A Suprisingly Smooth Drive Down Memory Lane

Election fever has only just begun, and you can tell because a) the aforementioned cookies which are being distributed at random from the tops of cars and b) the colored flags. Jammeh's pretty popular because he fixed up the road, and he even brought in electricity (well, not quite yet, but they put up the pylons and everything in Sibanor which is a step) to the more rural areas of the Gambia. Whole villages declared their allegiance by the colors of the flags they had all up and down their main road. Jammeh's flag is green, and it just so happened that the village we used to live in, Somita, was an avid Jammeh-supporting bunch. Look at this

We stopped by intending to pay a visit to Judy Cosier who is living in our old compound. I hadn't been there in years, and for some reason it looked a lot smaller than in my memory. I guess my body grew but my memories stayed the same. There was still that little concrete slab in front of the tower where me and my friends made food for fun in a tiny aluminum pot, there was still the nursery school where my mom taught, there was still the tree where the flying snake fell out of and the villagers beat it to death with a stick, there was still the front porch where the giant black scorpion came and our guard wore it down and killed it and where my dad would teach Sunday School from time to time. And there was still the awesome jackfruit trees in front of our house - we were going to take some until we found out that they weren't even close to being ripe yet.

But the swing - the whole tree - in front of our house was gone, the tree under whose shade our guard used to take daytime naps was gone, and the faces that came to the door when we knocked on the house we used to live in was not my mom or my dad scolding me for being late after mooching off of my friends' parents.

Then there was just the holes and the nagging feeling in my gut where I knew that something wasn't where it was supposed to be but my mind couldn't fill it, and I think those were the saddest of all. We went past Somita because we were dropping off the schwester at her internship with Sibanor Clinic. She's gonna be gone for 6 weeks, and the kids are very sad. They are also sad because I think she accidentally took the deck of cards with her and so all festivities in the jemberengo have come to a standstill.
On our way back we actually swung by the Erskine's house and talked to Debbie Erskine for a while. I really miss Abi and they were still at BCS (boarding school). Hopefully we will get to see her before she leaves though.
Oh, and I was THIS close to having to preach at the service tonight because of Alas. Bah.

On the bright side, Sukunda (who is posing with a rock and a stick, both of which she found laying on the ground. She insisted I take a picture.) brought me some Ebe and a cooked mango today! It was yummy. She and Mai keep bringing me things to eat. Yesterday they brought me one of those tart mangoes they picked from one of the trees on our compound. Even though usually have so little anyway that they can only let me have a few bites, and even though I think it's making my belly sore, I can't say no.