On trek to the coast

I’ve still got about a week left in Gambia, but I’m already feeling nostalgic. On Monday I went to all of the different fish landing sites along the coast. To get to the landing site at Kartong you have to turn off the highway and take a rough dirt road for about three miles. On this stretch of the drive we got stuck behind a donkey cart headed for the beach. The donkey driver was hauling a cartload of fuel wood and whipping his donkey mercilessly with a shoe string to make him trot. The donkey was paying very little attention to the driver’s demands, so we were anxious to get around him. As we reached a wide stretch of road we sped up to pass the cart and I got a good look at the impatient driver. He couldn’t have been more than five years old. This is what I’m going to miss when I leave- toddlers making an honest dollar hauling wood on a deserted road leading to the sea. If that’s not enough to make me nostalgic I don’t know what is.
The trek along the coast was wonderful. I have been to many of the villages we went to, but most of the landing sites were new to me. The Gambia’s fisheries are co-managed by the Department of Fisheries and the communities. We were visiting the Community Fisheries Centers to check on the status of a study the project is coordinating to figure out what proportion of fishermen’s catch is the target species. I was amazed at how different the Centers were from one to the next. In Kartong the Center was little more that a thatched roof too low to stand up under just above the high tide mark. Men sat on oil cans mending their nets and watching the sea under the roof. Some women were hauling fish on the heads and laying them out on cement blocks for drying but little else was happening. Whereas, at the largest center in Gunjur hundreds of fishermen were milling around concrete buildings housing an ice factory, offices for Center employees, drying and smoking facilities, and cold storage facilities. This kind of variability is one of the things that have amazed me the most about Gambia. This is a country where you can find donkey carts and BMWs cruising the same highway and where women in dug out canoes land their harvests alongside huge luxury yachts with solar panels on the roofs. Development is leaking into this country in a very sticky way, profoundly affecting some parts and leaving others untouched. On a national scale that means that a lot of people are exposed to development activities, without necessarily benefiting from them. I don’t know what the solution is, but I’d like to find out.

Being a tourist

Last weekend Kathryn and I checked into the Atlantic Hotel for a couple of days of sunshine, swimming, and shopping. We have been planning to stay at a resort pretty much since the first week, but only got around to it during Kathryn’s last week in country. Even with all that anticipation, it was strange to experience The Gambia as a tourist. I felt the urge to tell every hotel worker and shopkeeper I met that I’m not actually a tourist-- I’m just pretending for fun! I’m not sure what inspired this desire, but both Kathryn and I gave into it whenever the opportunity presented itself, even if it was somewhat awkward.

It was so nice to have some of the tourist luxuries for a weekend though. At the hotel I took the first hot shower I’ve had in two months and I was able to swim to my heart’s content. I ate bacon for breakfast, which may sound like a small feat, but in an Islamic country its like finding buried treasure. It was a very great weekend.

On the way home from we stopped to buy some gifts for friends and family back home at the Bakau Craft Market. At the craft market craftsmen carving hippos and masks from blocks of mahogany and weavers working at their looms sit under the shade next to their shops. Sometimes they get up to sell you their goods, and sometimes their uncle or niece will take care of that part for them. I drooled antique war masks from Mali and huge xylophone like instruments and a million other treasures that were too big or too expensive or too bizarre to buy. I ended up with a bunch of gifts, a beautiful batik wall hanging for my apartment next year, and even a few dollars left in my pocket after some serious bargaining.

Ants, rain, and baboons

The little lodge where I’m staying has ants. It doesn’t just have a few ants that get into my food (although they do) or crawl on me while I’m sitting on the couch (although they do)-- there is a whole master colony of ants that live in my bathroom door and come out in droves every night. Kathryn and I are driven to the safety of our rooms after the sun goes down just to avoid being taken over by the masses of ants. This is not news. These ants have been living with me for my entire time in Africa. On Tuesday night, though, something happened to the colony. Instead of a million ants crawling around my house, a huge group of them emerged that could fly. This was too much for me to handle. After killing the ten or so flying ants in my room I went to bed early and just hoped they’d be gone in the morning. That night there was the biggest storm that we’ve seen yet. It rained for hours. Eventually the rain managed to work its way past my tin roof and leak onto my bed. Yesterday morning, after a restless night dreaming of ants and getting splattered with water, I was just about ready to say goodbye to Africa.
Then, yesterday, I made my first trip to Makasutu Culture Forest. This forest is a privately owned protected area with a beautiful eco-lodge on the premises. I am interested in including this forest in my research on protected areas, but it has been difficult to get there, because they only accept group tours. My co-workers did me a huge favor by driving an hour out of their way to drop me off at the forest, with the promise that they’d be back for me in a couple of hours. When we arrived, however, the guides were preparing to go home- we were too late. After driving around the forest for a bit, we ran into a car with the official Makasutu stamp on it. Yahya, our car’s driver who seems to be friends with half the country, shouted hello to the driver of the Makasutu car. That driver happened to be yet another one of Yahya’s friends. This country is small enough that everyone always seems to know everyone else, which often helps facilitate situations like this. It’s a country where it is a reasonable expectation that the President would show up at a picnic to fundraise for new boats for the oyster women. It’s a country where, in reading scientific papers about the area, I usually recognize and am personally familiar with about half of the names, having been here only six weeks. It’s a country where when someone dies or is born the entire village shuts down because everyone must attend the funeral or naming ceremony.
Yahya explained our situation to the Makasutu driver. The driver brought over the park manager and gave me the phone number of one of the owners of the forest, a man whom I have been trying in vain to contact since my first week here. I couldn’t believe the good luck. On the way out of the forest we saw a troop of about thirty migrating baboons with babies on their backs. Yahya warned me to be careful if I ever met them by myself. Apparently, the baboons do not fear women. We watched them pick through the fields looking for bugs for a while then drove home. The trip made me remember why I love this country.

