"The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it"

Cross-Cultural Miscommunication

2008-07-19T19:15:37Z

Alas, this is going to be my last venture onto the glorious world of internet for a while. I'm leaving at 6am sharp tomorrow and heading back up-country, with the lofty goal of not returning to Kombo til Thanksgiving. If Basse never gets internet back (it's been out since I returned from the US) however, that could be difficult. We'll see. But for now, remember that the four months between now and Thanksgiving is enough time for you to write me, me to reply, you to reply again, and me to reply a second time! See, way faster than trying to reach me by email.
In the meantime (as usual) my mom will be checking my email and comments on this blog, so if there is something more time-sensitive (like, say, you've suddenly planned a trip to Gambia!), you can still email me and she'll pass it on during our next phone call. To avoid going months without updates, I'll start sending more frequent letters home and ask my parents to post excerpts here. Thanks for keeping up with me!

Some of you may have noticed that I've talked a lot about the mural on my house without a whole lot of focus on what the mural actually says. Well, um, there's sorta a reason for that...
Here's what the mural says:
Woman 1 (Caucasian woman who looks suspiciously like me): I have a name. That name is not "Toubab."
Woman 2 (Gambian woman): Some countries have respect for the Gambian goverment...
Man 1 (Gambian man), continuing from woman 2's comment: ...what year does Gambia respect tradition.
Man 2 (Asian man): Don't call me "Chinese." Call me "friend."
In case you were wondering, that's NOT what woman 2 and man 1 are SUPPOSED to be saying. The problem is that my mural is in both English and Mandinka. Now, obviously, the English is correct, but I had my tutor (Liza's host dad) do some of the translations into Mandinka (woman 1 and man 2 weren't hard, but I needed help with the Gambian man and woman). Apparently, he didn't do such a great job, because the other day I asked a volunteer with legendary Mandinka skills to tell me what my wall says, after hearing some boys mumbling about how messed up my mural was. Apparently, it's the gibberish mess mentioned above. Woman 1 and man 2 are correct, encouraging people to stop using racial terms like toubab and "Chinese" (the word they yell at all Asians), but woman 2 and man 1 are basically beyond help. (They were supposed to be saying that other countries will respect the Gambia when the Gambia respects other cultures.)
Sigh. And we haven't even gotten to the title yet.
The title, which in English is "Respect...The Key to A Developed Gambia," (people use "the key to a developed Gambia" as a catchphrase to promote anything they want) got mistranslated in Mandinka to "Respect...Make the Key Become Developed Gambian Government."
In summary, I need to have Lindsey back up to site to fix it (I don't have the art skills to paint the words in the artsy style she did). Problem is that Lindsey ET'd last week and is now in America and not likely to hop back over here just to fix my mural. So I guess I'll be fixing it myself, maybe with a giant sharpie? (Said tongue-in-cheek in the hopes that I will find an artsy volunteer in the URR who can do the letters... we'll see.)

Leprosy? No, my entire body's just covered in mosquito bites.

2008-07-19T09:11:58Z

Pictures are also posted here in a Facebook album.
News on my host family:

While I was in the US, my host family finished building their new row house behind my back yard. Of course, "finished" doesn't include a roof or floor, but I guess that's for next year. It's a tall enough building that it shades my yard in the morning, which is a nice improvement, which almost makes up for the fact that while they were building it, workmen could see into my yard all day (had to yell occasionally to get them to stop staring).

When I returned from the US and got back to site, I discovered that my one-year-old toma (namesake) had learned to walk! She'd also forgotten who I was and was terrified by my white skin. Over the past two months, we've gotten reacquainted and I can now play peek-a-boo with her and tickle her, so long as I don't get too close and I immediately step back after tickling her.

Bemba, my youngest host brother, is about 20 months old now, but hasn't been in a big hurry to learn to talk. He's just gotten by with grunting and pointing, and it's clearly not a hearing or developmental issue, rather it's as though he's just never bothered because everyone runs and fetches for him as the youngest boy. Finally, in the past couple weeks, he's decided to get around to talking! So far, he can only say a handful of words like, "ko" (an abbreviated form of "what did you say?"), "naa" (can mean "mom" or "come," depending on pronunciation), annnnnnnnnnnnnd.... my name! My (Gambian) name is the only one I've heard him say clearly, and he loves to say it! (This is a huge development considering that for my first 10 months at site he was terrified of me.) It's so cute because it always comes out "Jua" instead of "Jula." He calls out to me constantly, whether I'm inside or not, but it's so unbelievably cute that I can't resist it and pretty much come running whenever he calls. I commented to my little host sisters at one point, "Bemba knows my name!" They said, "yeah, and he knows your toma's name too!" (I had to laugh because a toma, by definition, has the same name.) Sometimes I hear other members of my host family sitting with Bemba and saying their name over and over in attempt to get Bemba to repeat it... Haven't yet heard them succeed, and occasionally as they're doing it Bemba will blurt out "Jua!"
Here's Bemba taking a spin on his dad's motorcycle:

The sad event in my family has been Safi moving to a village that's over 2 hours away by bike. Safi is 3 and my favorite host sister, but my compound is not big enough to fit all of us, so various host siblings get shipped off to other villages occasionally to make room. Safi will be back after the rainy season is over, but I miss her craziness!
Here's a shot of the kids coloring in my house. Mama is in blue in back; in front (left to right) are Sally Mata, Bemba, Jarai, and Aja; in back left is Ajandi with my toma on her lap but hidden behind Aja. You'll note there's no Safi in this pic. :(

More!

