12/25/04
SATURDAY
DECEMBER 25, 2004
It’s Christmas!
It’s Christmas!
I’m the first one up!
I looked around the room.
This wasn’t like Christmas back home.
Everyone’s passed out drunk!
Beer bottles were spread across the table, playing cards on the floor, and cushions in random places. I guess the real party happened after I went to bed! Slowly the zombies started to wake up. No Christmas music was played, as there were some complaints of headaches. Throughout the morning the music slowly got louder and eventually was regular volume as the headaches subsided.
The first few people up, myself included, helped picked up all the empty beer bottles and got the table cleared for breakfast. All empty bottles, like in the US, can be exchanged for a refund. There is one small difference, though. In the US they do the refund exchange to deter from littering and to encourage recycling. Here in The Gambia the bottle of coke you are drinking has been re-used a hundred times before. The sellers of the bottles, be it bidiks or stores, sell the bottles D2 more than regular price. If you return the bottle you get your D2 back. The owners then stack the bottles in crates until the next full shipment comes. They then get rid of the empty bottles, replacing them with new ones. The old bottles are simply returned the factory, washed out, and used again. And again, and again.
My water bottle was missing from the fridge so I had to get another one. I try to have at all times that I’m at Kharafi a water bottle in the fridge. Most people there drink the beer or coke in the crates about the refrigerator. I don’t want to continually go back and forth into the kitchen to get a drink of water, so I try to fill a bottle up each night to have a cold one all day long waiting for me in the fridge the next morning.
I walked the five minutes towards the ferry terminal to get another bottle of water; not so much for the water itself but for the bottle. At the bidick I noticed for the first time it had a block ‘S’ written in green on the outside. My alma mater logo! I needed to get a picture of it and the only way I could get myself in the picture was to have a Gambian take it. The only way a Gambian would take a picture of you is if you take a picture of them. I now have two pictures of the side of the bidick. The one with me in it is tilted at an angle, since the Gambian took it; and the one with the Gambian smiling is perfectly straight. He gave me his address to mail him his picture and his contact information if I ever wanted to “make a friend.” Not ten minutes after arriving back at Kharafi the Gambian came running forward with another piece of paper with the same address written on it; this time a little neater.
The group of 21 people brought together to celebrate Christmas was broken up into three groups: Sam and his helpers cooking the dinner, the card-players, and the rest just watching movies. I asked Sam if he needed anything from the Island.
“Yes! Ten loaves of bread, five eggs, and margarine.”
This was more than what I was expecting, as I expected maybe ‘one egg’ or something small that I could carry in my hands. “OK. I’ll go get my bag”.
While getting my bag I recruited Amy to come along to the Island. Amy was one of the newly sworn-in environment volunteers and is in the same group as Kelly from the day before. With the exception of myself, this party was almost exclusively environment volunteers.
Amy and I crossed the ferry and within ten minutes of exploring the market found the eggs and margarine. Bread ended up being a little bit harder. Amy went one way while I went another, down the main street into town asking every bidick if they had bread. Not a single one. A small boy came up to us and did the generic “Toubob, give me dalasi” routine.
I fell for it, and told him: “I’ll give you dalasi if we can find bread.”
“Bread?”
“Yes. Bread. I’ll give you one dalasi if we can find ten loaves of bread.”
“Here! Come! My father is the baker.”
In the Gambia, the term “father” does not have the usual definition of ‘a male parent’ but goes beyond that to include, what Americans would call, uncles and older men with the same last name. His ‘father’ was not his father, but nonetheless was the baker. The little boy zigzagged around the island, going in one alley, coming out another until the three of us reached a compound where his ‘father’ worked. In the back was a bigger-than-usual hut that served as the bakery.
The boy spoke to him telling him that we searched all over the island for bread and that he brought them here. We tried to communicate as well as we could with the Wolof we knew. I had my camera on me, since it was in the bag for the bread, I asked if I could take a picture. “No”. Two minutes later he found out we’re Peace Corps. “Ok. You can take the picture, then.” He paused just long enough for the kids to run behind him and I took a picture of him putting the bread in the mud stove with Amy in the background with the kids. This was my first time in a village bakery and I felt bad I had to act a little like a tourist, but that picture speaks a thousand words.
