Be Kind to Mankind

I saw this written on the front of a bush taxi, on the way home from visiting my friend Ayisha today. Ayisha is a UTG classmate, a Nigerian living in the Gambia, and she invited us out to her family compound for the afternoon.

On the ride to her compound we had to stop in the middle of the road because there was a throng of people making their way down it. Last time this happened to us, we had found ourselves in the middle of a funeral procession, but this time they were celebrating...something. We couldn't quite figure out the whole deal, but it had something to do with juju, and everyone was singing and playing instruments. Juju is supernatural power associated with witchcraft. You can read more about it here:

http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/4155771

Anyways, when we got to Ayisha's compound, we met her family, watched MTV with Arabic subtitles on her flat screen television, and ate a nice lunch. It is very important to take good care of your house guests here. Ayisha didn't even sit down to visit with us until she was convinced we were full and hydrated. She made us two dishes and the best baobab juice I have had here. (Baobab juice is a smoothie-like juice drink, made by boiling the baobab, a kind of sour fruit.)

After lunch, we went around and met Ayisha's family. A family compound is where a large extended family lives together. Most Gambians live in large family compounds, especially out in the villages. All of Ayisha's father's brothers live in this compound with their two wives and all their children, and Ayisha considers all of her cousins as brothers and sisters. (It is a patriarchal, polygamous system.) It was very important for us to go into each house, sit down for a minute, and say hello to everyone.

After this we walked down to the market and Ayisha took us to the Gambian equivalent of FYE. Sarah and I have each developed a "favorite" song that we hear on the radio and walking down the street, so we asked the men who work there for a CD with these songs and whatever other Gambian music they would like to put on it. The young men at the shop made a playlist on their computer and burned us two copies of the CD, for 50 Dalasis (2 Dollars) each. I also bought the entire fifth season of Friends for the same price. -Not bad!

To hear my new favorite song, check out this link. It's actually by two Nigerian groups called Bracket and P Square, and the song is called "Yori Yori," which, as Ayisha explained to me, is a sort of slang that basically means the same thing as "you make my heart pitter patter" or "you give me butterflies in my stomach." Anyways, its catchy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj1YP2Ydoys

I hope this video is alright. I can't get things to stream here, so I didn't watch it.