2008-07-18T11:32:28Z

Lindsey working on the mural

My ducks, with the first egg (back left) of 7 that the female laid before promptly dying. :(

Minty looking miserable after a bath. I have to tie him up to keep him from rolling in the dirt after a bath, but the leash is a lot longer than it looks -- he just pulls out to the end of the leash to look tortured.

Baby mouse that was so cute I almost didn't kill it.

Pics!

2008-07-18T10:58:12Z

Sunrise near my pump in village

Bemba, Ajandi and my toma, Jula

The multicultural/respecting others mural on my house, courtesy of Lindsey, another PCV

This is how I sleep now. It's too hot to sleep indoors, but the rainy/mosquito season has started, so I have the net attached to strips of fabric with velcro. If it starts raining while I'm out there, I yank the net off the velcro, grab my stuff, fold up my cot, and rush everything inside. Sort of an adrenaline rush, really.

Ellie and I at Chris' farewell/birthday dinner at Paradiso's last night

Rachel and the guest of honor. We'll miss ya, Chris!

I want more cheesecake

2008-07-18T10:52:56Z

Happy Birthday Jules!!! It is a sad statement that in the 11 years we've been best friends, we've been in different countries for your birthday at least 6 of those years. But remember the luau? Hope you do something crazy today!

And in other news,
Food Crisis Update:
While I was home, I was pretty surprised at how little attention the global food crisis is getting there. I guess that's because most Americans are just looking at an increase in prices, not a question of whether or not they'll even be able to afford food anymore. So this might be old news for some of you, but in case you weren't aware, here's a general summary of the issue:
Gas prices around the world are changing, which makes transporting food, powering tractors, even producing fertilizer more expensive. Plus, with certain Americans pushing their mathematically impossible notion of corn ethanol (which actually releases more carbon to be produced than it saves in lieu of gasoline, and even if the entire US were covered in corn, it wouldn't be enough to meet America's energy needs--the only reason it continues to be on the table is the power of corn lobbyists and the breadbasket states' primaries), the price of corn has shot up. (Plus the Amazon's getting razed faster than ever to make room for new cornfields. Don't let anyone tell you corn ethanol is eco-friendly!) As the price of corn shot up, farmers around the world have switched away from other crops like wheat to grow corn, because they could get more money for it. This has led to a rise in other grain prices, as they've become less available with everyone switching to corn. Third, countries like China and India now have growing middle classes who are able to afford things like meat for the first time. Each kg of meat a person eats required 8 kg of grains to feed that animal. So as more people in the world are eating meat, that's multiplying exponentially the amount of grain feed needed in the world.
The effect this has is different in different countries, depending on whether they are a producer or purchaser:
- Several countries which produce a lot of grain have barred grain exports to avoid a shortage. However, this is crippling farmers who cannot get export prices for their grains anymore. In addition, this hoarding makes it even harder for the rest of the world to get enough food.
- Countries which don't produce enough food to meet their needs and have to import it are in a bind, because they are absorbing most of the cost of the crisis. In the case of rich countries like America, most people have enough disposable income to be able to continue buying food by just cutting back on non-essentials. Stocks like Walmart are soaring while more expensive places like Whole Foods are losing money as people switch to cheaper food.
- Then there is a third group of countries, poor farming countries which could actually benefit from the food crisis if they handle it well. Gambia is one of these. Jammeh (the president) is actually in the minority of third world leaders who are telling people to "get back to the land" and start farming, rather than trying to blame people. Most Gambians are subsistence farmers with small cash crops on the side, though they still often buy rice as a status thing rather than get by on local cous (a pounded grain they eat here as a staple, not the coos coos we think of). While the price of rice has tripled elsewhere, it only doubled here and has been kept at a low price by subsidies, but those subsidies end in September. (This because Gambia and Senegal are so close that Senegalese people will cross over to Gambia to buy rice on the cheap, then sneak it back across the border, which is exactly what Gambians did when Senegal subsidized its rice.) If Gambians will farm rice and cous, then eat the cous and sell the more valuable rice, they stand to make quite a profit, which they can then use to buy things like vegetables and improve their diet. That's why Peace Corps is getting involved, both by encouraging Nerica rice and by doing things like demonstration gardens and using the extra space at the Peace Corps office and transit houses to grow food. This is actually a way more interesting project to me than the health related stuff I was originally supposed to be doing. :)

The unanswerable question

2008-07-17T19:54:33Z

Since I’ve sort of dropped off the face of the earth blog-wise the past two months, here’s a quick catch-up:

