It Na Be Very Different

For Christmas and News Years I decided to visit my friend Dawn, who is a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Gambia.  I returned a week ago and many of my friends here asked me what the Gambia was like.  The only thing I could tell them in Pidgin is, "It na be very different from here." My best description for them was that it is like Northern Cameroon, very flat, dry, and sandy. 

View of land from Barra, Gambia Health Clinic

I have an ongoing friendly competition with a friend about who has more African experience.  Before my trip to the Gambia she had visited more African countries then me, but I often reminded her that I had more time in Africa.  Well, I definitely am in the lead now as my trip from Cameroon to Gambia involved flying from Douala to Dakar, Senegal with a stop in Cotonou, Benin and Abidjan, Ivory Coast before taking public transportation to the Gambia.  Now, I don't consider staying in the plane on a runway in the capital city as really having visited the country, but you do get a taste of at least what the city must be like when the only other plane around is a decaying 747 resting near the runway as was the case in Cotonou or multiple United Nations planes as was the case in Abidjan.  On my way back from Dakar I sat next to a Senegalese woman who used to work in Lagos, Nigeria and now works in Abidjan.  She told me stories of how she found it odd in Nigeria that none of her colleagues ever invited her over to their house and how difficult it was to make friends because of the frantic pace of life.  She continued to tell me how the security situation in Lagos is nothing compared to the situation in Abidjan now after post-election violence and how many families are still splintered along political lines.  The whole trip was a reminder of just how vast, diverse, complex the continent really is and reminded me of the beauty, hospitality, and stability that is unique to Cameroon.    

Besides the opportunity to compare economic, cultural, geographical, and political differences between various African countries, it was also fabulous to visit Dawn and see what she is doing as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Gambia is a very small country completely surrounded by Senegal and divided in half by a river.  Shortly after meeting her we took a ferry to the capital city, Banjul.  Below is a shot of the sun setting over Banjul.  

Dawn lives in a rural village and her main work is to assist the community health nurse.  It is difficult to grow things in the Gambia because of the climate and many people subsist on rice and fish.  One of Dawn's projects is to assist in monitoring malnourished children and distribute plumpy'nut!  As a peanut butter lover I've been a fan of plumpy'nut ever since I heard about the vitamin and mineral fortified peanut-based product in 2004.  Although I've read many journal articles about how it has positively improved the way malnourished children are treated, I have never actually seen it used in the field.  It was fascinating to accompany Dawn and her counterpart, Omar, one day to see how it is distributed to the families and if it actually helps.  We visited about 12 families that day and only one child had improved enough to stop giving him the product.  One child had died shortly we visited and another was even more malnourished because the grandmother said the product gave the child severe diarrhea.      

Dawn handing out plumpy'nut

Plumpy'nut and breastfeeding!

One of the other products Omar and Dawn distribute is BP-100, which is more like an energy bar then peanut butter.  Dawn and I did taste comparison between plumpy'nut and BP-100 and as much as I wanted to like plumpy'nut, BP-100 actually won.  And it seemed to be better accepted by the families.  

After a week in Dawn's village, I began my journey back to Cameroon.  It was more eventful then I expected as the taxi and bus drivers were on strike in Senegal over fuel subsidies and I had to take a motorbike and then hitchhike the rest of the way to Dakar in order to make my flight.  I was quite relieved when I made it back to my home in Kumbo, four days later, just in time to see this awesome sunset.