Salmon Alfredo

I can’t tell you how liberating it’s been living in a country that doesn’t celebrate american holidays.

i’m not a scrooge. i do love a themed party, cooking festive foods, buying thoughtful gifts, curating outfits and being with loved ones.

but I also love existing outside the bounds of time-markers that holidays become; the stepping stones that we jump to navigate through the year. i love just existing. one of those time-markers is valentine’s day: a much dreaded stepping stone.

Earlier and earlier the target $3 section screams for you to browse their red and pink kitchen towels and heart shaped hand mirrors. but here in my village in the gambia, there is no cupid. there is no decorating your home to match a season or A holiday. there are no flowers on a dinner table set with candles and salmon alfredo (hand over the heart for alfredo). it’s just not a thing that you do here in the village.

we all know it is a commercial holiday that pressures couples to spend money to show their love. and we also know it is a day that critiques couples into showing their love the rest of the 364 days of the year.

but what makes us feel loved?

for a long time i especially hated valentine’s day. before I met my fiancé I had been single for five years. I loved getting together with girlfriends to celebrate Galentine’s day, but obviously I hated valentine’s day being single.

in my past serious relationship we didn’t celebrate holidays. we had decided to put all the money we would spend on birthday presents, valentine’s day dinners and other special occasions into a savings jar to save for our future (hoorah to being financially responsiblE).

But that 6 year relationship didn’t last.

and i left that relationship with incredibly complicated feelings around what it means to be deserving. now in my current relationship i feel guilty for any good thing done for me.

and with my fiancé, there are infinite good things.

i cried a lot the first 6 months of our relationship. I would burst into tears or the tears would just ooze out. he would be patient and just wait for me to collect myself. he never complained once, which made me cry more. I just wasn’t used to all the goodness.

after only the first few dates he began putting important things about me under the notes section in my contact: what day of the week my therapy appointment was, what restaurants i loved, what my dreams were. after only the first few times we spent the night at each other’s places he took note of all the products i used (shampoo, deodorant, shaver, hairbrush, etc.) and ordered it all on amazon. the next time i stayed over at his place his bathroom had all my essentials in it ready for me. he would randomly drop lunch off to me at work or uber eats me bubble tea when i was stressed. he would get me cookies whenever i was on my cycle religiously, without question. he would plan for cooking nice dinners at home or going to a nice new place to try.

None of this i had to ask for. and None of this he thought was a big deal. but it was a huge deal to me. it was really hard to feel like i deserved it all.

He would drive 30 minutes to my house just to mow my grass, bring me food and take my dog out for me. and my first reaction was “are you sure?”

shortly after we started dating officially, i took in a young teenager (T) who i had been very close to since she was 7 years old going through an emergency housing situation. she ended up staying with me in my house for 9 months and i was her sole caretaker.

date nights and weekend trips with my man quickly shifted to parenting together. things were no longer spicy and fun. i had to wake up at 5am every morning so that i could take her to school downtown. I would pick her up from school on my lunch break and then we would go home after work where i quickly made dinner, did her hair and got her ready for school the next morning. i was too busy for dates and with a child there was really no alone time.

he never signed up for such a dynamic when choosing to date me and he never once complained.

he actually took the best care of us.

as an ED pharmacist, he would work 13 hour night shifts and sometimes drive 30 mins to my house to pick her up to take her to school downtown just so i could get an extra hour of sleep. i would come home to a stocked fridge and dinner bought for us. he took us out to the movies, he took us to eat at restaurants, he attended her play performances, he bought her christmas gifts and he helped me put on her 15th birthday party. when she came down with covid and we had to quarantine, he stocked my house with medicine, food and masks. he even drove four hours in a blizzard to come rescue us when the heat in my house stopped working. we stayed a week at his place where he cooked for us and bought us snacks for movie nights.

the night T moved into my house my fiancé bought dinner and helped me move her in. it was a school night but it was one of the most memorable nights of my life; the three of us laughing at the kitchen table and feeling the gravity of change that was taking place.

that man really showed his love for me: so much so that he showed his love to her as well. i couldn’t have done it without him and his unending support and true partnership.

None of this i had to ask for. and None of this he thought was a big deal. but it was a huge deal to me. it was really hard to feel like i deserved it all.

shortly before T went back to live with her family, i got the news that i got accepted to the peace corps. serving in the peace corps had always been my dream, but i was terrified at the thought of leaving for two years now that my dream man was finally in my life. this beautiful thing we had was too good to risk losing following my dream.

but he didn’t make me choose. He said that “this was the dream you had when i met you, and i want you to follow your dreams. I have enjoyed you since the moment i walked into that coffee shop, and i plan to enjoy you every day until the day i die.”