- PROJECTS: I know, I know, y’all never really understand what exactly it is I DO here. That’s okay, Gambians think PCVs are all CIA because they rarely understand our work either. (“These people live in our villages, actually speak our languages, don’t have a normal 9-5 job, and aren’t here to pass out cash like most white people do here? They MUST be spies!”) The difficulty is that we’re expressly NOT here to take away jobs. So we’re not supposed to do anything that Gambians could already be doing, rather we’re supposed to create work and help people improve what they’re already doing. It makes for not a whole lot of structure and a whole lot of piecework projects. That’s why when people have asked (especially while I was home), “so, what IS your job there,” I usually smile awkwardly and then hem and haw for a minute looking for the right way to phrase it. So it is exciting when I have real, definable work news!
With the food crisis about to hit Gambia full force (more on that in an upcoming entry), Peace Corps decided to help out by having volunteers partner with farmers to raise a new variety of rice specially meant to withstand African conditions. Nerica (NEw RICe for Africa) rice can be grown on dry land, can survive with less rain, and can be harvested sooner, so we’re trying to promote growing it (in addition to the usual crops), which would allow Gambian farmers to actually benefit from the food crisis. They can sell their rice and then have more money to buy things like meat and improve their own diets. So Peace Corps was able to get a special rate on bags of Nerica rice seed for farmers working with Peace Corps volunteers. I got three different farming projects involved, so I ended up ordering 8 bags (400kg or 880lbs) of seed. Problem is, the seed delivery for the three volunteers in the URR (Upper River Region, aka way out in the boonies, where I live) got all messed up, and I had to wait almost an additional month to get my seed. In the meantime, all three projects I was working with didn’t want to talk about anything else (fertilizer, live fencing, intercropping) until their seed had showed up (everyone else had long since finished planting). Nerica doesn’t need to be planted so early because of its hardiness and fast growing season, but it’s hard to convince a subsistence farmer to believe that about a crop they’d never seen, and I was powerless to speed up rice delivery. So basically I got all excited about these three farm projects and all the potential project ideas but had to set that aside for several weeks while I hid at home from them, lest they come complaining to me yet again, asking where their seed was.
Fortunately, just before I was supposed to come down to Kombo, the seed FINALLY arrived, though I also received the seed for the other two volunteers in the URR – the car that PC practically had to bribe didn’t want to go any further. But we were able to arrange for Cer and Zach’s host families to come pick up the bags.
Hopefully, now that the rice has finally arrived and is in the process of being planted, I’ll be able to go back to site and get involved in the farm technique improvement projects I’d originally envisioned!

- HEALTH: (Yes, there are a few people who keep up with me enough to want to know what sort of weird African illnesses I have lately and if they're deadly.) No major illnesses like dysentery or anything, but I did have one day when I had a whole bunch of sitemates over and suddenly got so sick I threw up in my backyard, then had to bury it to keep the dogs from eating it. Gross. With the rains comes a slight decrease in heat, only now it's hot AND sticky so it's now heat rash season--something I'm getting a break from while in Kombo with a/c. Right now I also have an ingrown toenail and I think the splinter in my eyelid (could also have been an insect sting but I think I could feel the splinter in there) finally dissolved.

- HUT: After returning from the US, I spiffed up the house with some help with other volunteers. First Zach, Tamara and Cer came over and we spongepainted the inside of my house yellow (pictures coming). Then the next week, Lindsey (a super artsy agroforestry volunteer who has since ET'd) came to my village and painted on the outside of my house a multicultural/respecting others mural. Really, it's just a mural intended to teach people why calling all white people "Toubab" and all Asians "Chinese" isn't appropriate. It looks awesome though and gets tons of attention!

- MINTY: Yes, I'm as crazy about my dog as ever, since he does, after all, keep me sane. He's staying with Liza right now, who also has a dog (Newton) and the two of them are getting along wonderfully. We threw them in the river (don't worry, it was a deep section) at one point to wash them off, but they're frolicking in the mud so much that I'm sure they'll be disgusting by the time I get back up-country. While down here, I'm picking up his latest round of vaccines, which I'll take back up to site in a cooler to give him the injection there. (He's too big now to transport cross-country like I used to do.)

- PCVs: In addition to Lindsey ET'ing (Early Terminating, i.e. quitting Peace Corps before the 27 months is up), Chris from my group, who's one of my sitemates and favorite people in country, is also ET'ing this week. Very sad. This is in addition to Ruco and Kristy, my favorite people and sitemates from the newest group and my only fellow Christians in the URR now that Dan has COS'd (Close of Service, i.e. finished PC), also ET'd about a month ago. Watching all these people leave (especially when they're leaving suddenly) has been rough and discouraging, but I'm hoping we've seen all the ET's we're going to see for a while.

