What to do next

Over the past few years of my career questioning I have heard “find your passion and do that” or “do what you love and you’ll love what you do” many times. Yesterday it occurred to me that that was all very well but there is a) a question of money so it’s a pretty elitist mantra and b) it conflicts with my knowledge that once you start being paid for something you used to do, it loses its charm unless you are being paid. It also implies that you should only have one love and that it’s a waste of time if you are not making money from it. My instincts are more towards the polymath, the things I love include practising writing in different styles, arguing effectively on behalf of other people, sharing food and knowing how to host people, painting and experimenting with different media, and trying to find the elements I love in activities that are new.  I’d like to enjoy what I do at work, I know I need to see a social value and vocation in my work, but I don’t want to go home and have nothing else in my life that I love.

Before I came to The Gambia, a friend told me she thought I’d never come home, that I have found my vocation. That is partly true. One day I was sat in the back of a pick-up and suddenly I knew what I wanted to do next. But what I also found is that I need a new set of skills and training to add the value I want to add.  And so I will go back to university in September. However, the end of my placement is due in March. This gives me six months to fill.

A few weeks ago this question of what to do next was filling every waking moment.  Do I try to stay? Do I stay but with a different partner where my skills are more in line with their plans? Do I book a backpacking tour around the world? Do I get a job and save hard for the austerity of a student life?

I was asked to stay in my placement. A new manager started meaning there are much greater opportunities to make a change to the practices and performance of the institution. It was a tempting offer; my own space to live in, a hot country that I now know, a small income, nice friends, real work to do. But the life of a volunteer is a little like a stone falling through a lake. The ripples spread out into the partners and future, but for the stone you just quickly pass through and then rest on a muddy floor. All you can see is tiny changes close to you, not the wider change your work will lead to. The model works but, with a new partnership it is a frustrating experience to break the stagnant water. After  a lot of soul searching, it turns out that I am tired and would like the comforts of home for at least a few weeks. I turned down the offer to stay, in the knowledge that the ripples I started will still be moving when I’ve gone.

And so I decided what is could do best is to concentrate on leaving The Gambia well. Say goodbye to those I love here, spend time appreciating the many joys of this country, and take advantage of the time I have left. I can watch the sunset over a tropical ocean, I can drink a beer in a yard under a canopy thick with stars, I can dance to African music and laugh with children. When I get home I don’t know what I will do. I do know that my slippers are under a bed at my Mum’s house. And I do know that, at least for a short while, I have a comfortable bed there. When I am home, when I am truly finished in The Gambia, then I will decide how to fill my precious six-month break. Until then, my thoughts are on the opportunities in this moment, on finding what I love here in these last few weeks.

A dinner party

One day during induction one of the female volunteers called me over and said “This country can get a bit much at times. Sometimes we just meet for tea and female company”. It was like that day in a film about school days where the popular girls agree to let the glasses (and in this case ridiculous sunhat) wearing new girl into the clique.  Soon it became a gathering of European women, a weekly refuge from the male dominated environments we work and live in and a moment to stop looking out for every possible cultural faux pas.

As is the way with volunteers, women have come and gone from our little band but still, generally weekly and at least once a month, we try to meet up for a night of what has come to be known as European Women’s Forum. In our time we have pooled our resources to buy a bottle of wine or two, drunk tea and eaten biscuits while chatting into the small hours, shared files and photos across our hard drives. We had a Christmas party with treats sent by Helen, a returned EWF. We decorated a bar with posters and balloons for Janneke’s  leaving do. And this week two members, Nicola and Ellie, celebrated their birthdays plus I had a Christmas pudding that needed eating. So we had a dinner at my house.

Originally I thought, “I’ll just steam the pudding” then decided that was far too dull. Then I thought a light noodle soup would suffice. But no, my friends have long lamented the lack of a roast dinner so, though I can’t do that, I opted for a lemon chicken pot roast with cubed chips as roast potatoes.  We had no wine but everyone turned up having had tough days and wanted to share stories over tea and water so that was perfect. Ellie also came with cheese and biscuits and a box of frosting that was left over from her weekend birthday party. An excellent alternative to brandy butter, it was added to the menu.

