A friend recently emailed me these questions:
Sounds like there are only 2 wives.....but with
11 children??? What is typical size of family....birth outcomes?
Family Planning???? How is health care/illness/prevention handled???
HOw much education have the women had? What about the 25 year old
brother. At what age do men usually marry? Do they have to have
land/house/furniture before they can marry?
So, to answer. In my compound, there are two brothers, each with one wife. One of the women has 7 children, the olther has 2 of her own and there are 3 from a previous wife who past away a while ago. So, yeah, 12 kids! That's definitely typical.
There are two clinics fairly close (the more comprehensive one is maybe 7k away), and because they are funded by UniCef, and others, the visits are only 5 delassi (the same price as a half kilo of sugar). A girl in village recently had a baby. She went to the clinic to have it instead of staying home, which I think is rare here, but she said the clinic was understaffed and she ended up having the baby ALONE! Total time, from the time she left to go to the clinic to the time she returned home with a new baby in her arms, about 5 hours. Crazy! I was totally shocked, she was sitting up in her house that evening! I made her eat bread with peanut butter (which they don't do here, pnut butter is for cooking). But the little baby is fine, healthy enough and not premature.
Many children get sick, I think it is malaria. I'm not sure about this yet, but in the rainy season I hear malaria can be very bad (they have malaria season like we have flu season). People do die fairly young, but the old people who DO live are in incredible shape! I have seen two "goiters" on people, which come from a lack of iodized salt. I've also seen osteoporosis, arthritis, the usual things. There are a lot of things I attribute to inbreeding- a surprising number of deaf people, crossed eyes, stuttering (is that ever genetic? I don't know).
Basic medicines are avaible at the clinics for around 5 - 10 delassi, like pain relief stuff, and ink as an antiseptic. But when my little sister got sick (coughing up blood, maybe an upper respiratory infection? no idea) she went all the way to a big city area for blood tests and a shot. My compound has the money to do this, because one of the brothers is employed by the government, paving the road. But most would definitely not be able to do that (the transport alone would have cost 80 D for 2 of them). Everyone still collects medinice from the forests, all kinds of leaves and barks which they usually seem to make into teas.
There is also a "marabout," a traditional doctor type guy- most of the animistic aspects of traditional medicine have been replaced with Muslim religious aspects. I went to his hut one night with some women, one of which had been having body aches. She blamed on her family planning medicine, and had stopped taking it. She was still experiencing pain, so the women explained that they were done with the clinic and they were going to take "medicine for black people!" The marabout's hut had lots of powders, leaves, ect...a bundle of horse hair. I was offered some medicine but declined (if body still can't totally handle their water and food, I should probably not push it)!
Anyway, so traditional medicine is still around, but is on the decline. Most women do NOT take birth control, even though it's available I think for free or for cheap. Most men prefer their wives to have as many children as possible, even though their resources are strained. I think maybe it's a sign of virility and power, and also it's just the way things have always been. Population control is something I really want to address, but it's a touchy subject.
Yes, men should have their own compound, or a place in a compound before they marry. They should have enough money to pay the dowry and have a house built (evenutally one for them, one for the wife and kids). My 25 year old brother is not married yet, I think partially because he's saving up.
That's all for now! Everything's great, super interesting. I will post later about my 24th birthday, the oddest and one of the best birthday's I've had! (: Take care
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Watch this video on the President of The Gambia curing AIDS. This is so telling of... a lot here. Many people believe this because their president would never lie to them.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,30200-hurd_p2623,00.html#
The article that goes with it:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1252349,00.html
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,30200-hurd_p2623,00.html#
The article that goes with it:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1252349,00.html
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Being away from America, on the outside of the bubble of American life, I've had some major realizations about the culture; the great American way is really bizzare. And it's not the only way, though from the inside it can seem that way.
Here's some major contrasts between here and there:
1. Here, petty/bratty arguing between kids doesn't seem to exist; the culture is not based on individualism and competition, so siblings, pre-teens, highschoolers, everyone communicates with everyone else with relaxed, comfortable respect. Not that there aren't fights, but they seem to be pretty cut and dry.
2. No one avoids eye contact when passing by; (you see this in small town America too) greeting everyone is a cultural must-do. I think it just adds to the friendly neighborly-ness, plus it's just kinda nice.
3. It is a classless society- everyone is on equal terms and everything is shared openly. Anyone who walks by a compound at meal time will be invited (ordered) to come and eat. .
4. People work hard and live off the land; they build their houses out of mud bricks, they grow their grains and veggies, they make tea from bush leaves, baskets from grass, lotion for leftover candles wax and oil, incense, henna, medicine from certain trees, tools from welded metal, furniture from local wood, etc.
All that been said, I see this mass desire for westernization! They ALL think America and Europe are wonderful, they all want modern things... they see money, luxury, 'the good life.' What they don't see is the massive ecological destruction that a consumerist culture brings. They want "development," but they see the replacement and assimilation of native cultures that comes with globalization.
Development: it is a dynamic process of improvement, which implies a change, an evolution, growth and advancement.
Ok, but by whose standards? How should we measure poverty? What is "improvement?" As development workers (if you choose to go that route as a PCV), we get to decide, based on the needs and desires of the communities we serve how we want to measure development. I say it's definitely not numbers in a bankroll or the number of paved roads a country has. To me it's not measured in economic growth but in a community's ability to live autonomously, replenishing the land they use, providing a stable, safe, healthy and happy environment for its population. Development should ensure that a community will be able to LAST, survive, thrive... not to grow in size or monetary wealth, or bring in factories and roads. The thing that America/ westernized civilization never questions is the standard of development... if the more we grow, the more energy we need, the more cars we drive, the more land we need to clear theennnn.... the more global warming we'll have, the more species we'll wipe out and the more resources (water, coal) we'll suck dry. Uh, right? So why would we all world-wide blindly agree that that's the MAIN goal?
My line of thought: money equal a class society equals inequality. Money will never be distributed equally and will lead to more imported goods- stuff people don't need shipped to them on huge petrol-consuming liners, in cardboard boxes whose production caused deforestation in some distant place that can be ignored, or in plastic packages whose production used more oil and gas and whose waste products were dumped into some distant river that can be ignored, all dyed with hazardous chemicals using cheap labor exploiting (probably native) people from another far away "developing community" somewhere far away, whom we can ignore.