With Amy getting two more loaves of bread we stuffed the dozen loaves in my backpack and left to go back to Kharafi. We gave the kids a few dalasi for their help and even half a loaf of the fresh bread, which they split among themselves. Amy and I shared the other half; with this being the first time I’ve had fresh out of the oven bread since arriving in country. Upon returning to Kharafi Sam smiled in delight when we told him the bread was straight out of the oven and was still hot.
While the chef and his assistants were cooking, a group of us decided to play a Christmas game of baseball. We had nine people total for two teams. Scott had injured his knee the night before in a drunken stupor of jumping on a seat and landing his knees on the armrest. As such, he was our designated pitcher as he could only limp. The field was determined to be in the corner of the compound with the edge of center field being the corner post. Big stones or broken cement blocks marked the bases.
Four people were to a team. Originally, we had one person on each base and only one outfielder. This was changed when we realized first base was useless when trying to get people out, as we could concentrate on second base or third. The rule was changed to: If you throw it the pitcher (i.e. Scott) and he catches it then your out on first. By the first few times of doing this rule it had to be amended as Scott couldn’t move much because of his knee. New rule: If you throw in the general vicinity of the pitcher, in such a way that he could have caught it if uninjured, you were out on first.
At the end of the first inning with one-out and I’m on third base we were called in for Dinner.
My apologizes to the chef, but a very simplified version of that dinner was: Green salad with mustard vinaigrette, grilled lamb, and chopped potatoes. I asked Sam the actual names of the items, and tried to write them down, but three things hindered that effort: He told the official names of each dish, I didn’t know how to spell them, and neither did he. The “grilled lamb” had a real professional name to it, and tasted equally well. There were other side dishes, but I didn’t know what they were called.
To drink were twelve bottles of wine, crates full of beer and pop, and water. Everyone was going to chip in three hundred or so dalasi to cover the cost of the meal. I approached Sam after everyone had their full and were relaxing:
“Should we pay you or one of the Kharafi people?”
“Well, Mike, you don’t owe anything.”
“I don’t?”
“They’re not charging anyone for anything.”
“They bought all this for us for free!”
“It looks like it.”
These three people, Brom, Phillip, and Fred, had not only put up their place for 18 Americans to spend Christmas together, but also then paid for their celebratory dinner! Word spread around quickly and a few thank-you toasts were in order.
The rest the baseball game was continued after a short break. I got back on third base and ran to home as my teammate struck out going to third as the ball was thrown passed Scott who couldn’t catch it, but it qualified as an out. One other problem with having four people on a team is that when bases are loaded and your batting, you have to be your own catcher. If you get a strike or a ball you have to run and catch up to the ball rolling away from you every time. Another weird event was that I was on first base, one of my teammate got out that went after me, but the next person to bat was on third. I became the designated person to move from first to third, then run from third to home, then go back to what base I would have reached, second.
To make the game shorter another rule was implemented. A half-an-inning was when either three outs or five runs happened. Our team usually suffered from the three outs, the other team from the five runs. The game ended when the sun went down and the lights that were up on the compound weren’t powerful enough to continue the game. We lost 16-21.
At 10 pm, another dinner was served. The first dinner, being the formal one, was done early enough in the day that the cooks considered it to be our lunch and so they cooked eleven chickens for us and cut them in half. Still another interesting fact about being in Peace Corps is that we have a disproportionate number of people who are vegetarians than the usual population. With that being said, there was more meat for the meat eaters! The cooks don’t understand why some toubobs won’t eat meat. Their usual argument is “They can afford it, why don’t they eat it!” Most Gambians only have meat when they can afford it and so choosing not to eat a piece of meat when it is around causes a stir. Needless to say, there were enough meat eaters in the room to finish all the chickens.
When dinner was finished, and dessert served, I left to go to the island to call home. Before attempting to cross the river I asked a few of the volunteers if I could use their phone to try to call the US from it. A few of them gave me their cell phones, but only one of them could receive a signal and even then I couldn’t make a call out.