I kept tasting the chicken and it was incredibly bitter. However, with a dash of mustard and sugar at the end it perked up. At that moment all the lights went out. We sat in the dark with candles and peered at our plates. We chatted about how much chicken should be eaten off the bone (most bones were picked clean), we shared stories of the day, and we swapped concerns and observations on our lives here. At least with no power you could see the blue flames licking up the burning pudding as I brought it in. By the end we had over eaten and talked for hours. Stresses were washed away with the dirty plates, and we knew more about each other. Birthdays were marked and friendship was marked too. I think everyone went away feeling happy and full. It was everything that our EWF is there for.

Valentine’s Day – let’s act with love

I love Valentine’s Day. I know it’s popular to think it as twee commercialism and pointless but I have always failed to see the problem with a day about love. What’s to dislike about love? Despite never having been in a relationship on V Day, I have had a card courtesy of Valerie Valentine every year for the past thirteen years. With single friends I have enjoyed huge banquets of a Burn’s Night quality with “The Donne Story” replacing the Toast to the Haggis. I have strung paper heart bunting across my sister’s house and eaten brownies cut into hearts.  Over my life I have enjoyed falling in love, taken the stand at the trials of unrequited love, felt the agony of heartbreak, seen the power of caritas, the generous love for others that is the greatest of all human attributes. V day is a great reason to celebrate love, our sexuality, and our emotions whatever our relationships look like.

Eve Ensler, the write of The Vagina Monologues, also likes Valentine’s Day, and it is her I have borrowed the V-day shortening from. On V-day Eve acts with characteristic love for other women. A great global movement of people who want to end violence against women. According to the UN  one of every three women on the planet will be physically or sexually abused in her lifetime.  She’s right. V-day is the day to fight this. Love is the very opposite of violence.

So for V Day 2014, as there are no groups dancing in the street here, this blog will tell you a story. I sat in a Gambian town two weeks ago. I was eating breakfast and, out of love for a friend and generosity to her guests, my host had brought us sowe (runny yoghurt, which I really like). The previous night we had danced and sung sharing a few words of the only language we both partially spoke.  It was a lovely atmosphere. Until a man came in, tired, and joined us for breakfast. He’d been to take the girls to be circumcised. So I sat eating breakfast whilst close by many children were having their genitals cut and sewn up so “that they cannot be interfered with”.

Later, for a different reason, I found myself consulting the Border Agency asylum guidance note on The Gambia. It outlines the likelihood of different tribes and religious backgrounds being susceptible to harm. According to the Gambian charity GAMCOTRAP (http://www.gamcotrap.gm/content/) there are no effective laws against FGM in The Gambia. Their home page currently declares their sympathy for a three-month year old girl subjected to FGM last October. Suddenly, talk of FGM seems to be all around. I know that in the UK there is a movement to make schools educate staff and pupils on the practice and through that many stories have come to light. There is one such story on the BBC site here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23933437  and The Guardian has an interactive section here http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2013/jul/22/female-genital-mutilation-interactive.

In Wollof, the tribe with the lowest prevalence of FGM, there are two words (I know of so far) which mean love. Mbugel (romantic love), and coffel (friendship love). This is a thing which I like about The Gambia. According to the UN, around 76% of women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation. This is a thing I, and many, many women and men do not like. Many things is history have been accepted but are wrong. Those of you who can and who want to I urge you to stand up today and say “No, violence against women in all its forms is wrong and I am part of the people in the world who will end it”. It will be an action of faith, hope and love. And do not forget, the greatest of these, is love.

