If all else fails, just breathe.

by Rachel

Disclaimer: This is my attempt to compartmentalize all the things that has made my experience here difficult. I want to figure out some way to leave all this behind when we board our plane home in two and a half months. I want to bring with me everyone and everything that kept me going and gave me unconditional love and acceptance. This is my way to get all these difficulties that weigh on my shoulders buried below the scorched earth. But in reality it is these difficulties that have taught me the most about myself and this world. So I apologize if this is hard to read, or if I offend, but it is my truth.

April 1, 2008
For the past two weeks I was submerged in everything I hate about The Gambia: sexual harassment, obnoxious and vile mocking from children, the suffocating and explosive heat, and institutionalized sexism. One layering one top of the other brought me to an unsteady mental space. My saving graces were small moments of good, friends, and chocolate cake.
I trekked up to Jonjonbureh (JJB), the island 250 K up river, to teach at another term of Face to Face. I worked with my same class of teachers in training from the Christmas term. This time the English group taught writing, specifically all the mechanics of sentences. Teaching writing to fifty ESL adults was ‘not easy’ (to coin the famous Gambian term). The majority of their writing was at a third to fourth grade level. The top ten can write pretty well. But none of them know how to use quotation marks or edit an incorrect sentence. I gave them ten writing assignments over the course of the two weeks. They never wrote so much and I never had to mark five hundred assignments in such a short time. I like this program because the work is stimulating and challenging. I came to the island in the dead of the hot season because of the work. I came to the popular tourist spot because of the work. I came to the town of ‘bumsters’ and vulgar men because of the work.

I hate tourists. I know it’s awful to say, but tourism makes my life unbearable at times and it fosters a culture of begging. Tourism is the top income generator for the country, but it also creates and fosters so many problems. Children understand that the only reason white people come here is to pass out sweets, pens, or money. Schools, villages, community groups just sit and wait for a white donor. Between development and tourism, this has become a country in waiting. Development is a sham; it fosters dependency on outsiders and discourages empowerment from within. JJB just puts on a show for the hordes of tourists wearing their short shorts in a conservative Muslim country. The kids come up and dance for you. They always beg for money. I was constantly toubabed and hissed at. It’s as though JJB has ceased to be a real community and morphed into one of those fake villages, where people just act for the visitors to show what a ‘real African village’ is like.

I hate the sex tourism. Those older European women coming down to rendezvous with a Gambian boy for a week or so. It is these women that promote a culture of sexual harassment and objectification with white females. All white women are assumed to be here for sex or marriage. So I walk down the street in JJB and men scream out me to marry them, calling me ‘boss lady,’ ‘nice girl,’ or ‘hey sexy.’ I tell them in so many words to get lost and then they stand up a pump their crotch. I past an eleven year old boy peeing on the side of the bush road as I walked to my class. He called out, “You want to sex me? Come and sex me!” I scurried away suffocating with shock and anger. I hear that is the city a bunch, but never up country like this.
One of my most difficult obstacles is figuring out how to work with institutionalized sexism. The education system is dominated my men. Men that are educated and entitled. There are some great ones that I work with. They are the gems that keep me going. But, mostly the dynamics of sex, race, and class color all my work interactions. The men at this teacher training program are headmasters, hold positions at the Dept of State for Ed, or work at The Gambia College. These are men with status. Men with status here do not listen to women, unless she is their direct boss, but even then. Men with status are entitled to this job and therefore do not have work for it. Men with status do not need to be held accountable for anything. So here comes a much younger white women trying to meet them in the middle with creating a student-centered lesson plan that requires more work from them. Criticism in any form is met with burning defensiveness. It gets hairy. Sometimes we are undermined. Sometimes they bring out, “well you people don’t understand.” I don’t blame them. If they don’t want us here, then fine. But this program wants us for our knowledge about student centered learning. What they don’t want is our criticism of how things are run and organized. Well, you can’t have one without the other. So heads butt, a lot.

I thought as a married woman, I would have an easier time working with the men here. In actuality, this is not the case. Many volunteers have been able to work well with the men by using the flirtation to their advantage. They have been able to be nice and welcoming to men who blatantly flirt with them. By socializing The Gambian way, they have been able to wrap the men around their finger. Thus, they can actually get somewhere working in these male dominated offices. More power to these vols, I just could never do that. I’m married. So I am just cold to all the men who want to belittle me. And for that, I’ve gotten nowhere working in these offices. I am realizing now that this is how I have dealt with institutionalized sexism. I just shut it out the minute I stepped into it. I walked away. I refused to figure out how to use it to my advantage. It was yet another obstacle that I did not want to overcome. Now, after almost two years, I get that. I get that I need to socialize with the men before I can actually work with them. I get that it’s just how this place is, male dominated in every aspect of society.

While negotiating through all of that shit, I was living in an oven. The heat. The unbearable, rather-shoot-yourself-in-the foot heat. Each day was between 105-120 degrees. It was more humid because we were surrounded by the river. The mosquitoes were relentless. I couldn’t sleep through the night without waking up in a puddle of my own sweat. The afternoon sun burned to the bone. My head was on the verge of combustion. I had to move is slow motion to exert minimal energy. Sweat rolled down by searing body from my neck to my belly to my behind to my ankles. I was a sloth dripping sweat going in and out of delirium. I could barely think, breathe, or move. I cursed the burning Sahara winds. I was a fugitive to the unyielding sun.

