update

I’m behind on this blog so here are some highlights of things I’ve done:

Naming Ceremony: My name ceremony happened the first week I was in village. Gambian babies are named 7 days after they are born so this was probably one of the first times adults have had a naming ceremony. PCV are given Gambian names to better fit into the culture and so that people can pronouns our names.

For the ceremony we dressed up in borrowed OGambian clothes, including headwraps for Emily and I. Scott wore a huge green robe that made him look like some kind of prophet. The ceremony was at the Akaluos (head of the village) compound. Our host families came along with half the village. There were drummers so we had some great music and dancing. We each sat on the mat and they pretended to shave our heads, as is tradition for babies. Then our host fathers whispered our names into the announcers ear. I became Fatumata after my host sister. She is now my tokaran (same name).

The Kankuran: The first month I was here the KanKuran was coming around morning and evening. The Kankuran is a man from the village who dresses up in a fringed red outfit and walks around town banging machettes together and yelling Hiiaaaaayaaaa!!!!. He protects the children in the circumcision camp from evil spirits. Children who are being circumcised live away from their families for a month while they learn about growing up. At the end of the month they are brought back to their families with a huge celebration. There is lots of drumming, dancing, and food. We got to attend and ended up dancing in the streets till 1 am.

Zimba: Zimba was nuts. Zimba is a performance that originated in Senegal and is used to raise money, in my village it was for the local elementary school. There was a drum circle that played continuously for hours while the Zimbas danced. There was some sort of plot about a man slaying a lion but it was hard to follow, partly because the performers were so distracting. The lion had on layer after layer of frayed clothes and a horned wig on his head. The Zimbas were men in bright, fringy stirrup pants and shirts. They were all heavily face painted and hardly looked human. Their pelvic areas were also heavily decorated, one had a bunch of flowers there. These guys were amazing dancers, although they were super suggestive. They did flips and rolls for hours. One climbed straight up a tree with lightning speed.

The Maribo:

One night my host sister took me to a Maribo. A Maribo is a fortune teller of sorts that has religious element. He was an old man with a leathered face heavily lined from smiling. His eyes twinkled in the candle light as he threw shells and told us what he saw. I couldn’t understand a word but was instructed to pat the shells and touch my head every once and while when a good reading came up for luck. My sister said that he saw that I was good, that I had no trouble, and that my home people in the US were alright. My sister was told to give out charity to help her body pains.