Gratitude in Gambia

Over the past few weeks I have noticed I am tallying what I won’t miss. I won’t miss the litter. I won’t miss the terrible roads. I won’t miss the begging taught to infants.  I am looking forward to a change of beer options, to being with old friends and family, to a reliable power supply, sprung mattress and showers at the temperature I choose.  And yet it has been said by the wise and seldom listened to that the key to happiness is gratitude.  Every moment is a gift, and within every moment is an opportunity to be grasped, with another one usually around the corner if you choose not to grasp it. And most moments are joyful, though there are moments of torment that still contain the opportunities to be brave, to tackle and injustice, to find a new path or to offer comfort. David Steindl –Rast makes this very point in his TED talk and it inspired me to stop counting negatives and to think, what am I grateful for?

When I left the UK, many of my friends were being given the gift of new life and a new family, I know of at least nine people who have children born within the last year. I however was given the gift of coming to The Gambia. And within that, like learning how to parent, are so many opportunities to be grateful for. Firstly is the people, regular readers will know of my friendships within the Gambian community, my choir friends, my friends of choir friends, my fellow VSOs. Some of these people I will never see again but we have shared some wonderful times this year. Through them I have learnt how to find a tasty liver or omelette butty late at night, what rice pudding with peanuts tastes like (nice), how to speak a language I didn’t even know existed two years ago. These people are wonderful. Those who I am friends with are kind hearted and generous, have huge concern and empathy and have shown me so much care. We have had joyful moments, on Friday as the sun set the power came back so we danced in Mardu’s house and laughed with each other.  I have looked at my watch at reggae festivals and realised it’s nearly five am and yet I still seem to be dancing in a field in heels and a summer dress, when at 11 I was falling asleep watching a concert. And just this morning the small children in my compound rushed to shake my hand as I left for work, well greeted for the day ahead.

Now it’s colder overnight every morning I choose whether or not to be brave and have a cool shower or to be nesh and wash in the evening. I can challenge myself to leave the house without cash and manage. The moments where there is no bread for breakfast have meant I learned to make Scotch pancakes and when there is I can be grateful for the cheerful bakery that opened on my own street to sell hot bread baguettes for 10p. I’m grateful for the head torch that means I can read and all the many VSOs who’ve left books in the office library which mean I’m never short of reading material. I have learned how to budget hard and how to stick to my limits without too much stress through living on the allowance. And to appreciate that, however hard I find it, like I was in the UK I’m still in the middle classes of this society and some people are struggling so much more and so much longer than I ever am.

When I started here it was a challenge to leave the house, knowing how many men on the street would bother me and not take “no, go away” for an answer. There’s an opportunity there too, to engage in conversation, some of which are pleasant, to learn to stand up for myself and not passively accept unwanted hassle. And so I am grateful for what I’ve learned even if I could do without so much practice of the new skills. The idea of a day without being bothered is still very appealing. And for every foolish man asking for my “nice name” there’s a woman selling breakfast butties, a child shaking hands, a stranger offering a lift in kindness, or a van that will wait for me as I walk in the hot sun to counteract them.

When I am home will I forget how much of a joy it is to have water not only at your beck and call but also at the temperature you want? Will I forget to be grateful or relieved every time I turn on a light switch? Will I pause outside my new workplace and be grateful that I know that I will not be molested or mauled or treated as a second class citizen because of my gender and age? Will I remember that poverty strips away the opportunities that people have, the opportunities they should be given in every moment, and that though those who are living in poverty might be able to be happy in a moment that their choices are so curtailed that their lives and dreams can never be fulfilled? Will I forget the pressure they feel to show that they are managing, that poverty is not stripping away their dignity and ability to treat their friends and family well? Will I forget the efforts made to hide the shame of poverty? And will I forget that these people who are my friends who I have had a wonderful life with?

Happy New Year

If anything is a festival of ‘hoping the sun comes up tomorrow’ it is New Year. The date is merely the passage of time as we mark it. And it can be wonderful but it is also without a doubt the holiday that people complaint the most about. It’s expensive and ultimately a bit pointless for many people I know, freezing ankles and thighs in a wet or slushy city in the middle of the night with a full bus meaning an expensive taxi is the only option. I have never really been in that school, for starters I long ago realised that the pound payment for the cloakroom was a cheap price for a warm coat at the end of a night out in Manchester. And that there are much better ways to spend New Year.