- ME: Definitely going through a rough patch emotionally. It is always sad to watch people leave and know that they are going to Paradise (aka America) while you're still here, but it's especially hard when that person is someone you're close to. I still miss Dan a lot, and adding Chris, Ruco and Kristy on top of all that is a lot to deal with. Finances have been rough, with the value of the dollar dropping (we are paid a set amount in dollars which is then translated into Gambian dalasi), several major purchases/bills and then a mistaken deduction from my pay that won't be reimbursed til August. Not a total crisis, and my parents and another volunteer have helped me out with money in the interim, it's just upsetting to be in that position. Peace Corps is working to raise our living allowance, but those changes are actually approved by Congress and so aren't likely to happen before I leave. The other bummer has been mail. I know I've been asking Mom to bug you all and you're probably getting tired of it, but aside from packages from her and my grandma (who've both sent me tons of stuff over the past 17 months), this has been my mail lately:
April - 4 letters
May - No mail
June - 1 letter
July - 1 letter, from Mom
Also, for the past two weeks, SNBrussels airline has stopped carrying our mail. Somehow has something to do with plane maintenance. Anyway, they were supposed to start again today, so maybe things'll pick up. Overall, it's just been a sad few months of mail runs.
On the good side, emotionally, I am excited about the farm project prospects, continue to prefer my village to anywhere else in-country, and Julie (my best friend) just booked her tickets to come here for New Year's, so no ET'ing for me in the near future!

Way overdue post that I just realized is entirely about my dog

2008-07-17T09:15:41Z

So this post was actually typed up on my laptop a month ago, before I discovered that Basse no longer had internet. Figured I'd start with the old post before the more recent stuff. Anything in [brackets] is updated information from this week -- hope it's not totally confusing!

June 1, 2008:
I made it back to site! After leaving Kombo, I headed to the village where Minty’d been staying, spent the night there, then caught a car to my village the next morning. I was shocked when I first saw him – he’d gotten so skinny! Then I realized—he wasn’t any skinnier than he was before. I’d just spent so much time around American dogs that the site of my gangly, “sinewy” (that was Cer’s word) African pooch was a shock.
It ended up being Cer and I in the gele from her site to mine, each with a dog in our lap. (In addition to picking up Minty, I was taking over petsitting duties for Bear, whose owners are vacationing in Morocco.) Problem is, Bear gets carsick. Like, really carsick. The drive was only an hour long, but that was long enough for her to vomit on us (Minty wasn’t spared either) three times and drool constantly in the interim. So, this was my victorious homecoming after 7 weeks away from site (in addition to traveling for 4 weeks, I’d spent a total of 3 in Kombo helping with training, going to swear-in, attending the agfo training, etc.): I walked into my compound covered in fur, drool and vomit, with two drool/bile-covered dogs (one of which was still woozy) tailing behind me. As if my family needed more reasons to think Americans were crazy. But Minty went crazy at the sight of our host family—he definitely knew we were home!

In other news, I’ve spent the last year knowing my plan for shipping Minty to the US at the end of my Peace Corps service was already arranged, and therefore nothing to worry about. You can ship a dog on SNBrussels airlines from Banjul to Denver for about $350, with just a few health requirements being met. Easy! Wrong. There is another volunteer with a dog whose service ends next month, so he went to the SNBrussels office to confirm his dog’s shipping schedule. Apparently, sometime in the past month or two, a dog was shipped through Europe and bit a handler. Turns out, the dog had rabies and the handler died. So the EU pretty much flipped out and made this giant list of new requirements to ship a dog through Europe. Requirements that are physically impossible for most people to meet like, “the dog must have been vaccinated at six weeks old and quarantined for the following three months.” I’ve never heard of retroactive requirements like that, especially age-specific ones. Needless to say, Minty was vaccinated at eight weeks, not six (because what vet vaccinates a dog at six weeks??), and was certainly not quarantined at that point. Bah.
So now, I have to look into other airline routes that do NOT go through Europe. Basically, find countries that have direct flights to both Banjul and the US. (There are no direct flights from Banjul, The Gambia to the US, even though the US pretty much paid for the airport, as an emergency NASA landing site.) Best chance will be Dakar, Senegal, but apparently Ghana has flights to the US too (and I know they have flights to Banjul), so I might look into that. Matt (the volunteer trying to get his dog home next month) is researching this too, but he may not have enough time. [EDIT: As of today, Matt is on his way back to the US right now with his dog, having jumped through a million hoops.] One of the airlines that flies from Senegal to the US requires that the dog’s crate sit in their warehouse for two days prior to the scheduled flight. (I guess they check for bombs or drugs or something in those two days?) Problem is, even if you and the dog fly from Banjul to Dakar two days early, what do you do for those two days, wandering the streets with your dog? They’re Muslim—no hotel is going to let you bring your dog. BAH. [EDIT: Apparently Matt found a couple, albeit expensive, hotels that might allow dogs. He's supposed to update me when he reaches the US.]
I found a pet shipping website, ipata.com that might be some help. I asked Mom to look into that one, but there may be others. I guess I’m glad I found out about this a long time ahead so there’s time to research. It’s pretty much a given that this is going to mean that the price for shipping Minty home just got a lot higher (Matt is even looking at finding a new home for his dog, rather than bring her, if the price or arrangements are too difficult [EDIT: Obviously, he didn't have to resort to that after all]—I think I would emotionally combust if it came to that for Minty). So, if those of you with decent, regular internet access (i.e. anywhere outside Africa) need something to do, could you research how on earth a person would get a dog from Banjul, The Gambia to the US (without going through Europe)?