I think I'll pass on that, as much as I can. It's not up to me to decide for my village what they want, but I can try my hardest to make them see the value and beauty of their lifestyle the way it is. I can try to make them see the value of their natural environment and the need to replenish and restore their own resources so that they can continue to self-sustain.
Hopefully I'll use the next two years to help replenish the local resources and encourage pride in self-sustainability. And chill out here, enjoying the beauty of this type of lifestyle- a place without money that can provide for itself is a place with no stress, no depression or anxiety. A culture without individualistic competition is a culture of happy, stable and respectful people. People who do physical labor everyday are healthy people who don't suffer from obesity, high rates of cancer, high blood pressure and other diseases of the affluent.
Here's some major contrasts between here and there:
1. Here, petty/bratty arguing between kids doesn't seem to exist; the culture is not based on individualism and competition, so siblings, pre-teens, highschoolers, everyone communicates with everyone else with relaxed, comfortable respect. Not that there aren't fights, but they seem to be pretty cut and dry.
2. No one avoids eye contact when passing by; (you see this in small town America too) greeting everyone is a cultural must-do. I think it just adds to the friendly neighborly-ness, plus it's just kinda nice.
3. It is a classless society- everyone is on equal terms and everything is shared openly. Anyone who walks by a compound at meal time will be invited (ordered) to come and eat. .
4. People work hard and live off the land; they build their houses out of mud bricks, they grow their grains and veggies, they make tea from bush leaves, baskets from grass, lotion for leftover candles wax and oil, incense, henna, medicine from certain trees, tools from welded metal, furniture from local wood, etc.
All that been said, I see this mass desire for westernization! They ALL think America and Europe are wonderful, they all want modern things... they see money, luxury, 'the good life.' What they don't see is the massive ecological destruction that a consumerist culture brings. They want "development," but they see the replacement and assimilation of native cultures that comes with globalization.
Development: it is a dynamic process of improvement, which implies a change, an evolution, growth and advancement.
Ok, but by whose standards? How should we measure poverty? What is "improvement?" As development workers (if you choose to go that route as a PCV), we get to decide, based on the needs and desires of the communities we serve how we want to measure development. I say it's definitely not numbers in a bankroll or the number of paved roads a country has. To me it's not measured in economic growth but in a community's ability to live autonomously, replenishing the land they use, providing a stable, safe, healthy and happy environment for its population. Development should ensure that a community will be able to LAST, survive, thrive... not to grow in size or monetary wealth, or bring in factories and roads. The thing that America/ westernized civilization never questions is the standard of development... if the more we grow, the more energy we need, the more cars we drive, the more land we need to clear theennnn.... the more global warming we'll have, the more species we'll wipe out and the more resources (water, coal) we'll suck dry. Uh, right? So why would we all world-wide blindly agree that that's the MAIN goal?
My line of thought: money equal a class society equals inequality. Money will never be distributed equally and will lead to more imported goods- stuff people don't need shipped to them on huge petrol-consuming liners, in cardboard boxes whose production caused deforestation in some distant place that can be ignored, or in plastic packages whose production used more oil and gas and whose waste products were dumped into some distant river that can be ignored, all dyed with hazardous chemicals using cheap labor exploiting (probably native) people from another far away "developing community" somewhere far away, whom we can ignore.
I think I'll pass on that, as much as I can. It's not up to me to decide for my village what they want, but I can try my hardest to make them see the value and beauty of their lifestyle the way it is. I can try to make them see the value of their natural environment and the need to replenish and restore their own resources so that they can continue to self-sustain.
Hopefully I'll use the next two years to help replenish the local resources and encourage pride in self-sustainability. And chill out here, enjoying the beauty of this type of lifestyle- a place without money that can provide for itself is a place with no stress, no depression or anxiety. A culture without individualistic competition is a culture of happy, stable and respectful people. People who do physical labor everyday are healthy people who don't suffer from obesity, high rates of cancer, high blood pressure and other diseases of the affluent.
So What Are You Doing?
So everyone asks what I'm doing, what I'm up to. I'll try to give some of the cool highlights of my days here...
You know I live in Jamagen, a small village of about 17 compounds- which are extended family groups, basically a u-shaped cluster of mud huts with a common area in the middle, space for small cassava and papaya gardens and maybe a few cows. Because The Gambia is the final destination for about 8 different tribes of Africa, my village is a cool mix of Woolof (what I speak), Pulaar or Fulas, Mandinkas, and another tribe similar to Mandinkas (both from Mali) called the Bambaras. There are also some Serers. My compound is Bambara, but they all speak Woolof and a little of everything like most Gambians. The compound consists of 3 brothers, two of them with one wife each and all their many kids, and their mom- my very old and very cool grandma. Madou is the youngest brother, unmarried now, about 25 yrs old, speaks fairly good English and is way cool. There are 11 kids in the compound, ranging from less than a year to about 18 maybe- they don't know their birthdays or how old they are and are confused when I ask (why would I want to know?)! I hang out a lot with the oldest girl (18?), Sabu, and the two second oldest girls, born 4 days apart from the 2 different wives in the compound (about 12 yrs old i think), Seneba and Nagale. I also hang out a lot with Roxi Bah and her family, (25 yrs?) in the Fula compound next to me.
So a typical day...?
Wake up at 7, push back the mosquito net, go for a jog or a seed-collecting walk, for my hopeful woodlot (more on that later). Come back, rinse off with water from my bucket... yep water I hauled on my head...water my little orange tree and baby papaya shoots. Go join my grandma around the fire-in-a-bowl where she heats water for tea- it's still a little chilly in the mornings here and by that i mean maybe 70 C. One child after another stumble out and wriggle in around the fire, poke each other and the fire with sticks. Two kids put on their uniforms and get ready for school (one girl, one boy, both about 8 or 9). The nearest school is 2 k away in Kuntair, where I will teach 2 days a week General Science to 7th graders- more on that later! I eat breakfast with the women, either rice porridge or coos porridge, in a big communal bowl. Coos is what we use as birdseed in the US (called millet) but it's actually really good, is a healthy whole grain with lots of fiber and anti-oxidants- it's the Gambia's main crop, along with peanuts. My mornings are free... I sweep my house, maybe do a little laundry, and usually hear Roxi call my name to come over. I hang out there for a while, they give me "sour milk" which is milk that has sat in a bowl in a cool place for a day or so and has become yogurt. You add sugar and sometimes coos and it is seriously amazing! Fula's are nomadic herders by nature and even the settled ones usually have a few cows. Some of them say they can talk to cows, which could be a useful skill for me to pick up while I'm here.