My family, like many I know in the North of England, join Scotland in the tradition of first footing. At the end of the old year someone (or everyone) will leave the house, preferably by the back door. And the first foot in the front door after midnight will be by a person carrying a tray of symbols of things you wish for the home that year; coal for warmth, a candle for light, bread for food, money for, well, money, and whisky for good cheer. However, over the past years I have introduced this idea to a number of very blank looking friends. And this year was no exception.

For six months I have had the urge to cook Coq au Vin, so took the opportunity to invite fellow VSOs for dinner. As midnight approached we set up first footing and left the tray outside the house. We headed to the roof and watched the fireworks around the bay. We shared fizzy wine and grape juice with each other and my neighbours then headed inside and brought with us warmth (not hugely necessary), food (definitely necessary), light (even for a night or two would be nice), money (well, there is a volunteer allowance), and good cheer (fine, we have that sorted).  We sat up chatting and drinking red wine from cartons until after the call to morning prayer. I fell into bed, and, as I’d used the board from the base as a table extension, I promptly fell straight through and spent the next few hours in denial that I was at a seventy degree angle.

   

The next day is a big day for the Christian community here. Many of my church friends were amazed that I see it as a purely secular holiday and hadn’t spent the night in church. But Mathias wanted to take me to see the masquerades in Banjul the following day. In our new his-n-hers outfits we headed into the capital. The masquerades are run by hunting societies. There are a number of these and some do still go hunting. It’s a largely Christian tradition, so the hunting season closes for Lent. They also have displays in which they build costumes to represent their mastery over wild beasts, usually stuffed heads shipped from Europe and America as taxidermy goes out of fashion. The excitement seems to be in seeing new animals and there is a great honour in being the first person to wear a head. The competition element is who can get the most unusual head.

     

The streets of Banjul are crowded, have open gutters and are grey and dirty, with very few maintained road surfaces. The crowds on New Year’s Day were extreme, pushing the unwary into a sewer or over a kerb without fear, especially if a masquerade, kids setting off fire crackers or man waving a flare was in the way. We found friends who invited us for lunch, oysters which I normally skip on avoiding illness grounds.  We ten re-braved the crowds, watching a few strange apparitions wearing armour made of shells, an armadillo and horns topped with a headdress of a dead animal or horns wandering past dancing in white socks. There are three speeds of dance and the rest of the society beats drums and clappers or weaves around the masquerade, one with a pipe.  It is in a way interesting, like being a t a rush bearing and in a similar way to visiting a zoo in terms of people seeing exotic animals. I was the only person in the crowd near me to identify the polar bear.

But I was tired and seeing another stuffed animal head with a man dancing underneath it starts to wane after a few hours, as well as my legs starting to complain that they had already spent the night trying to climb a mattress so sitting would be good. Plus, trying to leave Banjul at night is, like on any new year, the fight for an overpriced taxi whilst wishing a night bus will pass. I watched the fireworks as we fought the crowd and waited for a taxi who thought D200 (about £4 but also about a day’s income for me) was a reasonable price for a seven mile journey. The fireworks were lovely. And then we went home, and found that I had put my bed back together. This time when I fell into it I didn’t fall through.

Oh, you have a stranger

My sister Margaret has had a rather adventurous year. Alongside her usual growing achievements at work and glamorous city centre life, she spent a quarter of the year travelling South America, leaping rusted engines, climbing ancient treks and dancing the night away in . And yet, clearly, this was not enough.  My sister was coming for Christmas. And so I entered December with a growing level of excitement, booked leave and, on a day without any power, made a plan so that we didn’t waste the time without sight-seeing.

