Friday in Fajara
A typical day in The Gambia is only typical because you never know what you might see or do or where you might end up. This was my Friday...
Up at 7am for school. Breakfast consisting of fresh tapalapa (white bread) bought that morning from the corner store with Nutella :) Started out on the 10 minute walk to school in Bakau and was picked up by Ansumana, the NSGA National Coordinator. He "usually" picks us up. Sometimes he's waiting at the gate, sometimes he doesn't show at all and sometimes he picks us up along the way. When I got to the school I was greeted by a chorus of "Miss Brandy!"'s from my students who hang out on the wall at the Mosque. Love it!
Then off to my classroom to erase the board, hang up posters and get my things ready for the day. Morning class involved teaching about abstinence, proper condom use (with the fake penis of course - Burris now calls it the Penis Ejaculatus) and rape/sexual assualt. Heavy topics but always entertaining. At the 1/2 hour lunch break I grabbed a snack (more tapalapa usually) and a Fanta, and hang out with my Grade 7s who still come to visit even though now I teach Grade 8. One Grade 7 comes every day to read my "Where Women Have No Doctor" book and I give him extra help with STI info. hehe. Afternoon class is repeat of the morning but with the 2nd group of Grade 8s. Another Grade 7 who still visits me, "Little Fatou" as I call her, brought me a stuffed dog named Lucky. Cute!
After school, Inna (one of our Gambian colleagues) took us to her house for a baby's naming ceremony. Baby's always have a namesake and are named when they are 7 days old. There were probably 100 people there socializing and eating. The party starts in the morning and goes all day and night. The men were sitting out under a huge tent in the street on plastic lawn chairs and the women were all in the compounds talking and cooking. The food is cooked in huge pots on an open fire. There are flies EVERYwhere. We were given warm soured milk with some sort of ground oatmeal-like stuff in it to drink. Blech. Then I had China Tea, some strong, sweet tea that has gunpowder in it (or not). Oh yeah. It wasn't bad actually. Lunch was a communal bowl (four of us shared) of spicy rice with cabbage, eggplant and sheep's lung!! hahaha. I tried it but mostly stuck to the rice. After lunch, Inna's brother, Papalie, took us to the football stadium for a tour. First stop: the gym where all of his friends were working out. Nothing like parading the toubabs around. And of course he pumped a little iron for us. hahaha.
Made our way home and got changed for a night out with all the Canadian teachers and Burris. He took us to a place called Ngala Lodge. It was probably the nicest place I've EVER been. So lovely. We got fancy drinks and watched the sunset before heading inside to the restaurant/bar. We had a fantastic meal and then became barflies for the rest of the night. I had a watermelon/papaya/vodka drink that we called the Aminata Cocktail after our lovely bartender. She made it up and it was delicious. Then I discovered they had Harvey Wallbangers and moved onto them. Hehe. We ended up dancing to the live African band and a couple of our gals joined in for their version of La Bamba - the African-Toubab version. Indeed!
Hooo-eeee... long post.
Bye for now!
Up at 7am for school. Breakfast consisting of fresh tapalapa (white bread) bought that morning from the corner store with Nutella :) Started out on the 10 minute walk to school in Bakau and was picked up by Ansumana, the NSGA National Coordinator. He "usually" picks us up. Sometimes he's waiting at the gate, sometimes he doesn't show at all and sometimes he picks us up along the way. When I got to the school I was greeted by a chorus of "Miss Brandy!"'s from my students who hang out on the wall at the Mosque. Love it!
Then off to my classroom to erase the board, hang up posters and get my things ready for the day. Morning class involved teaching about abstinence, proper condom use (with the fake penis of course - Burris now calls it the Penis Ejaculatus) and rape/sexual assualt. Heavy topics but always entertaining. At the 1/2 hour lunch break I grabbed a snack (more tapalapa usually) and a Fanta, and hang out with my Grade 7s who still come to visit even though now I teach Grade 8. One Grade 7 comes every day to read my "Where Women Have No Doctor" book and I give him extra help with STI info. hehe. Afternoon class is repeat of the morning but with the 2nd group of Grade 8s. Another Grade 7 who still visits me, "Little Fatou" as I call her, brought me a stuffed dog named Lucky. Cute!
After school, Inna (one of our Gambian colleagues) took us to her house for a baby's naming ceremony. Baby's always have a namesake and are named when they are 7 days old. There were probably 100 people there socializing and eating. The party starts in the morning and goes all day and night. The men were sitting out under a huge tent in the street on plastic lawn chairs and the women were all in the compounds talking and cooking. The food is cooked in huge pots on an open fire. There are flies EVERYwhere. We were given warm soured milk with some sort of ground oatmeal-like stuff in it to drink. Blech. Then I had China Tea, some strong, sweet tea that has gunpowder in it (or not). Oh yeah. It wasn't bad actually. Lunch was a communal bowl (four of us shared) of spicy rice with cabbage, eggplant and sheep's lung!! hahaha. I tried it but mostly stuck to the rice. After lunch, Inna's brother, Papalie, took us to the football stadium for a tour. First stop: the gym where all of his friends were working out. Nothing like parading the toubabs around. And of course he pumped a little iron for us. hahaha.
Made our way home and got changed for a night out with all the Canadian teachers and Burris. He took us to a place called Ngala Lodge. It was probably the nicest place I've EVER been. So lovely. We got fancy drinks and watched the sunset before heading inside to the restaurant/bar. We had a fantastic meal and then became barflies for the rest of the night. I had a watermelon/papaya/vodka drink that we called the Aminata Cocktail after our lovely bartender. She made it up and it was delicious. Then I discovered they had Harvey Wallbangers and moved onto them. Hehe. We ended up dancing to the live African band and a couple of our gals joined in for their version of La Bamba - the African-Toubab version. Indeed!
Hooo-eeee... long post.
Bye for now!
posted by brandy at 1:19 PM
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