More Pictures

A recent sunset through the trees outside of my house. Its a rare day with clouds these days but when they come, its so nice.
Trying to make my house a bit more comfortable with things I'm familiar with. I built this little kitchenette after getting tired of cooking with my gas bottle on the floor. This is an early picture, I've now painted my house blue and added shelves underneath the counters and above them. The people in my village don't quite know what to make of these things, but they all stop by to look.
Me out visiting in the evening after all the ceremonies. This is with my friend Bakary and a number of his children. He speaks a bit of English and with my Mandika, we have a fusion I now call Mandinglish.
A number of the women who live in the compounds surrounding mine. As you can see they all have babies, in fact there's children everywhere in Janneh Kunda. In a village of just over seven hundred people, four hundred of that are children under the age of fifteen.
The ram slaughtered in our compound. While in the US we seem to take great care with having nice cuts of meat, the actual butchering of this ram involved only a machete and no regard to whether meat or bone was being chopped through. Good though! We just gorged ourselves on meat, this large ram being finished in the day.

The culmination of the procession was arriving at the praying ground which was under a large cleared area under a Cola tree. The elders of the village were at the head with the Imam at the very front while the younger men and boys sat behind. All the women and girls sat behind the youngest boys.

Tobaski time which falls just after our New Years. Beginning at my end of the village with all the elders leading, we walked through the village stopping at every compound until the entire village was walking in procession. As we walked there was a slow drum beat but all else was quiet while everyone was dressed in their finest and brightest clothes.