The Rain Cometh

A few days passed and it accumulated gradually. I’d be awoken through the night to the gentle pattering of rain on my tin roof. I had planted a few Maringa and pigeon pea trees the day before and it was a pleasant surprise to know that I wouldn’t have to make the trips to the pump to water them. That went on for several nights until the humidity reached a pinnacle. Dark storm clouds crouch in the distance waiting to pounce and the air grows thicker until suddenly, like a collapsing dam the water is released. For the next few months at least, the encroaching desert will be pushed back; the rains making a final stand to hold on to it’s remaining woodland. Geographically The Gambia may even be the last strong hold of green against the Sahel’s steady advance southward, but even now the rains can only fight it back for a few months. Walking around it finally feels like Africa as the jungle creeps in day by day. The rain washes the dust from the mango trees which glow with new brilliance. The underbrush will begin to sprout soon and the shrubs will be reborn for another season. After the first week of real showers came a week of drought, turns out the first storm was just a tease. In the early morning of the 21^st of June however a tropical storm came which devastated a lot of the village. A storm like, typical of south Florida, would be shaken off with well built homes; but here mud bricks and the rotten wood that holds the corrugate roofing together, breaks at the hands of the wind. The village south of me was hit much harder losing ten homes to the storm, our village only lost a few roofs and had a few trees downed. I lost the wall to my pit latrine and instead of showing my bare ass to the world decided to make my own toilet out of a bucket and plastic bag until I fixed the wall.

With the rebirth that comes from the rain will also bring it’s antithesis. As the sweet nectar of life pours down I help the elder of the compound fill in pools of water with degraded mud bricks. Those ponds will soon turn into breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and as their numbers grow, so do the infections of malaria in the village. This microbe has been fighting off the anti malarial drugs for decades and becomes more resistant every season. Malaria sadly shadows the even more abundant cases of both bacterial infection and diarrheal diseases which affect and kill tens of thousands of people every year, specifically children who are more prone to infection and dehydration; deaths which could be exponentially decreased with simple education on rehydration and prevention. These grass roots programs though are rarely fully funded due to the romanticism placed upon the AIDS and Malarial campaigns (not to say that those are not important); but in reality more children die of diarreal diseases and bacterial infection every year than do of AIDS. My friend the other day said it well when she explained that here they give out malaria medication like it’s candy. The rains for now though just bring a calming renewal to this place which desperately needs water after long dry season that grows longer every year. For now though it’s pretty cool to be awoken in the middle of the night thinking the Senegalese are invading, the thunder and lighting resembling mortar shells to some one half asleep as the rain pounds on my roof… why Senegal would want to invade Gambia who knows, maybe they need the peanuts. We did tie them in soccer the other day, they’re probably pissed.

The days have been pretty slow lately, I’ve found myself more comfortable getting lost in a few good books or my computer than practicing my Mandinka which I should be doing. They’ve been good books though! I’m reading Michael Crichton’s “Sphere” now, I’m halfway through “The DaVinci Code” and excited to start “The Sex Lives of Cannibals”. Just finished reading “The Kite Runner” which was great to read living in a Muslim country but HELLA depressing living in the peace corps. I’ve been trapping myself inconsequently in my hut lately in the afternoons after work. When I get bored with reading I start drawing cave art on my walls with charcoal by candle light. My art work includes a rather eccentric fighter jet flying across my room shooting Russian MIGs down, men standing around a bonfire with the words, “Man make fire, much rejoicing” written above, a manatee grazing on sea grass, and my personal favorite my own rendition of the famous adobe cave art depicting woolly mammoths and men with spears. Essentially I’m living in a cave. I’ve ended up duplicating the doodles I drew in Jr. High when I should have been paying attention in my intro to Latin class.

Obviously this lifestyle, though completely typical to the three month challenge, is not exactly mentally healthy. In realization of this I decided to make it a point to get out of my compound for something other than work, soccer, and cell phone credit. The opportunity coincidentally presented itself mere hours after my epiphany. It came in the form a traditional cultural ceremony called a “Zimba”, which is the wolof counterpart of the Mandinka “Kankuran”. It’s a dancing and musical performance put on for the village as a fundraiser. I don’t remember if I ever explained what a Kankuran is but I should start there. These creatures are traditional costumes which are worn by young men in times of circumcision and other important ceremonies. The costumes are composed of branches, shrubs, and animal skin and are made to induce the strongest feeling of oddity and fear. As the young men don the costume they lose their name and become only the spirit of the Kankuran. Women and children run in fear and cringe at the word. … one more fact that adds to the fear would have to be the duel machetes that they wield running around at full speed. The job of the Kankuran is to ward off evil spirits from the child having the circumcision etc and a “traditional” Kankuran will take this job very seriously. While now a days they’re mostly just used for cultural performances and dancing like at the Zimba; but still the last people on earth you want to be taken over by a protective spirit is a testosterone ridden teenager on a spiritual mission with a hankering for trouble. A month ago Amanda (one of the two other people who were in training village with me) had a Kankuran in her village. The Kankuran proceeded to hunt down a woman, break down her corrugate door, and then cut her to death with his machetes. Needless to say Amanda in all her right took a few days off in the capital to come to grips with the situation. Thankfully though Zimbas are not Kankurans and merely for dancing and performing. A Wolof spin-off of a traditional Mandinka practice.

I get out of the house, walk down the sandy path still damp with the rain from the night before strait to the Zimba event taking place at the Nursery school. It was well worth the 5 dalasi entry fee… 25 cents American. Traditional drummers play a powerful west African beat and a “jester” type of character sits in the center of the open performance area surrounded by dozens of children. He grunts odd animal noises and makes the kids laugh by lifting up his shirt and shaking his bum… butt jokes work in all cultures. Then comes the first of three Zimbas dressed in animal skins and gems. An older boy with a football build who paced around the performance area staring down the children who scurried through their pockets with fear looking for their tickets. One younger boy was caught with out a ticket later and dragged by the masked creature to the center; he wasn’t beaten, he didn’t have to be, the dread alone of being touched by the Zimba was enough of a punishment. The second Zimba appeared, a teenager not dressed in skin but in drag and began to put on a fast paced Gambian dance as another Zimba in animal skin came out from the back to join. It was pretty homo-erotic for a country which has recently sworn to hang any practicing homosexual. The Zimbas would occasionally walk around the crowd and stare down the older people until they gave them money, I of course was, as expected, racially profiled and picked on far more than the others for cash. The leader of the event yelled, “Toubab, clap and come dance” to me in Mandinka (assuming I didn’t speak the language), I responded in my typical defensive fashion and was pulled up by one of my soccer players to dance in front of the whole crowd. Miraculously I actually pulled off an inspired performance in front of the hundred some villagers. I’ve never been one to be afraid of being the center of attention. The official performance began and others would drag their friends to the center to dance and make fools of each other. It was great to get out of the hut and remember why I was here. Zimba went on again the day after… but I passed, my isolationism may turn into a problem if I make it a habit.