Demba Barrow what is your name?

3 weeks into training village:

It is extremely difficult for me now to cram the past few weeks into a single journal entry considering I feel like I’ve experienced a life time of events, but I will try. I went through times when I was so close to coming home, times when I felt sick to my stomach, times when I felt so strong and confident, and times when I was reminded how small and how beautiful the world truly is… and yet I still have many months to go. I’ll start though with the two weeks into my posting at the training village of Kiaf in the lower river division of the Gambia; where are main protagonist (me obviously) is minding his own business in the village: “Toubabo! Toubabo!” *white man! white man!* “N to mu MANKE toubabo le! N to mu Demba le ti.” *my name is Demba, NOT white man* “Give me your ball!” “I’m not giving you my ball kid, get a job.” “Demba, Demba, what is your name?” “I just told you my freggin’ name. Do you not greet? Salaam Alekium.” “Alekium salaam”… “That’s better, Summolu lay? *How are the home people*” “I be je *they are there*”

I’ve been in my training village of Kiaf for two weeks now, though it seems like I’ve been here for at least a year. I walk down the rugged sand streets like something out of a “Save the Children” commercial. Children, most of home I don’t remember let alone ever meeting, scream my name; either my American name followed by the last name “Gerrard” because the only Steven any of them know play’s for Liverpool, a English football club, and it doesn’t help that I play with the older guys on a daily basis. Or I am called by my Gambian name, Demba, which is suppose to mean warrior but also the first disciple of the prophet Muhammad… who was rich and did a lot of good things or something. My surname was then taken from my host family, Barrow. My host father Kay ba and my host mother Penda… both very nice, I carry on full conversations with my host father even though he doesn’t speak a lick of English, he just nods and smiles… he’s a great listener and I can talk about anything lol. “Yea so I had explosive diarrhea this morning it sucked, you know what I’m talking about, it’s some mean shit” *he nods, even though he has no idea what I’m talking about… I find it quite humorous*. Really my host sister, Mariamma, whose like 12 speaks the best English, but my namesake, an extremely cute 10 year old boy named Demba Toure speaks a little bit. The “Official” language of the Gambia is English but really I think only 10-15% of people speak it fluently. I wake up everyday at 6 something to the call to prayer (the speaker is RIGHT next to my house), and the malaria medication must be getting to me because this morning I swear I heard the man say after random Arabic prayers, “… brought to you by Nabisco.” Or maybe that’s just the hunger talking. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of weight already, foods really been the biggest issue though I do feel good as we’ve all been put on *very manly* pre-natal vitamins. I love the breakfasts which consist of a porridge mixed with a really amazing peanut butter sauce and enough sugar to make anyone diabetic; but that’s about it. Lunch is rice with an extremely spicy sauce then dinner is the same with some fish heads mixed in with it, it’s sort of like those surprise toys you get in cereal boxes except not giving you the same smiling effect. A few days ago I was actually given three whole fish in my bowl with their eyes poked out. This actually is a big honor to be given this much meat considering most of their meals really don’t involve that much protein… but I just couldn’t bring my self to eat it. I know this all sounds really depressing but to be quite honest I’m feeling really positive and having a great time, some days are incredibly hard but other days I feel like I was born to be here for at least this short two year tour. I should start from the beginning though…

We drove for two hours to reach my assigned training village, not because the Gambia is so expansive but merely because the “roads” had more pot marks than my face in high school. It literally is just as fast to ride a mountain bike across the country than it is to take a car with out 4WD. I was in the middle of an absolute nervous break down. Here I was, in the middle of bum-shit Africa, about to start a 30 month journey into the unknown. I was utterly petrified and to be frank, I think that thus proved my sanity. I hadn’t eaten for days and the diarrhea was still taking it’s toll on me though getting better. We stopped at the other villages to drop the rest of the people off, they smiled and little children helped grab there things. Finally Kiaf was in view, and to our luck, we were informed that we shouldn’t be concerned if people aren’t to happy to see us as a funeral had just taken place. Amanda, Katie, our LCH (language instructor) Babucarr and I nervously stepped out of the rusty old Land Rover. We were SWARMED by more children then I’ve ever seen in my life, and told to sit down in front of a steaming kettle of Attaya, a local tea which takes hours to brew and is meant to be savored with good company. It’s about 5 parts sugar, 4 parts caffeine and 1 part tea, with a little mint occasional… extremely addicting. As the car drove away it was all too overwhelming. In the days to come I would pretty much accept that I was going to just ET (early termination), at one point I was even given a chance to call home and talk to my mom, but I couldn’t get through… thank god because I’m pretty sure I would have convinced myself to come home. Three days later though it was like something clicked in my head, and to this day I can’t even remember the thinking paradigm that brought me to this point… but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that at some point I just got it, everything clicked, I let go of the fears, of the lack of communication with my host family, of my location, and just accepted it. Now I think we’re all doing really well and positive towards the future and I couldn’t even imagine ETing. Though we still go through hard days we get through them, and we keep going, and most of the time it is good. The foods a problem, but I just supplement it with crazy amounts of peanut butter and bread and I pray that I don’t lose any more weight.

