.

Some of my many cousins! I don't know all of their names cause there are so many kids, but I know the boys name is Ablie.

Kumba and a week day old baby. Children of any age can hold and take care of babies. Even if the baby is only a week old...

The kids love getting their picture taken!

Needless to say I love my family! The kids can get a little tiring, but then I just go hang out with Adama and other people who are closer to my age. Everyone is so friendly and they really make me feel like I'm a part of the family.

Now we're onto actual Tobaski day! I spent Friday with my family as well (along with Austin and Madeleine of course plus our friend from Canada, Brett, who knows my Gambian father) it was a lot of fun.

Here is the ram that my family slaughtered. I came too late to see it killed (which I'm kind of happy about) but that means I also missed going to the praying ground. In the morning on Tobaski (around 8:30/9) everyone in the area goes to a praying ground and prays. Most of the women in my compound stayed behind to cook and prepare for the days festivities so Madeleine and I chose to come to the compound around 10.

My cousin did my hair in braids! My scalp is so white haha I just wanted a few, I didn't get my whole head done. I want to get my hair braided again, but I'm not sure if I'd ever get my whole head done! We'll see..

The kids were mischievous all day. Fun fact: a "sigh sigh" (that's how you pronounce it, not sure how you spell it in wolof) is someone who is a rascal. It's very popular here to call someone a sigh sigh if they're being silly. Almost all the kids in my compound are sigh sighs...

Yup that is a bowl full of bloody ram meat that I helped clean... So much fun!

So salibo is something you get on/around Tobaski. It's a gift of candy or money from relatives. Usually kids  14 and younger go around asking different compounds of friends and/or families for salibo the night of Tobaski. This is the group of girls that I walked around with for salibo. This is when everyone gets dressed up in their fancy Tobaski outfits and walks around. It was an interesting experience. The first compound we went to I gave out candy and small change to everyone there (kids and adults) then the second compound we went to the kids received 25 dalasi from the head of the house to buy candy. So at this time the shops are all full of children trying to use their salibo money for candy.

My mom, toma and I in our lovely Tobaski outfits!

With the exception of my toma and my sister, this group of kids consists of some of my cousins (definitely not all of them) in the American definition of the world. However in The Gambia some of them are my cousins and some are my sisters or brother. Your mothers sisters kids and your fathers brothers kids are all considered your brothers and sisters in The Gambia. This is because your father could marry your mothers sister(s) and because it is a patriarchal family system. I may have told you this before, but in case I didn't it's a nice re-cap!

That's all for now! For the rest of Tobaski weekend we went up country. It was an adventure.. Stay tuned!

My Internship at the Child Protection Alliance

We have the option to do a course called Service Learning/Directed Research in The Gambia and all of us have decided to do it. Basically that means we each have an internship somewhere in the community that deals with our interests then we write a research paper about it that is due at the end of the semester.

It took me a while to decide where I wanted to do my internship. I was going to do it at the National Center for Arts and Culture, but then I decided (as cool as it would be to learn more about the culture here through a professional outlook) I would rather be a part of an NGO. A member of the Child Protection Alliance came to speak with us during orientation and I became very interested in what she discussed.

Child protection rights are socio-culturally and traditionally overlooked in The Gambia. Children are more to be seen and not heard here and therefore do not have much say in their own lives let alone have rights. The CPA has been working hard for 11 years to change this. They hold sensitizaiton workshops for community leaders such as teachers, law enforcers, religious leaders, etc. to teach them about child rights and their role in protecting children across the country.

I started working at the CPA about 6 weeks ago and I have loved every minute of it. Not only do I believe in what they are doing as an alliance of organizations, but everyone who works there is incredibly friendly and helpful and I have already learned so much from them.

In the beginning of my time with the CPA I was working with Voice of the Young. Voice of the Young (or Voice) is a branch-of group of the CPA consisting of children under the age of 18. They get together twice a month to discuss their rights so that they know how to protect themselves and their friends, as well as how to get the word out to others. There is a "core" or leading council which is also comprised of children under the age of 18, but previous Voice members sit in on these meetings to assist. Therefore these previous Voice members are not much older than 18, but have the experience of being in Voice. Voice holds a radio show once a week and sometimes they get media coverage. They are a very strong group of kids and, while I only got to work directly with the "core", I have great respect for all Voice members.