Sometimes I go visit the men working in their garden's along Jamagen's awesome tributary, or go with Roxi and my sisters to collect downed firewood from the forest around the river... yep I carry it back on my head haha! It's the season for "bush fruits" or forest fruits, and there's about 10 different kinds of yummy figs, plums, edible seed pods, ect... I've been collecting these too for a fruit tree section of my wood lot! My favorite is called Mam Poto it's sooo good- I also named Roxi's family's little puppy that since he likes to eat them too.
Lunch is always rice with "maffe"- a delicious sauce made from their delicious home made p-nut butter, fish, hot pepper and onion. After lunch it's hot... which means it's prime sittin-around-chattin-brewin-attaya-shelling-peanuts-time.
Attaya is worth describing if you don't already know what it is. All Gambians berw attaya. It's green tea imported from China, pre-crushed up, in a little box, at least a few ounces. They all have their attya sets- two small plastic shot glasses, a tea pot and a burner which is small metal cooker that they load up with embers from their cooking fires and set their tea pots on. A whole pack of green tea goes into the pot and is brewed with water. Sugar is added and the attaya is poured skillfully from pot to shot glass to shot glass to pot to mix in the (digusting amount of) sugar and then to cool it a little. Now half or whole shot glasses are poured, the nearest small child takes a tray with attaya shots around to each adult presently sitting around, who slurps it down and gives it back. 3 rounds can be poured from one batch. This is just a Gambian thing, a nice social luxury that they enjoy, tho it is addicting and can get to be an expensive habit. Some men brew three times a day!
So I chat and hang out till about 5. Then I haul water with my sisters and go to the big women's garden with all the ladies. We water everything (my little garden, plus their many beds of cabbage, tomatos, lettuce and onions). I love this time: all women and girls are there, the sun is setting, everyone's chatting, it's fun. They we go go home, all tired, just as the sun is setting. I take another bucket bath and hang out till dinner... ususally coos with a green sauce (maybe made from the stalks of onions, or the leaves of cassava or of the moringa tree). Often there's fried whole fish which I'm starting to like (protein is protein!) Chicken or goat are for special occasions only and I've never seen beef but peanuts and fish are actually plenty- I feel way healthy!
There's a day in Jamagen! Special days are Saturdays when I bike with another close volunteer in the nearest market, and buy eggplant and garlic and onions for our food bowl and eat been sandwiches and drink coolish Fanta sometimes. This is always an interesting time... but because it's a big market, people come from all over so you do hear "toubab" a little.
Toubab is worth explaining if you don't know about it. It's the term used I think all over Africa for white person, modern person, person with money, person not Gambian. Many volunteers HATE is and made a big deal about not being called toubab. My take is that... well, I am white, I do have money (relatively ok?), and I'm not Gambian so sure. It's usually little kids and I usually respond to their bird-call like squawk with an mimic cry "Child!" One time at the lumo a boy trailed me for 5 minutes squawking "Toubab" and I was so annoyed I turned around and began gretting him in Woolof, which embarrassed him a little and hopefully made him feel rude. The main point is that many tourists give out candy ("minties")/money/pens to the kids so they assume I'm a tourist. If I greet them, or say hey "greet me first" then they get it- they just want to talk to you and hold your hand while you walk around. Once, when I was in another bigger village (touristy) for a workshop, some girls were hanging around, saying "toubab how are you what is your name" and I started talking to them in Woolof- they shrieked and giggled and then one grabbed my hand and said something wonderful (in Woolof) "You're not a toubab, you speak Woolof nice!"...I was elated, I just wanted to hug her and give her minties and coins! So I'm a toubab.
So everyone asks what I'm doing, what I'm up to. I'll try to give some of the cool highlights of my days here...
You know I live in Jamagen, a small village of about 17 compounds- which are extended family groups, basically a u-shaped cluster of mud huts with a common area in the middle, space for small cassava and papaya gardens and maybe a few cows. Because The Gambia is the final destination for about 8 different tribes of Africa, my village is a cool mix of Woolof (what I speak), Pulaar or Fulas, Mandinkas, and another tribe similar to Mandinkas (both from Mali) called the Bambaras. There are also some Serers. My compound is Bambara, but they all speak Woolof and a little of everything like most Gambians. The compound consists of 3 brothers, two of them with one wife each and all their many kids, and their mom- my very old and very cool grandma. Madou is the youngest brother, unmarried now, about 25 yrs old, speaks fairly good English and is way cool. There are 11 kids in the compound, ranging from less than a year to about 18 maybe- they don't know their birthdays or how old they are and are confused when I ask (why would I want to know?)! I hang out a lot with the oldest girl (18?), Sabu, and the two second oldest girls, born 4 days apart from the 2 different wives in the compound (about 12 yrs old i think), Seneba and Nagale. I also hang out a lot with Roxi Bah and her family, (25 yrs?) in the Fula compound next to me.
So a typical day...?
Wake up at 7, push back the mosquito net, go for a jog or a seed-collecting walk, for my hopeful woodlot (more on that later). Come back, rinse off with water from my bucket... yep water I hauled on my head...water my little orange tree and baby papaya shoots. Go join my grandma around the fire-in-a-bowl where she heats water for tea- it's still a little chilly in the mornings here and by that i mean maybe 70 C. One child after another stumble out and wriggle in around the fire, poke each other and the fire with sticks. Two kids put on their uniforms and get ready for school (one girl, one boy, both about 8 or 9). The nearest school is 2 k away in Kuntair, where I will teach 2 days a week General Science to 7th graders- more on that later! I eat breakfast with the women, either rice porridge or coos porridge, in a big communal bowl. Coos is what we use as birdseed in the US (called millet) but it's actually really good, is a healthy whole grain with lots of fiber and anti-oxidants- it's the Gambia's main crop, along with peanuts. My mornings are free... I sweep my house, maybe do a little laundry, and usually hear Roxi call my name to come over. I hang out there for a while, they give me "sour milk" which is milk that has sat in a bowl in a cool place for a day or so and has become yogurt. You add sugar and sometimes coos and it is seriously amazing! Fula's are nomadic herders by nature and even the settled ones usually have a few cows. Some of them say they can talk to cows, which could be a useful skill for me to pick up while I'm here.
