I want you

In one of my late night talks with my host mom I finally started to get some romantic details from her. Of everyone I know she is my closest Gambian friend and is amazing at understanding my Mandinka. She seems the best to eventually get all the real details of a Gambian woman’s life. I’m starting slowly but like any little kid hearing how their parents met, I was interested in the littlest detail.

We originally started talking about girlfriends and boyfriends. I asked if my host dad was her boyfriend before he was her husband. She said, “Fanta, black people and white people are not the same. You white people have boyfriends or girlfriends, we don’t. Here, that is not good”. I asked if she had ever had a boyfriend and she said basically repeated what she said before. I asked if her and Dikori just starting talking, hit it off, and decided to get hitched. She said “No, I went to Bansang, he saw me and asked if I had a husband. I said no and he said he liked/wanted me. I told him that we are Gambian, if he wants me he needs to go talk to my parents.” I asked if she was originally annoyed that this man was talking to her like this. I have to wave my hand to men in car parks and on the street to make them leave me alone often and it gets irritating. Maybe the difference is that Gambian women have a split second to make a possibly lifelong choice. This man presents an opportunity and the woman will eventually say yes to one of them. Bana said he went to her mom’s place, talked with her family, and eventually he was allowed to “buy her”. Eventually she came to live in his compound.

I had heard that women don’t really get to sleep for 3 days before their wedding. She said “yeah, people are coming all the time and you are busy and just never get to sleep”. After a woman is brought to her husband’s house she had to stay in her house for a week. She is only allowed to go to the backyard and the rest of the time she is in her room. Weddings are always in the hot season and in the afternoons rooms can be terribly hot. She said “oh, it's so hot in there, and you have to stay in there. It’s not sweet.” I told her that some people in Kombo have boyfriends or girlfriends but I guess no one really has one in my village since our village is so conservative. She said “they are here, but people don’t want others to know. At night they go out and hang out with them. It’s not good but it happens and people keep it a secret.”

I got to tell her that most Americans date first. We want to make sure we find someone that we can get along with, someone we can enjoy things with, and that we always worry about divorce so we want to pick the right person. She seemed to understand but I don’t think she was sold on the idea. The good thing about her is that though she doesn’t always agree with the American way of life she never treats me negatively for personifying some of the American behaviors she doesn’t like. She is really tolerant of things she doesn’t support.

Villager Profile

Name: Bana

Age: Roughly 27

Education: some lower basic school

Children: 1 rather difficult 2 year old and one hopefully good baby on the way.

Job: School Committee and Women’s group member.

Hobbies: Sewing, braiding hair, sleeping (mostly during pregnancy), gardening, drinking tea.

Best quote: “Fanta is BIG! Fanta be GREAT!” (in English!)