None of this i had to ask for. and None of this he thought was a big deal. but it was a huge deal to me. it was really hard to feel like i deserved it all.

i had asked earlier, but what makes us feel loved?

for me, through all my complicated feelings struggling to feel deserving of nice things and nice gestures, is a man that keeps loving me through all my complicated feelings struggling to feel deserving. he continues to show up and do kind things that i never have to ask for and keep doing them without any thought of it being a big deal.

and he will always be a big deal to me, because eventually I know that i will finally feel like i deserve it all.

serving here in the gambia and being away from that man has been hard. long distance relationships are hard. but i know that he loves me every single day. and there is no one else i would rather be daydreaming about eating salmon alfredo with than him.

happy valentine’s day.

Baby Sheep

last night i cried over a sheep.

I was on the phone with a family member a few weeks ago explaining how animals here casually wander around the village unrestrained. Chickens, donkeys, goats, sheep, dogs, cats and other animals walk in and out of family compounds freely, helping themselves to the trash pile or the food scraps from large shared meals. All of these animals roam the village AND this is normal everyday life. the cows clog up the road, the roosters wake you up every morning, the donkeys keep you up at night and the sheep steal your food. We eat lunch and dinner outside as a family from a large shared bowl. These little animals coming to interact during meals is all part of the experience.

i always stare at these animals and smile. Whether it’s a cute little family of goats or the little chicken nuggets that hop all over my feet and pluck up the rice that falls around the food bowl. they are all precious to me.

I tried to explain to my host family that in america, for the most part, we don’t have such close access to animals like this. in america we would have to drive to a petting zoo and pay to pet and feed various farm animals. Their eyes got huge and i don’t think they really believed me.

While all of these animals are all precious to me and give me a lot of joy, our sheep are special to me.

When I first got to my permanent site, we only had a mama sheep and a teenage sheep. I didn’t realize it, but the mama was pregnant and the day before christmas she gave birth to two male baby sheep. they felt like my christmas presents. These sheep were the cutest things i have ever seen and I have adored them since the minute i watched them struggle to stand up on their bony, wobbly legs. mama marches on unbothered while the two babies gallop behind her struggling to keep up and waves their little tails like pinwheels in excitement. they are so sweet and precious and everything that makes my own baby fever worse.

watching this mama and her two babies gives me so much yearning and happiness and wanting and joy. But then, there is always the teenage sheep in the picture. listen, This teenage sheep is bad. THis teenage sheep steals papaya from my hand, breaks into our orchard and poops right outside my door.

The first time my host mom went out of town to go to kombo was the first time that i had to cook for my host family. I was so nervous about it and i felt the enormous pressure to get it all right. I was so proud when I cooked benechin and it was actually good. lunch gets plated in a large shared bowl and dinner gets plated in a second large family bowl and put aside inside the house to keep for evening. Here in the gambia, doors are often left open during the day and curtains maintain some sense of privacy. Well, while i was doing the dishes behind our house for five minutes and my brother was hanging out with all his friends, somehow our sheep snuck into the house and ate all my beautiful benechin.

I am convinced that the teenage sheep was the bad influence and lead the operation.

the point is, these animals are woven into the fabric of everyday life here. “atcha”-ing animals out of your way is part of life here. i think it is the charm and joy of village life. like Seeing so many mama animals rearing cute fluffy babies. One of our chickens even adopted three abandoned Guinea fowl chicks and they have waddled behind her since i got here. now they are as big as her and they still follow their mama around. there is just something about motherhood here. It’s precious.

and last night one of my baby sheep came home crying, incoherent and unable to keep its head up. We all gathered around in worry as the baby struggled to breathe. my dad ran and swaddled it in a blanket and called someone to come help. We think the baby got hit by something.

luckily this morning the baby sheep was feeling much better. and I can’t explain why i cried over the baby sheep.

but i do know that these animals fill the village with noise and life and joy and drama and sometimes chaos. and motherhood is precious.

The Big Tree

i had my first dream when I was three. For being so little, I have a lot of memories from that time in my little life.

