Heelllooo everyone! Let me just say how much it warms my little homesick heart to read everybody's posts... i have just returned today to the Kombo (read "city") area, after being up country (read up river, out in the sticks, in my training village) for the past... how long have i been here? 2 months nearly. besides one short-lived moment on the internet on my site visit field trip a few weeks ago, this is my first time on the net! And I've gotten 2 letters since being here (slow mail I'm sure, not the lack of motivated letter-writers among my freinds and fam), so I'm all giddy sitting here soaking up the cyber love... skipping lunch now.
How is the beautiful fall across the sea? How was thanksgiving? We had a good time here, we all met up together at Tendaba, our rented rendevous spot for PC training, and spent the day cooking in their kitchen. The men of the group, shirtless with JulBrews in hand, proceded to deep fry a turkey (in pieces) over an open fire... it was so delicious (says the reformed vegetarian). Trust me though, I'm ready to go veg again... I saw a sheep die for a naming ceremony in my village and it made me cry. The cheaper protein of dried fish is the food bowl staple though, luckily for the animal rights girl in me. I baked an apple pie on thanksgiving that was not half bad by normal standards and amazingly delectable by the fruitless Gambian standards.
but! well, the woolof is coming to me, not smoothly, not easily but not slowly with difficulty but rather in disjointed spurts, in hacked up coughs and small hiccups of understanding... but it is coming. I'd say I'm about where my Spanish was in Antigua, or a little better! woolof is a fierce language, and it is not so much spoken as it is spit or barked by it's fierce but lovely speakers. woolofs ARE fierce, the opposite of self-concious, but completely refined and graceful. I can't quit staring and marveling at them, even after 2 months. I have just spent 4 days in ker katim, which is to be my home for the next two years, after spending the past two months in sare samba, my training village. Ker Katim is tiny, my father is Mustafa (like the lion in the lion king, yep) and he is a baker of fresh bread, a watermelon grower, a hunter of phesants (sp? NOT peasants) and a bidik owner (bidik- small store). He has two wives and lots of cool kids running around. His family compound is a huge maze of cement or mud brick buildings with tin roofings, all connected by alleys. My house is about 30 yards away off the end of the village... I can see all the goings-on of the village from my fenced in front yard, but they think i'm very brave to live "far away" and "alone!" Ah but my one room hut is cool and peaceful, surrounded by eucalyptus trees and soon enough... gardens. I have a dog, Lady, who was adopted by a former PCV and now just likes white people. I fed her my leftover rice and sealed the deal. She only has one eye... the other was taken by gun shot when she ate a baby goat. I call her Mam Bena Bot, which means One-Eyed Mama, which she seems cool with.
The Gambia is, if you didn't know, very Muslim. Which amounts to men learning so Arabic and everyone dressing in beautiful long flowy things. And there's praying, yes, sometimes... definitely on holidays. There are mosques which have early and late call to prayers blasted out over thier loud speakers, but we in ker katim do not have the privelage of a 5 o'clock Koranic wake-up-call (dang). We don't have a mosque but we do have a smaller prayer building. Kevin, spears seem to be lacking around here, and unless I can steal one from the national museum, a bobble-head might have to work.. I have heard tell of Mosque-shaped alarm clocks that will wake you up with one of eleven call to prayers! If I find one, it's yours.
To Lucas, The Gambia is nothing like those speacials on TV... though I appreciate the romanticized dream of my being surrounded by adoring young 'uns. It's just poverty... and poverty is not unhappy, at least not in the way that those shows make you think. I can't really explain it, but everyone's fairly content... fairly healthy, fairly well fed. But like the rest of the world though, their environmental situation is getting worse, water tables are dropping, the sahara is coming, their crops are draining their fields of nutrients... their president is a benevolent dictator not a democratic anything... their one exported cash crop, peanuts, is bringing in less and less money and they need new cash crops. They have no luxuries, at all, they have little opportunity to learn new things, to travel, to expand thier minds- which should be a human right. Anyway, so there's plenty to do but nothing horribly urgent. Or it IS urgent, but we can't directly see the harm that we're doing in putting off change. Which is the case for all the world yes? Anyway, where they lack luxury, they also lack stress, depression, competition, anxiety, lonliness and other woes of the first world. Hm.
