The other day someone greeted me at my compound and asked me if i had learned how to make attaya yet. confidently I replied yes!

My bonus brother Cherno taught me how months ago. we bought the small boxes of green tea and sugar at the bitiko so that i could practice. cherno told me how to add the sugar in and what order to pour.

my visitor responded “someone can tell you how to make attaya, but really knowing how to make attaya takes time.”

i don’t think he was trying to be deep, i think he was really just talking about attaya. But i think about what he said from time to time.

I have always been a planner. I plan out years in advance and i like to have a vision of where I am going. I always thought of it as a “woman thing” with a splash of anxiety. My fiancé is not like me at all; I’ve never met anyone so calm and steady before. He plans important things, is punctual and responsible but he doesn’t obsessively plan out his weeks or months or years. i’ve always been baffled by this, thinking “well how do you know that things will be okay if you don’t plan things out?” and he just shrugs and replies “I just know that things will be okay.”

And that is one thing i have come to know in my short time being here. Everything will always be okay.

A consulting group from america and canada visited the other week to survey my village and I was asked to accompany them on their two day tour. One of the consultants was a young woman who post graduation landed her big job with what she described as “the world bank of consulting firms.” She was bright and curious and anxious. you could tell she came from a fast paced, results driven place. she asked me about how hard it was to live here and if i got stressed out. I described that it’s really bizarre but everything just always works out. if you need to speak to someone the perfect person always crosses your path or if you need help somehow it just comes. Everything always works out.

her response was wide eyes and disbelief. I think I was a lot like her when i was in america; subconsciously worrying about my schedule, job and day to day. I learned to anticipate things in an effort to reduce my anxiety which actually gave me a lot of anxiety.

living here doesn’t mean there is no stress, but my nervous system has really relaxed. I take things day by day and I try not to stress the small things. Gambians are so good at this and now I know why my fiance is the way he is.

It’s one thing to be told everything is going to be okay. It’s been a world of difference to know that everything is going to be okay.

it’s a lot like making attaya, it just takes time and practice.

cheers!