Civilization!

2008-07-15T08:30:47Z

I'm down here in Kombo (the urban coastal area -- across the country from my village) for a week, getting vaccinated, buying groceries, etc. Just got in yesterday and will be here about a week, so check my blog regularly this week for updates, once I've settled in a bit more and had time to type them up. (Using internet for the first time in months can be a bit overwhelming, for those of you, okay probably all of you, who've never experienced that.)

Send Food!

2008-07-07T18:04:36Z

From Beth's Mom:
There were a number of people who said that they would be interested in sending food if there were times that Bethany needs them to. The Islamic month of Ramadan begins in Sept. and that means that everyone is fasting during all daylight hours for the entire month. Her family usually provides her with 3 meals a day, but during Ramadan it's dinner only. She doesn't even have the option to purchase bean sandwiches from the lady in her village.
In order for her to have food by Sept., it needs to be mailed within the next two weeks so that it arrives in time for her August mail day. As always food ideas are listed on her wish list (click the link up near the top of this page.)
Thanks so much!!
(People reading this on Facebook need to go to http://safaribeth.livejournal.com locate the food wish list.)

More of life in Africa...

2008-06-22T14:26:52Z

This is Beth's Mom-- just letting blog readers know that because of fuel shortages, the town of Basse is not running generators to provide electricity, so places like the internet cafe have no power. I know for a while there before she came home, she was accessing her email almost weekly when she went to town, so it's easy to forget where she lives... BUT right now she won't have internet access until at least mid-July.
Gail
P.S. As of her June mail day, she only received mail/packages from immediate family -- SO, for all of you who made promises to write -- NOW IS THE TIME! She's been gone a month, time to get writing so she'll have letters for her July mail!!

I'd forgotten I could sweat this much

2008-05-27T14:01:53Z

Here I am! Back in Africa, via a 15 hour layover in Spain, during which I met up with another Gambian Peace Corps Volunteer and went site-seeing. This is my last day in Kombo (the coastal city area), finishing up stuff in the PC office, then tomorrow I head up-country. Hopefully by Thursday, Minty (who I'm picking up on my way) and I will be safely back at site.
Reentry hasn't been easy at all thus far. Came back to a bunch of bad news (things with my house and Minty didn't exactly go off without a hitch in my absence), got in trouble with PC admin (has since been cleared up), and there's been almost no one (and as of yesterday ABSOLUTELY no one) else at the stodge (the PC transit house), which means hanging around Kombo waiting for the office to open (it closes early on Fridays, so I didn't make it in after sleeping off my jet lag, then it was closed all weekend and Monday for Memorial Day) has been super lonely and boring. You don't even want to know how many movies I've watched, trying to pass the time at the stodge. I'd have gone back to site days ago if I could have gotten my office stuff done before.
Ah, well. As people here like to say: Gambia, it is not easy.
The rains should be here any day, and with it a bit of relief from the heat (which is worse up-country, so thank goodness for solar power). There's a big Peace Corps meeting in Basse (a few km south of me) on Friday to discuss the food crisis and what we might be able to do locally. (Most of us live with subsistence farmers.) But mostly, I'm just looking forward to being back at site, with my dog, and readjust to Africa. I'll also be nursing the fun inner ear blister thing I brought back from the US. (It's not an ear infection per se, but I can't even pronounce the actual diagnosis. Treatment is ibuprofen and decongestants, even though I don't have a cold. Weird.)
So in other words, in case you were worried things might change, my life is as weird as ever. :)

Off I go...

2008-05-20T22:01:27Z

Well, today is my last full day in "Amerika," so this'll be my final blog entry from this side of the Atlantic for, oh, 11 months or so.
First things first, if you're one of the approximately 20 people in the past couple weeks who've said to me something along the lines of "I'm so sorry, I'm a terrible friend, I'm going to start writing," click here for what you need to know, including my mailing address. I answer every letter I get, and most of you already have a letter from me. :)
If you're one of the 10 or so people who've asked "is there anything I could send you?", that list would be here, and recently updated.
It's been great to be home for a while and marvel at the changes. Fort Collins suddenly went "green," (ethanol, reusable bags for sale at every store, and special "organic" aisles are all new developments in FC since I left), my brother got all "growed up" (ENGAGED!!), there was a new dog to meet (Candie has grown up in my house without ever having met me, and wasn't quite sure I belonged there at first), and as with any year, Dad had made about 107 changes to the house.
I ate a lot:

Hung out with Candie (Minty may run 20 miles next to my bike, but Candie prefers to just go for a ride):

Got to know Chelsea (and her friends and family) better:

Went for a ride with Brenda:

Shared with friends & family about this crazy life I'm living:

And said goodbye to a family that is one person bigger than it was 15 months ago:

Here's those last few videos I wanted to post before returning to the land of terrible internet. They're all from when I was in training, over a year ago:
Baboons during our 27km marathon march:

Making mudstoves:

Women dancing at the ceremony where I received my Gambian name:

HG10 Swear-In

2008-05-20T02:39:17Z

It's true, the new group of Health & Community Development Peace Corps volunteers (HG10) swore in at the end of their training on April 18th. That made my group (HG09) officially second-year volunteers and halfway through PC service!