Well guys, that's all for now. I would love to hear more from everyone, I miss you all so much. I'll be around all week, then we swear in on the 8th and it's back to Ker Katim for good. I will be going back with a cell phone tho! Smooches to all!
-Steph/ Yassin
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Friday, November 03, 2006
End of October...
I’m in The Gambia – this whole thing is such a trip! I’m in a small rural village bordering Senegal; I have my own mud and plaster hut, complete with concrete floor, thatch roof and pit latrine (read “hole in the ground, with a cover”). My name is Yassin Tuday and I live in the Tuday compound, which consists of another hut for two undes (21 and 22 years old, both names Aladdy) and a bigger concrete house (with a super-modern corrugated tin roof) with three rooms, where the rest of the compound lives: a young couple, one for my “parents”, Savo and Yassin, their three little ones, plus two other kids whose parents are relatives, but not around, plus a grandma. My whole village is pretty tiny, but beautiful. They all go to the fields that surround the village every morning to harvest rice, coos, and corn, and peanuts.
It’s the end of the rainy season, and everything’s green and lush – there are big boabola and mango trees everywhere, and lots of livestock – goats are my new favorite thing! It’s about 85F and humid, but really beautiful weather and not too many mosquitoes. My days go like this:
6:45am – bike ride with Ro-hee (a.k.a. Cheyanne, another Woolof PCT) down one of the 5 or 6 roads leading to other villages. Fields, trees, birds, coos, mud/sand, donkey carts…awesome.
7:45pm – bucket bath (from water I carried on my head!), breakfast (coos & peanut porridge).
8:00am-1:00pm – Language with my three other Woolof PCT’s (Cheyanne-from Alaska, Grover from Kansas, Mandy from Washington – all very cool) and our language teacher, a twenty-something Gambian girl who’s awesome, Hadi Sow.
1:00pm – Lunch, Gambian style – a big bowl of food the 5 of us share, eating with our right hand. Always, rice with meat and sauce.
1:30pm – Get water, take a nap, read, study, play Uno with the fam – in the shade!
5:00pm – go bird watching with the PCT crew, herd of young children in tow, eat peanuts growing road-side.
7:00pm – Break fast with the fam (it is the month of Ramadon – they don’t eat or drink from sun-up to sun-down). Have dinner served to me in a separate bowl. Always rice with fish, tasting sauce and perhaps a bitter tomato (yum!).
8:00pm – Hang out, maybe drink some attaya (their version of sweet tea – intense, bitter, so sweet even American’s southerners would wince).
9:00pm – Read by head lamp, snooze. Rain sometimes comes at night, with refreshing wind. Night skies, when clear are just completely amazing!
Woolof is hard, but being immersed as we are is great and we’re learning fast. At lease we have the greetings down pat! Greetings are extremely important, you do it to everyone you come across. They go like this:
“Peace be on you.” Response -“And on you”.
“How are you”. “I’m here only”.
“How are the people of your compound?” “They are there only”.
“How is your morning/afternoon/evening?” “Peace only”.
“Does your body have peace” “Peace only”.
“How is the work” “Peace only” or- best part! “I’m on it, slowly, slowly.(That makes an important statement about the culture I think).
Two guys have gone home already! With my hopes of working in development later, and goals of personal growth and simplifying life, this experience is perfect for me – it’s pure mind-expanding fun. But it’s pretty intense, and it’s such a specific type of experience that it’s not hard to understand why those guys left – it’s either for you or it’s definitely not.
Though I started this letter in my training village I’m not at our group training camp, Ten-da-ba, right on the Gambian river, which is wide and muddy like the ‘ol Miss. It’s great to be back with a big group of people, big good meals, a nice shower, a pool! We just have training sessions all day, with teachers or in-country volunteers conducting “skills sessions” – we’re learning “sweet skills” – mud stove making, tree and crop ID, gardening, lesson planning, bee-keeping, etc. And language!
I haven’t been missing TV cuz this group of PCT’s are pure entertainment. Lots of funny quirky interesting people, from all backgrounds. It’s “Real World” Peace Corps, complete with random hook ups and all the stereotypical “Real World” roles! Funny stuff.
