“I’m sure you’re wondering, Steven, Steven, what the hell did you get yourself into this time? And in love of my worrying mother I shall inform you before going into the whole story that I am indeed perfectly fine and healthy now, at least physically, and that I will try not to get into any more trouble in the future… yeah. Again let me reiterate, mother I am fine and healthy and you need not worry, though I still miss all of you dearly. Can I use dearly in a sentence with out losing huge man points? Well hopefully the proceeding tale of pain and mild adventure will win me back at least a few; and so I will begin the tale of Eye patches, Scars, and Diseases you get in Oregon Trail.”
It was a dark, and stormy night, and the westerly winds whistled haunting lullabies through the trees. Alright so it wasn’t dark, and it hasn’t rained in three months but the wind did whistle through the Mango trees as the leaves began to fall. The nights, and days for that matter, had started to get significantly cooler. My host family would even don their heavy down jackets and children would zip up their hoods like there was a blizzard outside. Tourists came and went, a few even suffering from mild heat exhaustion from some imaginary heat they were exposed to. European girls sporting their tank tops and gravely inappropriate tight slacks and European men walking around with short shorts and t-shirts. Seriously, short shorts are never cool, I’m no Miles Davis but unless you’re playing for the 1985 Knicks you should not be wearing that crap… sigh. I in all of this was quite content. The weather for me was beautiful; I even made a habit of wearing long sleeves throughout the day and at night even broke out the sleeping bag. Clear blue sky and a cool breeze, Oranges beginning to ripen, and my work finally picking up again I decided to (not at all on a whim mind you) to travel back up to Kerewan then take a trip up to Wassu with Tara and Travis to get a local scarring done. A Gambian Peace Corps tradition for many years (not that that justifies it, but we can debate my actions later); in local Fula tradition they symbolize tribal identity when their done around the eyes, in Mandinka tradition they’re said to ward off evil, a type of body Juju. The decision seemed quite simple at this point.
Kerewan was nice as usually. I ended up getting stuck at Jenni’s compound for an hour or so waiting and thinking again how fun and cool it was to be able to just shoot the shit in Mandinka for a few hours with complete strangers. Tara was a great host and I got the entire history of South Africa one evening sipping red root tea and chowing down on some Velveeta Shells and Cheese® (where are mine by the way?). This is about the time in the story I started to feel a cold coming on. The next day we attempted to get to Olivia’s village who would be throwing a Spanish themed party that evening. The thing is there is only one car that goes to her village every day, that car departs her village at the butt crack of dawn, goes to Barra, then anywhere between 1 and 6 o’ clock it will pass by Kerewan so that we could hitch a ride. That means that as we started waiting out there around 2 there was the potential to end up waiting out there all fucking day for this car that would never be coming or have already passed. So I was slightly ticked off to say the least, I really have zero patience and to this day am curious as to why the Peace Corps saw me fit to be a volunteer. By the grace of god we did end up catching the ride and the next thing I knew was making tortillas and downing tequila shots at Olivia’s.
The prior mentioned ass crack of dawn hence came and what I found out was that contrary to popular belief the consumption of alcoholic beverages (especially those made in Mexico) only temporarily relieve cold symptoms and might as well have put a gun to my immune in regards to my developing flu. That mixed with the stresses of travel and the added anxiety of the fact that the next day I would be allowing a woman to cut my shoulder open and stuff ash into it, in turn put my illness in full bloom. Now this is the part where any normal man may take it upon himself to contemplate the possibility that maybe, just maybe, a higher power out there, was trying to tell him something. A neon sign if you will that says, “Hey buddy, why don’t you wait another time to get those scars and head back to a nice air conditioned room and let your body heal”, but that of course would be a very expensive sign. As I’m sure you have figured by now though, my incisive readers, is that that would also not make for a very great story line and thus our protagonist would therefore venture onward upon his journey to Wassu.