Pics are here, and a few videos:

Mike, the PC Gambia Country Director speaks:

Ron Tschetter, director of Peace Corps worldwide, speaks (this was his first time in The Gambia):

HG10 says the oath:

Alex's beat poem about Peace Corps:

Even more vids!

2008-05-15T19:10:57Z

Went wedding gown shopping with Chelsea (Stephen's fiancee) yesterday. Here's a sample shot, but in order not to ruin the gasp effect of a bride being seen in her gown for the first time, I picked a dress Chelsea tried on just for laughs, then used the cartoon setting on my photo software to distort it a bit. If you wanna see the real thing, you'll just have to be at the wedding. :)

Annnnnnd more Gambia videos! The first is the adolescent class at T***** singing, the second is Ousainou (the class facilitator and my work counterpart) starting to dance:

Don't Panic!

2008-05-13T15:30:26Z

Now that I have the time (and internet speed) to do so, I've been browsing other volunteer's blogs. I've noticed a trend in what I'm reading that could be worrisome for those of you (mostly family, I know) who are interested enough in what I'm doing to read not just my blog but those of other volunteers. So I wanted to clarify:
The temperature in the hot season does NOT reach 130-140 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, no where on earth does it get that hot. Hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 136F (in 1922, so not even recent), and it wasn't in The Gambia. I hear people throw this figure around a lot in-country, and I think it must be that normal digital thermometers (that a lot of volunteers have) aren't particularly accurate above 100 degrees or so. A more accurate estimate is that it ranges from 110 to 120 degrees during the hottest part of the year, although according to Columbia University, the highest temperature ever recorded in The Gambia was 113 degrees. (The lowest was 48 degrees--can you even see your breath yet at that temp?) You can look this all up yourself, but don't get all worried next time you're reading that it's 130 degrees where I live. Cuz it's not.

In other news, a video of my host siblings:

Goats on a Fence

2008-05-12T20:50:27Z

First thing I saw every morning when I walked out my front door in training village. (Yes, the fence is totally upright.)

Fula Scars

2008-05-07T16:05:57Z

Time for my big news!
As my most recent photo album noted, there was an explanation to come regarding "Fula Scars." This was what I and another volunteer did on April 13th, the one-year anniversary of my swearing-in as a Peace Corps volunteer:
First we traveled from Basse Santa Su to Wassu, which is near Kuntaur:

In Wassu, we went searching for Fatoumata Ceesay, the unofficial preferred Fula Scar woman for Peace Corps volunteers across The Gambia.

We found her, and after some chatting, introductions, and washing up, she got to work.
I was second, so I got to watch as she started on the volunteer I'd traveled with. The guidelines were already drawn on, so she began by drawing a (brand new, sterlized!) razor blade down each of the lines, using a small stick to keep the razor straight:

Once that was done, she rubbed burnt peanut shell ash into the three lines she'd made with the razor:

All done!

Now it was my turn. My design was a little more complicated than the regular three-lined Fula scar design. My design had 8 lines. First cut (with a different, also brand new and sterilized razor, so stop worrying):

All 8 cuts completed (ouch!):

Rubbing in the burnt peanut shell ash:

The cow horn that Fatoumata stores the ash in. (She uses her foot to hold the horn steady as she digs the ash out of the horn.)

Once the ash is rubbed in, you bandage it all up and leave it for three days to give the skin time to heal over the ash:

After a few days of healing:

All healed up (and in America). Now I have traditional African Fula scars, only on the shoulder instead of the face, and in the shape of a cross instead of just three lines:

In summary:

Dancing at my toma's kuliyo

2008-05-05T16:23:44Z

Here's a few videos of the women dancing in my compound during my toma's kuliyo (naming ceremony):

Video

2008-05-01T15:42:06Z

I'm going to work on uploading my videos from the past year too, while I have access to good internet. Here's the first one, Minty discovering his reflection in my solar panel:

Home sweet home

2008-05-01T15:00:02Z

Typed 4/25: Notice the user icon I chose for this post? That's me with my cousin Paige. See, it's kinda my wishful thinking picture because it's me with family... Like I'm supposed to be right now... Home. In Colorado. But instead, I'm stranded in Chicago til tomorrow morning thanks to a giant storm that first delayed my incoming flight from Spain, making me miss my connecting flight to Denver, and then got so bad my replacement flight to Denver was progressively delayed three hours then finally cancelled. So I'm in Toubabadou right now, but not home yet. What is Toubabadou, you ask? Well thanks to a 20 hour layover here, I have time to draw you a map of the world. This is how most Gambians (outside the well-educated ones living mostly in Kombo) perceive the world:

Okay, so my skills in Microsoft Paint leave something to be desired. But basically, this is how it works: there are three continents. The first one is Africa, of which The Gambia occupies 25% or so in their envisioning. Then there's Toubabodou (Toubab land, i.e. white people land), which is alternately called Europe but also includes the US. China is the land where anyone who looks Asian must be from, though sometimes it is considered just another part of Toubabodou.
So hence, if you asked my host family where I am right now, they would tell you Toubabodou. And when I return, they will ask me how the Toubabodou people are. So Toubabodou people, how are you?

