Riding High in The Gambia

Like most October days in The Gambia, it was about 95⁰F feeling like 110. I told my host family I was going to bike to another training village about 12 km up the road, hopped on the rather rickety old machine given to us by the Peace Corps, and headed down the dirt path to the main road. Emerging from the tall grasses that surround many of the back channels into my village, I was greeted by two things: the blazing sun and an endless flurry of questions from the innumerable children (I tondii? What is your name? I ka taa mintoo le? Where are you going?). I answered as fast as my limited Mandinka allowed, which is to say that I could get my Gambian name, Alieu Sanneh, out before I had pedaled out of range. Ah well, the language will come, they say.

So far, training has been hectic, to say the least. We split our time between our training

village, where we live with a temporary host family, engage with the local community, and focus predominately on language and culture, and a Peace Corps training center, where we have lectures on all manner of important topics, including safety and security, personal health and well-being, and technical skills in agriculture. There are unique perks and challenges to each location, but a common thread is being “on” most of every day with breaks consisting primarily of life necessities, such as laundry (by hand, of course) or sweeping (a near-daily occurrence). Amidst this packed training schedule, taking a few hours to bike and visit another training community was a glorious respite.

Along the side of the highway, over rolling hills, past grasses, trees, and horse-drawn carts, I rode. Every so often, I was hit with a gust of wind, blowing fresh and clean across the senses as if from a forested mountainside or a tropical ocean. Cruising down hills, the air swirled around my feet, concurrently cool from the movement and hot from the radiating tar below. While the views were not overly diverse, the feeling of being engaged with the nature of the countryside was rejuvenating. Eventually, I made it to my friends’ village and pulled off the highway.

In hindsight, the village is so small that I would have found the other trainees quickly. However, not knowing where they were and with no ability to contact them, I asked the first folks I saw: Toubabolu be mintoo le? Where are the foreigners/white people? I like to think that, asking for the white people being as sweaty, dirty, and disheveled as I was at that point, I gave them a hearty chuckle afterwards. They pointed to a compound up the road, where, as it turned out, all the other trainees were hanging out. As is the custom, I greeted the local family and my friends first before engaging in any further activities.

Over the course of the afternoon, we played crazy eights—evidently, a rather universal game—had a communal lunch, ate a watermelon procured by some children, and toured the village. It was significantly smaller than my host community and felt much warmer for it given that everyone knew everyone else. In addition to the friendliness, I was also already getting a sense of how generous Gambians can be when it was really hammered home. My friend noticed that the back tire of my bike was completely flat. I hardly had time to contemplate my options for contacting the Peace Corps to get back home before at least three Gambians flipped over my bike and began trying to repair the tire. Within the hour and with but small acceptance of my gratitude, they had fixed the bike. The sun began to lower in the sky, and I started out of the village.

With a profound feeling of gratitude in my heart, I turned out past some goats and began pedaling for home—that is, until the flat tire came back just a few kilometers up the road. Unfortunately, the inner tube beyond repairable. I came to a spluttering stop just past a police checkpoint. Stepping off the bike, I called the Peace Corps training center staff, who arranged to have me picked up and brought there. In the meantime, I walked back up the road to the checkpoint, where I expertly asked M be siiring? or I am sitting? pointing to an open chair. They let me sit with them and one person offered me a hand fan to cool off.

Within 20 minutes, I was picked up and carted back to the training center. Within another 20 minutes, I was greeted cheerfully from the various Peace Corps staff and given another wheel from a spare bike. And within 20 more minutes, my bike was put back on the bus and I was driven home. As I walked my bike up the simultaneously dusty and muddy road, I found that I was really happy to be back, but more than that, I was really happy to be here, serving in this country. Between the Peace Corps organization, my fellow trainees, and the people of The Gambia, there are a whole lot of folks to be grateful for.

I know that during my service in The Gambia I will have a lot more literal and figurative flat tires—but perhaps that’s not so different from life stateside. What seems to be different is the feeling that there’s always another community just around the next bend, ready to support those in need. I’m not sure that’s common in the US, but what I’m finding is that that is surely a feeling worth cultivating back home.