Sometimes I go visit the men working in their garden's along Jamagen's awesome tributary, or go with Roxi and my sisters to collect downed firewood from the forest around the river... yep I carry it back on my head haha! It's the season for "bush fruits" or forest fruits, and there's about 10 different kinds of yummy figs, plums, edible seed pods, ect... I've been collecting these too for a fruit tree section of my wood lot! My favorite is called Mam Poto it's sooo good- I also named Roxi's family's little puppy that since he likes to eat them too.
Lunch is always rice with "maffe"- a delicious sauce made from their delicious home made p-nut butter, fish, hot pepper and onion. After lunch it's hot... which means it's prime sittin-around-chattin-brewin-attaya-shelling-peanuts-time.
Attaya is worth describing if you don't already know what it is. All Gambians berw attaya. It's green tea imported from China, pre-crushed up, in a little box, at least a few ounces. They all have their attya sets- two small plastic shot glasses, a tea pot and a burner which is small metal cooker that they load up with embers from their cooking fires and set their tea pots on. A whole pack of green tea goes into the pot and is brewed with water. Sugar is added and the attaya is poured skillfully from pot to shot glass to shot glass to pot to mix in the (digusting amount of) sugar and then to cool it a little. Now half or whole shot glasses are poured, the nearest small child takes a tray with attaya shots around to each adult presently sitting around, who slurps it down and gives it back. 3 rounds can be poured from one batch. This is just a Gambian thing, a nice social luxury that they enjoy, tho it is addicting and can get to be an expensive habit. Some men brew three times a day!
So I chat and hang out till about 5. Then I haul water with my sisters and go to the big women's garden with all the ladies. We water everything (my little garden, plus their many beds of cabbage, tomatos, lettuce and onions). I love this time: all women and girls are there, the sun is setting, everyone's chatting, it's fun. They we go go home, all tired, just as the sun is setting. I take another bucket bath and hang out till dinner... ususally coos with a green sauce (maybe made from the stalks of onions, or the leaves of cassava or of the moringa tree). Often there's fried whole fish which I'm starting to like (protein is protein!) Chicken or goat are for special occasions only and I've never seen beef but peanuts and fish are actually plenty- I feel way healthy!
There's a day in Jamagen! Special days are Saturdays when I bike with another close volunteer in the nearest market, and buy eggplant and garlic and onions for our food bowl and eat been sandwiches and drink coolish Fanta sometimes. This is always an interesting time... but because it's a big market, people come from all over so you do hear "toubab" a little.
Toubab is worth explaining if you don't know about it. It's the term used I think all over Africa for white person, modern person, person with money, person not Gambian. Many volunteers HATE is and made a big deal about not being called toubab. My take is that... well, I am white, I do have money (relatively ok?), and I'm not Gambian so sure. It's usually little kids and I usually respond to their bird-call like squawk with an mimic cry "Child!" One time at the lumo a boy trailed me for 5 minutes squawking "Toubab" and I was so annoyed I turned around and began gretting him in Woolof, which embarrassed him a little and hopefully made him feel rude. The main point is that many tourists give out candy ("minties")/money/pens to the kids so they assume I'm a tourist. If I greet them, or say hey "greet me first" then they get it- they just want to talk to you and hold your hand while you walk around. Once, when I was in another bigger village (touristy) for a workshop, some girls were hanging around, saying "toubab how are you what is your name" and I started talking to them in Woolof- they shrieked and giggled and then one grabbed my hand and said something wonderful (in Woolof) "You're not a toubab, you speak Woolof nice!"...I was elated, I just wanted to hug her and give her minties and coins! So I'm a toubab.
Friday, February 23, 2007
You can click on the map below to blow it up. The main red line is the only road in the north half of the country... See Kuntair on the map there, right along the road in the top left part of The Gambia. Jamagen (my village) is just 2 K west of Kuntair. Kerewam is the closest place with electricity.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Hey everyone!
I'm visiting some volunteers in the thriving metropolis of Kerewam, and they just so happen to work with an NGO that just so happens to have generator-powered eletrcity and internet at night! So, I only have a quick minute but I have checked me email and letters are on their way soon soon.
My new site in Jamagen is pretty wonderful. I've been there about a month now, and have experienced Tobaski, the biggest Muslim holiday and Tatti Bon, the Muslim New Years. Both were fun 'cultural experiences,' though even my protien-starved appetite couldn't hang with the Tobaski food bowl. They kill a ram, as per tradition, and eat every little part... my food bowl looked like an 8th grade text book picture of the inside of a cell... over here, the golgi apparatus (piece of ram stomach) oh! and over there the endoplasmic reticulum (intestine). But the beautiful 'kompliets'- matching skirt and shirts- the awesome booty shaking from the women and girls, the kids dressing up in their best- SHOES (gasp!) and hats for the occasion, was all a very cool few days. One very cool kid in my village doned his black leather platform boots (think euro-tech dance club style) for both the holidays.
My days are filled with trips to the women's garden, to water my own little plots and help the other women water theirs. That is always the highlight of my day, seeing all the green stuff growing, and all women of all ages are there chatting and drawing water while the sun sets behind the roon palms... yes it is nice!
The rest of my day is down time, which I fill with a lot of visiting compounds, chatting, and shelling p-nuts. I'm working hard on my Woolof, and have a tutor now- the alcalo's son who is very patient but the language barrier complicates things so much! I think it's safe to say that language does not come easyily to me but I am trying and I do love Woolof- I tell them that their language is 'pretty' and they laugh at me! Also, my compund, like maybe half the compunds in the village actually speak Bambara (a Mandinka dialect, from Mali). To me, they speak Woolof, but to each other, when we're sittin around shelling p-nuts and what not, they speak Bambara. That makes things a little harder since I love hanging out with them, but I'm in the process of getting a Mandinka study book and will learn it too... ndanka ndanka (slowly slowly) they tell me.
I give myself plenty of alone time at night, when I read and write letters, and occasionaly listen spare some precious battery and listen to music. Biking, though, is the best personal time thing! I've gone to visit several of my neighboring PCV's and it's so great to see the landscape like that. It is deforested, but it really is beautiful and just refreshing to see some new sights, to pass through new villages and spend a few hours with another (native) English speaker! Ahh...
Today I rode to Kerewam, to meet up with the 3 other PCV's here and use the computer. I typed a letter that will go out to schools inviting them to participate in the All-School Tree Nursery COmpetition- something I'm stoked about. Schools grow trees and then out-plant them in their community with the rainy season. They compete to gorow the most and the widest variety for garden tools and other cool things, which is a big deal for them. Every lower basic school has a beautiful garden, growing vegetable to sell and to have cooked in their lunches- they're all great gardeners and the teachers are strict about watering the garden. So it's a simple step for them to start a tree nursery there and to keep that watered as well. It's a cool project.
