Bringing Up Baby (In The Gambia)

One exciting aspect of my new compound is that there are babies!  One is seven months old and my aunt’s child, the other is three months and my brother.  This has been my first extended exposure to baby care in The Gambia, so I thought I would share a few observations – especially for my early childhood friends out there. There are a lot of aspects of baby raising in The Gambia that I respect and even think would work well in the context of Western culture.  There are other aspects that I am still struggling to understand.  For now, I will just share my observations and maybe over time I will be able to provide a better rationale for the practices I am seeing here.

Baby brother napping on my bed

Diapering Baby: This happens rarely in my compound. When it happens, it often takes the form of a cloth from an old wrap skirt covered in a plastic bag tied twice around baby’s waist. Often, though, babies are diaperless and free to relieve themselves in the cloth they are swaddled in, the clothes they are wearing, or on whosever lap they happen to be sitting.

Baby Brother getting diapered

Silly Jacy, Diapers are called Pampers here!

Potty Training Baby: Since there is often no diaper and most children use the great outdoors as their toilet, there is no real defined start to potty training in The Gambia. A preferred method for training baby is putting the baby on top of the mother’s feet with the baby facing or even hugging the mother’s legs. The mother makes a V shape with her feet, heels together, so that the baby is straddling her feet in the perfect squat position.  The baby is then free to do his or her business, and if mom is careful, her feet stay clean.

Bathing Baby: This happens much like it does in America.  The baby sits in a shallow tub of water while the mom scrubs and rinses him or her.  The real difference is the drying process.  The babies in my compound are shaken dry.  Mom holds one arm after another, then one leg after another.  I have seen this performed gently and rather vigorously.  That is right, I have seen baby hanging from one leg, upside-down, being shaken.  Oh, and mom blows in the babies ears to dry those, as a final touch.

Feeding Baby: Breastfeeding all the way!  And they will whip those breasts out anytime, anywhere. I have seen women traveling on public transport, farming, cooking, braiding hair (you name it!) while breast-feeding. The stigma of breasts and breastfeeding just does not exist here.  In fact, I am told that in one of the local languages, the slang they use for breasts is “food sacks.” I have seen some older babies being feed baby food, or custard from a can in my cousin’s case.  As soon as children are old enough to squat next to the food bowl and scoop their food in their mouths, they eat what everyone else eats.  Mom might still pick meat off the bones for small children.

Babysitting: The baby is the mother’s responsibility. I have seen varying levels of paternal involvement.  That being said, mothers also are expected to keep up with their compound responsibilities, including: sweeping, cooking, farming, washing clothes, fetching water, bathing children, etc. So it pays to have a compound full of children to help with the responsibilities and to pass baby off to. I have seen vary small children (as young as 4 years old) toting around an infant. Do not let this worry you though, children are taught to be adults very early here, so most of the time, they are attentive to the baby they are caring for. If the mother goes to the farm, baby will either go with mom or stay at the compound with grandma until it is feeding time.  When baby gets fussy, he is strapped to a small child’s back and sent to the farm, or wherever mom is.

Posing for pictures and carrying around a baby? No big deal.

Toting Baby: I will try my best to explain the baby backpack, but if you have ever seen a photo of an African mother, you have probably seen the cloth wrap holding the baby to the mother’s back. In this baby toting wrap, the mother uses a rectangular piece of fabric tied at the top and bottom, wrapped around her and the baby.  I have seen babies at varying levels of comfort in this position, but there is no denying the convenience.  I think the most impressive baby toting I have seen so far was at a wedding.  Mom was dancing pretty vigorously with baby strapped on her back.  I thought surely this child must be terrified or wailing from all the shaking.  Imagine my surprise when she turned and I could see that the baby was fast asleep.

My cousins

Having babies in the compound has been a joy.  Babies do not know that I cannot speak their language fluently.  I love thinking about how much they will grow over the next two years and how they will have known me almost their entire lives.  I sometimes struggle with the child raising techniques I see, though.  On one hand, childcare has been my whole life and I know all the best practices and safe, loving ways to care for babies.  Yet babies in The Gambia are growing to be The Gambians that I have come to love in this country.  There are techniques in place here that I am not accustomed to but I am hesitant to judge too harshly or jump in with my “Western wisdom”.  As it turns out, my struggles with baby raising techniques are somewhat representative of my struggles overall.  My biggest challenge so far, has been deciding when to step in and educate or change behavior and when to accept and find value in the differences in customs and culture.

Trying my hand at toting my brother around