Life In The Gambia

Some of you have asked me about the weather, food and just day to day life here so this post will concentrate mostly on that. As for weather, it is very nice here now, it still gets into the 80's during the middle of the day but usually I'm inside or under a shade tree by that time so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. Speaking of which, during the middle of the day almost all farmers and family's will come in from working the fields to eat lunch and drink attaya (the local tea).

Attaya is a big part of Gambian culture. Almost all men drink attaya at least once a day, if not 2 or 3 times, and women and children drink it too but not as much. Attaya is boiled in small tea pots over charcoal stoves, lots of sugar is put into attaya and it usually takes about half an hour to prepare one serving. The tea grounds are then used two more times to brew the attaya which makes having attaya about a two hour ordeal. This drink is high in caffeine so this is another reason farmers like it so much. I can attest, attaya is a real pick me up when you are feeling a little tired or sluggish.

The food here can be very good and also very bad. Some of the main dishes we eat are white and red benechin, maffe, mbahaal, cuwa gerte, cere, and lak. These all have either rice, fish, peanuts, coos, and or other miscellaneous things in them. At first there were some things I wasn't a big fan of like the cere (coos) but now I really do like all the foods that are prepared here. It helps that my host mother and sisters are excellent cooks, they really have cooked the best food I've eaten here in The Gambia.

Day to day life should consist of me waking up at 7am washing my face, going outside and greeting my family, going to pump water at the well and then helping my host brothers water my banana and papaya trees in my backyard. Since I'll be planting a garden I want to spend the mornings working in my backyard doing whatever needs to be done. By this time is should be about 9:30-10:00am and we will have breakfast. After this the rest of the day will consist of my walking around talking to people, drinking attaya, studying Wolof, reading, sleeping, eating lunch and doing little things here and there. My teacher is loaning me a bee hive so I'll be spending some time with that getting it ready and trying to colonize it. It's almost harvest season so I need to get it colonized as soon as possible. I have a bee suit also so don't worry, I wont get stung to much.

I'm tired so I'm ending it here, if your good I will add more later!