No ferry was running and only local fisherman were waiting or just chatting away. I negotiated a deal between one of the captains of a canoe. He would cross to Georgetown, wait one hour, and then cross back for D100. I didn’t want to deal with trying to find a canoe to cross back onto the North Bank an hour later so the D100 was to guarantee I had a ride back, more than anything.
I reached the island and went to the only telecenter I knew existed on the island. The phone was push-button but the dial tone was pulse. I tried calling the AT&T operator, but the computer couldn’t understand the pulses. I gave up in search of another telecenter, with ten minutes wasted. The only other telecenter was on the other side of the island and I wouldn’t have enough time to travel there, make the call, and travel back in under an hour. A thought occurred that maybe in the back of the phone there was switch no one knew about that would switch it from pulses to tones, so I went back to the same telecenter.
Ten minutes more were wasted just waiting in line as someone got in line before me inbetween the time I left and came back. There were only two phones in the telecenter and only one of them worked. Eventually it was finally my turn and I went inside, with the only light being one of a candle, to check the sides of the phone. There was no switch to toggle, or hidden button to push. With the option of not making the phone call lingering in my head I figured to try it just one more time before calling it quits.
“Press 1 for domestic, 2 for international”
I could do neither because of the pulses.
I waited.
“I’m sorry. I did not register the option you selected. Please press one for domestic, two for international.”
I waited.
“Or, you can say the number.”
A glimpse of hope! “Two”
“Thank you using your AT&T pre-paid phone card. Please type in your pin number.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry. I did not register your PIN number. Please type it in again.”
I waited.
“Or, you can say the number.”
I read each number out loud, clearly. The computer registered it and then asked me to punch in the phone number. Again I waited until I could say the number. After all that, it didn’t connect! Maybe I didn’t need to dial 001 for calling the US? I couldn’t remember. I hung up the phone and tried again. Each time I waited to say each number again. After five more minutes of saying nothing but numbers it again didn’t connect! My last shot was to try without the 001 country code for the US and also say it’s a domestic call. This is the same option as if I was calling from within the US. I again went through the routine of saying every number out loud.
First the three numbers I had to select just to make a call.
Second, the 12 digit PIN number
Thirdly, the ten-digit phone number, with area code.
This time I purposely said “one” for domestic, and it worked! The phone was ringing and my father picked up on the other end of the line. Not ten seconds later the proprietor interrupted our conversation and asked if I was talking on the phone. His problem? I was using a phone card and therefore his machine did not register that the phone was being used. He didn’t like this very much and interrupted asking if I was going to pay. Any other day I would have said no, but I was just so thankful I got through that I said yes I would pay.
I was able to talk to my family for a few minutes to wish them a Merry Christmas. It took a half-hour to make that connection. When I walked out, and paid the guy D50 just for the sake of him not interrupting the conversation again, I received a lot of weird looks. I then realized why there was a gathering and people were looking at me funny. For the past half-hour, minus the last five minutes or so that I was actually talking to my family, all the words I was saying were just numbers spoken clearly and being well spaced.
“Three… one … four … one … five… nine… two….six … five … “
There’s an old rumor flying around that Peace Corps volunteers are government spies, or CIA agents, spying on The Gambians. This is only strengthened when they find out we do, in fact, work for the government; but not in the high-profile job they think we have. And so, for twenty minutes my “cover” was blown as I was speaking in code into the telephone telling all the secrets of The Gambia to my CIA counterparts listening in.
“three .. five … eight … nine .. seven… nine… three … two … three.” With intervened the occasional “yes”, “no” or “correct”.
I just smiled at them, nodded, greeted a few, and went back to my captain who was waiting to take me back to the north side. The original plan was to call three people: My parents, Laura in Texas, and Dave to find out if everything was a go for his trip. With the phone the way it was I only made one call.
The Christmas Party was well under way. Not one for being left out, Scott pulled up a bar stool in the middle of the living room so he could be part of the dancing group. Although his knee still bothered him and he couldn’t walk without a limp he joined in the dancing by sitting on the stool and dancing while he sat. Christmas lights were aglow, drinks a flowing, and dancing going crazy.
I joined the card table.
