Changing Ways

I went up to Tendaba a few weeks ago to do some Environmental Education training with the new group of Environment volunteers that arrived in the country. I was sitting around with them at dinner one night and one of them asked me, So, how has Gambia changed you? At first, I thought the question was silly, but upon closer examination I think Gambia has changed me, although maybe (in some cases, hopefully) not permanent ways, and sometimes just in silly ways. Here's what I came up with:

Assertiveness - My name is not toubab, I will not give you my phone number, tell me the right price! (This one is real, and widespread. I would say every volunteer I talk to says this is the number one thing that has changed in them, sometimes bordering on bitchiness. It's hard to get hassled so much and not develop some major attitude)

Skills - Okay, there are the technical skills I've picked up, but also some pretty useless ones. I can make you some all natural mosquito repellant, spit long distances, and speak a language that less than one million people in the world speak. Other skills include biking through sand, peeling an orange in one long strip, using the bathroom without toilet paper, and carrying a wide variety of things on my head.

Larger biceps - Enough said.

Less shame - Picking your nose in public is perfectly acceptable in The Gambia.

Ability to deal with boredom - I can sit for hours and hours and hours with nothing on the schedule. And that's okay. What have I learned? Always bring a book to a meeting, because after lunch really means 5:30pm, but I'm still expected to show up around 3:30. No book? There's always people watching. And rearranging grains of rice. And making funny faces at babies.

Flexibility - Friday never means Friday, Yes doesn't always mean yes, and there always needs to be a contingency plan. Or two. Or three. (Likewise, I can use this as an excuse to not do things when I say I'll do them. Everyone has to be flexible, after all. Not just me.)

Confidence - In Gambia, a 24 year old girl from America can go up to the minister of forestry and seem like an authority. I have embraced this completely.

Taste Buds - I crave eggs here like I've never craved them before. And mayonnaise, oh sweet mayonnaise. And okra! And peanut butter and fish sauce! And meat pies! Who knew?

Accent - I have finally come to an understanding of why my mother mimics the accents of the people she talks to. While I will still find it embarrassing when she does this to a waiter in a Mexican restaurant, in Gambia I have begun to do this with about 99 percent of the English-speaking Gambians I talk to. With a few exceptions, they're not going to understand you if you speak like an American. So you can't be shy about your Gambian accent.

So I guess you can tell that not all of these changes will be beneficial for coming back to America. But still, it's interesting to see what one year in a dusty, disorganized West African country will do to you. And we're only halfway through, kids.

A parting shot:This is what three hours in a gele on the South Bank road will do to you. Ah, dust.

Tobaski, Take Two

Once again the holiday of Tobaski has hit the Gambia, which means lots of fancy clothes, attaya drinking, and meat eating. This year had a definite leg up on last year since I knew my way around village and had plenty of people to go chat with. I also dressed to impress, although I didn't take it as far as most of the Gambian ladies (skipped the heavy makeup, matching shiny bag and high heels, etc.). Mostly Tobaski is just going around to all your friends houses to spend time with each other and compliment each other on your good looking new clothes. Kids and women also go from house to house saliboo-ing, which is like trick or treating except really it's prayer-or-treating. Their hoping for money or candy, but if they don't get that at least they get a prayer.

Here is our Tobaski ram before, enjoying its last days of good eating and... life.

And here it is after. We ate meat for three days afterwards. Please consider the fact that there are no refridgerators in my village. By day three I was saying no thank you. But one of my favorite parts of the first day was going to my neighbor's house in the evening where they had friend up a big plate of meat and onions that we ate with bread while sitting under their mango tree.

Here is me and my host sister. She's not in her full going-out gear yet, but still. The point of Tobaski is to look as glamorous as possible, so everyone buys the most expensive fabric they can afford and has as much glitter and embroidery and sequins and hoo-has added to it as possible. And then they do their hair as fancily as possible and traipse around in high heels through the sand.


This is Mba's son Molamin and a friend's daughter. Molamin had a new suit for Tobaski but his pants were too big. You can't see it in this picture, but he decided to forgo the pants entirely.


One of my host fathers, Bajere, looking like a stud in his sunglasses before going to morning prayers.

And here's a picture of the full effect: ladies in their finest.

Sorry for the long delay since my last post. It's not always easy to get up the motivation to actually get words and pictures up on this space, but I'll try to do better. Up next I'm headed to Tendaba to do some training for the new group (that's right, I'm old hat here, folks). Lots of holidays coming up including Christmas, my birthday, Hannukah, New Years... I'm going to try to get up country for at least one of those occasions. Just a plug, but if you're thinking "What should I possibly give a Peace Corps volunteer for this upcoming holiday season?" the answer is: Vacation Money! (Sending love in the form of letters is also great).

Packing: A look back...

Well, almost one year ago I packed my bags and headed for the smallest country in West Africa (all of Africa?). Now I'm getting ready to be in the "old" group as a new, and much larger, crowd of Environment volunteers prepares for The Gambia. Since they have no idea, and I have an experts opinion, and I know I spent hours and hours surfing the web searching for "Peace Corps Gambia What to Pack," let me take this chance to offer some words of wisdom on what a suitcase coming to this country should contain.