Write me often! I’m crazy to hear from everyone. Tell me everything that’s new! Things to send if you get the desire to mail something. My list of wants and needs:
I’m hoping to do some of my own cooking (dinners I think – other meals I’ll pay my fam to cook for me) cuz Gambian food s good but lacks variety and nutrition. So, spices, dries fruits, and veggies, seeds to plant (tomatoes, basil, salad greens), whole-wheat or whole-grain or fiber in any form – this may be kind of hard…but dried soup things, anything with protein powder. I’m craving fruit so much so dried fruits I would love.
Also, need baking soda, baking powder (can’t find it here), UNO game cards – a couple of sets, news magazines – I’m totally disconnected! Pictures – lots of pictures of everyone and everything. Laminated if possible. And chocolate!! Powdered is the only way to send it.
Books: The World and A Small Place in Africa, Any Vandanna Shiva (except the Water one), anything interesting about development work, environmental work, sustainable development especially in Africa. JANE or SEED magazines, also TIME magazine.
Lots of letters – I won’t have any time on the Internet until some time in December and would love to hear from you before then.
I love you for sending things but please don’t send:
Peanuts or peanut butter (there’s plenty here)
Vitamins
Normal toiletries
Rice…(someone’s family sent them rice!!)
Snickers candy – I can buy them here
Postcards – OR put them in an envelope, people snag them.
I’m in The Gambia – this whole thing is such a trip! I’m in a small rural village bordering Senegal; I have my own mud and plaster hut, complete with concrete floor, thatch roof and pit latrine (read “hole in the ground, with a cover”). My name is Yassin Tuday and I live in the Tuday compound, which consists of another hut for two undes (21 and 22 years old, both names Aladdy) and a bigger concrete house (with a super-modern corrugated tin roof) with three rooms, where the rest of the compound lives: a young couple, one for my “parents”, Savo and Yassin, their three little ones, plus two other kids whose parents are relatives, but not around, plus a grandma. My whole village is pretty tiny, but beautiful. They all go to the fields that surround the village every morning to harvest rice, coos, and corn, and peanuts.
It’s the end of the rainy season, and everything’s green and lush – there are big boabola and mango trees everywhere, and lots of livestock – goats are my new favorite thing! It’s about 85F and humid, but really beautiful weather and not too many mosquitoes. My days go like this:
6:45am – bike ride with Ro-hee (a.k.a. Cheyanne, another Woolof PCT) down one of the 5 or 6 roads leading to other villages. Fields, trees, birds, coos, mud/sand, donkey carts…awesome.
7:45pm – bucket bath (from water I carried on my head!), breakfast (coos & peanut porridge).
8:00am-1:00pm – Language with my three other Woolof PCT’s (Cheyanne-from Alaska, Grover from Kansas, Mandy from Washington – all very cool) and our language teacher, a twenty-something Gambian girl who’s awesome, Hadi Sow.
1:00pm – Lunch, Gambian style – a big bowl of food the 5 of us share, eating with our right hand. Always, rice with meat and sauce.
1:30pm – Get water, take a nap, read, study, play Uno with the fam – in the shade!
5:00pm – go bird watching with the PCT crew, herd of young children in tow, eat peanuts growing road-side.
7:00pm – Break fast with the fam (it is the month of Ramadon – they don’t eat or drink from sun-up to sun-down). Have dinner served to me in a separate bowl. Always rice with fish, tasting sauce and perhaps a bitter tomato (yum!).
8:00pm – Hang out, maybe drink some attaya (their version of sweet tea – intense, bitter, so sweet even American’s southerners would wince).
9:00pm – Read by head lamp, snooze. Rain sometimes comes at night, with refreshing wind. Night skies, when clear are just completely amazing!
Woolof is hard, but being immersed as we are is great and we’re learning fast. At lease we have the greetings down pat! Greetings are extremely important, you do it to everyone you come across. They go like this:
“Peace be on you.” Response -“And on you”.
“How are you”. “I’m here only”.
“How are the people of your compound?” “They are there only”.
“How is your morning/afternoon/evening?” “Peace only”.
“Does your body have peace” “Peace only”.
“How is the work” “Peace only” or- best part! “I’m on it, slowly, slowly.(That makes an important statement about the culture I think).
