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.
Open wells don’t make safe drinking water, but they can make a pretty picture! I’m lucky enough to live near a tap where I can easily fetch my water, but many people in The Gambia still find access to safe drinking water to be a challenge. Nearly 22 percent of households use unprotected wells like this one for drinking, according to UNICEF. Luckily, my neighbors in this compound and many other people in my village know open wells are unsafe and opt to wait in lines at a covered hand pump or tap instead.
While many Gambians opt for the two-piece complet, I personally prefer the African dresses because they are the breeziest in the heat. Traditional Gambian dresses are typically flowy and floor-length, and often have poofy, ruffled sleeves and flamboyant embroidery.
Every morning, I walk out to my back patio and look up at the mangoes dangling in the tree and am barely able to contain my excitement. You don’t know happiness until you bite into a perfectly-ripe mango, its hot juices dripping down to your elbows and staining your clothes.
I never thought being called “fat” would be the thing to bring a smile to my face. But “fat” has a whole new ring to…
Anyway, my sisters gathered round, tossing out ideas for names while the boys tried to wrestle the dogs out from between the bricks and my fence. The girls settled on “Leo,” the heartthrob in our favorite TV show, a Mexican telenovela. I took one look at my siblings and another look in those puppy dog eyes and agreed. We’d keep him.
Everyone knows when the clock strikes 8 in Camara Kunda. It’s not time for dinner or the hour for prayer. It’s time for “Pasion Morena,”…
