Meeting and Greeting

Dear Friends and Family:

This is kind of a long one, but is the core of the work I’ve been doing here – it’s not all drumming and dancing – there’s a lot of work going on too.

The meting and greeting ritual here is pretty elaborate. Much more than our “Hello, How are you?,” “Fine,” “And you?,” “Fine.” You might start off with salaam alekum to which the response is alekum salaam, but especially people you know get the long form. You always greet people and they greet you. It’s part of the fabric of this society. Names and surnames are very important. There are not so many surnames and it’s very meaningful which family you belong to.

The greeting has many questions and responses like “How is your family,” “How is your husband/wife,” “How are your children,” “I hope you have slept well.” There can be many questions. Mostly the response is something that sounds like “I Bee Jay” which means “They are here.” Of course, I did not do this greeting, but would just smile for my ignorance and ask questions in English. Shelby speaks Mandinka and was often engaged in greetings. For a toubob to do the greeting is unusual and I tend to think they would ask her extra hard questions just to be sure she understood everything.

Many people came to visit Shelby out of respect for her and her work with GambiaHELP. They do much with schools, libraries, educational funds, and sustainable projects especially for Women’s Groups which are called Kaffos. Many people come asking for new proposals to be funded. A fair number bring chickens as gifts and we are gathering lots of chickens waiting to become our dinner. We ate very well.

Many people come asking for proposals for new projects from wells and gardens, to paying school fees for children, to setting up sustainable projects especially for the Women’s Groups. The women work very hard in the rice fields in the rainy season (June-Sept), but do not have so many activities in the dry season (except pounding rice, cooking, taking care of the children, sweeping and on and on). Because rice is harder and harder to grow and sell – partly due to global warming – they all want other businesses for the dry season. Tie & Die, Batik and Soap Making are great sustainable activities for them. GambiaHELP has supported many of these sustainable projects. There is a teacher in Dankunku who is trained to teach all these crafts. When a women’s group qualifies, we engage this teacher and purchase supplies and a few tools for them to get started. This might cost 8,000 to 10,000 Delasis depending on the size of the group. This is about $400-500. The women learn the craft or several crafts and then sell their products. The first thing they buy is more materials so the project can be sustainable.

There are also Mother’s Groups which help the children, especially the girls, in school. Some of their favorite projects are seed programs. They grow a dry season garden, provided that they have a well, sell the proceeds, buy new seeds and provide school fees for the needy children in the village.

Other groups raise chickens which need to have a good building and a strong roof, otherwise they will die during the rainy season. Most chickens are raised for meat, but some are working with egg laying chickens – it takes more investment because the turn around time is 6 months instead of 3 months for an eating chicken and they must be kept in a separate building. Everyone knows how to handle chickens here and you frequently see people carrying them around by their feet.

As with all projects, sometimes they don’t work. The rain falls while they are making Tie & Dye and ruins the cloth. The women get so excited about supporting girls in school they forget to buy the new seeds. Sustainability is not something natural to us and we are all learning how this sustainability works. The idea is that the project continues even if there are no profits just now. One group had two projects going – Tie & Dye and sewing Mosquito Bed Nets (both a business and curbing Malaria - what a win/win). When the Tie & Dye cloth was ruined, they were able to borrow from the Bed Net project and then give the money back to the Mosquito Bed Net project. Very creative and hard working people.

Future projects might include a solar project since there is so much sun here and such a need for power. It’s very interesting to learn about this.

Needless to say, the main room at the Out Post is always full with meeting and greeting and proposals and ideas. From the Acallo (village chief) to a woman who had walked 12 kilometers from the village of Sinchu to see us. Some proposals are already written from the Head Master at the school and man named Alhadge who writes proposals for people. These are hand written because there are no computer facilities in town. Others still need to be developed or redeveloped and then written up. GambiaHELP is always looking for donors who are interested in supporting specific projects. We have a number of proposals from last year that will now be funded because of generous donors.

The biggest proposal this year is for a Skill Center building for Dankunku where the women can do their crafts – especially using sewing machines and tie & dye without worry about the weather. It’s a well written proposal for about $11,000 for the whole building. As with all proposals, the community must contribute 25% of the total. The smallest is for $50 for seeds for a Mother’s Group sustainable garden project. There are many projects in between.

I know several of you have indicated you would like to donate to GambiaHELP (a registered Non-Profit). You certainly can do so if you wish. 100% of donations go to work in the country. You can donate on their web site or you can send checks made out to:

GambiaHELP
Shelby Tarutis
3920 NE 38th Street
Seattle, WA 98105

Biography
Tonna Kutner has her own company – Computer Lynx – which specializes in web sites and search engine optimization for web sites. She and Shelby have worked together for several years with the Seattle Chapter of the American Association of University Women. Tonna has provided technical support to GambiaHELP and has also assisted with the GambiaHELP auctions in a variety of ways. Tonna was the successful bidder at the 2006 auction for a trip to The Gambia with Shelby. Although Tonna has traveled extensively in East Africa, this is her first trip to West Africa.