I’m sure a lot of you are wondering what my place looks like in training village, I’m going to post pictures so I’ll be brief. I live in a cozy “two room” house with a tin roof and concrete floor. The first room is empty but Amanda, Katie, and I like to chill there to get away from village life. My backyard is the same length as the two rooms of my house but is pretty much a concrete walkway over sand to a bamboo walled pit latrine and bathing area. Honestly… it’s not as bad as it sounds/looks. I take a warm bucket bath everyday under a beautiful starlit African sky with the sounds of the Islamic call to prayer in the background and the occasional donkey copulation; then I fall asleep under a mosquito net to the glow of candle light, it’s actually very romantic. My baths are warm because I get water from the well everyday at noon and by the end of the day it’s bubbling hot. The family compound I live in is actually very small which makes it quiet and quite nice.

After about two weeks of initial shock in village life we were all transported to Tendaba Camp for some technical training over a few days. Tendaba camp is a tourist “Safari” camp on the south bank of the river Gambia. I am hesitant to call anything “safari” here as there is hardly any safari animal life to see other than a large migrating bird population and copious amounts of insects. Though I think few people fly to Africa to witness the wonderful plethora of invertebrate creepy crawlers. It was great to see everyone, and even grab a grossly overpriced cold beer and a fanta which will cost you about 50 dalasi. That’s about 2 and some American dollars, but realize that when you’re only making 28 bucks a month that’s a lot, and when you can get it for 10 dalasi in Soma and other up country villages. During technical training we received our first language exam of which I scored a Novice Mid level in Mandinka; that I believe was really a sympathy grade as I’m honestly doing pretty much the crappiest Mandinka speaker in our group. On a more technical basis we had more health training in both bed net dipping, breast feeding, and making insect repellent from nyme tree leaves. The worst of all the training had to be our personal health lecture. During that hour we were required to show we were competent enough to make a microscope slide with our very own blood to be tested for malaria. We had no idea walking into this lecture we’d soon be stabbing ourselves with small needles then milking our fingers to get enough blood to fill a slide. Supposedly we were suppose to quickly prick our fingers, I though didn’t stab my self hard enough the first time and was forced to slowly press a sharp needle into my finger to draw more blood. Only in peace corps. If that wasn’t torture enough our physical pain would be manifest mentally as we would be exposed to a slide show presentation of the nastiest west African microbes, worms, and diseases… speechless. For about an hour everyone in the room was questioning whether our mosquito bites were indeed just mosquito bites or a blood sucking, capillary tunneling, bug.

All in all Tendeba was a nice refreshing breeze on our village life, the view of the river is beautiful and the expansive mangrove shoreline is stunning. I got to see my first mudskipper, a fish native only to west Africa that spends most of it’s life above water and looks like a modified tadpole with two bulbous fish eyes on the top of it’s head. Also for the first time we’ve all really been separated from the tourists that come hear for bird watching and an escape from the just trials of suburban English life. We notice the behavioral in sensitivities that they do on a regular basis with out realizing it, it’s pretty funny and you’d be AMAZED how much better of a reception you’ll get talking to a Gambian if you greet them in their native tongue or even at the very least a pleasant Salaam Alekium. I guess I call it a post for now as this is getting pretty wordy. I wish I could have added some more funny stories of village life but most of them aren’t as funny if you don’t have the context or have lived in west Africa. Also I really wanted to attempt to convey the emotional roller coaster that was our first weeks living in village. I do promise many more stories to come and once again please do not worry or take offence to not hearing from me sooner *even though the next time I’ll be able to post this is probably going to be mid april*. Fo naa too (till later).