I tried getting a game of euchre going but not everyone knew euchre, and so Tom (Alexei’s dad), Thao, and I played a game of Rummy. The winner was the first to reach 500 points. Tom and I were closely tied to be in the lead throughout the game. On one hand of play I had accumulated just face cards and laid them down all at once to go out, a risky move in case any of the others laid out first. It worked and I pulled ahead to 495, with Tom at 475 and Thao trailing at 335. Five more points and I would win the game.
Realizing the situation Tom told Thao, “Now, Thao, don’t give any face cards to Mike.”
“I know. I won’t”
“We can still win. He needs only five points. If I go out first and he gets negative I could still win.”
“OK.”
Thao apparently didn’t understand the concept of that the best opportunity for me to lose was for Tom to win, not her. She would grab cards that she herself would need, which Tom didn’t particularly like. I was dealt three aces to begin with, so I just teased them a while by throwing cards away and confusing Tom, which, being a good card player, kept track of which cards people threw away and picked up.
Finally it was time to lay them out.
“Oh shit!” was Tom’s first expression, followed by, “wait, wait, it’s not over yet. Even though he only needs five points if I go out before he does and he has enough cards in his hand to cancel the aces I could still win. Thao, you with me?”
“Yeap, let’s get him!”
She then proceeded to keep on doing what she was doing before. Tom did care and was now getting frustrated with his chances of winning, or more correctly, me losing, going down the drain. The game ended when Thao discarded a card Tom knew I would pick up. I did. I used it, and won.
As midnight approached I went to bed. The next day, the 26th, was Jessica’s birthday and I heard them singing through the walls when midnight struck. A few minutes later Thao joined in the going-to-bed-early party and walked in the room. We started talking a little, with me pointing out something that someone had pointed out to me earlier in the day.
“You know, someone pointed out today that I am the only education volunteer here.”
“Why would someone point that out! Who cares! This isn’t just an ag-fo party. Anybody was welcomed to join in. Most of the education volunteers go down to Kombo for Christmas, while we’re glad you came up here! ”
With that being said I went to sleep. My last Christmas in the Gambia was finished.
DECEMBER 25, 2004
It’s Christmas!
It’s Christmas!
I’m the first one up!
I looked around the room.
This wasn’t like Christmas back home.
Everyone’s passed out drunk!
Beer bottles were spread across the table, playing cards on the floor, and cushions in random places. I guess the real party happened after I went to bed! Slowly the zombies started to wake up. No Christmas music was played, as there were some complaints of headaches. Throughout the morning the music slowly got louder and eventually was regular volume as the headaches subsided.
The first few people up, myself included, helped picked up all the empty beer bottles and got the table cleared for breakfast. All empty bottles, like in the US, can be exchanged for a refund. There is one small difference, though. In the US they do the refund exchange to deter from littering and to encourage recycling. Here in The Gambia the bottle of coke you are drinking has been re-used a hundred times before. The sellers of the bottles, be it bidiks or stores, sell the bottles D2 more than regular price. If you return the bottle you get your D2 back. The owners then stack the bottles in crates until the next full shipment comes. They then get rid of the empty bottles, replacing them with new ones. The old bottles are simply returned the factory, washed out, and used again. And again, and again.
My water bottle was missing from the fridge so I had to get another one. I try to have at all times that I’m at Kharafi a water bottle in the fridge. Most people there drink the beer or coke in the crates about the refrigerator. I don’t want to continually go back and forth into the kitchen to get a drink of water, so I try to fill a bottle up each night to have a cold one all day long waiting for me in the fridge the next morning.
I walked the five minutes towards the ferry terminal to get another bottle of water; not so much for the water itself but for the bottle. At the bidick I noticed for the first time it had a block ‘S’ written in green on the outside. My alma mater logo! I needed to get a picture of it and the only way I could get myself in the picture was to have a Gambian take it. The only way a Gambian would take a picture of you is if you take a picture of them. I now have two pictures of the side of the bidick. The one with me in it is tilted at an angle, since the Gambian took it; and the one with the Gambian smiling is perfectly straight. He gave me his address to mail him his picture and his contact information if I ever wanted to “make a friend.” Not ten minutes after arriving back at Kharafi the Gambian came running forward with another piece of paper with the same address written on it; this time a little neater.