Two guys have gone home already! With my hopes of working in development later, and goals of personal growth and simplifying life, this experience is perfect for me – it’s pure mind-expanding fun. But it’s pretty intense, and it’s such a specific type of experience that it’s not hard to understand why those guys left – it’s either for you or it’s definitely not.
Though I started this letter in my training village I’m not at our group training camp, Ten-da-ba, right on the Gambian river, which is wide and muddy like the ‘ol Miss. It’s great to be back with a big group of people, big good meals, a nice shower, a pool! We just have training sessions all day, with teachers or in-country volunteers conducting “skills sessions” – we’re learning “sweet skills” – mud stove making, tree and crop ID, gardening, lesson planning, bee-keeping, etc. And language!
I haven’t been missing TV cuz this group of PCT’s are pure entertainment. Lots of funny quirky interesting people, from all backgrounds. It’s “Real World” Peace Corps, complete with random hook ups and all the stereotypical “Real World” roles! Funny stuff.
Write me often! I’m crazy to hear from everyone. Tell me everything that’s new! Things to send if you get the desire to mail something. My list of wants and needs:
I’m hoping to do some of my own cooking (dinners I think – other meals I’ll pay my fam to cook for me) cuz Gambian food s good but lacks variety and nutrition. So, spices, dries fruits, and veggies, seeds to plant (tomatoes, basil, salad greens), whole-wheat or whole-grain or fiber in any form – this may be kind of hard…but dried soup things, anything with protein powder. I’m craving fruit so much so dried fruits I would love.
Also, need baking soda, baking powder (can’t find it here), UNO game cards – a couple of sets, news magazines – I’m totally disconnected! Pictures – lots of pictures of everyone and everything. Laminated if possible. And chocolate!! Powdered is the only way to send it.
Books: The World and A Small Place in Africa, Any Vandanna Shiva (except the Water one), anything interesting about development work, environmental work, sustainable development especially in Africa. JANE or SEED magazines, also TIME magazine.
Lots of letters – I won’t have any time on the Internet until some time in December and would love to hear from you before then.
I love you for sending things but please don’t send:
Peanuts or peanut butter (there’s plenty here)
Vitamins
Normal toiletries
Rice…(someone’s family sent them rice!!)
Snickers candy – I can buy them here
Postcards – OR put them in an envelope, people snag them.
Middle of October 2006
Hey Everyone,
Hello!! Let me just first say that I am really missing you guys and I wish I could hear your voices! I’m going to send this letter to my Mom, and then maybe she can type it into an email – letters are fairly expensive to send, because we’re now living on Delassi and we’re living on the equivalent of other Gambian life-costs. So… we have D900 (=$30) until November 1! I bought a beer on the beach (D40), required cola nuts to bring to our host families (1/2 kilo, D160), some dates (D5), whisky (D50), and 3 ½ letters worth of stamps (D120) – D375 total. I still need laundry soap, toilet paper, etc., so it’s a tight little budget.
So! We’re all here, staying in dorms at this little training center. We’ve been split up into language training groups: 15 are learning Mandinka, 6 are learning Fula, 4 Woolof – that’s me! Although all 3 languages (and several others too) are spoken all over the country, there are concentrated areas of each. Woolof is the main language spoken by the Senegalese (which makes me happy because I can travel to Senegal and get around) and is concentrated in the more urban areas, like around the capital (Banjul) here and in the north-west part of the country. So, not to speculate, but it may be that I’ll have some electricity or at least closer access to it. We won’t get our assignments for a month or so more.
During the next 10 weeks, the 4 Woolof’s and our teacher will be living with our individual host families in Sare Saamba – a very rural village on the Sought border of Senegal. Mostly in Sare Saamba, we’ll be learning Woolof. Every other week, we get together at camp Ten-da-ba (look it up on the net, its cool-http://www.moxon.net/the_gambia/tendaba.html) and have more learning sessions – stuff (also, all our agriculture skills and classes, bee keeping, etc. a.k.a “sweet skills”) less geared toward language, like filed trips, cultural stuff. So we’ll be going back and forth between Sare Saamba with our language groups/Ten-da-ba with everyone.
