Yesterday, a handful of us went to the market in Bajul. I am getting so good at bargaining! I talked down one item from 500 to 160 dalasi, which was pretty awesome. The guys in the market all thought I was Peace Corps, which I took as a compliment. I think I'll start telling them I'm with the Peace Corps instead of telling them I'm a student. Peace Corps gets more respect and better prices.

I am accidentally antisocial today. There is a football (soccer) match between The Gambia and Senegal today and the rest of the St Mary's students have gone off to see it. I didn't particularly feel like paying 100 dalasi to be packed into a stadium to watch a game I don't care about, so I stayed behind. I don't expect them back until at least 7:00, if not later, which means I have the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening to tool around by myself.

This morning, we headed to Kachikali in Bakau for our naming ceremony. It wasn't exactly a traditional naming ceremony, but it did the job. We certainly weren't week old babies. We did not have griots, or bards, to provide the entertainment. Instead, we had a group of Kaniling sing and dance. The Kaniling are fascinating. The members of a Kaniling group are women who are either barren or whose children have all died. They perform and act in very strange ways in order to convince the powers that be to take pity on them and give them a child. So instead of bards, we had barren women.

Kachikali is a sacred crocodile pool overseen by the Bojang family. The Bojang family ran the naming ceremony. The crocodile pool is important to the Kaniling, as they believe that the crocodiles and the water from the pool will help them to conceive. It all ties together.

My new name is Jainabah Drammeh. I've heard a couple different pronunciations already, so I won't bother trying to explain how to say it.

I did pet a crocodile, and no, it didn't bite me. They overfeed them so that they don't even really move. Unfortunately, all the pictures of me and the croc turned out blurry. Whatever. I uploaded one anyway. Oh, and check out my fancy new skirt.