As I booked the taxi I was surprised that church friends wanted to come to the airport to greet her, I’d planned a quiet reunion and slower entry into Gambian society. But come along they did. Mags came through the gate and I was overjoyed to see a face that I have known almost all my life. A quirk of the Gambian English teaching leads visitors to be referred to as strangers. So here was my “stranger”, a person who I helped to name and who knows things about me that I probably don’t even know myself. We had technically already celebrated Christmas together in July and part of the challenge of this year for me was to be away from home for the festive season.  But Margaret knows how to make an event work, how to create a celebration, and obviously we have so many shared traditions.  She was laden with bags and parcels, including unopened crisps from her in flight picnic which she immediately donated to a grateful sister.

We got home and had a night of chicken salad and white wine. Mags was a bit shocked by the requirement to say grace before meals, and the way of being almost dismissive about the food being served; the lads with us continued to play on their phones and camera while we sat down to eat. And through her eyes I could see that it is an odd contrast. I have already ensured every grace I say thanks those people involved in the growth and preparation of the food, not just God. But this was the first small sign that Margaret would bring much more than crisps, her perspective would add an important element of reflection and consideration to a society that I missed when I started due to the need to integrate. Not only that, but she gave me a good excuse to see everything I would otherwise miss.

We started with Christmas decorations, getting a few twigs to act as a tree, adding lights and baubles. There were paper chains and hanging decorations and of course snowflakes everywhere, tartan in deference to the hot climate. Presents from home appeared under the twigs, and an angel who looks like me apparently. But this was a tropical Christmas and the next day was filled with watching a crocodile lumber back into the sun less than a metre from our feet, with haggling at the fish market and wandering the sandy streets. We spent a day at Serrekunda market, which is far too long, and I got us caught up on a hunt for fabric which took us into the depths of the meat market where Mags had to batter flies away from her face and back onto the piles of brains.  We met Gambian friends and were invited for mbahal (a kind of rice studded with nuts and beans and laced with oil), we held a birthday party for me which included baking a pineapple cake on top of the gas ring. And, from a different meal,  I got food poisoning leading to Mags having to eat the ice cream pudding of our posh meal out in the local clinic.

              

My stranger made Christmas. I almost cried when the liquorice allsorts came out, I had jam from my best friend for my birthday breakfast, we set off screaming rocket balloons to amuse children and ate stollen for breakfast (“was it a gift?” “no, it was stollen”). A hamper of treats to last the rest of my stay was produced, and we watched the Boxing Day sun set over a tropical ocean while drinking a whisky. But most importantly my sister was here. She talked sense and cast her eye over how I am fairing. She said I seemed very frustrated, and helped me think through a few challenges around leaving. The day after she left I woke up in the morning with a pit of emptiness. “Margaret went home” I thought, “she isn’t here”.  But I was grateful she had come. I had become unknown to myself, too busy adapting and coping to think and feel and react to what is happening around me. My sister had left, but it was never her who was the stranger, it was me. It just took a visitor to see that clearly.

                                                       

“Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages”*

Over a quarter of a century ago, the Catholics of The Gambia decided they needed their own pilgrimage site.  There is an annual pilgrimage to Popenguine in Senegal, a site established by a priest in 1887, but it was felt that a site in The Gambia should be dedicated as a shrine to Mary. There was no sighting or vision, simply a good location identified and a shrine built. And now there is an annual pilgrimage to Kulkujan Mariama as part of the Christmas preparations. Though rumours about a vision have started to circulate as the origin of the shrine gets more distant.

As a student I was an assistant on many pilgrimages to Lourdes, the shrine in France, but this time I didn’t feel any calling to travel. I was tired and could do with some time to prepare for Christmas at home. But, after being asked by almost everyone in the church, and establishing that I didn’t have to join the choir this time (as I wanted my evening back after months of heavy concert practices), I decided to attend. After all, when else would I travel there and see what this African shrine looked like. I eventually agreed to go with my choir friend Mathias and his family. Somehow, suddenly, I was also in charge of taking a picnic for the all-day event for anywhere between two and five people so spent a day at the market and an evening cooking and sourcing big plates and a basket for carrying said picnic.