My dream started on a beautiful day in a quiet neighborhood. I didn’t recognize it but I somehow knew that it was my home. the house was quietly nestled at the end of a cul-da-sac whose open land surrounding it was adorned with thick, beautiful trees. it was a charming, brick ranch home with space all around for the breeze to rustle the leaves. Meanwhile, the houses that lined the street which emptied into the cul-de-sac were cookie-cutter, two-story perfect white homes with white picket fences. They stood close together struggling to breathe in tight formation.

All of the sudden i heard a terrifying sound. With a boom, footsteps pound the earth from a distance and a tall green monster appears above me. this tall green monster was the Green giant that’s on the can of green beans. i stood tiny in his presence, frozen in terror looking up at him. In his loud booming voice he orders these instructions:

“You have three minutes to hide.”

“you can hide anywhere except for the big tree.”

“if i find you then i kill you.”

i panicked. Running out of time, i ran to the big tree. i knew i shouldn’t hide there because it was forbidden but i could hear his footsteps approaching. i climbed up as fast as i could and sat in my anxiety. He approached the big tree and my stomach dropped. i knew i was dead. i woke up. this dream was one that i had every 3-4 years. It always started the same way: the green giant would come, he would give the same rules and then I would have to hide.

The second time i had the dream i knew that if i climbed the big tree that i would die. so i scurried around until i ran out of time and he found me in the grass. I knew I was dead. I woke up.

next, i tried running down the street. with nowhere to hide, he found me. i knew I was dead. i woke up.

then i tried knocking frantically on each door of the perfect white homes, begging for someone to let me in to hide. no one opened their door for me. he found me. I knew i was dead. I woke up.

I tried climbing on the roof of one of the perfect white homes. he found me. I knew i was dead. i woke up.

i tried hiding in the bushes outside of the perfect white homes. he found me. i knew i was dead. i woke up.

the last time that i had this dream, a realtor was standing outside of one of the perfect white homes with a potential buyer trying to sell it. I ran to her in panic begging for her to help me hide, which she declined. He found me. I knew I was dead. I woke up. I got smarter (and older) each time i had the dream; but each time the green giant found me and each time the green giant killed me.

much like in my reoccurring dream, i have made a lot of real-life mistakes in my twenties. although i got smarter (and older) through the years, I feel like i never could get it right. I would choose the wrong hiding places in people, sometimes run around panicking and every time die from some type of disappointment. there are a lot of things in the past that i would do differently. i have spent today mourning most of the mistakes that i have made in the last decade. Today is the last day of my twenties.

It has been a very long time since i have had my green giant dream. but i realize that I never ran home. I always ran every other direction. i ran to where i thought the people were.

I can’t do anything about all the times i died in my dream, and i can’t do anything about all the mistakes i made in my twenties. but i finally found my home. i finally did get it right. i Finally found my safe hiding spot.

tomorrow is my 30th birthday. I may not technically be home in Columbus, ohio getting to eat delicious american food with my mom, sister and family. But i do know who the safe people are in my life. i have a mom and a sister and wonderful friends who love me. I do know that i have a warm, safe, beautiful home in the fiancé who loves me and takes care of me from thousands of miles away.

i know that i am thankful for all the mistakes if it got me to this moment right now.

Whenever i see the mighty baobab tree here in the gambia it reminds me of the big tree in my green giant dream. and i choose to smile at it.

From 3 to 30

I lived in a funeral home when I was three years old.

My dad was a funeral director my whole life (like My Girl). When I was born he decided to go to college in Cincinnati. After he graduated from the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, he got an opportunity to work at a funeral home in Whitehall called the Hill House. From my memory of it, it was a huge mansion with grand marble columns and a fancy gold door. In reality, it was a crummy funeral home with chipping white paint. Anyways, as part of his job offer he could move his whole family into the living quarters that were attached to the funeral home with no rent, however he was dedicated to 24/7 on-call status. 

As you can imagine, this was very hard on him. Any time the phone rang he would have to work. This made life very tough on him and on us as well. My three year old self and my six year old sister were not allowed to laugh or play. At all times we were hushed and warned about getting dad in trouble. 

The only thing separating the living quarters we stayed in and the funeral home was a wall. I remember my mom doing the laundry in a small laundry closet and through a simple door was the stuffy funeral parlor with the casket displays. The acoustics were terrible and any noise that was made in the living quarters we stayed in could be heard in the quiet somber funeral service going on next door. 

