Sidi, i must say I am quite shocked at the mention of both Batch Samba Njie
and Baboucarr Mbowe as being late. How could I have missed that? Batch was a
good friend actually, and folks, this is why it is not good to be away from
home for so long, becuase even withthe frequent visits i made, i stil missed
this..
Mbowe was in Ohio, and he and i used to talk sometimes, and he would tell me
how each dorm at his school had their "resident curiosity", an African
student, and we would have a good laugh about that.
I came in 1968 after Ousman Sallah and Ebou Jobarteh had graduated from
Princeton, and Felix Downes Thomas from Yale, and all of them were working at
the U.N.I think Soloman Gomez had also graduated from Harvard, but i do not
remember if he was with the U.N.
I definitely remember that the following people were around because i met
all of them, Omar Sallah, Omar Secka at Penn State, Sara Janha at Lincoln,
the late E. Mbenga at Howard, Matarr Njie, Joe (cannot remember his last
name), and Francis Njie at Columbia, Lena Manga at a college in Upstate NY
which name i do not remember, Ray Sock, Tijan Njie had graduated from Long
island Univ.and was married to Charlene and living in Brooklyn.Adi Njie,
Peter and the late Dan Goddard, Emmanuel Goddard, Mambouray, Pa Njie
Girigara, Babou Saho. There were also Badou Samba who i think came at the
same time as Ousman Sallah and co.and Mustafa Faye who was in Russia but
later came here.I met all these guys in new York, or in D.C at ALD.It was at
one of these ALD's that Babou Saho invented a whole new dish, "Domoda with
curry powder in it, and i am sure Habib Gahnim Diab will remember this one.
We died laughing the first time he cooked it, but do you know that this dish
became a standard among the Gambian brothers. Most of these guys had never
cooked a day in their lives, and suddenly, they had to learn how. Babou
prided himself in being a good cook, and he would have all of us over during
ALD and cook up a storm. Pa Njie Girigara, my inlaw could also cook well,
and they always insisted on cooking and not letting the ladies get into the
kitchen at these gatherings.
Then of course there was the Atlanta crowd in the mid 70's whom i have
already mentioned.
It's Ok to butt in Yus. We were here during the latter part of the Vietnam
war, the hippie movement and the civil rights era. Things were never dull i
can tell you. Of course we heard things about the South, and lots of them
were true, but it is amazing that one does not always get a real perspective
of things on a college campus. For example, during my stay at the Univ. of
Georgia, i do not remember one single race related incident, but i do
remember being stopped in Columbia, South Carolina while driving through
there. I was driving with Pa Sulay Jallow and we were 5 miles over the speed
limit. This Highway patrolman stopped us amd told us we had to go with him.
In 10 minutes, they had brought in a judge and held a makeshift hearing and
told us we had to pay $75 or go to jail.For all we know, he may not even have
been a judge. I could not believe it.Well, i was so mad, i started to argue
with them, expressing my consternation about a speeding ticket warranting all
that, and he told me that if i do not keep quiet, he will just put us in jail
period. We believed him alright, so we had to put our last money together and
give it to them.
When i first came, i was actually in upstate New York, at Elmira for a couple
of years, and i must say that there also, i never encountered any problems.
Infact, the only problem i had was that i had everyone wanting me to go home
with them over the breaks, and i was in a bind since i did not want to hurt
anyone's feelings.
On the political scene, it was the time that the youth in America were
challenging the establishment, and Black folks were fighting for equality,
and the college students of the era were right in the thick of it all. The
changes that are most noticeable now are that the youth seem to be quite
compalcent. All they seem to worry about are material acquisitions.I am not
saying the youth do not care, but in those days, people actually got up and
did something about the issues they cared about.
Jabou Joh
In a message dated 2/18/00 12:20:33 PM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
<< I hate to butt into your discussion here, but you folks came to this
country
at a very critical juncture in its history. For this reason, you must have a
very interesting perspective of how things have evolved. Supposedly, things
weren't as bad in the North as they were in the South
Anyway, you were the trail blazers for future generations of Gambians to
come. In other words, you paved the way for us.
Yus
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