5/1: Sorry for the neglect in actually updating you on the fact that I did finally arrive safely Saturday afternoon, just in time to see a friend who'd flown out to Colorado, and caught up with friends on church Sunday, then had a big family get-together (including Stephen's fiancee's family) that afternoon. Other than that, I'm spending a lot of time with Mom's new puppy (who has actually lived here over a year and is no longer a puppy, but this is my first time meeting her), trying to remind the rest of my pets that they do in fact know me, and stocking up on supplies to take back with me.
More updates to come, but in the meantime, click here for a random assortment of pictures from the last year.

True story

2008-04-23T18:37:29Z

Yesterday's front page, giant headline here in Kombo:

PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS NOT CIA AGENTS

The article went on to state that we are not "FIB" agents either.

Random

2008-04-22T18:38:26Z

In case you were wondering what I'm doing with my last pre-vacation week in The Gambia, here are some highlights:
- Playing with African Killer Bees (Seriously -- mmmkay I even stole their honey. Those things are psycho.)
- Listening to a true story another volunteer told that involved a pig roast, running, a small cannon, and a hornet's nest.
- Learning about all sorts of Gambian tree planting options on Earth Day (and Stephen's birthday!)
- Weaving grass and palm fronds together (Why? Well why not?)
- Sleeping on the bottom bunk of a metal bunk bed so rickety that the tossing and turning of the person above me is slowly breaking the bed... I'm keeping an eye on it and figure I'll just leave the country before the thing totally collapses
- Hitching up our fancy dresses and getting a piggy-back ride through the US Ambassador's yard
- Text messaging Minty's petsitters repeatedly like the overly nervous parent I am
- Watching season 1 of "The Office" each morning as we wait for the inevitably late bus to pick us up for In-Service Training

More pics!

2008-04-17T10:28:53Z

Okay, so I spent another hour today trying to get some more photos to load. Even after massively shrinking them, trying to upload them directly and/or through a secondary photo site, I've had no luck. The joys of Gambian internet. So the only way I could post more photos here was by posting an album here on Facebook. Hopefully y'all can view that? Click on a photo to enlarge it and view the description.

I'm a regular ol' timer around here...

2008-04-15T15:41:24Z

I’m in Kombo!

The new health group is almost done with their training, and I’m here in Kombo to help with one of their last sessions—it’s a partnership fair where they can chat with various NGO’s, including T***, who I’ve been working with. Then on Friday the new group will swear-in, making me officially a second-year volunteer! (Though the actual one-year anniversary of my swear-in was April 13^th.) Then we celebrate the swearing-in with a big gourmet buffet dinner at the US Ambassador’s residence. The director of Peace Corps worldwide is even going to be there (Ron Tschetter, if the name means anything to you). This’ll be his first visit to the Gambia.

Next week, I’m participating in the first year agroforestry group’s In-Service Training. There were extra spots, so some non-agfo’s like myself will get to go to the training too. It’ll cover topics like gardening, composting, and beekeeping (when I listed these topics to a friend back home, I was told I have an “interesting life”), and will keep me busy til I fly home on Friday the 25^th!

In other news, I received a pretty awesome thing on loan from Rodney, the director of all the agfo volunteers in-country. It’s a solar oven!! Basically, it’s just a big pot that you put inside a big cardboard reflector that concentrates the sun’s rays on the pot. (www.she-inc.org)

So far, I’ve baked cornbread, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, brown sugar cookies, and banana bread, as well as a potato/tomato/salmon dish (salmon courtesy of care packages). It’s so great! Imagine cutting out all foods from your diet that require an oven—that’s been this past year for me. But not any longer! This is how great having a solar oven is:

The 5 things I’ve gotten in the Gambia that have most improved my quality of life:

Minty
Solar oven
Solar power
Bike
Jibida (clay pot that I store my water in to make it cold)

The 5 things I’ve received in care packages that have most improved my quality of life:

Food and spices (the list is too long and varied to try to pick a favorite)
Swamp cooler
Stuff for Minty (particularly the flea and tick meds he’s on now—we’re both relieved!)
Biking gear
Sermons on CD/tape (good for keeping my head on straight)

It’s crazy how different the weather is down here in Kombo. It’s downright chilly! I’ve even wished for long sleeves a couple times, whereas up in my neck of the woods, there’s a good portion of the day dedicated this time of year to just laying around and sweating. (Gambians and Americans alike take part in this activity.) My solar power isn’t 100% working yet, so my fan time per day is limited, but once I get a new battery, that should change.

