"Eat My Dust", and Other Gambian Hungry Season Nutritional Supplements

So, all this time, I've been pining away for a piece of Norman's fall foliage and autumn awesomeness when it turns out a bit of the Sooner State had been under my nose (well more like under my feet and actually up my nose, and distastefully in my mouth) all along! Turns out Native America is not the only place on this green earth that minerals red dirt. But more on this later...



Dry season is once again official upon us. The last time we saw the rains was about a month ago, at the end of Ramadan. Although I don't anticipate my little corner of this little country AKA, Western Region, especially Brikama, to bear the brunt of what has been termed by aid workers and the like as the "hungry season", I do believe we'll be observing changes in food bowls and probably even behaviors after the holiday of Tobaski, (where the bank is all but broke on sacrificing the holiest affordable 4 legged animal, from ram, sheep, male goat, female goat, camel or up to 7 people can go in on purchasing a steer or cow) which takes place on Dec 20th or 21st this year. From about the end of may through just about a month a go mangoes hung like monkeys from the trees and you couldn't walk around a corner without passing a kiddo with mango juice dripping from her mango stuffed mouth, filling the belly in between meals and secretly satisfying her daily requirements of vitamins A & C. It's exciting to witness the seasonal crops and anticipate what will come next, while holding back tears when your mango turned avocado market lady is now your corn lady only one ephemeral month later!! Excitingly and surprisingly convenient, watermelon season is still going strong which allowed some create, Halloween obsessed PCVs to fulfill their carving craving and goal 2 of Peace Corps in one go. Oranges are making their debut again as well as some fancy looking tomatoes and potatoes. Bananas heed a pretty steady supply year round, but you can really tell the hard times are about to be unveiled when Gambia’s staple crop, the groundnut, is ready for harvest. One of my first memories present of this 2 seasoned country is of the women sitting around punching the shells with their thumbs on their floor mats, so systematically, yet with a carelessness that illustrated a commencement of this daily dry season task probably just as they were weaned to feed themselves.

I can’t believe this Thursday is Thanksgiving. The 90 degree heat won’t allow my brain to lend to that fact. PC Gambia has a pretty good sense of the potential upheaval the loneliness of celebrating holidays in village and has conveniently scheduled a mandatory all volunteer meeting as well as the 40th anniversary of PC existing in Gambia with an optional Thanksgiving celebration. My health group upped the notch in this weekend excitement by declaring a regional “asobee” competition, where volunteers from the 5 regions pick out a fabric they feel represents their region, with which a tailor will make an outfit out of this, so everyone from that region will be dressed in the same fabric for the 40th anniversary meal. After a little contemplating and purusing of the market, we found this blue fabric with spoons and forks all over.

Since WR is by far the coolest (figuratively and literally) region in the country- represented with the blue background and definitely cooks the best food bowls- represented by the spoons and forks, we couldn't’t pass it up. Well, that and the fabric guy gave us a pretty good deal and there was a lot of the pattern to go around. So the slogan is something like this: “Staying cool and well fed in the WR”. Pictures and results to come.

But back to what I was stating before. Even though a lot of families in WR eat better than those in the provinces, hunger and malnutrition, especially among pregnant women and children under 5, is still present and I wouldn't be surprised if that saying “always 2 weeks away from a famine” could be applicable to this West African country during the dry season, as well. I don’t know; I’m just speculating, but it might be possible. I know of some volunteers who feel so guilty about buying food to supplement their diets that they hide the “grocery bags” in their backpacks before they head back to their families. Every sliver of food parcel present in a group is precisely split to distribute to anyone present. I definitely rethink even buying a ½ loaf of bread at the bitik and walking in to my host family’s evening TV watching hour if I don’t plan to tear off enough for those sitting around.

What I’m getting at is this: Thanksgiving is a wonderful day to look forward to. It represents many traditions, including the gathering of friends and family to partake in the horn of plenty. I hope this Thanksgiving is filled with lots of love, changing colored leaves, little ones acting like yard apes, big ones showing them up in the same department, and Mom’s broccoli rice casserole. But keep in mind that not everyone gets a piece of that plenty. Maybe even that guy you seem to pass almost weekly walking his dog down the street. Take care and prepare your dishes with love, but only as much as you and your guests can consume (with the appropriate left over days accounted for of course!). If you've made too much, look up your local shelter’s # in the phone book and drop off a doggie bag on the way to Aunt Carol’s place. If you’ve got a few hours to kill, then stay and lend a hand. You might just be thankful you did it.

Alright, alright, red dirt, green earth; Gambia, Oklahoma. No rain = lots of dust and I went running yesterday down my new favorite path, part of which consists of the exact color of red clay found in OK, which mad me a little teary-eyed. Wait, no, that was the gele-gele stirring it up as it puttered past, after which redness hovers in the air long enough for me to run through about 100 meters, getting it in my eyes, giving my skin the appearance of a salon-fresh self-tanning mist, and yep, you guessed it, I ate that gele’s dust. Oh well, guess it’s all just a little more food for thought…

Happy Thanksgiving!