Unfortunately their meetings began to conflict with the field trips we have been taking so I then began to work with an amazing woman named Musu. She holds many different sensitization workshops and I was able to directly assist her in one with religious leaders and their role in promoting children's rights.  Throughout the two day work shop both Muslim and Christian religious leaders were taught about what children's rights exactly are (legally and otherwise) and then they discussed amongst themselves and the CPA trainers what they could do in their community. It was a very successful workshop and I am so happy I was able to attend, as well as help out.

Another event I was able to go to with Musu was National Day of the Girl Child. It was a celebration of the girl child at a community center. Many different organizations and alliances were there to celebrate this day. It was amazing. We literally marched (with a band and everything!) down the main highway here (which is nothing like a main highway at home of course, but people drive much crazier here!, we were safe though we had a nice escort) and then ended at the community center where some students put on a skit about early marriage and there was a large discussion among the leaders of the organizations. The discussion consisted of many different topics on the rights of girl children, specifically their rights when it comes to early marriages. There were so many kids there, boys and girls, it was amazing.  AcionAid is the organization that put together the entire day, but there were many other groups present. There were people from the CPA, Voice of the Young, FAWEGam (Forum for African Women Educationalists, Gambia) where Kyle is working and Soul Talk (an organization dedicated to the rights of girls when it comes to early marriage, pregnancy, abortion etc here's a link to their page, I would definitely like to get involved with them somehow as well). By the end of the day Kyle (who went with me for FAWGAM) and I were exhausted (they had us helping out serving meals) and so happy to have been apart of something so amazing.

I will continue to go to workshops with CPA and hopefully go up country with them to a village in order to sensitized teachers in some schools on child rights. It is still very common to beat children in school here or punish them in other cruel ways. I will keep you updated on how these workshops go!

Also, in case you were wondering about my research paper (I know you were, it's such an interesting topic!) I have decided on a tentative research question:

·      How can socio-cultural beliefs and practices be eradicated as barriers to the realization/attainment children’s rights in The Gambian communities?

In case you want to know more about the CPA:

here's a link to the CPA wepage, it has a lot of information on it regarding why they were started, their goals and what they hope to achieve.

Thanks for reading! (I hope to put pictures up from my internship soon..)

Kanilai and Tendaba

 We took another field trip this past weekend! This time we went to Kanilai which is about two hours up country and Tendaba which is 2 hours up country from Kanilai. 

Kanilai is the presidents village, where he grew up. It is still a village where people live, but the President Jammeh has built it up in his years of presidency. It is now also a safari and safari lodge. The safari lodge is like a very fancy restaurant with a beautiful pond and garden. The restaurant was amazing. A three course meal of vegetable soup, spaghetti (SO DELICIOUS) and pineapple dessert. I was in heaven with the food.

In the garden at the safari lodge

Then we went on the "safari." It's more of a zoo, but the kind of zoo where you can go in the animal cages lol so it's a bit different. Many of the animals were dead unfortunately.. They don't take too good care of the place. There used to be zebras, big cats like lions, wild dogs, giraffes and more. Now there are some camels, ostriches, hyenas, baboons and lots of goats...

We hope to go camel riding soon! 

Then we saw some crocodiles. Not as nice as the ones at the crocodile park. This one was HUGE too.. I wouldn't have gotten closer to that thing if you had paid me. 

THE HYENAS WERE SO CUTE! But really really big and I know they could eat me in one bite if they wanted to.. The Gambia has wild hyenas but luckily I have not encountered them and hopefully never will.

This is my father in The Gambia, Baboucarr Jallow!  His daughter is my toma and he is also our language and culture teacher, if you remember. He comes with us on all our trips. We got to hang out with a python around our necks for a bit... Not at all scary... I'm pretty sure the guy who was handling the snake was just some random guy too. Not at all a certified snake holder.

Our next stop was Tendaba. Established in the early 70's it was one of the first eco tourist accommodations in The Gambia. And of course it is beautiful. We stayed Friday and Saturday nights here. Right on the River Gambia.