Minty right now is with my sitemate, Tamara, for a few days, then will be going to Cer’s house for the remainder of my time away. He’d been so thrilled when he saw he’d get to come with me on the bike ride to Tamara’s on Saturday. (I biked all over the URR last week, so Minty kept seeing me get my bike out, but didn’t get to come because the distances were too far—over 100km of travel in total over the course of the week. Once he finally did get to come along, he went crazy.) As we neared Tamara’s and he realized where we were going (the ride takes about 45 minutes total), he got so excited that he sped up and passed me, leading the rest of the way and glancing back only occasionally to make sure I was still there. He ran in to greet Tamara’s host family’s dog, who he’d befriended on a previous visit, then danced around on Tamara’s porch til she opened the door. However, he wasn’t so happy a little while later when he saw me packing my bike back up to leave, and realized Tamara wasn’t going to let go of his collar. He was crying and whimpering when I left—poor guy. :( Don’t feel too bad for him, though. I happen to know for a fact that the rules for him get pretty lax when he’s not at my house. In fact, there’s some all out spoiling going on when I’m not around. :)

A pictorial overview of Feb-April:

- Dan, posing as Chiquita, with the pile of food we ate for our Smallville 20 banana challenge. (Car crash? Eat a banana. Someone in the Kent family gets arrested? Eat a banana. One of the female characters falls for a villain? Grab a piece of gum; last person to blow a bubble has to eat a banana. And so on.)

- Chris, who was present but abstained from the 20 banana challenge, asked me to snap this pic for his mom (who reads my blog). So, um, hi Chris’s mom. This is Chris eating a sandwich.

Bah! I did have like 10 more pictures, but since the three pictures I've uploaded thus far took an hour, and I've spent another half hour trying to upload the fourth one, I'm hereby giving up for now. So, more pictures coming sometime soon...

Big News!!

2008-03-28T14:38:44Z

So, now that the secret's out, I can officially tell you that the other thing I'll be doing while back in the U.S. is catching up with my brother and his FIANCEE!! That's right, I said fiancee--Stephen proposed to Chelsea Easter morning. Ask him for more details!

Sometimes, when my three-year-old host sister, Safi (who speaks four words of English) and I are play-fighting, she'll hold up her fists and yell, "Baby Police!"

I'm reasonably certain no one taught her this.

Best I can tell, she picked up the "Police!" line from some bad Nigerian film my host family watched on their DVD player (yes, they can't afford meat or electricity but they have a DVD player) at some point, then paired it with the only other English word she knew that made reasonable sense with it. (The other two words she knows being "goal" and "bye-bye.")

In other news, this week brings some sad news. Dan, unofficial chaperone of the URR, is on his way out. He is COSing (Close of Service) and leaves the country on April 10th. I said goodbye to him in Basse last week (though he might be up here one more time, not sure), and realized this was the first time a volunteer I was close to has left. (With as many volunteers as we have in-country, you can be "friends" with lots of people without ever getting to really know more than a few of them.) Anyway, it's a big loss for those of us who've come to count on Dan keeping things (and people) in order around here, so we're gonna miss him.

Hence, I give you my memory lane tribute to Dan:

Going to church in Kombo. Moringa. Chuck Norris. Training village moringa cooking. "It tastes like death!" Gele trips to Kombo. Ligge jotna Gambia amna bopam, bopam! (Mmmkay I speak Mandinka, not Wolof, don't blame me for any errors.) Ice cream and burgers at Foday's, the best part of site visit. Swear-in food. Biking to Basse with Amanda. "Nature." Rice at Aminata's for 15d. Daring Chris to eat the whole hot pepper. Wandering Mansajang asking for a puppy. You and Chris convincing me to pass over the healthier looking, blandly colored puppies for the crazily spotted, corkscrew tailed runt, because the little one was "cuter" and "wouldn't survive" without me after being thrown out at four weeks old. (Minty still owes you guys for that one, and never did reach full size.) Pasta sides. Meeting Chinese at the T*** office and having to listen to him go on and on about the amazing Baba Damfa. You and Kellie doing mailrun. Mailrun rants. Rice at Aminata's for 20d. Convincing me to ditch Traditions and be social for Christmas. The slaughterfest. Turducken and salad in a bucket. Gold, frankincense and myrrh from you and Cer. The Basse house and all its grunginess. Taking the newbies to church in Kombo. Smallville. The twenty banana challenge. Chiquita. Aquadan. The manpurse. Willy (and his Eyeore voice--is that even how you spell Eyeore?). Bear's crazy voice. Picnics on the hill. The Dan Niebler Ecotourism Lodge. Having the dogs watch out for hyenas and baboons. The freedom party. "Remember that time we had a freedom party, and it was awesome?" Harassing Chris about how we never see him. Rice at Aminata's for 25d. Deciding we can no longer afford to eat at Aminata's. Easter eggs that mostly didn't work out. "Black Beauty," pretty much the most awesome cartoon ever. "Laser" fights with warped baseball bats. Aquadan's floral print cape. And did I mention moringa?