I woke early in the morning, for once using the call to prayer as a reminder to get out of bed. After dressing in the dim dawn light I stumbled up to the taxi rank laden with bags of food and frozen water. Joining the women queuing with their baskets for a morning market trip, we convinced a van to divert his route. I was sleepy and had warnings in my mind of “the bus will definitely leave at 6.30 sharp so you must be there by then.” Of course we eventually left an hour after that. I repacked our picnic into the borrowed basket. No one else seemed to be carrying food or even water. Mathias joined the van with a loaf of bread and we made butties from boiled eggs and salad. No one else was eating. Instead everyone was dutifully praying the rosary with added prayers and songs after each decade. The sun was rising over the countryside and I let the prayers wash over me as I watched the scenery, joining in if bits were in English or allowing myself time for my own reflections.

When we arrived I first saw a church with a very steep spire and thought “yes, this is a shrine” as I was instantly reminded of French basilicas. The congregation were seated outside, with only the seats catching the now intense sun left free.  We took up our positions and I borrowed scarves in attempt to save my legs from the scorching rays. We started with the rosary again, this time with each mystery acted out. It struck me that Jesus meets a prophetess, Anna, when he is taken to the temple as a baby. After a conversation with a Muslim house guest I’ve been on the look-out for female prophets so it was good to see Anna turn up. Still, without a breeze, very poor microphones and the second recitation of the extended prayers that day, I was struggling to stay awake. I dozed under a thick woollen scarf that was supposedly keeping the sun off my head, nudged by Mathias every time the actors reappeared.

                                                             

By the time the next section, following the Stations of the Cross (the story of Jesus’ death) at the shrine, came around I was too hot and too outside the community spirit of a congregation. I went to the church, which was virtually empty and blessedly cool. Above the altar were paintings of the Madonna and child surrounded by Gambian people. That too was a blessed relief from the almost snow white images around my own church which disturb me more than they would in Europe because they are so incongruous to both history and the local people.  The only disturbance were a gaggle of arrogant priests at the back of the church, too wrapped up in their big day out to minister or even notice that a few people were trying to use an otherwise silent space for prayer.

I sat there until I felt recovered and the midday sun had passed. I wandered down the stalls of pious items that always turn up at such sites, bought some fabric, and went back to join in the Mass. The sermon, delivered from a shady, fan-cooled altar was long but radical. The congregation were asked to change from trying to become a self-sustaining diocese to prioritise the new Caritas campaign to end hunger. Asking people in a country with a real hungry season that isn’t hidden behind such think doors of shame and ignorance as hunger is in the UK what to do about the hungry people they know suddenly showed one of the strengths in the kaleidoscope of humanity that is Catholicism. There are rich and poor people in this church, generally seen as equal and with a community link and spiritual ethos that suggests they should be sharing with each other more. And, they are treated as a people with their own ability to make the change, not as recipients of a foreign intervention. But then there was the long fundraising collection for the shrine which is made public and part of the service and which grates heavily on my nerves, given the Biblical exhortation to give without being seen and the fact that money is so tight for so many people here.

After the Mass we ate, and I saw that everyone else’s picnics had been squirrelled away in coach holds and the backs of vans.  I visited the shrine and stepped carefully over the candles placed on the floor, watching more than one person helped up after falling over the molten wax covered tiles. On the bus home, the rosary started up again. Two of the women were arguing about being late back to the van for an hour and a half, until another matriarch with higher social standing pushed the row underground through the forceful way of saying the prayers. For me  tiredness won out and I dozed with my forehead jolting against the metal of the seat in front of me. 