I have also pretty much decided that I'm going to try teaching in Kuntaya, the nearest school 2k away. They desperately need teachers, and I'm very curious about the Gambian education system. Education, done right, directly correlates with development and is such a direct way to influence kids. Though I absolutely don't want to just teach English and watch kids go off to Kombo (the city area) to find work and live a western-style life there, I think it's possible to teach students to value their culture and also to value knowledge and to be curious. I have seen how separate village life and school life are- there is no parent participation what-so-ever and almost a resentment between teachers and villagers. Teachers have lived in Kombo and see village life as a step down. They call them country people, or fana fana. At the same time, isolated parents downplay the importance of school and see it as a luxury. Even though school is free for all girls in The Gambia, most don't go- they are needed at home or just aren't encouraged. So we'll see, with my horrible Woolof and their horrible English...! I'm not sure, but the rumor is they need an 'arts and crafts' teacher- fun!! They're so creative here- I've seen awesome drums made out of empty tomato paste cans, plastic bags and wire as well as flutes made out of papaya stalks.
So all is well! Hope all is well is the big U.S. and that spring is coming soon for ya!
love,
Steph/ Yassin
I'm visiting some volunteers in the thriving metropolis of Kerewam, and they just so happen to work with an NGO that just so happens to have generator-powered eletrcity and internet at night! So, I only have a quick minute but I have checked me email and letters are on their way soon soon.
My new site in Jamagen is pretty wonderful. I've been there about a month now, and have experienced Tobaski, the biggest Muslim holiday and Tatti Bon, the Muslim New Years. Both were fun 'cultural experiences,' though even my protien-starved appetite couldn't hang with the Tobaski food bowl. They kill a ram, as per tradition, and eat every little part... my food bowl looked like an 8th grade text book picture of the inside of a cell... over here, the golgi apparatus (piece of ram stomach) oh! and over there the endoplasmic reticulum (intestine). But the beautiful 'kompliets'- matching skirt and shirts- the awesome booty shaking from the women and girls, the kids dressing up in their best- SHOES (gasp!) and hats for the occasion, was all a very cool few days. One very cool kid in my village doned his black leather platform boots (think euro-tech dance club style) for both the holidays.
My days are filled with trips to the women's garden, to water my own little plots and help the other women water theirs. That is always the highlight of my day, seeing all the green stuff growing, and all women of all ages are there chatting and drawing water while the sun sets behind the roon palms... yes it is nice!
The rest of my day is down time, which I fill with a lot of visiting compounds, chatting, and shelling p-nuts. I'm working hard on my Woolof, and have a tutor now- the alcalo's son who is very patient but the language barrier complicates things so much! I think it's safe to say that language does not come easyily to me but I am trying and I do love Woolof- I tell them that their language is 'pretty' and they laugh at me! Also, my compund, like maybe half the compunds in the village actually speak Bambara (a Mandinka dialect, from Mali). To me, they speak Woolof, but to each other, when we're sittin around shelling p-nuts and what not, they speak Bambara. That makes things a little harder since I love hanging out with them, but I'm in the process of getting a Mandinka study book and will learn it too... ndanka ndanka (slowly slowly) they tell me.
I give myself plenty of alone time at night, when I read and write letters, and occasionaly listen spare some precious battery and listen to music. Biking, though, is the best personal time thing! I've gone to visit several of my neighboring PCV's and it's so great to see the landscape like that. It is deforested, but it really is beautiful and just refreshing to see some new sights, to pass through new villages and spend a few hours with another (native) English speaker! Ahh...
Today I rode to Kerewam, to meet up with the 3 other PCV's here and use the computer. I typed a letter that will go out to schools inviting them to participate in the All-School Tree Nursery COmpetition- something I'm stoked about. Schools grow trees and then out-plant them in their community with the rainy season. They compete to gorow the most and the widest variety for garden tools and other cool things, which is a big deal for them. Every lower basic school has a beautiful garden, growing vegetable to sell and to have cooked in their lunches- they're all great gardeners and the teachers are strict about watering the garden. So it's a simple step for them to start a tree nursery there and to keep that watered as well. It's a cool project.
I have also pretty much decided that I'm going to try teaching in Kuntaya, the nearest school 2k away. They desperately need teachers, and I'm very curious about the Gambian education system. Education, done right, directly correlates with development and is such a direct way to influence kids. Though I absolutely don't want to just teach English and watch kids go off to Kombo (the city area) to find work and live a western-style life there, I think it's possible to teach students to value their culture and also to value knowledge and to be curious. I have seen how separate village life and school life are- there is no parent participation what-so-ever and almost a resentment between teachers and villagers. Teachers have lived in Kombo and see village life as a step down. They call them country people, or fana fana. At the same time, isolated parents downplay the importance of school and see it as a luxury. Even though school is free for all girls in The Gambia, most don't go- they are needed at home or just aren't encouraged. So we'll see, with my horrible Woolof and their horrible English...! I'm not sure, but the rumor is they need an 'arts and crafts' teacher- fun!! They're so creative here- I've seen awesome drums made out of empty tomato paste cans, plastic bags and wire as well as flutes made out of papaya stalks.
So all is well! Hope all is well is the big U.S. and that spring is coming soon for ya!
love,
Steph/ Yassin
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
So I'm back in the Kombo area after only 4 days in village! There was a small problem in Ker Katim... the bidiks (small stores) were robbed by several men with guns. It's kind of a long story, not entirely pleasant...
It's wierd because The Gambia has no money! Ker Katim has no money itself but the bidiks there sell a lot of sugar to Senegal because they're right on the border, and sugar is cheaper in The Gazmbia (especailly if you sell it at night when customs is closed and you don't pay the sugar tax.) They use CEFA, a currency that's used all over parts of west Africa, and there was a lot of money concentrated there in little Ker Katim. I heard on the Gambian radio that 7 million CEFA was stolen. Several men were shot at, two were critically wounded but I think will be OK. When I heard gunshots, I left and went to a near-by village and stayed the night there.
This kind of thing never happens in sweet little Gambia! Gambians are so peaceful... if they were any more laid back, the recliner would tip over. If they had any more of their "peace only" they'd all be experiencing Nirvana... So it's sad that it happened, but I'm excited about getting to my new post, called "Jamagen" which I think, at least in Woolof, means "Peace" (jamma) and "more or most" (gena). So my new site is the most peaceiest place in all of Gambia...
