Enjoying Ashoura

The Tamba family with a few neighborhood children and the rooster offered as a gift

Sophia joining in the play with the makeshift bus made from an old fridge

Yesterday the Islamic New Year (Ashoura) was observed as a public holiday in the Gambia. While international news showed Shi'ih Muslims marking the days beating their skins raw in mourning for the martyrdom who they consider as Muhammad's successor, nearly 1400 years ago by the Sunnis, the Sunni's celebrate. Here, observers wore their best gowns and robes and visited friends. We also took advantage of the day off and set out to visit some of our family's long-time Gambian friends.

We started the day visiting Mr. Demba Tamba and family, whom I wrote about earlier in this blog. We stayed about an hour, discussing various things, among them the beautiful rooster in their yard – full-bodied, black, with turquoise feathers in its tail. As we were leaving the compound, his wife made an incredible gesture: she held the rooster by its feet and offered it to me! She said that she had been wanting to find us an adequate gift and now that she knew I liked this, they insisted that we take it. I held back a shriek when the rooster was thrust toward me, and once I re-gained composure, I was overwhelmed by their generosity. This family relies on the eggs, chicks, and even the use droppings for fertilizer for their daily existence. The closest analogy to our life would be to offer your new plasma-HD TV to a visitor. My brother-in-law explained in Wolof to Mrs. Tamba that we were very honored by her gift, but we would be out all day and couldn't keep the rooster, but perhaps we could take a picture of their family with the rooster?

Then we drove about 30 minutes from their village, through newly paved roads, bumpy sand paths, and alleys that become creeks and rapids during rainy season – all crowded with people enjoying the day off—to the Badjie family's. He is a school teacher and "only has four children." Sophia enjoyed playing with the 20+ kids from the neighborhood in their makeshift car/ship/truck/airplane. This was made of a discarded horizontal freezer shell, with wooden stools inside it for seats; at its front a hole had been made that fit a bamboo twig through it and that twig held a round plastic lid with a hole through its middle for the stick to create a steering wheel. When Sophia wanted to play with the kids first they all left their ship (they have probably never played with a non-African child), then, when they saw she was ok and wanted to play with them, they stormed back in and it was great fun.

Meanwhile, a visiting Swedish doctor, Charlotte, had contacted some mutual friends and wanted to meet the local Baha'is. So we picked her up from her hotel to have her join us for lunch at a simple and lovely fish restaurant on the beach – complete with hammocks between the tables and the beach and Peace Corps Volunteers a few yards off on the beach. Charlotte was volunteering for the week at a primary health center with a team of 30 Swedish physicians. Ironically, during lunch on the beach in the Gambia on an Islamic holiday, I learned more about Sweden than I have ever known in my life.

She happily joined us for one more home visit and then we stopped at our home to clean up a bit (especially Sophia, who seemed to have been rolling in the dust) before heading to our dinner invitation. We were the guests of a family that have lived in the Gambia since 1970; they grow their own vegetables, fruits, poultry, and even make their golden honey. It seemed that every variety of food was served to us – all fresh and home-made. They had invited a wonderful mix of Gambian and diverse American friends. For almost 40 years, their home has been a meeting place of peoples of all backgrounds and points of view.