Wassu is however very far, and being the college educated group that we were decided to stay overnight at Kristin’s site who lived just south of Wassu. They spent the night chatting nervously as I drowsily moaned and groaned for the entire night in a Nyquil© induced slumber, waking occasionally to either blow my nose or put my two cents into a conversation, which mind you I will never be too sick for. I am, as a site-mate recently concluded, “The most opinionated person she’s ever met” which I will not deny. Back to our story though somewhere in between my feverish bouts of sleep we drew lines as a guide for the woman the next day to follow as she cut us. Travis on his calf, and in strange act of spontaneity decided to put another pair on the base of his thumb (my idea actually mind you but it really does look great there); Tara then with a little help drew three lines on her shoulder blade, and I then drew mine on the front of my shoulder. Kristin had actually gotten her scars done the year before on her foot and after some more anxious deliberations regarding logistics we fell asleep.
Morning comes, no relief on the cold front though I lie to myself and say my fever has gone down. This time it is only the partial ass crack of dawn and we, still half asleep, waited by the side of the road. Time passed, slowly, as it usually does waiting for a gilly gilly. Many cars it seemed were going east, but none were headed west. A east bound car an hour and a half later ended up stopping and said to hop in, that they were on their way to Barra (which would pass Wassu) but that they had to swing by Janjanburri Island first. Not wanting to wait any longer we hopped in the van and headed east. The road goes right up to the shore of the Gambia where cars hop onto little ferries for the short ride to the island. We didn’t have to wait long till we were looping around heading back west to Wassu. It seemed to me it was a tad early in the morning to be trying to see how fast they could drive the car. Clunk, ka-clunk! Everyone looked back. “What was that?” one said as the apprentice and the driver start to scream at each other in Pulaar. The car screeches to a halt and we all instantly bang out heads into the people in front of us. As the apprentice jumps out of the car people finally begin talking in languages I understand and I find out the delinquent apprentice didn’t tie the bags to the top of the car and a few were lost in transit. A few minutes later the bags are recovered and 10 minutes after that we would finally reach Wassu.
Wassu, alright so no offence to any poor volunteer who ever gets placed there but it’s sort of a shit hole of a town. If you are from there, I don’t apologize either, because you should know and have done something about it. In a blurry benedryl induced daze I attempt to drunkenly follow Kristen and the others through the town to try and find a so called, Fatou Ceesay. We greet a compound near the center of Wassu and they send a kid to take us to her place. A mango tree shelters the entrance of a typical Gambian mud brick compound. We greet again as a child runs in fear of us. A younger woman with her child on her back guides us in to a smaller room on the right and we sit on a bed with the mosquito net tied up, again nervously greeting Fatou. An older woman maybe in her early 70s, short, and sporting only a pair of pearly white incisors and a left canine in her mouth but smiling always like she doesn’t mind. “Your friend came here a week ago for scars on her back, she took very long to find me and said she had been walking the entire village all morning. The children do not speak the Fula language, only Mandinka.” she says in a gentle Mandinka as we laugh anxiously. Another Peace Corps friend, Ana, had come a week before but only speaks Pulaar and didn’t have as easy a time finding Ceesaykunda as we had. Finally, after a little bit of small talk and greetings we show her where we would like our scars done and Tara and Travis run to the shop next door to buy a razor. I had come prepared with a ready-to-use disposable surgical scalpel and the old Vietnam med kit I took from the back of my dad’s car.
In the back room she prepares a wooden stool and looks over the razors familiarizing her self with the edge of the blade. She ties back the mosquito net in the back room and motions us all to sit. She begins to rustle through a few dirty sheets to pull out a blackened, partly charred rams horn. It had been hollowed out to become a primordial flask of deep indigo peanut ash; and it sent a chill down my spine. Tara was very nervous, also, and asked to go first so she didn’t have to watch. Fatou sat her down on the bench and shaking took off her tank top to allow Fatou to access her shoulder blade. I prepared some first aid materials to bandage her when she was finished and Travis and I sat and waited for her to begin. Unflinchingly and with a kindred familiarity she took the razor to her skin as a drip of blood fell down her back. One after another in a matter of a few seconds she had finished the three cuts and reached for the ash-laden horn. I tried to hide my cringe from the others as Fatou began to shove the now cavernously black ash into the wound. I pulled out a few bandages from the med kit and covered the black square on her back with tape and gauze. Tara began to turn pale and we helped her lie down as Travis propped his foot on the bench.
