Go Fish

The rains have come and brought The Gambia hope for a productive growing season. The men have slowed down on their attaya(African tea) brewing and have turned out to the fields where their boys and donkeys, behind and in front of a plow, help work the soil for what is to be planted. But do not fear the attaya set is underneath the nearest tree waiting for the next pass of the plow so everyone can stop and take a sip. My family is currently planting coos or millet along with groundnut, more commonly known as peanut. The women find time in their day between carrying the whole families water from the solar powered/hand pump tap to their compounds (water is carried in huge tubs on their heads), washing all the clothing by hand, cooking 3 meals a day over a fire stove, sweeping, cleaning, and now they plant individual family garden plots, most of what is being planted right now is peppers, mainly hot peppers. The Mandinka tribe loves their spices. When the rains have gone, I have been told they plant many other vegetables. In between all of these responsibilities everyone still finds time to sit around and relax because after all the heat is still here and no one wants to be in the field in 105 degree weather.

Too pass some time and have a bit of fun I brought out a deck of cards. My mom's knew the face values of the cards and even Nyamandyin calls the Queen, 'Queeny.' I will never again call Queen, just queen because queeny is so much better. Anyways, I never thought I would be playing go fish again, because after all it’s a terrible card game and after about 12 years old/or younger everyone is so sick of it and moved on to more important games like slap jack and BS. But hey, this is Africa and what are you supposed to do with your time. Go fish was started, after a round or two my mom's completely understood the game. Now imagine go fish but in an African language. Instead of go fish, its "nee ta" or "fish go" and whenever someone says that the person taking the card now says "nee na" or "fish come;" which I personally find absolutely hilarious. The game did help a lot with beginning language skills, like sentence structures and positives and negatives of verb conjugation.  

For example....

Do you have a 5? in Mandinka it would be ya sutoo luuluu le ban?
No, I don't have a 5 ...... Luuluu te je. or direct translation 5 is not here.

Very appropriate way to learn useful sentances.

Maybe by year two I will have taught them how to play Shanghi....well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Baby steps, domandin, domandin (slowly, slowly).