I think this picture speaks for itself..

This looks fake but it's real I promise. Julbrews and a sunset. What more could you ask for?

This is our cabin! Bathrooms in the room and a fan! SCORE!

Saturday morning we went on a "safari." I say "safari" because the safari's in The Gambia are different than in South or East Africa. West Africa doesn't have any big cats anymore or elephants or giraffes. We saw lots and lots of birds and some baboons. It was a cool adventure in the jeep, though, and baboons are pretty cool! It was a beautiful morning, cool for here. But we were on the safari from 9 am to 1:30 pm so it got very hot and we all got sunburnt. We get to go on another safari in Senegal which we are all excited for!

We saw so many baboons, I can't count! We had a guide with us who was calling to them and they were calling back. They sounded so funny.

Of course whenever we passed by a village a bunch of kids came out running along the bus and yelling "tubab"

After lunch we went on a boat ride. It was a looong day in the heat, but we love our boat rides. We went down the River Gambia into some side creeks. We passed through the largest estuary in The Gambia. There was a lot of wildlife around. We saw a monitor lizard and a lot of birds. But there are crocodiles that live there as well as baboons with the occasional hippo.

We were exhausted, but the boat ride was relaxing and beautiful. 

Here is one of the many birds we saw, a huge pelican. Maribeth, the professors wife, loves birds so she kept track of all the birds we saw. We saw 61 different types of birds is what she counted. 

This is all for now, but I will probably put more pictures up of the trip later, so look out for em! All in all it was a nice trip. We left Tendaba on Sunday morning and of course we spent our Sunday afternoon at the beach. It's actually very popular for Gambians to spend Sunday's at the beach (at least in Kombo, the city area) after a long week working or going to school and then the weekend of cooking and socializing. Sunday is a rest day to recuperate. We are completely embracing this Gambian concept. Along with the Gambian concept of time (everyone always being late/taking their time), we've gotten very good at that one.. Look out for me soon, Inshallah (Literally: "God willing," kind of means hopefully, it's a very popular phrase in The Gambia because you never know if something is going to happen or it just isn't) 

Living in Happy Camp

I was asked to put some pictures up of my room so I am going to make another blog post about life at Happy Camp.

Here is my room!

This is my bed! With the lovely mosquito net that makes me feel like a princess.

This is the view of my room from the door. There are two more beds to the left, but I have no roommates.. I used to have one but she went home and I miss her so much! Now I have tons of space I don't know what to do with lol

I have a bathroom in my room! I don't use the tub because there is not enough water, but to the right in the picture is the shower and there is no shower curtain.. Makes for a very flooded bathroom, but I really am not complaining!

We've been trying to get out of Happy Camp as much as possible and that is getting easier as the culture shock has worn off. But I was sick a couple weeks ago for an entire week so last week was  my recover period and this week is my I'm-feeling-100%-better-and-want-to-do-everything week. I felt so useless when I was sick. I didn't go to school, I didn't go to my internship and I slept a lot. I walked down the street (literally less than a minute walk away) to get bread and was exhausted, it was so frustrating. But when I'm not frustrating with Happy Camp I like it, but also want to get out and interact with Gambians or buy amazing things.

One thing we have at Happy Camp is language and culture class with Baboucarr and Awa. Five of us (Madeleine, Kyle, Austin, Sam and I) are learning Wolof and Daniel is learning Mandinka. It was very overwhelming at first learning a language so different than anything I'm used to (and it still has overwhelming moments) but we definitely have grasped the basics. There are no verbs to conjugate! Just a lot of pronouns...

Greetings are so so important in The Gambia. If you pass by someone or enter a room without greeting them you are considered a very rude person and you will offend anyone around. Greetings usually consist of a series of questions and answers. Most of the time I start with saying "Salaammaaleekum" which is the Wolof version of the Arabic phrase "salam aleikum" which means "peace be upon you". And the response is "Malekum salam," "and peace with you." Some basic greetings in Wolof are: (note that there are some letters I cannot type)

Question: Nanga def : How are you?
Response: Manag fi : Literally means I am here.

