Sare Samba I love and miss you!

So. Explaining the past three months is going to be quite a challenge, but I will try to blog my experience. I have just returned from a day at the beach. I am eating a large bag of M&Ms (Thanks Mom. You're really nice.) But don't let this fool you, I'm actually quite emotionally unstable.

I have just finished 10 weeks in the most amazing training village ever... Sare Samba! This was my modestly pimp hut (the small white one on the right) complete with pit latrine and bucket shower area.

The first night I got there, my host mom Yaa Je handed me a delightful dinner of rice and a fish head. While I don't mind a fish head every now and then these days, the sight of it on my first night in village almost brought me to tears, so I decided to search by candlelight through my trunk so lovingly provided by Peace Corps and found a jar of peanut butter and a box of cornflakes. But the food's really not that bad. Just a lot of rice, and fish, and peanut sauce. And this millet like substance called coos (not cooscoos!), which tastes kind of like sand, but delicious sand.


My hut was really awesome, except for the small mouse problem. But I actually decided to become friends with the mice and gave them all names. But then my family put a cat in my hut without my knowledge one day to take care of the mice, and the cat killed and ate all of my new friends. Please keep Rupaul, Booger, and Stupid Jerk in your thoughts and prayers.


Speaking of mice, this is the birthday package I recevied from the parentals. Apparently while the package was sitting in the Peace Corps mail room for about a month, a mouse ate all my birthday chocolate and then proceeded to eat a whole bag of raisins. This is the reason why I named my last mouse friend Stupid Jerk.

Every volunteer was given a Gambian name. My name is..... Sali Senghore, the most unAfrican sounding name possible. I was named after my host brother's wife, Sali Seen. Yes, I came all the way to West Africa to be named "Sally," but it's a lot better that a Gambian pronunciation of Allison, which sounds a lot like "Assin". The name has grown on me and I'm a fan of alliteration, so Sali Senghore it is. The last name Senghore is a Serrer last name. Serrers are an ethnic group of the Gambia and Southern Senegal that are known for being extremely good looking wrestlers and fishermen. So when I introduce myself, I usually say "My name is Sali Senghore. I'm a Serrer. Do you want to wrestle or catch fish?" (translation: Sali Senghore laa tudda. Serrer laa. Buga nga mboor wala napa jin?) This usually goes over well.


This is a picture of my host father, Baay Wali, at our naming ceremony pretending to shave my head like they do at actual naming ceremonies. But don't worry, I still have a ridiculous amount of hair. I like to refer to this new hair growth as my own little African bush.


Then of course the ceremony was followed by about two hours of dancing. The glorious woman on the left is Haddy Sowe, my language and culture instructor. She taught me how to speak Wolof everyday for 3 months. And she's amazing. And she's a nice dancer.


This is my host sister Mam Fatou, my namesake Sali, and the little baby sitting on the ground probably eating dirt, picking her nose, and then eating the dirt/snot combination, is little Haddy, Sali's daughter.


The cutest picture of Haddy ever! She's adorable when she's not eating goat feces off the ground.


This is my host brother, Modou, but everyone calls him Baay Mort. I call him BM.

My host brother/Sali's husband/Haddy's father, Ousman. He's a horsecart driver and he gave us rides to the market in Soma, which is about an hour away on horsecart. I really liked his sunglasses and wore them around the compund when he wasn't looking. I also really liked his jogging suits, but I didn't wear them.


This is me and my host mom Yaa Je. My mom owns a bitic, or little shop. She sells Jumkun, which is powder that you add to your water to makes it taste like a strawberry creamsicle. Flavored water, my new favorite simple pleasure.


Mam Fatou in the bitic. She was my best friend here. It's interesting that I found myself relating most to a 14-year old. One would think that I would relate more to Sali who's 19. But Sali is married with a baby. Mam Fatou likes math and hates boys. Thus, I hung out with Mam Fatou basically all day everyday.


My family in Sare Samba are peanut farmers, so I spent countless hours laying on the floor with them cracking peanuts, roasting peanuts, and eating peanuts. This is the big machine that they bring over once a year to make peanut butter. It was an exciting day in the Senghore compound. It worked out nicely that I like peanuts. If you do not like peanuts, do not come to the Gambia. If you are allergic to peanuts, you will die immediatly upon landing in the Gambia.


Sali, sweeping the compound with Haddy attached to her back with a towel.


Me, trying to carry Haddy on my back, and Fatou laughing at me. Yaa Je told me that I should be able to carry her because my butt was so big. Thanks mom.


Two boys on a donkey cart.


Kids at the water pump.
I had to pump all of my water for bathing, drinking, etc. out of this covered well, which took a lot of physical labor, and then carry carry it back to my hut on my head, which provided much entertainment for the rest of the village. My pecks are amazing.


Cassandra, a fellow trainee, at the pump lookin' fly.


In case you didn't know, Africa is really hot. In Sare Samba, we couldn't do anything from noon to 4:00pm. I felt like I sweat all of the sexiness out of my body everyday. So we would hang out in Haddy's backyard everyday under a really big mango tree and eat mangoes, and these lovely ladies would come and help us practice Wolof and braid each others' hair.

In recent news, I ate sea slug today. Not my favorite. Here are links to some of my friends' blogs, who actually update regularly, in case you are interested...

Beth's blog
Courtney's blog

Yay,
Allison aka Sali aka Toubab (rich white person)