Thursday, May 25, 2006 at 2:02am
We're all eating from the same bowl
Column: Our Place in the Universe
Soon after I arrived in The Gambia, I ventured out into the world of the marketplace. I wasn't very intimidated, since I had cut my teeth on the marketplaces of Kenya. I could haggle with the best of them. In Nairobi, Kenya's capital, where we lived for a time, the markets were amazing. You could buy all different kinds of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, dried and fresh flowers, clothing, plastic goods — actually, you could buy just about anything.
The key was in the haggling. It is an art form, and the cultural milieu in which you greet and embrace your neighbors. It is more than the exchanging of goods for money; it is the tying together of a community with information, care and concern for each person you meet. I was ready to begin in this new country, and I eagerly set off to the marketplace.
One Nairobi marketplace that I would visit was like an indoor/outdoor bazaar, with hundreds of merchants. Some were set up outside on the street or in small wooden kiosks, but the majority were indoors in an extremely large warehouse-type building. The marketplace in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, was quite different. A group of wooden stalls were placed haphazardly side by side and covered with whatever bits of wood or cloth were available.
"This must be the place," I thought, "but where are all the people?" One or two people were wandering around, and a few old women sat next to a few small eggplants. A couple of merchants were selling some fine dyed cloth, but I had come to buy food for the week. There was nothing there. The stalls were all empty. My savvy African know-how vanished, and I literally ran back to my room and cried.
I wouldn't find out until later that I had arrived at the end of the rainy season. By this time, the vegetables from the dry season were either gone or rotten, and the new crops had yet to be harvested. People knew of this eventuality and hoarded food for those few transitional weeks.
But what was I to do? God had graciously found me a job and a way to stay in the country. In return for teaching art, I made a deal with Muslim High School that they would pay my rent for me, so I didn't have to worry about that. They got a very good deal. Then again so did I, since I got to stay in the country, which was what I wanted from the start. But food — now, I should be able to handle that by myself. I discovered that we aren't intended to handle things alone.
The next day when I woke up, there was a knock on my door. It was one of my neighbors coming to say hello and to find out who the new toubob (white person) was. Tradition had it that when you went visiting, you brought along some food. I had bananas for breakfast that morning! One student brought along a 10-pound sack of couscous from the bush when he came to see who the new art teacher was. That couscous made it possible for me to get through the rest of that first rainy season. I even had one fellow come by every afternoon at lunchtime for a week. At the end of the week he told me that it was OK to serve European food; I didn't need to serve him Gambian food. When I told him that was all that I had, he never returned.
I remember the day I cooked my last cup of rice. I accidentally dropped it on the dirt floor of the kitchen. I immediately got down on my hands and knees and picked up every single kernel, since I had no idea when I'd be able to get more rice.
These experiences made me even more humble to the fact that whenever I went to visit a family, they always went out and spent their last money on a Coke for me, often at the cost of a week's pay. We would sit around a table with a big bowl of rice in the middle. In the rice were a few slices of eggplant, some cabbage and perhaps a piece of fish. The choicest pieces, often the only pieces, were placed on the side in front of me, as we all dug in with hands, eating out of the same bowl.
Yes, that is life — all eating out of the same bowl. I learned that when I am blessed with even the smallest grain of rice, even if that rice spills, I should get down on my knees and say thank you. Thank you, not just to God, but also to my family, my neighbor, my friend, my stranger, because we are all eating out of the same bowl, and to realize that is a privilege, one that I don't ever want to forget.
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a free-lance writer residing in Maryland. She has her master's in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
— — —
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.
The key was in the haggling. It is an art form, and the cultural milieu in which you greet and embrace your neighbors. It is more than the exchanging of goods for money; it is the tying together of a community with information, care and concern for each person you meet. I was ready to begin in this new country, and I eagerly set off to the marketplace.
One Nairobi marketplace that I would visit was like an indoor/outdoor bazaar, with hundreds of merchants. Some were set up outside on the street or in small wooden kiosks, but the majority were indoors in an extremely large warehouse-type building. The marketplace in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, was quite different. A group of wooden stalls were placed haphazardly side by side and covered with whatever bits of wood or cloth were available.
"This must be the place," I thought, "but where are all the people?" One or two people were wandering around, and a few old women sat next to a few small eggplants. A couple of merchants were selling some fine dyed cloth, but I had come to buy food for the week. There was nothing there. The stalls were all empty. My savvy African know-how vanished, and I literally ran back to my room and cried.
I wouldn't find out until later that I had arrived at the end of the rainy season. By this time, the vegetables from the dry season were either gone or rotten, and the new crops had yet to be harvested. People knew of this eventuality and hoarded food for those few transitional weeks.
But what was I to do? God had graciously found me a job and a way to stay in the country. In return for teaching art, I made a deal with Muslim High School that they would pay my rent for me, so I didn't have to worry about that. They got a very good deal. Then again so did I, since I got to stay in the country, which was what I wanted from the start. But food — now, I should be able to handle that by myself. I discovered that we aren't intended to handle things alone.
The next day when I woke up, there was a knock on my door. It was one of my neighbors coming to say hello and to find out who the new toubob (white person) was. Tradition had it that when you went visiting, you brought along some food. I had bananas for breakfast that morning! One student brought along a 10-pound sack of couscous from the bush when he came to see who the new art teacher was. That couscous made it possible for me to get through the rest of that first rainy season. I even had one fellow come by every afternoon at lunchtime for a week. At the end of the week he told me that it was OK to serve European food; I didn't need to serve him Gambian food. When I told him that was all that I had, he never returned.
I remember the day I cooked my last cup of rice. I accidentally dropped it on the dirt floor of the kitchen. I immediately got down on my hands and knees and picked up every single kernel, since I had no idea when I'd be able to get more rice.
These experiences made me even more humble to the fact that whenever I went to visit a family, they always went out and spent their last money on a Coke for me, often at the cost of a week's pay. We would sit around a table with a big bowl of rice in the middle. In the rice were a few slices of eggplant, some cabbage and perhaps a piece of fish. The choicest pieces, often the only pieces, were placed on the side in front of me, as we all dug in with hands, eating out of the same bowl.
Yes, that is life — all eating out of the same bowl. I learned that when I am blessed with even the smallest grain of rice, even if that rice spills, I should get down on my knees and say thank you. Thank you, not just to God, but also to my family, my neighbor, my friend, my stranger, because we are all eating out of the same bowl, and to realize that is a privilege, one that I don't ever want to forget.
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a free-lance writer residing in Maryland. She has her master's in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.