Question: Jaama ngaam? : Do you have peace?
Response: Jaama rek: Peace only

Questions: Ana/Naka waa kér ga: Where/How are the home people?
Response: Nung fa/fi : They are there/here

Question: Mbaa defunu dara? : I hope nothing is wrong with them?
Response: Déédéét defunu dara?


Question: Naka suba si? : How is the morning
Response: Suba sangi fi rek : The morning is here only


Question: Jama nga fanaan? : Did you spend the night in peace?
Response: Jaama rek: Peace only

Question: Naka becek bi? : How is the afternoon?
Response: Becek bangi fi rek : The afternoon is here only

Madeleine pretending to teach, sometimes we have too much fun in language class.

Sitting down to learn some Wolof!

Awa is an amazing woman as well as a great language teacher. She has helped us girls find nice fabric in the market at a great price and I can ask her about anything at all. She is a very strong woman as well as hilarious and has so many stories. 

At first we loved to make food that we were used to from home in Happy Camp because it's hard to find good Western style food here. Now we love the food here and are starting to learn to cook some Gambian things, but before here are some of the things we cooked:

We regularly made midnight eggs and ate American snacks in the beginning of our trip

A woman came by selling crabs and we decided to cook em up Maryland style because no one we were with knew how to cook them Gambian style.. We hope to go catch some crabs and make them Gambian style soon!

We get avocados sent to the house a lot because we get our dinners catered to us during the week and they also sent fruit! So we decided to make guacamole! It might look very different (yellow?) but it was absolutely delicious!

Now people are more into making Gambian food here. I have been out of the house or busy every time this has happened though unfortunately! I am learning to cook Gambian food form my family and from my friend at the University of the Gambia, though. People have made a Gambian style porridge (with groundnuts and rice), yasa, benechin and onion sauce. All of which are my favorite Gambian dishes! 

We are also enjoying trying things that are strictly Gambian. Like buying food on the side of the street and in the market that we cannot find back home. There are many good vendors at UTG. They sell rock buns (which are like muffins but denser and so delicious), meat pies (which are just like they sound), Gambian pancakes (kind of like donuts, fried delicious dough) and so much more.

An example of something we can find in the market wold be what is pictured above. This is sweet sop (in English) an amazing fruit I have discovered here in The Gambia. Apparently they have it in California as well... I will be missing this fruit a whole lot. It is so sweet and different than anything I've ever tasted.

Something else fun to mention is that during the rainy season when it would rain A LOT, Happy Camp would flood. The rainy season ended in the beginning of October. I miss it because the rain would cool off a hot day, but it was also more humid sometimes. October is dreadfully hot. Even Gambians complain ("Dafa tanga lol" - it is very hot, is a common phrase now a days), but apparently November will be much better.

This was taken from the second floor of Happy Camp by Madeleine. So this is right outside our door. There's a street underneath all that water somewhere. This is what I call the Kanifing River. Because we live in Kanifing in case you don't know!

There's a sewer down there somewhere. Kinda scary because you could walk in it and not see and totally fall. Gotta be careful.

This picture was taken by Madeleine as well, right outside the door to the inside of Happy Camp. Don't worry we helped save the house from drowning!

More to come soon!

Tumani Tenda

Hey guys! Sorry I have not posted in a while, there have been some minor difficulties. Either the power was out, the internet was down or I was having incredibly too much fun to sit down and write a post for the past week or so :)

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you about what I did this past weekend even though I'm missing some things in between. I'll catch up eventually! Seems like I'm on Gambian time now...

Well Friday we left mid-morning for Tumani Tenda Eco Tourist Camp. It's only an hour and a half away from Happy Camp so it wasn't too long a drive, but it was also a nice break from the "city life." Tuamni Tenda is a Jola village that created an eco-tourist camp just outside the village on the water. the camp has helped the village in many many ways. Some of which I will talk about in a bit. Here is the website for the camp.

This is our lovely room. Tie Dye sheets, woo! Madeleine and I shared a bed, so the three girls got to be together!

Obviously I was very excited about the bathrooms...

This is the bathroom set up. No doors and barely a roof. There were multiple rooms (some showers, some toilets) around this complex. It was very interesting and very buggy.

