I am now an amateur beekeeper. And so is my brother, Bailo! Why we started raising African bees is a long story, and I want to tell it right. I need more time to collect my thoughts, but for now, I want to show you a little glimpse of what we have been up to.
On her six-month birthday, Fatoumata Jessica was cooing on my doorstep! My host sister from training village, Sainabou, delivered a healthy baby girl who was named after me and her grandmother (my namesake) in November. I told them they were welcome to visit any time and Sainabou’s husband promised he’d send them when the baby was a bit older. There are no little babies in my compound, let alone a little baby with my name, so I was ecstatic for her to visit.
My name is Leo. Woof woof! I didn’t like the last post my mommy wrote about me, so she said I could write my own.
We have our “work” friends, our “church” friends, our “college” friends — each group perhaps knowing us a little differently than the next. It’s not that I’m trying to suggest I’m fake or two-faced, it’s just to say that we all naturally fulfill roles and play different versions of ourselves depending on the script. I think it is rare to find a friend who transcends that – someone who is just your “friend” – no qualifiers needed. After some months here, I didn’t expect I’d ever find that in one of my Gambian friends. I thought our cultures are just too different, our views too varied, the divide in our lives too great.
But then there is Habbie.
The thing I once despised is now at the center of nearly all my dreams: Grocery shopping. I used to loathe the chore and would make a detailed list before entering the supermarket so I could quickly grab what I needed and get out of there. I’m not sure why I hated grocery shopping so much, maybe it was how quickly I could rack up a bill or the number of overwhelming choices, but I just never cared for the task. Now that grocery shopping is a thing of my past, it’s all I can dream about. Funny how that works! I now awake on many mornings remembering my nighttime fantasies of perusing aisle after aisle.
My dad has been pestering me for months to tell him everything I know about poultry. I tried to explain that I’ve already told him what I know: Nothing. I know absolutely nothing about poultry. “Hate to break it to you dad, but you were sent a Peace Corps Volunteer from Las Vegas and the only I thing I know about chicken is that it’s often served at buffets.” My dad didn’t seem to like that answer. So, I began looking into what I could do to help. Afterall, so much of my job is teaching myself new skills so I can teach others.
It’s difficult – impossible, perhaps – to describe what it’s like to see a child bride. I’d heard countless stories of young weddings … stories from people I know, people I call “friend and “sister” even, who had been married off as mere teens. But stories just aren’t the same. The stories weren’t the same as talking to a 15-year-old girl dressed in her wedding outfit instead of her school uniform on a Monday morning.
