Brikama, Sweet Brikama

There's nothing like a trip to a foreign land to make you appreciate your home of annoying children asking for pens and minties, funny old women asking you to take them back to "America" and smart-alec young men asking for your hand in marriage by hissing at you to get your attention first. But alas, that is my home for the next two years and I was never happier to turn the corner of my neighborhood that is Suburban Gambia, to be greeted by my neighborhood children playing their neighborhood rope games, than upon returning from our security consolidation point in Senegal. My site mate and I were appointed security wardens for our area and we went on a trial run just to scope it out last week

Don't get me wrong, I was in good company with one of my site mates and even met some hospitable Senegalese PCVs, but it was quite a little adventure for just two days and I guess that's all it took for me to appreciate my little slice of home known to tourists as "the smiling coast" and to the rest of us PCVs as something that's not appropriate to post publicly.

So, you know how I was glamorizing the rainy season? That was before I got stuck in a flash flood, without my little red umbrella that I thought would weigh me down, at 6am walking from my friend's house to the PC office to meet my travel companion. Completely drenched, we waded through the flooded streets to catch a gele to Banjul, where we would catch a ferry to Barra, later crossing the border to Senegal, then a Set+ to our final destination, but I'm getting ahead of myself. After a few minutes of standing out in the rain waiting for a decent priced ride to the ferry, a sleek black Mercedes pulls up, dropping off a school girl and asking where we were going. We looked at each other, shrugged and thought, eh, there's two of us and it's raining, so we got in the back. The driver was pretty silent even though he had a passenger in the front, and the familiar sounding Arabic tune of the Koran played over the stereo. We asked to be dropped at the ferry (if he was going that far), but as we neared the gate, also a flooded sea of geles, cars and people, the sleek Mercedes parted through them, addressing multiple employees by their first names. So I asked the humble driver if he worked for Gambia Port Authority and he ever so tactfully responded with “I’m a recently retired Captain”. And with that joy ride, our adventure officially began.

Still pretty drenched, we boarded the ferry and for the first time since arriving in Gambia, I was actually cold.

Border towns. I always forget what they’re like. Maybe it’s because my mind doesn't want me to remember the stress and pain associated with them. Do you guys like cashews? I do. But not enough for the hassle it takes to fight off the extremely pushy cashew sales girls. I made the mistake of asking how much to one of the girls. Next thing I knew, I kid you not, about 15 young girls were shoving cashew bags in my face, putting them in my purse, balancing them on my head and even in the space between my sunglasses and face. Now, I really can’t blame them. Decades of tourism and lack of food on the table has made this street vendor market a game for these children. And now, here I was, a white “madam” (French is the official language), speaking a few words of Mandinka in Wolof land and bringing even more attention to myself and my friend over a bag of cashews! We finally exchanged money, got our exit and entry stamps and hopped on a Set+ (just a station wagon from probably the 70s or so), where, just in case we still had a craving for cashews, we were still granted the option of buying because at this point a new group of girls flooded our windows until we gained speed to about 15k/h.

A few hours later, after a pleasant car ride (despite a very large tree branch being cut loose and falling only meters from our passing vehicle) and good conversations, we arrived to our destination town. It made Brikama look like (insert any town you’d rather be in) because the moment I realized I would not be communicating with anyone, I longed for Brikama. We found our consolidation point and spent the rest of the evening visiting with a group of Senegalese PCVs. The dinner was homemade and the conversations, in between episodes of Grey’s Anatomy that I hadn’t even seen before, were intellectually stimulating.

The ride back was relieving-ly uneventful. Anyway, even though I had a pretty good time, it’s nice to be back and to sleep in my own bed.

Stay tuned for the Basse-bound birthday weekend… Yeah, I still work.

Great to hear from so many of you! I knew you guys were still out there and the support helps more than you may ever realize.

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Check out some new pictures and the YouTube link I put up. It has some scenes from Gambia.