My Daily Life in The Gambia

With 3+ weeks of living in Gambia under my belt, it seems like time to share a few details about what it's like. I'll stick to the basics for now - food and clothing. I already shared a bit about shelter in a previous post.

Food: Rice, rice, rice. For most people, a meal isn't a meal if there isn't rice. Sometimes it may be only rice, but usually there is some kind of sauce or seasoning, and perhaps some chunks of vegetables and pieces of meat/fish. Coos (millet that has been pounded into small sand-like pieces) is a staple in some families, a frequent substitute for rice. They were recently harvesting the coos near my compound. 

Coos may also be served with sugar and condensed milk for porridge in the morning. Seasonal fruits and veggies are the norm, when there are any. We'll have it pretty good for the next several months, as we are just wrapping up the rainy season and moving into the prime gardening season (Nov - Mar). Later in the spring it is simply too dry and hot, and then the rains come back and sometimes wipe out the crops. Alternatively, if you're further inland near the river, you may have hippos to contend with. Seriously! They are notorious for trampling and eating the rice and other crops just before harvest. 

To give you a sense for it, here's what I ate yesterday. My host grandmother packs me a breakfast each day that I take with me to class. It commonly includes a hard boiled egg, boiled potato, boiled carrot and some spagetti noodles, and she gives me D $6 (6 dalasi, or about 12 cents) for a freshly baked baguette (thanks to the French colonists in neighboring Senegal!). Many others in my cohort get a baguette filled with something that ranges from margarine or mayo (only) to hard boiled eggs to beans to spaghetti with chunks of spam in it. Yep - a spaghetti sandwich for breakfast is a local favorite.

We eat lunch with our training group. It's usually a large bowl of rice with some meat, veggies and sauce. Veggies typically include tomato, cabbage, carrots, cucumber, eggplant and a local vegetable called jaxaxto or sour/bitter tomato. Yesterday it also included some nice grilled chicken with a lot of sautéed onions. We also had some watermelon - they just recently started showing up in the markets. Yum!

Last night's dinner was quite nice as well. My host mother is married to a man who has a business selling fish. She spends the week with him in a nearby town (close to the school where she teaches) and comes home to our compound on the weekends. [I'll explain the extended family dynamics in a later post - very interesting and different than the US.] She often brings fish home with her. Last night she grilled the fish over a charcoal fire and we ate it with sliced onions that had been marinated in lime juice and freshly smashed peppers. And rice, of course. 

Much to my surprise, I haven't been craving any foods from back home. Or alcohol either! I haven't had a drop of alcohol since I arrived, and won't even have a chance until we go to the capital area (that area is called Kombo - the metropolitan area near the capital city of Banjul; the PC office and transit house are located there). Ninety percent of the population is Muslim and out of respect PCVs generally don't drink alcohol in our villages or when we're with the locals. 

Food security is a big issue in The Gambia and is one of the Peace Corps' primary areas of focus. I am not seeing evidence of it where I'm currently living, but that could change when I get to my permanent site and during the "hungry months" of the year when produce is harder to come by.

Clothing: Plenty of people wear western clothing, often with brands or school names on them that are more familiar to me than to them. But traditional dress is just as common. In the villages, most clothing is made locally by tailors. I already had one shirt made - kind of a tunic style with short sleeves and pockets. It cost two dollars for two meters of fabric and about four dollars to have the shirt made. I just bought some more cloth and will have some capri pants made. I'll post a "fashion" blog later on when I have more of a collection to share. For certain occasions, it is customary for a group to dress in "asobi." That means everyone has clothes made from the same type of fabric. Each individual chooses whatever style of clothing they desire. Our group of 39 (working through a committee of 5 people) just purchased asobi for our swearing-in ceremony in December. 

All in all, I'm doing well and adjusting to the many changes. We just had our first language test today and I felt pretty good about that - but have a LONG way to go before I'll be anywhere close to fluent. I haven't had any issues with the diet, etc., and am getting great sleep. Exercise is limited in part due to the heat and humidity, but fortunately we have about three days a week that we meet with our entire group at a nearby training center, and that provides me with an 18-mile round trip by bicycle. I took this pic during my ride this morning. 

There are an amazing array of birds here, but I have had limited time to pay them much attention. As for insects, I feel like I've been giving them plenty of attention. Fortunately no significant encounters with the biting or stinging types - so far, knock on wood. 

Thanks for reading! Mbaa jamma ngeen endu! [I hope you spend the day in peace.]