The group of 21 people brought together to celebrate Christmas was broken up into three groups: Sam and his helpers cooking the dinner, the card-players, and the rest just watching movies. I asked Sam if he needed anything from the Island.
“Yes! Ten loaves of bread, five eggs, and margarine.”
This was more than what I was expecting, as I expected maybe ‘one egg’ or something small that I could carry in my hands. “OK. I’ll go get my bag”.
While getting my bag I recruited Amy to come along to the Island. Amy was one of the newly sworn-in environment volunteers and is in the same group as Kelly from the day before. With the exception of myself, this party was almost exclusively environment volunteers.
Amy and I crossed the ferry and within ten minutes of exploring the market found the eggs and margarine. Bread ended up being a little bit harder. Amy went one way while I went another, down the main street into town asking every bidick if they had bread. Not a single one. A small boy came up to us and did the generic “Toubob, give me dalasi” routine.
I fell for it, and told him: “I’ll give you dalasi if we can find bread.”
“Bread?”
“Yes. Bread. I’ll give you one dalasi if we can find ten loaves of bread.”
“Here! Come! My father is the baker.”
In the Gambia, the term “father” does not have the usual definition of ‘a male parent’ but goes beyond that to include, what Americans would call, uncles and older men with the same last name. His ‘father’ was not his father, but nonetheless was the baker. The little boy zigzagged around the island, going in one alley, coming out another until the three of us reached a compound where his ‘father’ worked. In the back was a bigger-than-usual hut that served as the bakery.
The boy spoke to him telling him that we searched all over the island for bread and that he brought them here. We tried to communicate as well as we could with the Wolof we knew. I had my camera on me, since it was in the bag for the bread, I asked if I could take a picture. “No”. Two minutes later he found out we’re Peace Corps. “Ok. You can take the picture, then.” He paused just long enough for the kids to run behind him and I took a picture of him putting the bread in the mud stove with Amy in the background with the kids. This was my first time in a village bakery and I felt bad I had to act a little like a tourist, but that picture speaks a thousand words.
With Amy getting two more loaves of bread we stuffed the dozen loaves in my backpack and left to go back to Kharafi. We gave the kids a few dalasi for their help and even half a loaf of the fresh bread, which they split among themselves. Amy and I shared the other half; with this being the first time I’ve had fresh out of the oven bread since arriving in country. Upon returning to Kharafi Sam smiled in delight when we told him the bread was straight out of the oven and was still hot.
While the chef and his assistants were cooking, a group of us decided to play a Christmas game of baseball. We had nine people total for two teams. Scott had injured his knee the night before in a drunken stupor of jumping on a seat and landing his knees on the armrest. As such, he was our designated pitcher as he could only limp. The field was determined to be in the corner of the compound with the edge of center field being the corner post. Big stones or broken cement blocks marked the bases.
Four people were to a team. Originally, we had one person on each base and only one outfielder. This was changed when we realized first base was useless when trying to get people out, as we could concentrate on second base or third. The rule was changed to: If you throw it the pitcher (i.e. Scott) and he catches it then your out on first. By the first few times of doing this rule it had to be amended as Scott couldn’t move much because of his knee. New rule: If you throw in the general vicinity of the pitcher, in such a way that he could have caught it if uninjured, you were out on first.
At the end of the first inning with one-out and I’m on third base we were called in for Dinner.
My apologizes to the chef, but a very simplified version of that dinner was: Green salad with mustard vinaigrette, grilled lamb, and chopped potatoes. I asked Sam the actual names of the items, and tried to write them down, but three things hindered that effort: He told the official names of each dish, I didn’t know how to spell them, and neither did he. The “grilled lamb” had a real professional name to it, and tasted equally well. There were other side dishes, but I didn’t know what they were called.
To drink were twelve bottles of wine, crates full of beer and pop, and water. Everyone was going to chip in three hundred or so dalasi to cover the cost of the meal. I approached Sam after everyone had their full and were relaxing:
“Should we pay you or one of the Kharafi people?”
“Well, Mike, you don’t owe anything.”
