Greece Cycling Goddess

First published in the Lafayette Journal & Courier, Lafayette, Indiana, 1977

POSTMARK: The Gambia

By COLLEEN MCGUIRE

The advantages of staying with an African family range from sheer enjoyment of the experience to the profound educational opportunities involved, such as the Saturday when the Camara clan invited me to a Moslem ceremony that was the equivalent of a Christian child’s baptism.

To attend the ceremony, we drove 112 miles into the hot African countryside to Mansakonko, where Fanta Camara’s eldest daughter, Ramatou, lived with her husband and five children, plus her husband’s second wife. Ramatou’s latest child was a week old, the age when a child is named.

When we arrived, there was a huge crowd on the lawn and beautiful music in the air, Ramatou’s husband is a high official so his family resides in a huge British colonial house.

I found it ludicrous that past British residents installed a fireplace in the house, probably to remind them of England, but totally useless in tropical Gambia.

All the women were found inside, lounging on beds in the bedroom, dressed up in beautiful African gowns and adorned in their finest jewelry. However, I couldn’t understand the women’s Mandika conversation and felt claustrophobic inside with so many eyes on me.

Even though it is traditional at weddings and funerals for all the women to congregate inside and the men outside, I preferred to be outdoors in the fresh air, and close to the vibrant music.

Nobody invited the musicians to the ceremony. They are known as griots, and show up at special occasions on their own, in the hopes people will bestow money on them.

They sang in raspy voices songs of the past that told a story about their ancestors. The two male griots were strumming koras, instruments similar to the guitar except the base is made of a huge round gourd larger than a basketball. The female griots rhythmically tapped metal tubes on the sides of the kora and seemingly tried to outchant their male partners.

From childhood African women wear earrings of solid gold that weigh heavily on their lobes.  The griot women had the biggest gold earrings 1 had ever seen and the holes in their ear lobes seemed large enough to slide a pencil through. The griots wanted money from me, but all I had was a grapefruit in my hand. They accepted it, and they probably would accept just about anything that was free.

Soon, Ramatou stepped outside, cradling her newborn baby. A bit of the child’s hair was cut for the mother to save and the little girl was named Aja Dalbo after a friend. (The friend has been to Mecca and women who complete the Moslem obligation of visiting the Holy City are given the title “Aja”).

After the hair was cut, all the men lapsed into a monotone chanting of verses from the Koran. They were praying that the child would endure a long life. The next thing I knew, everyone was getting up to go home. On their way, many slipped Ramatou’s husband some money. Others presented him with live chickens.  At a child naming rite, the family is obligated to slaughter some sort of animal, depending on the family’s wealth. Poor people might kill a chicken, while rich people would offer an entire cow.

At this ceremony I witnessed a ram’s throat being slit — a thoroughly gruesome sight. I was the only person grimacing, as everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

Later Ramatou served dinner to the 30 or so guests. About five or six large bowls were filled with benechin, a spicy dish composed of rice and the freshly slaughtered meat. People broke up into groups of five or six, and each group had its own bowl. Some groups ate on the porch, others in the kitchen, and others in the bedroom.

All of them sat on the floor and scooped up the rice with their hands. I was the only person given a spoon, but I refused it when 1 saw I would be the oddball.

Eating their way was fun and a novel experience for me, but due to my inexpertise in molding rice in the hand, I ended up with a pretty messy mouth. The important thing was that my stomach was full and content.

Soon after dinner, the Camaras and I went through endless handshakes and Mandika farewell greetings. Finally we departed.

On the way home we stopped at Worokang to visit other Camara relatives, and as we entered the family compound, I realized that I was probably the first white person to visit this family. All the children came running up to me, yelling “toubob” and forming a circle around me as if I were on exhibit in a circus. Some of them boldly touched me, then yanked their hands back rapidly, as if they had been given an electric shock.