I remember my sister and I getting very creative with how to play quietly. One day my mom was coming down with the flu and was taking a nap on the couch. She kept telling us girls how cold she was so we decided it would be a good use of our play time to also be helpful. We quietly emptied every soft thing from every closet: every linen, every towel, every blanket, every coat, and every stuffed animal. We carried them one by one and placed each item on top of our sleeping mom. Finally, when we had made a giant warm mountain on top of her we decided the last step would be to climb the mountain and sit on top. That’s just what we did and then our mom woke up and looked up to see all the mess we had made and ordered us quietly to put everything back. I think about my mom and her life and how many times she stifled her voice. How many times she needed to yell but couldn’t or wouldn’t. That was a tangent, but you get the idea. 

Another distinct memory I have from living in that funeral home is forming a real belief that I would never be able to read. My sister was older than me and would come home from school with books that she could read. During our quiet play time with books and puzzles, I remember holding a book upside down looking at the words in amazement. I can somehow remember the moment I created the belief and subscribed to it: I will never know how to read. It all looked too hard. It felt so impossible and far away from me. I looked at my sister in awe at the magic of her being able to read (she was always good at everything) and just accepted my fate. 

Of course I then went on to kindergarten and elementary school and I learned how to read at a completely normal level. I did learn how to read. It just happened and I didn’t even realize that it was happening. I caught on and the once completely overwhelming thing became common language and second nature. 

That is kind of how I am feeling about learning Mandinka. I am struggling with the same three-year old belief at almost thirty years old: I will never speak Mandinka. It looks too hard and it feels so far away from me. I look at the people in my cohort in awe at the magic of them being able to speak so well. 

I am praying that i will catch on soon and that what feels so overwhelming to me right now will become second nature. 

In the meantime, I feel like screaming. 

Nuts for Groundnut

I’m so thankful that I live in a world where there is churro. It is so wonderful that it deserves it’s own post.

Groundnut is the most well-known crop of the gambia. I don’t think one could survive here for very long with a peanut allergy because most dishes include groundnut as an ingredient.

Before coming to the gambia, i had already connected a lot of what I understood as gambian to the groundnut. My fiancé cooked me peanut butter stew for dinner the first time he had me over to his apartment. It is a spicy, sweet, rich stew with cassava or potatoes and any protein poured over white rice. i was so smitten with this meal; and as i got to know the man and the food I fell in love (obviously). now, I eat Peanut butter stew (here it is called domoda) about three times a week for both lunch and dinner. people usually cook once so what is cooked for lunch is what is also served for dinner. I live on the river gambia, so the domoda we eat here has a lot of fish in it; Meat such as beef or chicken is only really cooked for special occasions. all that to say, I thought I understood this groundnut and food relationship until I got here.

groundnut is everywhere.

they are eaten like popcorn straight off the stems where the nuts inside are pink and fresh and crunchy! They are also roasted over an open fire where the shells are charred and the nuts inside have a delicious roasted flavor (I actually just ate mountains full of those before writing this). it is really fun to just sit with a group of people around a big bag of groundnut and munch on it together.

groundnut is also added to two of my favorite dishes: Sunkunonkwo and Churro.

Sunkunonkwo translates to “Compound people” in mandinka. I think it is only locally-known as sunkunonkwo because no one here in the North Bank ever knows what i am talking about when i mention the dish. therefore, it has been really confusing for most people to know what food I am talking about; but my host family in my training village made it for me often. After my accident early into my pre-service training I developed a weird relationship with food. I had severe food aversion and couldn’t stomach the look of anything. I didn’t eat for about two weeks until my host mom made me try sunkunonkwo. It is boiled cassava with pounded groundnut, pepper, jumbo seasoning and salt. It tastes savory and comforting with the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. When I came to my permanent site I talked about it so much that my host mom had me make it for the whole family for breakfast a few weeks ago. It was a hit and now my little brother asks me to make it often. I also got them all to call it sunkunonkwo too which felt so good and makes me smile!

sunkunonkwo will always have a special place in my heart and stomach.

But churro!!!….whew, that right there is the og, the heavy hitter, the life right there!

Churro is rice and groundnut porridge. there are a lot of different porridges eaten here, but churro has my heart. The first step in making churro is pounding rice and groundnuts in the big wooden mortar and pestle. it is such a labor of love and it is actually really exhausting. I woke up the next morning after making churro for the first time sore. It is served hot in a big bowl and the best way to eat it is with sugar and poured milk or sour milk over the top.

My 30th birthday is two weeks from today on January 23rd. all i want for my birthday is churro for breakfast.