Well happy hollidays to everyone! I'm getting PC transport tomorrow to take me to make the move, then I can sigh and start again. I'll being going even further up country to visit a group of friends for Christmas... can't wait! Take care!
It's wierd because The Gambia has no money! Ker Katim has no money itself but the bidiks there sell a lot of sugar to Senegal because they're right on the border, and sugar is cheaper in The Gazmbia (especailly if you sell it at night when customs is closed and you don't pay the sugar tax.) They use CEFA, a currency that's used all over parts of west Africa, and there was a lot of money concentrated there in little Ker Katim. I heard on the Gambian radio that 7 million CEFA was stolen. Several men were shot at, two were critically wounded but I think will be OK. When I heard gunshots, I left and went to a near-by village and stayed the night there.
This kind of thing never happens in sweet little Gambia! Gambians are so peaceful... if they were any more laid back, the recliner would tip over. If they had any more of their "peace only" they'd all be experiencing Nirvana... So it's sad that it happened, but I'm excited about getting to my new post, called "Jamagen" which I think, at least in Woolof, means "Peace" (jamma) and "more or most" (gena). So my new site is the most peaceiest place in all of Gambia...
Well happy hollidays to everyone! I'm getting PC transport tomorrow to take me to make the move, then I can sigh and start again. I'll being going even further up country to visit a group of friends for Christmas... can't wait! Take care!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
It is the eve of our swearing-in... the eve of our baptism in the murky croc-infested waters of PCV-dom! We will be born again as fully prepapred, totally trained and highly skilled PCVs... or something close-ish. We're all feeling pretty nervous about shipping out to our respective villages- partly nervous-excited, partly peeing our pants scared nervous (perhaps I should just speak for myself on that one). But we're ready for sure- this week has been tiring.
Our week has consisted of breakfast at 8, a few last mintue training sessions and LOTS of shopping. We've been browsing the little grocery and electronic marts on the few kilometer walk to the beach, trying to get stuff to cook with and to outfit our houses with. Our shopping lists include cell phones, shortwave radios to get our precious BBC, paint for our white washed plaster walls in our mud hutts, stoves to cook with and fruit trees to plant in our yards, seeds for out gardens, all manner of solar things, mattresses/pillows, ect.
The markets are amazing to me... you walk down the streets and everyone has their little cubby hole, selling whatever it is that they sell... fabrics, veggies, cell phone, cola nuts, brooms, fish... then you make a turn into the maze of alleys just jam packed with smiling Gambian sales people. Gambians are just so cool too, so laid back and they love to chat so it's a good place to practice language. I can't help looking around and just loving it all... humanity is sweet. But it's been a bit exhausting trying to anticipate everything we'll need for the next long while. We can shop at local markets in our villages, but of course they won't have much beyond the basics so we're stockin up.
What's NOT exhausting is the beach... there are four or five of us who make the walk about every day. The beach is really nice, the water is beautiful and the waves are really big... perfect for trying to body surf. That amounts to me jumping into an oncoming wave, getting pummeled like a sock in a dryer, giggling and swallowing a pint of delicious sea water... standing up, coughing, sputtering and repeating.
So... I'm trying slowly to upload picutres to Photobucket. I will also link my freind Karissa's pictures to my blog. She's a great photog. and should have some interesting pics.
Well guys this might be it for a little while! I will be off on Sunday to Ker Katim, where I'll spend my first three months trying to find my niche in my family and my village. A little about my project ideas:
In the North Bank, deforestation is devastating. My host dad, the progressive Woolof that he is would like to start a tree nursery so that he can sell trees for firewood and for building things- so I'll be trying to figure out how to start that. The other thing I know I'll be working on is writing a grant to get a water pump or a water catchment system in Ker Katim... they have two small wells, both open with no pump and both 30m deep! So water is hard to come-by, meaning it's hard to garden and to grow fruit trees, ect. Also, I'm hoping to work with another girl in a neighboring "big" village on the All School Tree Nursery Competition... it's all about the reforestation, and I am a big ol tree hugger. Can't wait! I will report back after our a few weeks in village, with some details of my project idas.
Write me, email me if ya want, send me news from the sates! Send me chocolate, send me CD's, send me pretty pictures of your smiling faces for my walls. I love you all, smooches.
oh, and crossword puzzels.
Our week has consisted of breakfast at 8, a few last mintue training sessions and LOTS of shopping. We've been browsing the little grocery and electronic marts on the few kilometer walk to the beach, trying to get stuff to cook with and to outfit our houses with. Our shopping lists include cell phones, shortwave radios to get our precious BBC, paint for our white washed plaster walls in our mud hutts, stoves to cook with and fruit trees to plant in our yards, seeds for out gardens, all manner of solar things, mattresses/pillows, ect.
The markets are amazing to me... you walk down the streets and everyone has their little cubby hole, selling whatever it is that they sell... fabrics, veggies, cell phone, cola nuts, brooms, fish... then you make a turn into the maze of alleys just jam packed with smiling Gambian sales people. Gambians are just so cool too, so laid back and they love to chat so it's a good place to practice language. I can't help looking around and just loving it all... humanity is sweet. But it's been a bit exhausting trying to anticipate everything we'll need for the next long while. We can shop at local markets in our villages, but of course they won't have much beyond the basics so we're stockin up.
What's NOT exhausting is the beach... there are four or five of us who make the walk about every day. The beach is really nice, the water is beautiful and the waves are really big... perfect for trying to body surf. That amounts to me jumping into an oncoming wave, getting pummeled like a sock in a dryer, giggling and swallowing a pint of delicious sea water... standing up, coughing, sputtering and repeating.
So... I'm trying slowly to upload picutres to Photobucket. I will also link my freind Karissa's pictures to my blog. She's a great photog. and should have some interesting pics.
Well guys this might be it for a little while! I will be off on Sunday to Ker Katim, where I'll spend my first three months trying to find my niche in my family and my village. A little about my project ideas:
In the North Bank, deforestation is devastating. My host dad, the progressive Woolof that he is would like to start a tree nursery so that he can sell trees for firewood and for building things- so I'll be trying to figure out how to start that. The other thing I know I'll be working on is writing a grant to get a water pump or a water catchment system in Ker Katim... they have two small wells, both open with no pump and both 30m deep! So water is hard to come-by, meaning it's hard to garden and to grow fruit trees, ect. Also, I'm hoping to work with another girl in a neighboring "big" village on the All School Tree Nursery Competition... it's all about the reforestation, and I am a big ol tree hugger. Can't wait! I will report back after our a few weeks in village, with some details of my project idas.
