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In Fact, I don’t want to leave
212th By Ting-Er Ciou
Freshman, Department of the Ministry of International Trade,
Junior Extension College of National Taipei College of Business
Because of my reluctant emotion, catching the flight to Brussels after delaying for an hour, I didn’t feel excited after all. I like people in Gambia who say Hello when meeting you the first time. I like their direct and not hypocritical expression, and their colorful clothing. I often miss the local hot weather with 40 to 50 degree Celsius, and taking the shower next to well with everyone under the moon and stars. I also miss the pit toilet with bats flying under it.
No bottle! No form! No candy!
Most Gambia people are straight forward and say whatever they want. What I remember the most is that the whole team was drinking bottled water in Africa. Therefore, there were many empty bottles left. I heard the most from them was “Sister, I want that bottle” or “Bottle! Bottle!” when I was helping out with medical team. I always replied to them “No bottle! No bottle! No bottle!”
It’s not that we didn’t want to give, but it might turn into the riot many people rushing for a bottle. If it’s given to a kid, adults will take it away. Sometimes, people might be hit by the bottle in the chaos.
“Form” used in the registration was also what people run after. In the registration, there were 2 or 3 riots that people chasing one paper. There are many times, there were still many people coming after for the forms when we were out of it. So, it became “No form! No form!” as our response.
One time, I was surrounded by a group of chattering children when I was taking a break and a walk with a team member. We were discussing languages with each other and accidently found out an interesting thing- the Chinese pronunciation of “medicine” is the same as local pronunciation of “you”. When we were about to leave, one of the girl asked for the pen from the member with no malicious intention. She simply wanted it and just said it. To me as first-timer in Africa, it was a culture shock to me and I finally realized that it was just the culture differences between the two.
We might think they are impolite, and they might think we are too hypocritical! They won’t steal or rub, they just ask for the things they want. If you don’t give it to them, they would just say “please” for few times at the most. This is Gambia.
The first pit toilet experience
In these days, I always felt that I was giving up something every day. We were sleeping in the local school with no water at the beginning of medical services. There was only well, which has been rarely seen in Taiwan now. With water shortage, we could only take the shower by small groups looking at the starts, moon and sand. If you were “lucky”, there might be local residents passing by when taking the shower. We had to come up with something and spoke in English to stop him/her from forwarding. If the person didn’t understand English, that would be pretty interesting.
There was another unforgettable thing to me, which was going to the toilet. There were only pit toilets with some interesting smells in the school. Besides a hole under the pit toilet, there were some bats flying around. Sometimes, the pit toilet of the school was too bad that we chose to pee in nature, which I had to accept it after all.
Cutting Prices for Souvenirs
After the busy medical services, we had about one day free time. The whole team went for shopping, which seemed to try to create a miracle for the economy of Gambia.
The first stop was “engraved wood area”, which had no store names. They were only numbers for 20 to 30 stores-“Welcome to Shop No. 1” and etc. Every store was selling hand-engraved wooden products, and sand paintings. The members from the representative office told us a trick, which was cutting the prices from 30% of its original prices.
The local prices and the prices for tourists were totally different, which the fact was also true. Both wood spoon and fork cost about 300 Dalasi (Gambia currency), which had become 60 Dalasi as final deal. You could get a great deal for many engraved wood products. Sometimes, we thought the prices were good enough since it’s not possible to get the same thing with this price in Taiwan. The truth was the cost of living in Gambia is much lower than in Taiwan. Therefore, the best way was still “cutting the price no matter what”.
Most local stores’ staffs were pretty interesting. When we were shopping in a store, the staff next store would come and try to take you to his/her store. They would also ask us “final price”? Sometimes, they just wouldn’t give up and keep on asking “final final final…price”, which was very funny.
In this trip, the highest record for cutting the price was about an engraved wooden lion, which prices were from 20,200 Dalasi to 1,000 Dalasi. The boss of the store said that he saw me wearing a mask and packing the drugs on TV. I was shocked! After the confirmation about the local news report, I found out it was true. The local TV news had been showing medical mission of Taiwan Root. But, at the end, we had to give up the wooden lion as it’s too heavy to carry with. Even so, the boss and I became friends and we both left names and Email with each other. When we were about to leave, the boss said he would miss me. What a cute Gambia people!
Returning to original life would make us feel like giving up something everyday. Sometimes, it also makes me want to shout “I miss Taiwan! I love Taiwan!” Even so, these special experiences have become great memories that it’s so unforgettable to me.
Therefore, I didn’t feel excited at all taking the delayed flight to leave the place. Because, my heart still remained in this beautiful country that I really don’t want to leave.