The first of my saving graces was just us four women, Colleen, Blair, Liza and myself on the island trying to get by. Peace Corps women braving the elements while saving each other in the meantime. We spent our days searching for cold bags of water, grading papers, supporting and processing the difficulties of working in the program, being teacher dorks, and cooking dinners of humus, tacos, dumplings, curry, and canned baked bean sandwiches. I would have gone crazy without them!

The moment that kept me going was when Carson surprised me with a really amazing chocolate cake for my birthday (March 15). He phoned in the order and went down to the capital to pick it up. He showed up the day before my birthday with a huge metal pot. Somehow that cake made the nine hours of travel in this hot season. The secret was freezing it the night prior, but still not even a dent in its perfect icing job. This cake was absolutely delectable by home standards. Rich, moist, dense chocolate cake with a chocolate thick fudge icing. I was so happy I cried. He told me I was too easy to please. I said to him well then keep the love coming. Him, us, mean the world to me. I love how we have grown here together. For a tough experience makes a good marriage stronger, better, and lasting. I feel whole.

My other saving grace was that the work was worth it all. My class was awesome. I knew all there names by this term, which helped with classroom management. We had two weeks full of big and stacked lessons. The class welcomed the challenge and worked hard. Of the forty-seven, fourteen were women. After every two hour class, I was spent. I was acting as a cheerleader most of the time to keep them going in the heat of the day. We went through all the nasty details of the English language. I even had trouble answering some of the questions: why was the verb ‘be’ so irregular, why can’t you say ‘borrow me,’ but you can say ‘lend me.’ Now I truly understand how it is to be an ESL adult learner. English sucks!

The moment that made those two weeks worth while was the praise I received from the class. They said, “Liisanding, you are a great lecturer. Very clear and to the point. You are kind and understanding. We rate you number one out of the rest.” I almost fell to the floor. I beamed. It takes a lot of energy to speak slowly and clearly enough, to word my instructions correctly, and have the patience while marking their papers. Their honesty and gratitude shone like the big dipper pouring the night sky. I was elated the entire ten hour ride that consisted of a flat tire, ferry mishaps, military checkpoints, and filthy hot wind, all the way down to the capital.
Now I am back in Kerewan. I can breathe. Mercifully the weather is not as bad as JJB. It is still hot, but not hot as the throws of hell. I am back in my routine. I savor my gems. Aja and I chat through the afternoon heat. She is already talking about how much she will miss us. She is one of my true friends here. No matter how limited our conversations can get, she gets me and I get her. I baby sit her one month old, Bamutar when she goes off the gardens. I go to the market, barter with the vendors. I fetch water, sweep the house, do the laundry. I go to the nursery school. Mba Suwareh, who is like my grandma, gives me a Wollof lesson. I watch Bruama teach his students how to do puzzles as they all bunch around on the mat. I go and paint learning aids on the Saaba nursery school. I meet with my girls’ club. Those girls never cease to amaze me. They are raising money on their own to get a DJ for the program this coming weekend. They are so motivated and driven. Like a said, a force on their own. I go and visit my toma, who can sit up on her own! I have never seen a baby with so many fat roles on her legs and arms. She is a honker, but so beautiful and charismatic.

As I roll with the beauty of this place, I realize that it’s the shit storms that force you to grow. I am here reacting to things I would never have had to at home. I surprise myself a lot here. I am edgy. I am angst ridden. I lay into people, tell them exactly how I feel. I am realist now. All that ideological hoopla, that kept me bright eyed and bushy tailed, is gone. I learned how to stand up for myself. I learned how to take care of my self. I have truly learned the Zen of patience. You have to pick your battles in life, or else you’ll fry. Life is not worth worrying about what others think of you. I have to know that here, in a culture where people tease, insult, and talk all about you as you are standing right in front of them.

What I do worry about is those that have opened their homes and hearts to protect and love me. All of their suffering, I have let it in and it chips away at me everyday. Honestly, I want to go home to get away from it. It is depressing. I would rather embrace the out of site out of mind theory. But I fear it will be with me, always. I want to go home because I miss home. I can’t stand being an outsider anymore. I want to go where I can blend in as I walk down the street. And just thinking that brings so much guilt. I can go back to a place where I am not harassed based on the color of my skin. I can go back to my community and my family. Carson can go back to attend law school. We can go back and rent an apartment, start a family. I can go back and get a good job. I can go back and go to school. I can go back. I can go back. I can go back.

This is complex, trying to compartmentalize two years living here. For this place, this experience is so complex. All of it webs together cloaking my shoulders, my conscience, my space. So day by day, I will be fetching water, praising Carson’s cooking, sweeping the floor, doing Pilates, going for runs, hanging out with my loved ones, savoring the moments that breathe life into this parched, dust shrouded hot season.