Latest Addition to the "Family"-Enya the Goat

This looks "tasty", whoops I mean "cute"

Enya the Goat in honor of my youngest sister.

School Fieldtrip to Banjul & The Start of Ramadan

 Yay, a good day to be an American as unlike England, the USA qualified for the next stage of the World Cup! 
 Yesterday I went on a field trip with one of my classes to Banjul which was interesting. I saw the National Assembly and Supreme Court and we walked down a street which I can only describe as Pennsylvania Avenue down scaled (a lot)! I took a lot of pictures on my camera and hopefully will be able to send them soon! 
We traveled Gambian style.... 16 kids, 2 teachers and one driver into a Volkswagen mini van. I had a kid on each knee as we drove! A bit crazy but still fun! Love always xx I

Ramadan starts tomorrow. Should be an interesting experience. I will be trying to follow the eating and drinking rules though it may be a challenge.....in the meantime I am starting to adopt the head wear rules and feel very glamorous! 

Week 4-Still waiting for the Internet!!

Still waiting for the electricity/internet to co-operate so I can give a full update.......

My health is ok. A bit sunburn here and there but for the most part nothing too bad and my skin is pretty clear thanks to the Fish and Rice diet ("F&R"), which is nice.
 My stomach was a bit queazy the other today but this is the worst it's been since I've gotten here so I guess that's not bad all things considered.
They're no real roads to run on in Gunjur and my running shorts aren't exactly appropriate to run along the beach which is right next door to the mosque, so I have been doing more walking than running.
It's almost been a month since I've been here but it doesn't feel like it.
I feel like it had been several months since I waved goodbye at the airport but only a few days since I've been here! It's a strange paradox.
 Miss and love you lots!

Week 3-Some photos to share and Happy Father's Day

I am planning to do an update to my last post, once the electricity/internet starts co-operating,
but in the meantime,courtesy of my Dad, here are some pics of my (mis) adventure so far.....

Happy Fathers Day Daddy

The "Last Supper" before I depart....I will miss my burger and fries

Apparently this is the plane I left West Palm Beach on to go to Atlanta.....

An early morning departure from Palm Beach. and on time .....go Delta

Hooray  I made it....after changing flights in Atlanta I made my way to DC and met up with my Auntie Sara who accompanied me to Banjul via Brussels and Dakar

The calm before the storm...."chillaxing" at the local hotel....this Gambian gig doesn't seem too bad

With my namesake Neema...as is the Gambian custom I have been re-named Neema-din ding which ironically means "small Neema".....

The Gambian version of "Cake Boss" show may take a while to catch on!

 My first "suitor".....so far I have received 3 proposals of marriage!!

With lovely Auntie Sara on my first day at "work" with WYCE.....I have become the "teachers' teacher"....

And here I am with my  Uncle Ebs.....barrister, builder and part time bodyguard.

Here I am with my students.... aren't they so cute

This is the house my Aunt and Uncle are building ....it is located next door to WYCE so my commute will be short once we have moved in 

Week 2-Initial Impressions

Isama Isama! That means good morning in Mandinka. One of several tribal languages here in the Gambia and so far the only language I have begun to study. It has been just less than two weeks since I arrived and it has been a non-stop adventure so far.

            The hardest part has been leaving my parents at the airport. It’s not the first time I have travelled by myself but it was the first time I’d be without my parents for such a long period of time. It’s hard to imagine being without you family and friends until it actually happens.

The first few days were tough, I couldn’t reach my parents and the Internet connection was too poor to contact anyone. We seemed to be constantly traveling from compound to compound introducing me to family and friends of Uncle Ebs and Auntie Sara. Barely anyone spoke English and what little English was spoken was covered by strong accents, which made it hard to understand. Everyone wanted to meet me and shake my hand or hug me like I was somebody famous. Some people remembered my Dad when he visited and others remembered my Uncle Phillip when he visited. A few people were even taken a back at first because apparently my resemblance to my Auntie Sara when she was my age and visiting for the first time was uncanny. At first I just followed Auntie Sara around nodding my head whenever I was spoken too praying I didn’t make an absolute fool out of myself or offend anyone. It didn’t take long before we realized that my name, Niamh, was to difficult for most people to pronounce (not that surprising since native English speakers can barely pronounce it either) so I was given a Gambian name, Neema, after a women who lives at the beach house with us. I became Neema dingding, meaning little Neema, and my namesake became Neema kayba, meaning big Neema (Although I tower over Neema by a good few inches).

Neema speaks very little English but she is trying to learn. She is a sweet women and an amazing cook, always smiling and giggling. Although neither of us understands what the other is saying we still are able to communicate through a series of hand gestures, pointing, and nodding. Neema lives in the beach house in Gunjur with her husband Malang, a drummer by trade but seems to do a bit of everything. Malang is a funny man; he has dreads, is always wearing some item of Rastafarian color, and like Neema is always smiling. His English is good and he is helping me learn Mandinka by saying something to me in Mandinka, having me repeat it, and then translating it for me. The beach house is small and quiet but it’s nice. There are three bedrooms each with an on suite bathroom consisting of two buckets, a tree, a toilet seat, and a hole (pictures to come).  The outside bantabar is my favourite place and I have set up my hammock in the perfect spot, under the shade of the bantabar but with a view of the beach that is in direct line of a nice sea breeze. There is no electricity or gas-powered oven at the beach house so Neema uses a small “pizza oven” like set up to cook the food. The other day Neema Kayba and I walked to the local market and bought all the ingredients needed to make one of the four basic meals traditionally served in the Gambia. Each dish is rice based and all but one of the recipes involves fish. Neema taught me how to make Benechin which is basically fish, vegetables, rice, and a sauce made from the hibiscus flower.  Gunjur is a coastal city and because of this it constantly smells like fish. They have giant smokehouses where they smoke the fish and dry it out so it can be transported to areas not located near such prime fishing grounds. Fishermen spend their nights in small wooden boats catching fish for the next day’s meals. In the morning the boats do not come ashore but the women of the town walk out to small boats with large buckets on their heads, collect the fish in the buckets, and walk to shore carrying these heavy buckets full of fish on top of their heads. The strength it must take is outstanding it is amazing to watch. Where we live in Gunjur is about a 20-minute walk to Medina Salam, a small village where Uncle Ebs is building a new house and where I am working at a local school and clinic.