Again, with what seemed like a lifetime of experience this kind and toothless old woman began, without hesitation, to cut into my friends calf. This time though as the blade made the first cut the skin sprawled out widely from what I could only surmise was due to the tightness of the skin in that area. Blood began to run heavily down his leg, much more than Tara’s, which only came in drops. Travis though, twiddled his thumbs like he had been cut in the middle of nowhere Africa by random old women hundreds of times. Once more she pushed the ash from the horn into the wound then she moved on to the two cuts at the base of his thumb. I spaced out as my mind began to run in circles, finding every way to rebel against the intrusion the knife would soon make through my skin. “Hey Steven, it’s your turn. You ready boss?”, Travis said coolly, “Fuck no I’m not going! Are you fucking kidding me!?” I exclaimed. I walked out into the back yard for some fresh air and paced for who knows how long. I can only assume they were saying something to calm me down but I did not hear them, I was in my own world. I paced for what seemed like forever, but in the end I gathered all the will power I had and decided to go through with it. So I sat, slowing my breathing so that I wouldn’t shake, took off my shirt and gave her the scalpel. “Domangding ding ding! Ya moy?”, I explained, “a jamfata backe bari a booka cunta jamfa le…” trying to in a cloud of contemplation and cold medicine explain how I wanted the cuts done, and the other two were thankfully able to help translate.
It was over. And as we sat waiting for our car to leave for Barra I exhaled. I was drained completely, emotionally exhausted from fighting with myself in the back of that hut, physically drained by hunger and flu, and mentally void of any lust for thought other than dreaming… “shit!”, I swore as I woke up an hour or so later as my head bumped roughly against the metal door when the car hit a bump. I took a few bites of some street pancatoes and slowly began to feel stronger. Pancakes are to me like spinach is to Pop-eye. We were in Barra now and I had to put my mind back together to prepare myself for the mess that is the ferry crossing. Then, we were sailing and the salted breeze blew against my face from the top tier of the ferry; I was able to get some sugar in me from a boy selling cold sodas for 15 dalasi. Now, a taxi ride from the ferry to the transit house in Fajara as time passed in exhausted sections. The driver blared a really terrible political comedian from either south Africa or India, I couldn’t tell, in what I could only guess was early 80s UK. “You do realize this is not poignant nor funny at all right? There are so many better political comedians from that time, this is truly agonizing to listen to.” I stated, again never to exhausted or sick to put my two cents into a conversation. And I awoke in the transit house a few hours later feeling a million times better, though it would still take a few days of eating good food in the capital and some time in a hammock on the beach to fully recover.
The wounds healed rather quickly, because my cuts were long but not very deep. It would take Travis’s a few weeks later to heal. For me though I was feeling well enough 3 days later to go to a Softball tryout for the competitive Peace Corps team that would compete in a tournament in Dakar in February. The tournament is called W.A.I.S.T., West African Inter-legit? International? Softball Tournament, but what is really a bunch of Ex-pats, Marines, and crazy Peace Corps volunteers getting drunk for a week and playing softball (but that blog entry will come later). Anyways it was great to get out there and play softball with some Americans and I’m stoked for February. That afternoon was thanksgiving and we were all invited to one of the AgFo sector staff’s really nice house where for about 250 dalasis we got to eat American imported turkey and a few homemade dishes. I still miss a real American thanksgiving, but I think we did it right here, minus my friends and family back home. The next morning came the all-volunteer meeting. A clutter of paperwork and logistics, the entire health sector met together and then we were left open to attend a training session of your choice put on by fellow volunteers. I went to both the bee keeping intro and woodlot construction for timber harvesting, both of which I hope to implement in my village in the upcoming few months, but details later.
We would have one more softball practice that Saturday. I felt guilty for having been away for so long on my trip that I was really debating even staying for it. But in the end decided to stay one more day and play. I was on fire that day, let me tell you; any athlete will tell you that there are some days when you’re just in it, unstoppable. I don’t remember dropping one ball in the outfield, and out of all the times I was at bat only didn’t touch base once. That evening all the volunteers still in the transit house were invited to a RPCVs house who was staying in the Gambia now and throwing a small shin-dig. All night though my eye was bothering me and I couldn’t stop rubbing it. By the time we were heading back to Fajara I had to completely close my left eye. I woke up in the middle of the night and it was terrible, I could barely open my eye, it was tearing up all night and the least bit of light sent me running. By morning I could barely see out of it except for a white cloud, which scared me to death. The health unit made me an appointment but it was Sunday by then and the eye clinic wouldn’t open till Monday. Never get sick on a weekend. I spent the whole day like a vampire huddled in a dark room watching movies on my laptop and trying to hold off a nervous break down. I held it off till about 4 o’ clock that Monday morning.