Woolof is so cool. It sounds very Caribbean. This is my favorite phrase so far. It’s part of the extensive greetings. Goes like this: Naka leegey bi? (Knock-a lee-gay{stretch this syllable out}?) May ci kawam, ndanka, ndanka. (Mong cheek o-wam, n-donk-a, n-donk-a {emphasis on donk}). And it means – “How’s your job?” And then (best part!) “I’m on it, slowly, slowly.” This is a standard line in their greetings, if that tells you anything about the culture!
Our training center is a catholic mission owned place, very small but pretty with lots of flowers, trees. The birds here are amazing! My roommate Katie and several others are into birding and bought the one and only Gambian bird book. I might like to get into that a little at my site.
We’re training just outside Banjul (BAN-jewl) the capital (only 30,000). We have toilets that flush sometimes, some electricity, running cold showers. It is so f’ing hot/humid here, and our room doesn’t have a fan so at first it was hard to sleep. We take cold showers right before bed, then lay around dripping into your pillow. But it’s better now, I’ve been sleeping like a babe – during the day there’s a nice maritime breeze.
I got my first bout of stomach troubles today, but I think it’s from eating the cola nuts yesterday. We were all walking through the market, supposed to buy cola nuts to bring to our host families. It was crazy, pretty exciting – but we all were wondering what was so cool about them ,because people give them as thank you gifts, celebration gifts, can I marry a few of your daughters gifts, everything… and they’re kind of a stimulant of sorts (I haven’t really felt anything, so I guess it’s subtle, but I trust them!) So, we all started chewing on them, even thought their gross, we wanted to be Gambians, Their tubers and they taste like little raw potatoes. Any who, we didn’t wash them and so…I got a little sick.
The food here is just a scotch monotonous…rice, hard white bread, over cooked but yummy veggies and meat in spicy really good sauce and fried fish…everything with palm oil, kinda greasy. Yuck-o “porridge” for breakfast, spam sandwiches (oh, sorry “corned beef”) for tea time, yogurt and papaya/watermelon for dessert.
We’ve had some really awesome training…I’m so pumped up about all the possibilities for projects. The Gambia has a constant growing season, and endless crops they haven’t taken advantage of…just tons we can do here, seriously…more about all that later, but I’m excited. Our trips have taken us also to a mosque, an eco-tourist resort (sweetest site placement ever!), a little mini-zoo run by a hippie-Belgium man with three wives. This naked son ran around with us carrying harmless giant pythons around his neck…that was a great time. My fear of snakes is dissipating, as is the needle fear…which I think is so cool.
More about my interesting group of PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) later. Ok, I love you all very much – I’m loving every moment of this ride, learning and soaking up so much. Please write, and tell me details of that’s up with you. Also, sending money instead of goodies is wonderful (smaller bills!).
Love,
Steph
PS If you want to send me packages read the package link on my blog. Stuff that can easily fit in a padded envelop: spices (cumin, pepper, et.) powdered Gatorade, CD’s, Pictures PLEASE!! (laminated), etc.
*Possibly later: protein/fiber powders, bird book, binoculars
* Speakers!! Maybe that can work for my CD player & IPod Shuffle. Card reader for my camera (though one guy does have one, so let’s wait on this).
*Solar powered battery charger (batteries here suck and I don’t wanna keep buying and throwing away – which means dumping down my pit latrine.
Hey Everyone,
Hello!! Let me just first say that I am really missing you guys and I wish I could hear your voices! I’m going to send this letter to my Mom, and then maybe she can type it into an email – letters are fairly expensive to send, because we’re now living on Delassi and we’re living on the equivalent of other Gambian life-costs. So… we have D900 (=$30) until November 1! I bought a beer on the beach (D40), required cola nuts to bring to our host families (1/2 kilo, D160), some dates (D5), whisky (D50), and 3 ½ letters worth of stamps (D120) – D375 total. I still need laundry soap, toilet paper, etc., so it’s a tight little budget.
So! We’re all here, staying in dorms at this little training center. We’ve been split up into language training groups: 15 are learning Mandinka, 6 are learning Fula, 4 Woolof – that’s me! Although all 3 languages (and several others too) are spoken all over the country, there are concentrated areas of each. Woolof is the main language spoken by the Senegalese (which makes me happy because I can travel to Senegal and get around) and is concentrated in the more urban areas, like around the capital (Banjul) here and in the north-west part of the country. So, not to speculate, but it may be that I’ll have some electricity or at least closer access to it. We won’t get our assignments for a month or so more.