To us Tumani Tenda was a lot like Berefet. Except we were less shocked by the more rustic lifestyle. I don't even consider it rustic anymore. We took some time after our (amazingly delicious) lunch to visit the village. Our first stop of course was the alkolo or the village chief. He was such a nice man. We could not understand a word he was saying and he could not understand us, but we still managed to have a great conversation with him through our interpreter. He did not speak Wolof because it is a Jola village with Jola as the main language and some Mandinka spoken by elders with the younger generations knowing more Wolof. He was so happy to have us at the village and thanked us a lot. We presented him with kola nuts as is the custom here in The Gambia. 

Then we explored the village. Went to the bakery which was new and a big deal to the village because they could make their own bread fresh daily. We ate it for breakfast and it was delicious.

Then we visited the school which was very nice, some of the facilities were built by the government and some supported by the village. Most of the proceeds from the eco tourist village go towards the schools and it helps every student who attends (whether they are from Tumani Tenda or not) to afford food during the school day. It also goes towards supplies and maintenance.

This is a man cultivating yams and using a kajanda

Banana tree, yum! 

Then we walked around the land. Most everyone in the village is a farmer so every tree or plant we passed by we were told it had some sort of use. Mostly for food, but also some medicinal purposes. Throughout our time in The Gambia so far Baboucarr has pointed out plants to us that have medicinal purposes and I wish I could remember every single one. We learned while we were in Tumani Tenda that the word for plant and medicine is the same in Wolof which I found incredibly interesting and logical.

Here I am trying out the sling shot

The next day we visited the rice field which provides all the rice for the village (and Gambians eat A LOT of rice). The rice is not for export, but for local consumption. While we were there we met the men who take care of the fields. The main job of the men we met was to keep birds and bats away. To do this they used a sling shot and they let us try. We were all very bad at it, but it was fun! We each got one made because we thought it was so cool! They put balls of clay in the sling shot then fling it at the birds. They used to be used to scare away larger animals, but most African wildlife are no long present in The Gambia besides the occasional leopard and hyena then crocodiles, monkeys and hippos. 

Before we visited the rice fields, however, we went on a sunrise boat trip on the creek. It is so easy to get up early here (and I am not a morning person) because you are so intimate with nature that you get up with the sun (and with the very loud and very numerous birds). There is also little electricity therefore it's harder to stay up later.

Needless to say our trip was so beautiful. I was rowing alongside our guide the whole time, I was proud of myself for not handing it off to someone else because I got less than an hours sleep the night before for some reason haha maybe because it was a new place? We saw some fishermen who were neck deep in the water trying to scare fish into their net, we saw some birds and the sunrise was beautiful of course. However the best part had to be when we saw monkeys!! I saw something about the size of a dog creeping along the shore and asked our guide if monkeys were common here. He said they lived around the area, but it was rare to see them. Well what I saw turned out to be a monkey and then 1 monkey turned to a bunch of monkeys! They were all crowding in a nikom tree for breakfast. It was amazing. Nikom is actually a very delicious fruit and it looks like this: I enjoyed it a lot. It was sour and sweet at the same time, like a sour patch kid!

The rest of the trip we spent lying in hammocks, reading or playing games. Needless to say we're all pretty sure we're on vacation and not really doing much of the "studying" part of "study abroad."

Here are some more pictures of our trip:

This is a picture of us on our canoe for our boat ride!

Madeleine and I in the shower.. We were kinda bored I guess

Monkey!!! They're Green Vervet monkeys. So cute!

We brushed our teeth outside and we had a great time doing it

When we got back on Sunday right before lunch we were greeted by the Ganzel family. Professor Sandy Ganzel is a mathematics professor at St. Mary's College and is doing is sabbatical in The Gambia. His wife and two young daughters are staying here for a year with him. They will be living in Happy Camp with us for a week and then moving into their own house. It is so nice having kids around, there's never a dull moment and we got to show them the beach and some nice restaurants on Sunday. After dinner three of us went out to a bar to listen to some live Gambian music. We stayed out late despite having school the next day.. It was such a nice night we didn't think it would be right to spend it inside sleeping.

In case you didn't know it already: it was an amazing weekend. Hope it was for you too!