Medina Salam is a quiet village, which didn’t exist until a few years ago when different tribes began settling there. It is underdeveloped and the whole tour of the town takes less than half an hour, I would know I have done the full tour and met the village elders as well as the mayor. The school and clinic are run but a charity organization called Wonder Years Centre of Excellence ("WYCE"). I am currently helping out in the fifth and sixth grade with all subjects but mainly maths and English. Within five minutes of arriving on my first day I was teaching sixth graders all about pie charts and simple statistics. I have even been asked to help teach some of the teacher’s math as well since they are preparing to take their exams for requalification and most have been struggling with their maths. They have been looking for someone to help teach them and I was happy to help when I saw the syllabus and understood most of the math required. I haven’t yet gotten a chance to work in the clinic but hopefully next week I will start. It is rainy season here, and with the rains comes an increase in diseases, such as Malaria, and proportionally an increase in clinic visits.

When I am not teaching and we are not in Gunjur, we are in Fajara, which serves more as a hub then a home since we always seem to be traveling to different places. The good thing about Fajara… flush toilets. Remind me to never take the flushing sound of a toilet for granted ever again. Aside from the excitement of the flush toilet Fajara is also a more developed part of the Gambia and is located closer to the tourism section. Saidoo and Sojou work as guards at the house and both make a great glass of atayaa, a traditional tea in the Gambia, which I have come to enjoy. I have also become a regular coffee and tea drinker, primarily due to the fact that you have to boil the water for both tea and coffee and it makes me feel a bit better about drinking the water (so far no bad sideffects… fingers crossed). From Fajara we travel to different compounds to visit family and friends. Finding out I have over forty cousins that I had never heard of before was a real surprise and so far I have only met about half of them. Fred is Uncle Ebs brother and he is married to a lovely woman and together they have four children but they often have visitors and there small family of six grows to about 13 or 14. Fatukaba, Uncle Ebs sister, lives in Brikama where she owns a small spice shop in Brikama Market. Brikama Market is like nothing I have ever seen before and the number of people there would make a vampire feel claustrophobic. Jula and Fatukabadingding live with Fatukaba and her children but they are Fatukabas nieces. Jula is my age and she moved to the city from the village two years ago without speaking a word of English and now can have entire conversation with me in English as if she was a native speaker. We have become friends, I teach her English and help her with her schoolwork, and she is trying to teach me Mandinka. Fatukabadingding is a little fireball, she is apparently a little troublemaker but I have ye to see her devious side.  She is a lot of fun to be around and although her English isn’t quite as developed as Julas she is always making me laugh. Boobaka is Uncle Ebs other brother and along with his two wives and fifteen children lives in a compound not far from Fatukaba. Johanna is another relative, but I’m still not sure how she fits into the picture. Little Buba lives with her and he has the biggest puppy dog eyes I have ever seen. He follows Uncle Ebs around like a mini ba and wants to be just like him when he is older. He speaks a handful of words in English but is determined to teach me Mandinka; he basically just says a lot of words in Mandinka and expects me to repeat after him.

Apart from visiting family and friends, Uncle Ebs has also taken me on some more touristy adventures including one trip to the monkey park where a monkey jumped on my head, started pulling my hair, and wouldn’t let go. Needless to say I was more than a little freaked out to have a monkey as a hairdresser but don’t worry there are pictures. In the city and the touristy areas I don’t stand out too much but normally I am like a saltshaker in a row of peppershakers. Here I am known as “toubab” which literally means white person. Not a day goes by that I don’t have children screaming after me and staring at me like I am a circus attraction. And due to my red hair I am even more of an oddity. The only the person with hair like mine is the KanKurang, a man dressed all in red with red hair that waves machetes around. He is supposedly a spirit who walks the streets of the villages to make sure the women are behaving while the men are away with their sons at a Gambian version of survival camp before there sons are to be circumcized. Yes I know what a great person to look like. It’s an odd feeling being an outsider here.

The Gambia is like a parallel universe to America, everything here is the opposite of everything at home. I’m still adjusting and its still difficult but each day gets a little better and as I find a routine I find it easier to feel comfortable. It has only been two weeks after all and I still have more than 5 months to go, who knows by then I could be fluent in Mandinka, or so tan from the blistering sun (or so covered in dirt as I usually am) that I am no longer a “toubab” I am a “mocha-b” (no that is not a real word).

I am trying to keep you all updated as often as I can but internet is hard to find and even harder to use. I miss everyone very much and often find myself wondering what everyone back home is up to. I would love to hear from you all so feel free to email me and I will reply whenever I get the chance. Sending my love from The Gambia. Xxx

Love,

      The Second Ginger in the Gambia