During the next 10 weeks, the 4 Woolof’s and our teacher will be living with our individual host families in Sare Saamba – a very rural village on the Sought border of Senegal. Mostly in Sare Saamba, we’ll be learning Woolof. Every other week, we get together at camp Ten-da-ba (look it up on the net, its cool-http://www.moxon.net/the_gambia/tendaba.html) and have more learning sessions – stuff (also, all our agriculture skills and classes, bee keeping, etc. a.k.a “sweet skills”) less geared toward language, like filed trips, cultural stuff. So we’ll be going back and forth between Sare Saamba with our language groups/Ten-da-ba with everyone.
Woolof is so cool. It sounds very Caribbean. This is my favorite phrase so far. It’s part of the extensive greetings. Goes like this: Naka leegey bi? (Knock-a lee-gay{stretch this syllable out}?) May ci kawam, ndanka, ndanka. (Mong cheek o-wam, n-donk-a, n-donk-a {emphasis on donk}). And it means – “How’s your job?” And then (best part!) “I’m on it, slowly, slowly.” This is a standard line in their greetings, if that tells you anything about the culture!
Our training center is a catholic mission owned place, very small but pretty with lots of flowers, trees. The birds here are amazing! My roommate Katie and several others are into birding and bought the one and only Gambian bird book. I might like to get into that a little at my site.
We’re training just outside Banjul (BAN-jewl) the capital (only 30,000). We have toilets that flush sometimes, some electricity, running cold showers. It is so f’ing hot/humid here, and our room doesn’t have a fan so at first it was hard to sleep. We take cold showers right before bed, then lay around dripping into your pillow. But it’s better now, I’ve been sleeping like a babe – during the day there’s a nice maritime breeze.
I got my first bout of stomach troubles today, but I think it’s from eating the cola nuts yesterday. We were all walking through the market, supposed to buy cola nuts to bring to our host families. It was crazy, pretty exciting – but we all were wondering what was so cool about them ,because people give them as thank you gifts, celebration gifts, can I marry a few of your daughters gifts, everything… and they’re kind of a stimulant of sorts (I haven’t really felt anything, so I guess it’s subtle, but I trust them!) So, we all started chewing on them, even thought their gross, we wanted to be Gambians, Their tubers and they taste like little raw potatoes. Any who, we didn’t wash them and so…I got a little sick.
The food here is just a scotch monotonous…rice, hard white bread, over cooked but yummy veggies and meat in spicy really good sauce and fried fish…everything with palm oil, kinda greasy. Yuck-o “porridge” for breakfast, spam sandwiches (oh, sorry “corned beef”) for tea time, yogurt and papaya/watermelon for dessert.
We’ve had some really awesome training…I’m so pumped up about all the possibilities for projects. The Gambia has a constant growing season, and endless crops they haven’t taken advantage of…just tons we can do here, seriously…more about all that later, but I’m excited. Our trips have taken us also to a mosque, an eco-tourist resort (sweetest site placement ever!), a little mini-zoo run by a hippie-Belgium man with three wives. This naked son ran around with us carrying harmless giant pythons around his neck…that was a great time. My fear of snakes is dissipating, as is the needle fear…which I think is so cool.
More about my interesting group of PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) later. Ok, I love you all very much – I’m loving every moment of this ride, learning and soaking up so much. Please write, and tell me details of that’s up with you. Also, sending money instead of goodies is wonderful (smaller bills!).
Love,
Steph
PS If you want to send me packages read the package link on my blog. Stuff that can easily fit in a padded envelop: spices (cumin, pepper, et.) powdered Gatorade, CD’s, Pictures PLEASE!! (laminated), etc.
*Possibly later: protein/fiber powders, bird book, binoculars
* Speakers!! Maybe that can work for my CD player & IPod Shuffle. Card reader for my camera (though one guy does have one, so let’s wait on this).
*Solar powered battery charger (batteries here suck and I don’t wanna keep buying and throwing away – which means dumping down my pit latrine.
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