“I don’t?”
“They’re not charging anyone for anything.”
“They bought all this for us for free!”
“It looks like it.”
These three people, Brom, Phillip, and Fred, had not only put up their place for 18 Americans to spend Christmas together, but also then paid for their celebratory dinner! Word spread around quickly and a few thank-you toasts were in order.
The rest the baseball game was continued after a short break. I got back on third base and ran to home as my teammate struck out going to third as the ball was thrown passed Scott who couldn’t catch it, but it qualified as an out. One other problem with having four people on a team is that when bases are loaded and your batting, you have to be your own catcher. If you get a strike or a ball you have to run and catch up to the ball rolling away from you every time. Another weird event was that I was on first base, one of my teammate got out that went after me, but the next person to bat was on third. I became the designated person to move from first to third, then run from third to home, then go back to what base I would have reached, second.
To make the game shorter another rule was implemented. A half-an-inning was when either three outs or five runs happened. Our team usually suffered from the three outs, the other team from the five runs. The game ended when the sun went down and the lights that were up on the compound weren’t powerful enough to continue the game. We lost 16-21.
At 10 pm, another dinner was served. The first dinner, being the formal one, was done early enough in the day that the cooks considered it to be our lunch and so they cooked eleven chickens for us and cut them in half. Still another interesting fact about being in Peace Corps is that we have a disproportionate number of people who are vegetarians than the usual population. With that being said, there was more meat for the meat eaters! The cooks don’t understand why some toubobs won’t eat meat. Their usual argument is “They can afford it, why don’t they eat it!” Most Gambians only have meat when they can afford it and so choosing not to eat a piece of meat when it is around causes a stir. Needless to say, there were enough meat eaters in the room to finish all the chickens.
When dinner was finished, and dessert served, I left to go to the island to call home. Before attempting to cross the river I asked a few of the volunteers if I could use their phone to try to call the US from it. A few of them gave me their cell phones, but only one of them could receive a signal and even then I couldn’t make a call out.
No ferry was running and only local fisherman were waiting or just chatting away. I negotiated a deal between one of the captains of a canoe. He would cross to Georgetown, wait one hour, and then cross back for D100. I didn’t want to deal with trying to find a canoe to cross back onto the North Bank an hour later so the D100 was to guarantee I had a ride back, more than anything.
I reached the island and went to the only telecenter I knew existed on the island. The phone was push-button but the dial tone was pulse. I tried calling the AT&T operator, but the computer couldn’t understand the pulses. I gave up in search of another telecenter, with ten minutes wasted. The only other telecenter was on the other side of the island and I wouldn’t have enough time to travel there, make the call, and travel back in under an hour. A thought occurred that maybe in the back of the phone there was switch no one knew about that would switch it from pulses to tones, so I went back to the same telecenter.
Ten minutes more were wasted just waiting in line as someone got in line before me inbetween the time I left and came back. There were only two phones in the telecenter and only one of them worked. Eventually it was finally my turn and I went inside, with the only light being one of a candle, to check the sides of the phone. There was no switch to toggle, or hidden button to push. With the option of not making the phone call lingering in my head I figured to try it just one more time before calling it quits.
“Press 1 for domestic, 2 for international”
I could do neither because of the pulses.
I waited.
“I’m sorry. I did not register the option you selected. Please press one for domestic, two for international.”
I waited.
“Or, you can say the number.”
A glimpse of hope! “Two”
“Thank you using your AT&T pre-paid phone card. Please type in your pin number.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry. I did not register your PIN number. Please type it in again.”
I waited.
“Or, you can say the number.”
I read each number out loud, clearly. The computer registered it and then asked me to punch in the phone number. Again I waited until I could say the number. After all that, it didn’t connect! Maybe I didn’t need to dial 001 for calling the US? I couldn’t remember. I hung up the phone and tried again. Each time I waited to say each number again. After five more minutes of saying nothing but numbers it again didn’t connect! My last shot was to try without the 001 country code for the US and also say it’s a domestic call. This is the same option as if I was calling from within the US. I again went through the routine of saying every number out loud.
First the three numbers I had to select just to make a call.
