Mud Warriors

This Thursday was the Gambia's independence day, and classes were canceled, so we took a trip upriver (which means going away from the coast into more rural parts of the country). We drove a few hours out (mostly on unpaved roads) to Tendaba, a nature camp.

The next morning we all assembled for a nature walk. Professor Nagengast told us it was about 10 miles round trip. Many of my housemates are outdoorsy people who enjoy hiking, camping, back packing and even exercise. Since my idea of a good time is sitting on the couch, cajoling my sister into making me a brownie sundae, I was a little less enthusiastic about walking for several hours in the African sun.
But I went along anyway and had a fantastic time. In fact, by the time we reached the halfway point, I was ready to ring up my father and suggest that we take up hiking as a father/daughter bonding experience.

When we got to the halfway point, we found out that Prof wasn't really sure how to get back to camp without back tracking. We asked one of the children from the village who had been walking with us if we could just follow the shoreline of the river.

Boy: That way is not good.
Prof: But can we take it back to camp?
Boy: It's not good.
Prof: Not good is good. We can take it back?
Boy: stares at the crazy toubabs and nods his head, ever so slightly

So, with that all settled and cleared up, we started heading along the shoreline. We only got a few yards before we realized it was far too muddy to walk through. (Remember that, the irony will strike you later). So, we decided to bushwhack and see if we could blaze our own trail through the woods. After wandering around in circles for a little while and getting covered in burs, we found the path we had walked on early. But again, backtracking is boring, so we sent some scouts, up to the top of a hill to determine if we was feasible to bushwhack in the general direction of camp. They said it was, so we headed through the woods, up a hill, scrambled down a steeper one and emerged in what was probably a lake during the rainy season, but right now was just some dried up sandy ground.
We marched on that for a while and then through some tall grass and then across a more marshy area. That's when the real adventure started.

For the most part, there were plants growing where we were walking and the ground was soft, but not too muddy. However, we reached a crossing where no plants were growing. Belle, one of the girls on this trip, walked across, started sinking, ran faster and managed to make to the other side, less her shoes. I'm incredibly unobservant and much less cool headed, so I followed her, sunk in the mud, freaked out, struggled, lost both my shoes, tried to turn around and head back, got stuck and had to be physically pulled out. I still needed my shoes, so I waded back in, rescued Belle's shows and one of mine, then freaked out again when I realized that I had no idea which of the many deep, deep "foot prints" (if it's still called that when I sunk up to my knees) held my right flip flop. I needed to find that flip flop because I only brought one pair of shoes to Tendaba and going barefoot in Africa is a terrible, terrible idea. Fortunately, Prof had a long stick which he poked in around in the mud to feel around for my shoe, after one false alarm, we found it and by reaching down into the mud past my ankle and pulling really, really hard, I was able to rescue my flip flop.

I wallowed over to where Belle was and she helped yank me out of the mud. Being much more quick and clever about it, three members of our group, Kyle, Tiereny and Jonas ( a Swedish student that we've adopted), came over to join us.

The rest of the group looked at us, decided they didn't feel like getting filthy and said they were going across the way to a dryer passage. The five of us decided we had already gotten down and dirty and were going to continue on our muddy way. Before they left, the group took a picture of "Team Mud" in which we attempted to look fiercely intense, but which I ruined by slipping in the mud and falling backwards onto my ass.

We continued along our very muddy way. We very soon discovered on our second mud crossing that under the mud which squished softly on our bare feet (wearing shoes was difficult, slippery and risked losing your shoes for good),were sharp sea shell rocks that sliced into our feet. Seeing red blood mix with the dark gray mud was even more worrisome when we stopped to think about all the different parasites that live in Africa.

It was an adventuresome time, filled with many stupid choices, starting with the fact that I was making the whole trek in a skirt. Yep. A freakin' skirt. At one point, when I was crawling up a mud hill, I looked down and saw a bright red button in the dark gray mud. "Look you guys! A button! That means someone has come here before! And recently! Someone came through here recently!" It wasn't until a bit later that I realized the button has come from my skirt. In fact the weight of the mud and the strain of crawling, slogging and climbing ended up snapping all but two buttons off my skirt. It was now slit open all the way up; the long tank top I wore was the only thing keeping me from being entirely indecent.

But we were fierce mud warriors and we pressed on, encountering (and conquering) various obstacles. We made several more mud crossings, climbed on rocks and drainage pipes and at one point, waded through waist deep water.

There were several times when I got absolutely stuck in the mud and would have remained there if Kyle and Jonas hadn't been there to yank me out. And one time when Jonas got stuck in the mud and kept sinking and pretty much almost died because he refused to abandon his water bottle. Not a good water bottle, mind you. A cheap plastic one you can buy anywhere in the Gambia.

