The Gambia -- Life in SEASON
One day
       I will disappear in yellowed stalks of coos
        lose myself in the maze
One day
        I will fuse with jags of summer lightning
        electrify the thunderstorms
One day
        I will run down clay red roads at dawn
        grow wings with the sunrise
One day
        I will lay me down in this river of mud
        one with the flowing earth.  
my favorite picnic spot
Bolong next to Illiasa
Aja and Sherif, the youngest in my family compound, hangin' out in the corn
The Bah family at Yallal, using a donkey to fetch
   water from the well.
during the summer of 2002, parts of The Gambia including Yallal went through a drought causing a 40-50% crop loss
Sisters, Miriama, Aminata, and Safi pound   
   millet, a staple grain in The Gambia.
the water table in Yallal is at 36m (over 100ft)
"What any of us had come to see or do fell away.  We found ourselves at each turn with what we had not imagined."
                   --
Barry Lopez
My Peace Corps experience in The Gambia, a tiny worm-shaped country in West Africa, began in October of 2000.  I spent my first year as an Environment volunteer in the village of Njohnen.  At the beginning of my second year I moved to Yallal Tankonjala and stayed with Samba Bah and his family.  This site is dedicated to the Bah family, with me in my mind's eye.  To Da Mai and Da Ramata, Mariama, Safi, Ami & Ami, Aja, Sherrif, Citi, and Samba--thank you for sharing your lives and making me one of your own.
the Kerr Pateh Lumo (open market) occurs every Wednesday
Market day at Kerr Pateh where everything from buckets to bananas and rice bags to rams was sold.
Malaysia Gallery
Japan Gallery
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