Write me, email me if ya want, send me news from the sates! Send me chocolate, send me CD's, send me pretty pictures of your smiling faces for my walls. I love you all, smooches.
oh, and crossword puzzels.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
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
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
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.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Whoa...
So, we flew into Banjul last week... we're staying at this little place run by a Catholic mission, with dorms and a cafeteria and a huge mango tree that everyone sits under to have "sessions".. There are 25 of us, 13 guys, 12 girls... all very very cool, like surprisingly cool. It's been good fun getting to know each other... there is Gambian whisky, cards, and Ipods with speakers involved.
We have 2 older volunteers here with us, Kelley and Kelley actually one boy one girl, their rad and very helpful answering all our questions. Our days go like this:
Wake up, breakfast at 8- that's corn flakes or outmeal with pineapple jelly and Nescafe.
Chill.
Language Session- my language is woolof. there are only four of us learning woolf, all the rest are mandinka or fula.
Tea break- spam or fish sandwiches, "digestive cookies" yum.
Chill.
Language session, or immunizations, or cultural sessions led by one of 8 of our rad Gambian teachers. they are so funny, beautiful and cool people.
Lunch- some meat, rice or coos, some veggies.
More sessions.
Dinner.
Hanging out with the crew.
Take a cold shower so that you sleep... not that there's hot water!
Yesterday we got to go to the beach, which was exactly like Atlantic coasts beaches except there were Gambians everywhere... "bumsters" are young Gambian men who run around excercising in front of you and offering to be your guide/ escort. We had Julbrew, the local beer, collected shells, played some ultimate frisbee.
Today we went to the market, which is HUGE, like a million times bigger than the Guatemalan market, approx. It was just the coolest experience, just craziness... I busted out my few Woolof phrases and bought some cola nuts, which are just these wierd things that are very important in the culture. Next week, I'll go with my other PCV's who are speaking Wolof out to a tiny training village called in the south, with our wollof techer, haddi sou. After a week there, we spend a week with the rest of the crew at ten da ba...
Anyway, I won't have much time on the internet for awhile, so sorry about the crap quality of this post, but i just wanted to give a little info to everyone.
It's really hot and humid, but there are beautiful tropical plants everywhere as a tradeoff. The culture here is so neat, crazily different. I will be writing and sending letters soon... I'm having a great time needless to say, I'm just thrilled and totally excited. I really miss everyone, esp. my sis, my mom, bro and my cat. I love eveyrone and will be in touch!!
So, we flew into Banjul last week... we're staying at this little place run by a Catholic mission, with dorms and a cafeteria and a huge mango tree that everyone sits under to have "sessions".. There are 25 of us, 13 guys, 12 girls... all very very cool, like surprisingly cool. It's been good fun getting to know each other... there is Gambian whisky, cards, and Ipods with speakers involved.
We have 2 older volunteers here with us, Kelley and Kelley actually one boy one girl, their rad and very helpful answering all our questions. Our days go like this:
Wake up, breakfast at 8- that's corn flakes or outmeal with pineapple jelly and Nescafe.
Chill.
Language Session- my language is woolof. there are only four of us learning woolf, all the rest are mandinka or fula.
Tea break- spam or fish sandwiches, "digestive cookies" yum.
Chill.
Language session, or immunizations, or cultural sessions led by one of 8 of our rad Gambian teachers. they are so funny, beautiful and cool people.
Lunch- some meat, rice or coos, some veggies.
More sessions.
Dinner.
Hanging out with the crew.
Take a cold shower so that you sleep... not that there's hot water!
Yesterday we got to go to the beach, which was exactly like Atlantic coasts beaches except there were Gambians everywhere... "bumsters" are young Gambian men who run around excercising in front of you and offering to be your guide/ escort. We had Julbrew, the local beer, collected shells, played some ultimate frisbee.
Today we went to the market, which is HUGE, like a million times bigger than the Guatemalan market, approx. It was just the coolest experience, just craziness... I busted out my few Woolof phrases and bought some cola nuts, which are just these wierd things that are very important in the culture. Next week, I'll go with my other PCV's who are speaking Wolof out to a tiny training village called in the south, with our wollof techer, haddi sou. After a week there, we spend a week with the rest of the crew at ten da ba...
Anyway, I won't have much time on the internet for awhile, so sorry about the crap quality of this post, but i just wanted to give a little info to everyone.
It's really hot and humid, but there are beautiful tropical plants everywhere as a tradeoff. The culture here is so neat, crazily different. I will be writing and sending letters soon... I'm having a great time needless to say, I'm just thrilled and totally excited. I really miss everyone, esp. my sis, my mom, bro and my cat. I love eveyrone and will be in touch!!
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Bend is good times
Bend was buzzing... or maybe it was just me. It was like everyone graduated and is back and not ashamed to live on their parent's couch and go out every night. The entire MV graduating class of '01 is chillin in Bend! Unexpected, but I love it. If I tried to relay my many elating experiences of the week, it would just be lame so INSTEAD... a top ten list! See Davey m'friend I told you they'd come in handy!
Top Ten Best Things About My Week In My Old Stomping Grounds of Bend, Or:
1. Oregon hikes (manzanita, spruce, pine, and river) smell like a vat of honey with an entire spicerack dumped in, heated and stirred.
2. Jason's delicious delicacies; also his wit, charm and good choice of girlfriend.
3. There is still no super-wal-mart; I love the way Bend has grown.
4. I score a pair of autographed old man shorts and find a crazy boy to yearn for from abroad.
5. Hillary, Al and I... that's it really.
6. Hill and Al trying to surf the Deschutes.
7. Seeing every constellation possible, at once, from a trampoline. The dots connect themselves, I swear. (;
8. Gettin inked up- as Al tells the guy we're virgins.
9. I randomly get to see Kevin and Brian again! Brian's ski-theme bathroom and hot tub are better than I remember.
10. Allison and Hil are my soul mates fo-eva!
Bend was buzzing... or maybe it was just me. It was like everyone graduated and is back and not ashamed to live on their parent's couch and go out every night. The entire MV graduating class of '01 is chillin in Bend! Unexpected, but I love it. If I tried to relay my many elating experiences of the week, it would just be lame so INSTEAD... a top ten list! See Davey m'friend I told you they'd come in handy!