At the end of our muddy path, we reached salvation: the road that would take us back to camp. After shouting across to the non-mud trekkers that we were okay, we headed home. My skirt was very heavy and was rubbing rather uncomfortably, since the day before I had gotten a scalding sun burn just about everywhere. Because it was pretty much pointless anyway, seemed logical to just take it off. To make me feel more comfortable, all the Mud Warriors took their pants off and we walked the last half mile to camp in our underwear.

All in all, we felt pretty damn triumphant.


Photos courtesy of Blair Saul and Tiereney Miller

Old McDonald had a farm...and it was everywhere

I hate roosters. I HATE them. I never knew that before. If someone had asked me for my least favorite animal, I don't think I could have answered. Well, now I can. It's roosters. I HATE roosters.

There are chickens that live in our neighborhood. They run around avoiding getting run over by cars or stepped on by people. Mama hens peck the ground for food with little chicks following in a scraggly line behind. The roosters strut around, crowing - loudly. Growing up in suburbia and exposed to farm life mostly through story books or TV shows, I assumed roosters only crowed in the morning when the sun came up. That is not the case. Roosters crow whenever they damn well please.

Animals here are very different from animals in the States. Cats and dogs here mostly just roam around, eating whatever they can find. The cats seem to manage better than the dogs. The dogs are almost always skinny with torn ears, some other wounds, fleas and flies always crawling on them. Dogs around here are also terrible at crossing streets. I've never seen one hit, but I've seen some damn close calls.
In class the other day, we got into a discussion about animal shelters. There are no such things in the Gambia. It seems incredulous to many Gambians that in America someone pays money to take in strays and to feed and care for them until they're adopted.

To put this in a greater perspective, it's not just dogs, cats and chickens that roam around. Most live stalk have free reign. Mostly commonly you'll see goats (who are surprisingly good at crossing busy streets) sometimes sheep (sheep tails hang down; goat tails point up. That's the only way to tell the difference). It's pretty common to see a donkey or a group of goats grazing at the College campus. Yesterday, a group of cows was chowing down just outside the door of the administrative building. One farmer isn't going to have enough grass to feed all of his livestock, so they get to roam around to find their own food. And the interesting thing is, all the livestock comes home at night. Every goat knows where he lives and goes there.

They only people who find anything remarkable about this at all are we international students. For the Gambians, it's just the way things are. And who knows, maybe when I return the States, I'll be surprised not see any goats. Maybe the lack of farm animals will seem odd to me.

Maybe. But if a rooster moves in next door, I'm hitting it with my car.

Baby Mamas

At the University, there are women who set up little stations selling water, groundnuts, juice and oranges. One of our first days, I walked by an old woman selling oranges who was holding a little boy (maybe about 20 months). I smiled at her and the baby. She motioned me over and handed the baby to me. I was so happy. Older children will run up to and grab your hands and shout "Toubab" (white person) at you, but I had never yet had the chance to hold a baby. He was a sweet, fat little thing.

The Orange Lady (as we've affectionately dubbed her) spoke a little English, but not much. She said something in Mandinka (one of the local languages) and motioned for me to lean forward. When I did so, she put the little boy on my back and wrapped cloth around me so I could carry him the way the African women do. Talk about a high point in my day. I thanked the woman profusely and we bought several oranges from her.

The next day I was walking with my housemates and the Orange Lady saw us. "Come! All of you come!" she shouted at us. "Follow! One by one!" Then she began shouting at us in Mandinka. We had no idea what she was saying, what she wanted or where she was taking us, but we all followed her meekly and obediently, in a single file line. She lead us across campus to a small room, all the while chattering to us in Mandinka.

The room she lead us to was a sort of make shift nursery. There were mattresses on the floor and young women (Gambia College students) sat cuddling, nursing and playing with their babies and their friends babies. The Orange Lady pointed at different babies and insisted that we hold them. It was wonderful. I've been back a few times since. There's the fat little boy that I first held, this darling little girl and a teeny tiny three week old baby boy.

There are always girls hanging out, sometimes nursing, sometimes napping, sometimes just talking and laughing. I'm sure they're incredibly amused by us. I'm probably older than many of them, clearly baby obsessed, yet I have no husband, no children and am years away from having a real job (they're all in training to be teachers).

Most of the girls who attend University don't have children (I can't think of any that do), and I know that in the United States there are girls my age and younger who are married with children. Still, I feel so young and so incapable of being responsible for another tiny life.