So there I was, hunched outside the health unit at 6am. I guess I passed out because I woke up around 9, past my appointment mind you and curious why I wasn’t woken sleeping on the tile porch of the health unit. The nurse cleaned my eye out and patched it up, commence pirate jokes, though be careful because I may cast ye to de depths of Davey Jones locker, arrrrrrr. The eye doctors was a huge waiting room of about a hundred people… all mind you staring at me, because though I may not have been the only one in an eye patch, I definitely was the only toubab with an eye patch and clothes that looked like they had been slept in a few nights… which they had. Physical appearance is very important here, especially when you travel or go to a public place; people will dress up and flaunt their beautiful dresses and halftons; and I would have looked like a bum in downtown Philly let alone in a doctors office. This is also about the point where I realized in my nervous break down at 4 in the morning I had chose two pairs of different sandals. One pair of crocs and on the other a cheap bitik sandal which actually now that I’m thinking about it wasn’t even mine. Diagnosis a few hours later was a corneal abrasion in the left eye. I would have to remain looking like Moshe Dayon for a day then would be stuck in the capital for another three days. Nothing will make you go crazier mind you than staying in a COMPLETELY EMPTY Peace Corps transit house for three days squinting the whole time. It sucked, but all things heal in time and by Thursday I was released to go up to Soma with a Peace Corps vehicle and teach a Life Skills Training Course to the new Peace Corps Trainees. It went super well and the new group, like usual, is a great group of people; but any group who are able to help me engage the entire bus in singing STYX classics are alright in my book.
Tabaski came a week later by the time I made it back to village. Tabaski is a Islamic holiday which juxtaposes the fasts of Ramadan repentance; during Tabaski you kill as many Rams as you can afford and pray for a year of peace while giving charity to those in need. Children will go around and ask for Salibo, a sort of trick or treat in my village where you can give either a prayer, candy, or money… though let me tell you do they get pissed when you give them a prayer. How messed up is that? Maybe it’s my bad luck but even older woman decided I was free game to ask for Salibo also. That morning I was also invited to the naming ceremony of one of a teacher at the schools compound. Nothing gets your stomach ready for a big breakfast like helping a few boys your age kill a baby goat and skin it. I ended up passing on the goat and ate a few pancatoes on the way back to my compound. Five hours later I would help my compound kill our ram (I’m posting a video online). Thankfully this ram didn’t cry as much as the baby, actually it sort of just exhaled and said screw it with out so much as a yelp. I guess it would be ridiculous to think that it realized in some way it’s body was being sacrificed as a ceremony to honor God but from the looks of it it had. “Demba come over here and try this”, my host brother said as another was squeezing out the fecal matter from the intestines “Be careful, if there’s a hole it will squirt shit on you” He hands me a still smoking piece of meat, “Try it, it’s the liver I think.” “Well OK!”, I said sarcastically but Judging by the still smoking plate I figured it had been cooked well so why not. “Oh my god this is gross”, I thought as I think I put on an Oscar winning performance of sheer joy. “This was cooked well right Elbou?”, “Well it was put over a fire for a bit”, “Elbou, I think it’s still bleeding.” “Could be.” I think I’m going to hurl.
That’s the part that sort of put me over the edge. I had been feeling pretty terrible for the past few days before Tabaski, and I will spare you the details on the variations of my bowel movements but lets just say by that afternoon I was diagnosed over the phone with Dysentery. “Dysentery!?!? Are you serious? I thought you could only get that disease playing Oregon Trail on the computer. You know, Charlie broke his leg, Sally has got Dysentery, you must caulk the wagon or attempt to ford the river.”, I protested. “Well you just got it. Take your anti-biotics till the bottle is finished and we’ll see you the next time you’re in the capital”. Oye vey. Thankfully though as soon as I started taking the medication I felt much better; and that brings us to the present. Alright so I’m going to give it a break for now before my hands get carpel tunnel. Once again I send my highest greetings to all of you, I miss you all, and mother as far as you need to be concerned I made this entire entry up.
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