Top Ten Best Things About My Week In My Old Stomping Grounds of Bend, Or:
1. Oregon hikes (manzanita, spruce, pine, and river) smell like a vat of honey with an entire spicerack dumped in, heated and stirred.
2. Jason's delicious delicacies; also his wit, charm and good choice of girlfriend.
3. There is still no super-wal-mart; I love the way Bend has grown.
4. I score a pair of autographed old man shorts and find a crazy boy to yearn for from abroad.
5. Hillary, Al and I... that's it really.
6. Hill and Al trying to surf the Deschutes.
7. Seeing every constellation possible, at once, from a trampoline. The dots connect themselves, I swear. (;
8. Gettin inked up- as Al tells the guy we're virgins.
9. I randomly get to see Kevin and Brian again! Brian's ski-theme bathroom and hot tub are better than I remember.
10. Allison and Hil are my soul mates fo-eva!
This is poem-ish... spoken word folk music I think! I wrote this in Guatemala, it's kinda awful, kinda halrious...just wanted to tell about this awesome drunk guy in my bar one night and his good advice...
He looked at me with bleary eyes and said he had just one piece of advice...
You've got to EAT the world, Stephanie
and I said I try and he said no...
You've got to EAT the world,
and I said alright...
He leaned forward and I could smell the gin, but I could tell he was serious and he said it again
You've got to eat the world!
Where I had been wary before, I now saw something more...
he was a soul-searcher, a traveler, his accents a mess,
he worshipped his moments, treated life like a quest
I quit smiling at him and looked in his eyes, then I smiled with him and then ate his advice
Take it and cook it however you like
Change is a must cuz we all love the spice
Some things gotta sit, til their time is ripe
Then we tear into life with big juicy bites
He looked at me with bleary eyes and said he had just one piece of advice...
You've got to EAT the world, Stephanie
and I said I try and he said no...
You've got to EAT the world,
and I said alright...
He leaned forward and I could smell the gin, but I could tell he was serious and he said it again
You've got to eat the world!
Where I had been wary before, I now saw something more...
he was a soul-searcher, a traveler, his accents a mess,
he worshipped his moments, treated life like a quest
I quit smiling at him and looked in his eyes, then I smiled with him and then ate his advice
Take it and cook it however you like
Change is a must cuz we all love the spice
Some things gotta sit, til their time is ripe
Then we tear into life with big juicy bites
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Since the Gambia is tiny, the tiniest country in Africa, and people always ask me where it is... so there it is!
In the left picture, there is an orange arrow pointing to the Gambia. In the middle picture, the beige worm-shaped area is the Gambia- it's just the 15 km above and the 15 km below the gambian river. In the right picture, the gambia has an orange square around it. It's entirely enveloped by Senegal, cept for the little part that's coastline. Where I will have my vacation house, my second mud hut. Right on.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sweet! Got my staging kit!
I finally did get my staging kit... they said it would come 30 days before we were supposed to leave for ze gambia, and I think they made me wait 31. Not very nice to do to over-excited girls like me... But it didn't really say much, except that, yes, we are going to the Gambia and I will get to be a PC volunteer, and yes I'll being doing something involving the ever-elusive "environment"...ah the vagueness! The staging event is like a conference, in Philly, just giving us the run-down of PC rules and what-not. I'll be meeting the whole crew of gambian PCVs, and, I have to get shots, God help me, probably lots of them.
So I'm packing... trying not to defeat the purpose of living simply by buying too much stuff..
Things I Have Bought:
-Camera- a Vupoint, can play movies, record voice and video and play music. Lo me gusta mucho.
-Hydration Pack- which I already love like my firstborn
-KEENS- you know, the shoes- which yes, are an ugly overpriced outdoorsy-people fad, but are really doing the trick and i'm starting to love them too
-Bug spray- DEET-free, expensive stuff developed in Florida so I believe them
-some clothes, books, art stuff
I know I'll be speaking one of 5 tribal languages, which I'm gonna have to be fairly fluent in after 10 weeks in the Gambia so that I can be sworn in. During that training time, we'll living in a rural area with a host family, near-ish I guess to where we will eventually be placed. From the blogs I've read it seems like "they" decide where you're gonna go and therefore what language you'll be speaking within like 2 days of getting there. It's cool, who doesn't like surprises? Like, Hey! Here's your life for the next two years!! Why does our government expect us to just trust them so often?
They gave me a CD, that has online materials on like how to keep bees, how to dig a well, how to build a building, how to grow rice, ect. Ya know, stuff you always wanted to know. Funny, but I can't wait to learn.
So yay-ah, if anyone has any advice or good stuff like that, totally tell me. I'm SO excited yall!
I finally did get my staging kit... they said it would come 30 days before we were supposed to leave for ze gambia, and I think they made me wait 31. Not very nice to do to over-excited girls like me... But it didn't really say much, except that, yes, we are going to the Gambia and I will get to be a PC volunteer, and yes I'll being doing something involving the ever-elusive "environment"...ah the vagueness! The staging event is like a conference, in Philly, just giving us the run-down of PC rules and what-not. I'll be meeting the whole crew of gambian PCVs, and, I have to get shots, God help me, probably lots of them.
So I'm packing... trying not to defeat the purpose of living simply by buying too much stuff..
Things I Have Bought:
-Camera- a Vupoint, can play movies, record voice and video and play music. Lo me gusta mucho.
-Hydration Pack- which I already love like my firstborn
-KEENS- you know, the shoes- which yes, are an ugly overpriced outdoorsy-people fad, but are really doing the trick and i'm starting to love them too
-Bug spray- DEET-free, expensive stuff developed in Florida so I believe them
-some clothes, books, art stuff
I know I'll be speaking one of 5 tribal languages, which I'm gonna have to be fairly fluent in after 10 weeks in the Gambia so that I can be sworn in. During that training time, we'll living in a rural area with a host family, near-ish I guess to where we will eventually be placed. From the blogs I've read it seems like "they" decide where you're gonna go and therefore what language you'll be speaking within like 2 days of getting there. It's cool, who doesn't like surprises? Like, Hey! Here's your life for the next two years!! Why does our government expect us to just trust them so often?
They gave me a CD, that has online materials on like how to keep bees, how to dig a well, how to build a building, how to grow rice, ect. Ya know, stuff you always wanted to know. Funny, but I can't wait to learn.
So yay-ah, if anyone has any advice or good stuff like that, totally tell me. I'm SO excited yall!
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