Photos and blog post

Here are a couple of photos from the second naming ceremony, up country in Swarakunda. The first is me failing at pounding the rice to make findi and the second is one of Binta's relatives holding baby Jeneba. This last picture is my favorite tree in this country, a Red Silk Cotton.
Work has been great and continues to be. Last week we did some more water quality testing at various sites to check if oysters should like those areas. Friday night I took a sunset cruise with Kathryn and some Department of Parks and Wildlife people to look for manatees. The trip was wildly successful because we saw one! West African Manatees are endangered and really difficult to see so everybody on the boat was pretty much jumping up and down with excitement to have seen one on our short trip. We also saw a crocodile. Which was cool, but a little unnerving given how close it was to the beach where we waded in the water to get in the boat. I hear the West African Crocodiles are "gentler" than the East African ones, but I'm skeptical. The boat ride was wonderful. I go out on the boats all the time, but more often than not my entire body is tensed up for most of the ride trying to prevent the little canoes from dumping us into the (apparently croc infested) water. It doesn't help that the oyster women think this is hilarious so sometimes joke by rocking the boat. Friday's boat ride was on a big boat with a motor and everything. The sun was going down, the wind was blowing, and the only task I had to do was to keep my eyes out for manatees. It was pretty wonderful.
Also, I've been getting a lot of questions about what exactly I'm doing here. Here is a link that will hopefully clear a few things up: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/ I wrote a post for a food security blog based in West Africa about the project I'm working on here. Check out the post called Turning the Catch of the Day into Improved Livelihoods for the Whole Community published on July 12.

Celebration!

Monday was my birthday. I couldn’t help but wonder what my birthday would have been like if I was home. I’m pretty sure that the way I celebrated here was a little different.
The big plan was to have a party at Binta’s house on Monday night, but I got a call from her that morning that she was sick in bed all day, so the party would have to be postponed. So instead, one of my co-workers, Babanding, took me out to eat fou fou. It is basically a big bowl of white mush. It is made from crushed rice and water and you eat it with some spicy sauce. Fou fou is a dish that is eaten all over West Africa. I have actually eaten before while tutoring the Liberian family I work with in Providence. I was very excited at the prospect of having fou fou in its natural habitat. After work, Babanding and I loaded ourselves and our computer bags onto his motorbike and set out to find the restaurant. The rainy season is in full force here, so riding on the dirt roads through Serrekunda, the biggest city in Gambia, was an adventure. The roads were more like shallow rivers with small islands that we hopped between to get to the restaurant. Dinner was delicious, as was the Gambian beer that we got at a place called “The Hideout,” when he dropped me off.
When I got home Kathryn was waiting for me with a huge cup of strawberry ice cream stuffed with a Chinese banana. (Chinese banana is kind of a misnomer- they are just Gambian bananas but the small ones are called Chinese. These are my favorite because they taste more like bananas than regular bananas.) Kathryn sang happy birthday and lit a candle. I made a wish and felt officially 21.

Photos from Abuko

Also, here are a couple of photos I've been meaning to post from my first trip to Abuko National Park. The first is some Gambian jungle and the second is my monkey friend. Later Kathryn and I went back to Abuko and ran into a gang of about twenty mother monkey and their babies. As I was trying to take a photo a big one got out of the tree and started running down the path toward us. We ran away and hid behind a tree. I didn't get the photo.

Naming ceremony on the north bank

This past weekend I made it up to the north bank to attend another naming ceremony in honor of Binta’s two children. This one, though, was held for Binta’s mother, Mama.
The journey to Mama’s compound took me across The Gambia River on the ferry, which made us nervous when it stopped working for about fifteen minutes in the middle of the hour long crossing. It finally started chugging along again and we made it to the other side only to take a beautiful ride through baobabs and palm trees and huge pastures to get to Swarakunda.
It seemed that half of the village had gathered in Swarakunda to help cook and eat the feast prepared for these babies. When we arrived we had to greet everyone present. A typical Gambian greeting takes about two whole minutes if you do it right (which I never can). It starts with hello: “Salaam alekum” to which you respond “Alekum salaam.” Then how are you: “Soulomae?” you respond Fine: “Abidye” How are you again: “Kartononte” respond Fine: “Tononte” How is it?: “Akairabe?” It is fine: “Kairadrone” Then if the person greeting you is feeling chatty or creative they can ask “Where are the people in your compound,” to which you respond, “They are there.” Or any number of other ways to say “how are you” and for you to respond “fine.” Then once the person greeting you finishes asking how you are you must ask how he or she is, although everyone is always fine. Although answering this string of questions can be nerve racking for me because there is usually one or two that I embarrass myself with answering Fine, when the correct answer should have been It is there or something else, I love hearing Gambian greet each other. They usually don’t finish the whole question or answer, but instead start the words for greetings and get half replies in return. Everyone knows the ritual so well its only necessary to imply greetings without actually having to make it through the whole thing.
We spent three days in Swarakunda, sweating our butts off and eating goat meat and rice until we were stuffed. Just before leaving we saw a girl hauling water out of the town well. She was so small she sometimes had to jump and ride the rope to the ground when her arms couldn’t pull it. She poured the jug into a bucket which she put on her head steadied by her right hand and carried another jug in her left. She walked down the long dirt road toward home with the day’s water supply in hand, looking so grown up. When we left on Sunday it was the Fourth of July. Kathryn and I celebrated by getting burgers and fries and pops at possibly the only restaurant that serves that in this country. Some Rolling Stones songs were playing in the background. I think I felt more American then than I ever have at home.