Second, the 12 digit PIN number
Thirdly, the ten-digit phone number, with area code.
This time I purposely said “one” for domestic, and it worked! The phone was ringing and my father picked up on the other end of the line. Not ten seconds later the proprietor interrupted our conversation and asked if I was talking on the phone. His problem? I was using a phone card and therefore his machine did not register that the phone was being used. He didn’t like this very much and interrupted asking if I was going to pay. Any other day I would have said no, but I was just so thankful I got through that I said yes I would pay.
I was able to talk to my family for a few minutes to wish them a Merry Christmas. It took a half-hour to make that connection. When I walked out, and paid the guy D50 just for the sake of him not interrupting the conversation again, I received a lot of weird looks. I then realized why there was a gathering and people were looking at me funny. For the past half-hour, minus the last five minutes or so that I was actually talking to my family, all the words I was saying were just numbers spoken clearly and being well spaced.
“Three… one … four … one … five… nine… two….six … five … “
There’s an old rumor flying around that Peace Corps volunteers are government spies, or CIA agents, spying on The Gambians. This is only strengthened when they find out we do, in fact, work for the government; but not in the high-profile job they think we have. And so, for twenty minutes my “cover” was blown as I was speaking in code into the telephone telling all the secrets of The Gambia to my CIA counterparts listening in.
“three .. five … eight … nine .. seven… nine… three … two … three.” With intervened the occasional “yes”, “no” or “correct”.
I just smiled at them, nodded, greeted a few, and went back to my captain who was waiting to take me back to the north side. The original plan was to call three people: My parents, Laura in Texas, and Dave to find out if everything was a go for his trip. With the phone the way it was I only made one call.
The Christmas Party was well under way. Not one for being left out, Scott pulled up a bar stool in the middle of the living room so he could be part of the dancing group. Although his knee still bothered him and he couldn’t walk without a limp he joined in the dancing by sitting on the stool and dancing while he sat. Christmas lights were aglow, drinks a flowing, and dancing going crazy.
I joined the card table.
I tried getting a game of euchre going but not everyone knew euchre, and so Tom (Alexei’s dad), Thao, and I played a game of Rummy. The winner was the first to reach 500 points. Tom and I were closely tied to be in the lead throughout the game. On one hand of play I had accumulated just face cards and laid them down all at once to go out, a risky move in case any of the others laid out first. It worked and I pulled ahead to 495, with Tom at 475 and Thao trailing at 335. Five more points and I would win the game.
Realizing the situation Tom told Thao, “Now, Thao, don’t give any face cards to Mike.”
“I know. I won’t”
“We can still win. He needs only five points. If I go out first and he gets negative I could still win.”
“OK.”
Thao apparently didn’t understand the concept of that the best opportunity for me to lose was for Tom to win, not her. She would grab cards that she herself would need, which Tom didn’t particularly like. I was dealt three aces to begin with, so I just teased them a while by throwing cards away and confusing Tom, which, being a good card player, kept track of which cards people threw away and picked up.
Finally it was time to lay them out.
“Oh shit!” was Tom’s first expression, followed by, “wait, wait, it’s not over yet. Even though he only needs five points if I go out before he does and he has enough cards in his hand to cancel the aces I could still win. Thao, you with me?”
“Yeap, let’s get him!”
She then proceeded to keep on doing what she was doing before. Tom did care and was now getting frustrated with his chances of winning, or more correctly, me losing, going down the drain. The game ended when Thao discarded a card Tom knew I would pick up. I did. I used it, and won.
As midnight approached I went to bed. The next day, the 26th, was Jessica’s birthday and I heard them singing through the walls when midnight struck. A few minutes later Thao joined in the going-to-bed-early party and walked in the room. We started talking a little, with me pointing out something that someone had pointed out to me earlier in the day.
“You know, someone pointed out today that I am the only education volunteer here.”
“Why would someone point that out! Who cares! This isn’t just an ag-fo party. Anybody was welcomed to join in. Most of the education volunteers go down to Kombo for Christmas, while we’re glad you came up here! ”
With that being said I went to sleep. My last Christmas in the Gambia was finished.
posted by Mike | 5:25 PM
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