*Chaucer, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

Care across the seas

For a while there I was seriously homesick in a crippling “but why would I go out of the house” way.  I was tired and fed up. I missed too many things, especially in October. The first weekend I was out enjoying the parish feast, but my heart was in Warrington enjoying my grandparent’s diamond wedding celebrations, though I was still wearing diamonds. The following week I had to deny any knowledge of the day because my good friend Hadders was marrying a man she met on a train and fell in love with. I wasn’t there and I couldn’t even look at the photos because it made me too sad. On top of that, the wedding present had died under the stress of humidity in its final stage and was lying like an overworked metaphor in pieces on my dining room table.   I fell over and my leg became painfully infected, my broken iPhone and a poor internet connection meant the messages from friends and family ran to a trickle. On top of that I spent twice my allowance on necessary things like concert uniforms, eating, parish feast dresses and

I tried to pick myself up. I prepared my Dad’s birthday present for early November then couldn’t muster the energy to post it, so it too lay in its envelope looking forlorn. But things and moods did start to shift. I eventually got someone to take my grandparents’ anniversary present to the post office. I had my leg cleaned and I got the dances to the choir concert under my belt. Asha, a returning volunteer nutritionist from Uganda, insisted on making me eat and I took the “prioritise good food” lesson to heart after I realised how much better I felt. I managed to get internet access for my sister Irene’s birthday and sent a picture of a monkey to her. Things were on the up and I was getting back on track. Not long until a sisterly visit, Christmas preparations and then not long at all till home time. I cheered up.

And was rewarded. After a long catch up with another friend comparing the challenges of ex-pat life I received a lovely parcel in the post. In side were essential items, tea, plasters, make up applicators, liquorice and a face mask. As well as some warm words and a card for my wall. On the same day a square card with familiar handwriting was delivered. My Gran had written to tell me about life. My Gran is a real story teller and has a very sardonic turn of phrase as well as an eye for the joy of everyday life. I laughed aloud reading about new babies, forecast rain, and getting Grandad in from the garden for dinner. It is this, the adventures and interest of everyday life that makes my eyes sparkle and my Gran has long known it. Thanks to you all. A warm word or odd picture or just a comment that something happened today, it may also have happened yesterday but it’s still interesting, is enough for me. And truly appreciated.

The Haircut

When I was eight years old I decided to take control of my own haircut, moving on from the heavily fringed bob my Mum had provided. [shown below though at a younger age] I started by growing out the fringe, using mainly very spiky yellow and blue head bands which once caused a minor scalp injury when I didn’t remove it to do a forward roll in my Gran’s hallway.  By the time I was sixteen I had very long golden hair with no fringe which I habitually wore half back for school, and occasionally in various styles of plaits at the weekend.  I then got very tired of this and cut it back by two thirds to shoulder length.  Throughout my twenties my hair was many, many different colours and styles, from very short, strict bobs to long and wispy with a hard fringe.  

I am extremely fussy about hairdressers and have had two great ones in my life; Frank, then at KeSea in Manchester, and Carly, then at Rush in Windsor. These were artists who would give me good advice, listen to my thoughts (“don’t want to get up early enough to blow-dry but want to look great and not like a mop”) and then produce something amazing.  The first time I met Carly she looked at me, listened to my anti-mop warning and completely disagreed with my shoulder length idea, taking my hair back to a chin length bob.  Essentially I returned to the haircut I had when I was eight and, damn it, I looked great.

                

Before I came to Gambia I had resigned myself to getting long, straggly aid worker hair and was almost looking forward to it. But as the heat rose it was too hot and was tied up every day, giving me a bun to place head ties round, or a round the head plait to weave pins and flowers into. Eventually the day came when I had a pony tail which looked exactly like one of the cartoon women they put on the front of chick lit novels and frankly it wasn’t me.  The hair had to go.

                   

I booked a friend of a friend, James, who knows me a Helen of Troy, to do the honours. James used to own a salon (always pronounced saloon here) and agreed to give it a go.  We set a date, borrowed some scissors and set up camp underneath a mango tree. I wet my hair and gave James a few instructions. About half way though he had to stop and say “this is the first time I have cut a white man’s hair”.  And he did a fine job. Suddenly I had my own hair back, feeling like my old self and stepping away from the stereotype of the aid worker as well as cutting down my shampoo costs.  Weirdly the week before all the ladies in choir had had the same haircut woven in mesh into their hair for the choir concert which meant that when we wore our choir asobi for the second time at church I was now matching many of my fellow choristers. They found it odd that I would cut my long hair. I was happy to let the birds line their nests with the leftovers.

