A Few Parting Stories from The Gambia

Dear Friends and Family:

Most people spend a lot of time outside in the Gambia. Homes are called “Compounds” and may include many families or parts of the same family. The compound is the outdoor area that links them all together. Chickens wander, goats are fed, laundry is washed and dried, cooking, rice pounding, and many other activities go on in the compound. At our Out-Post in Dankunku, the compound is nearly always an active place where people are hanging out or busy doing chores. There’s a big mango tree in our compound and in the hot afternoons it’s a favorite place.

To my surprise, an old faded Scrabble game was pulled out one afternoon on the mat under the mango tree and Adama and Alhadge started their game. I am a moderate Scrabble player and enjoy the game and the strategy. Looking at the condition of the very warn game board and noting that some tiles were hand made and others barely readable, I thought I might help them out with their game.

I watched the game for a bit and it became apparent that no help was needed! These guys were real pros, knew all the two letter words and frequently got the 50 bonus points for using all their letters. And they were playing in English, their second language. There is nothing like that jaw dropping surprise when you know you’ve really misjudged something, and I really felt it. In a country with not much TV and where most people don’t drink, Scrabble and other games are popular events and they take their games seriously. I just know I want to gather some better Scrabble games and a Scrabble Dictionary and send them over in the next GambiaHELP container.

For me this journey was about really getting away. At first I was borrowing a cell phone to pick up my messages and searching for internet cafés. They have cell phones all over the country – two companies AfriCel and GamCel. But the connections are not always good – lots of yelling and dropped calls. It is amazing that you can call the US from Dankunku, but you have to stand in a certain spot and pretty much yell. Most people I was with had cell phones and they did work better within the country. I was able to let it go.

I visited a couple of internet cafes. One was all solar powered and community oriented and I enjoyed touring the facility. However it takes 15-20 minutes just to get into your email account, let alone go through the piles of mail. So I let that go too knowing there was little I could do about anything back home. There’s something very freeing about letting go even for a short period of time. The world around me was so new and different, I felt really present to everything. Gleefully passing into “experiential mode” where my experiences were new and fresh and had never before been categorized or labeled by my brain.

A dusty bumpy ride from Dankunku is the village in Sinchu. They were being funded for Tie & Dye sustainable project and we went to their village. The whole village, men, women and children, met in a big shaded compound. Their meetings tend to be long and slow so I got into my surroundings. One of the women was expertly spinning cotton onto a spindle. They grow the cotton themselves. Children were pulling the seeds out of the cotton. I was so interested the men brought out their looms – they weave the cotton into strips. Then it’s dyed and the strips are sewn together into a wonderful soft cloth that the women wear as a skirts. The woman who spins the cotton also plays a mean dishpan which works into splendid impromptu celebration. I am amazed at how the villages have similarities, but each has it’s own style and uniqueness.

Another feature of the compound is the “bantaba.” It’s an elevated platform of wood or concrete. The bantaba at the Out-Post is concrete and in the evening blankets are laid out there you can lay down and relax enjoying the slightly cooler night air. People will talk sometimes or not. It is a restful time when the day is done, but the house is not yet cool enough for sleep. The moon was just past full when we arrived and gradually got smaller and smaller. The sky is clear and the stars are brilliant. As the moon darkens, the Milky Way becomes bright and splendid. The sky I see in Seattle is a faint reminder of this bright reality.

I wonder why I have to travel and go half way around the world to find the present time. It’s wonderful to travel and let go. I’ll have to plan another trip soon. Thanks for letting me share my trip with you. I hope to have more pictures and stories on the GambiaHELP.org web site and will let you know when that happens so you can see some more.

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.