> What Error message do you get for
> 
> bash-2.05b$ cat >check.c
> #include <ncurses.h>
> int main;
> bash-2.05b$ `ruby -r rbconfig -e 'print Config::CONFIG["CC"], " ", 
> Config::CONFIG["CFLAGS"]'` check.c
> 
> (produce a check.c file that includes #<ncurses.h>; and try to compile
> that file with the C compiler and CFLAGS that ruby knows of.)
> 

This produces:

check.c:1:21: ncurses.h: No such file or directory

ruby is using gcc...  gcc check.c produces the same results so maybe it 
has nothing to do with ruby?

> Maybe the precompiled ruby from cygwin has problems. You could try to 
> recompile ruby yourself.

I am stuck in cygwin for another week or two and then I will be back on 
a real unix box-- I will probably just wait.

culley