                   

Sing like you’re a champion

I would know my fellow VSOs a lot better, and fewer local Gambians, if I hadn’t joined the church choir. Unbeknown to me when I joined the choir also has the reputation for being one of the best in The Gambia, being the senior choir in the largest parish. However, in the UK I am used to significantly less rehearsal for significantly more performances. In ordinary time we practice three times a week and sing every Sunday.  But October was not ordinary time. We had a concert at the beginning of November to prepare for, as well as our parish feast and several other major events.  Practices increased to five days a week, seven pm until late, occasionally after eleven. There was a costume (asobi) to organise, dance steps to learn and new songs introduced right up to the last minute. Even I was contributing, bringing the joyful Christmas song “Gaudete” to the show, teaching it then stealing the solos.

Preparation was hard. We needed to know every song off by heart, or at least thought we did. We were all tired, I stretched an infected leg wound while practicing the start to a South African piece (“Ho No Lo Fasa”) which involved each section turning and kneeling on the ground like a nineties boy band, friends struggled through late night rehearsals drinking paracetemol to combat malaria symptoms. When the asobi came back from the tailor it was terribly made, tight across my bust and far too baggy so it looked like an unfashionable Grandma’s nightdress. The lads had enormous collars and weirdly placed buttons. Luckily I had a tailor friend to fix it so I could actually breathe and the fabric suited me well enough.  I made a flower for my hair out of the balance cut off the bottom.  Then I found out we didn’t a different dress for the first half; a local style grand booba, which of course everyone had but me.  Luckily my adopted mother Marie Louise offered to lend me one. Two days before the concert those without attendance marks in the register were given non-singing jobs, which was nerve wrecking as it was being decided who could take part. Eventually I looked passable, knew the steps and the words, was included in the singers and had managed to invite a few guests.

The concert day arrived. We travelled to the hotel at the bottom of Senegambia. All the Gambians were made to show their ID at the top of the street and, when we arrived at the hotel, the management weren’t advertising the fact that there was a genuine bit of local culture here to their own guests. Some braved it anyway but the audience was mainly other Gambian Catholics come to see the choir. We applied make up, ate a sardine butty and drank water and said a thanks giving prayer. I still couldn’t see my guests so went to leave my camera with one of the ushers on the cheap seats gate asking them to find someone who knew me and ask them to take photos. Bit risky perhaps. As we queued at the back we watched the queues for VIP (“patron”) tickets and normal seats. I kicked my shoes under the ticket desk and we started to dance from the back to the stage singing a love song in Olof.  As I arrived on the stage I spotted few familiar faces, lots of VSOs had turned out and I was very touched to see them. Natalie commented it made her feel like a proud mum.

                    

                    

We danced and sung. I had the third song as a solo with the choir singing the choruses. I could have smiled more but any staging that underlines me with the word “champion” is good enough for me.  We changed into our grannie’s nighty asobi after the interval, by which time my fellow VSOs had given up and gone for a drink at below tourist hotel prices, hence the lack of photographic evidence. By 1 am we were on the last song. The crowd had cheered and thrown money and sweets onto the stage. We had sung in over ten languages and the audience assumed I could speak in all of them. No one commented on my solo but very frequently a drum beat would get carried away and we’d break into stamping Jola dancing. Auntie Marie dragged me to the front to join in. Afterwards all I heard was “Wow, you can really dance!”

At two am we reached the church hall for an after party. I took a few beers and by, well, half past six I was in bed. Totally shattered but having had a lot of fun I then immediately slept for 36 hours, getting up for half hour intervals of water and food.