Pleasure & Pain

The past few days have been spent in Jessi's village, Sibanor. What a beautiful village it is! Besides being enormous, her family & friends are incredibly welcoming and not one person asked me to buy them something. Ha! That's huge!

We biked over to her friend's house the other day and became involved in a pretty intense conversation in Mandinka about sex. I realize that this may not be appropriate to write about in a blog, but between the two of us, we were pretty proud of ourselves. We first started talking about birth control and let her friend know of options she has, then we maneuvered into sexual intercourse and The Gambia. From what we could gather, it is all about the man, and nothing with the women. I realize that FGM is alive here and that could be a major stipulation, but Jessi and I tried talking to her, telling her to talk with her husband, encourage a more open relationship, and to not be afraid to tell him how she feels. She took everything we had to say more seriously than I thought she would, and we left with smiles on our faces.

Next day, we decided to henna our feet. I thought this would be great, I could go home with orange feet and cool designs, and Jessi could become a more 'Gambian woman.'

We arrived at 7pm. Oumi worked soooo hard on my feet, but the tape we had brought was useless and didn't stick that well. After she applied the henna, she stuck my foot in a plastic bag, duct taped it to my leg, then stuffed my foot into a knee-high sock. At this point, I had to pee pretty badly, but her house was full with 4 other women and 6 kids, plus Jessi & I. Finally I begged her to let me go to the bathroom, and she scolded me, saying I couldn't stand or my henna would be ruined.

Sure enough, her mother waltzes in with a tomato paste can.

I kind of stare at her, thinking I've got it all wrong. Nope. She wants me to hover over it and pee.

She ushers all the kids out and I am still sitting on the floor, wondering how I'm going to get my pants down, much less hover over a tin can and NOT get pee all over the floor. I somehow managed it. The women came back in laughing and Oumi's mum whisked the can away.

Then we ate coos and milk. And I got sick the next morning.

And we hobbled home on our feet... so this is what they now look like :

No, it's not gangrene. We are just clearly very much Toubabs still.