Two years starts now

I have been in my REAL village for about two weeks, and a lot has happned! To start things off one of my host mothers (Sarjo) gave birth to a baby girl 3 days into my stay in village. It happned durring the night and slept through the whole thing! I had ABSOLUTELY NO idea she was close to giving birth, at my estimate she was about 7 months along. My other host mother, Ramata should be due really soon as well. This was Sarjo's 4th child - she is 26 years old. Ramata is working on number 7 - she is about 35 to 40 years old. To add to the excitement of having a bran new baby in the compound, that afternoon I find out that the fater is naming the new girl after me! (in Gambia the father chooses the childerns names) This means that at the naming ceremony I will be responcible for brigning a very nice gift, and I will be expected to provide food for the big party. In addition to providing treats, I will be responcible for giving the child gifts over her lifetime. A naming ceremony usually happens one week after the birth and the new name is kept secret untill the ceremony (sometimes the mother does not even know the name). Unfortunately they were not able to have the naming ceremony the following week because it was Jouleday (or Tabaski) a Muslim version of Christmas & Haloween rolled into one. You ask for charity (candy or small change) and slaughter a ram or goat and eat that for the next 3 days. They eat it all including the tail! Remember to save the testicles to make a bag later. No joke. Also - FYI everyone likes organs like heart and lungs much more that the 'meat'. I have been trying to find pieces connected to bone to eat. After eating goat for several days straight (for every meal) I have never been so thankfull for the fish that I had been eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I'm excited to pick fishbones out of my mouth as opposed to steering around the stomach linning or rugge!

I mentioned that the naming ceremony was delayed due to Tabaski, but then there was another turn of events. My host father died the day before Tabaski, we had his funneral on the day of Tabaski. Immagine doing Christmas & your fathers funeral on the same day. Since my father was the Alkalo (or mayor) of town it was a HUGE funural. There was an influx of 200+ people into our compound. As most things in The Gambia, funurals are a gender seperated event. The women gather in his wifes house and the men gather in his house (same compound). You can fit 10-15 people in a house, and the rest of the people gathered in the outside areas of the compound. The men go to the mosque for prayers (most of the day) while the women are sitting in the compound. Close to dusk they bury the body. Again, since I am a female, I was not able to see this part either. So I sat in the compound with the 70 or so women and children while the men prayed & buried the body.

When I go back to village it will be interesting to see how the town 'elects' a new mayor, and to see how/when that will happen.

In other news, as you have guessed I'm in Kombo for Christmas. That means that I had to get here on my own - this time with out Peace Corps transport. Alex, Mai and I decided to join forces & take the trip together. Good thing we did. We gathered at Alexes house the night before (creating a small scandal due to gender differences) we have been told to call the Gele-Gele driver the night before to request a 'pick-up'. Since Alex lives in a small remote village, there is one Gele-Gele that will come through his town at 5am upon request. We placed the call the night before (even having a villager make the call to ensure the message got through in Puular). The next morning we rise a 4:30am, pack our stuff and go outside in the FREEZING COLD and wait for 2 hours. We finally go back inside to warm up and wait some more. (these things eventually show up). We talk to Alex's host father and he calls the Gele-Gele driver - to find out that he is NOT coming. OK. We decide to walk to a neighboring village to the north that should have a gele coming through. We get to that village 20 minutes later to find out that it had just left. Supposedly there will be another one coming in the afternoon. It is 8:30am now. The 3 of us debate what to do. We find someone in that village that will take us via horse cart to the road for 400 Dalasi (INSANE PRICE) and decide to walk back to Alex's village and try to catch a horse cart to the main road from there. 20 minutes later we get back to Alex's village, explain our situation and try to find someone in village with a horse cart (usually this would be offered for free because he lives in the village). To our surprise a villager offers a horse cart for 250 Dalasi (INSANE PRICE). We debate what to do and reason that walking that distance would take us about 2 hours and it is getting HOT & we have BIG bags to carry. So we felt it would be inappropriate to haggle to reduce the price with a village member (there are only 7 compounds) so we decided to pay for the ride. 45 minutes later we reach the main road. We spend the next 40 minutes trying to flag down a gele-gele. We successfully (all 3 of us!) board a gele-gele at 11am. We make it to the ferry - which is insanely crowded because everyone is returning to Kombo from the Tabaski festivities. Then we walk to the 'garage park' to catch the first van/bus. Craziness ensues! There are SO many people trying to get on each van that comes by, but there are only a few spots open on each van. People are pushing and shoving and elbowing and crowding to get into the vans even after they are driving down the street. We are not sure what to do. Do we: 1.) push & shove our way into a van? How? It is next to impossible. or do we 2.) pay WAY too much for a special 'taxi'? Finally Mai makes some friends while trying to get on several different vans and they help us get into a van (they shove others aside and make a wall so we can get on). We thank them and feel horrible as we drive off with out them. We then get to the next garage park and board a second van & make it close to our destination by 3pm! We buy a DELICIOUS frozen Tamarind juice from Gam Juice and eat our frozen treat as we walk the rest of the way to the PC house. Whew! We made it. Any other time, this trip would have taken us about 2-3 hours total. Later that night we find out we should have paid about 40-50 Dalasi for the horse cart from Alex's village. Live & Learn!