Things I Brought That I could not live without:

Capri Pants and long shorts
Running shoes
A hat
Lots and lots of deoderant, because I'm never going to buy any here at inflated prices
Solar Charger (although a word of wisdom, it works better if you don't actually leave it out in the rain)
Rechargeable batteries (but beware battery thiefs)
Flashdrive (really, don't leave America without one)
Lots of pens (and subsequently more mailed to me... you can't have enough pens)
Sweatshirt (seriously, it gets cold here)
Queen size sheets
My favorite books
Daily planner
Jeans
Sleeping Pad
Diva Cup (Ladies, just do it. You will not regret it. Saves you money and precious room in your suitcase. I would advise bringing two as there is the distrinct possibility of accidentally dropping it down your pit latrine).
Comfy pants for lounging around in the evenings
A good knife/multi-tool
Spices (I had these mailed to me right away, and it's been a good thing. Even if you don't cook at site you'll cook when you come to Kombo.)

Things I brought that are completely useless here (i.e. Don't Bother)

A zillion flashcards (what was I thinking?)
Business Casual outfits (These are basically just molding away in my suitcase... Agfos don't need fancy clothes. Don't be fooled. Plus in a bind an African outfit will always do)
Also, I attempted to find an unlockable phone to bring with me, which was a big waste of time. Good phones can be bought here easily and affordably. Don't bother stressing about this in the US.

Things I wish I brought, but did not:

Cute clothes! Even in The Gambia there are occasions to get dressed up and go out, and even on days when you're not doing much it's nice to have the option to look nice. If I were to do it again, I would just bring the clothes I already had in my closet and make them work.
French press for making coffee (I luckily inherited one, but had I not I would definitely be regretting it)
Contacts (I know they say only glasses, but having been a contact person my whole life, I am really missing them).
Sleeping bag and tent
Laptop (even agfos can find plenty of use for these)

Okay, that's just off the top of my head. Certainly not complete in any way, but maybe what I can think of first means it's most important. Good luck all you incoming trainees, see in a couple of weeks!

Ghana Vacation

After two weeks in Ghana, it's a bit bitter sweet to be home. It's great to be able to speak the local language again, to know how much a taxi really costs, and to see all my friends. But man, Ghana was really great. A good example of development that's working in The Gambia. Here's what we did:

We need to tighten it up: Arrived in Dakar with high spirits. After some happy hour drinks at a nice bar, and a really delicious meal of Korean food, we headed to the airport where we learned we were... not convenient.

So we stayed in Dakar for two more days than we planned, organizing our visa to Ghana, visiting the museum, attempting to speak French and Wollof, and eating really delicious food (Ethiopian! Lebanese!). The second attempt at bording the plane was, thankfully, successful. Off we went to Ghana.

Akwaaba: We spent the first two days in Accra, a city that's incredibly clean (by our standards, I guess) and has side walks and restaurants and dark beer. Ghana is good. We spent our time just exploring the markets, eating street food (I can't say enough good things about the street food in Ghana), and lounging. Not bad. Then we were off to Hohoe, in the east. Public transport in Ghana is also nice. As a rule, if it looks like the seat was designed to fit three, they actually put three (you hear that, Gambia?). In Hohoe we stayed in a hotel where Maggie broke the bed, hung out with some really nice Peace Corps Ghana volunteers, and did a lot of great hiking. We hiked to the top of the highest peak in Ghana, which was not so high but a good wake up call for how out of shape we are. We also did a nice walk to the highest waterfall in West Africa. Really impressive, with lots of bats hanging from the rock walls around it. We also ate some fresh cacao fruit, which tastes absolutely nothing like chocolate. Our cab driver on this portion of the trip was named Baby Rasta. You can't get away from them in West Africa, I guess...

Beads, Stools and Fertility Dolls, Oh My!: From Hohoe it was off to Kumasi, where we stayed in a really nice Peace Corps Transit house. Kumasi itself was really congested, and we had an interesting day where we accidentally wandered into a real shanty town while looking for a market that was supposed to resemble a shanty town. Woops. But once we found the market the crafts were great. I came back with more batik fabric than a girl really needs. We also went to a cultural center with a nice museum, walked past some people serving grilled bats (I'm brave, but not quite that brave), ate a ton of pineapple and frozen chocolate milk, and walked and walked and walked. We celebrated Alex's birthday with guacamole and homemade pina coladas, and took a day trip to a holy lake where people believe their spirits go to visit after death. People traditionally paddle on this lake with planks instead of boats, and instead of paddles they use calabashes cupped in their hands. We drank palm wine (ick) and went swimming.

The Egg ate the Papaya... I think: After Kumasi, we slowed it down by staying at a really nice place on a really deserted beach for a few days. Just over a hill and down the beach was a restaurant that served BURRITOS! We went there twice. Two days of swimming, walking, and eating.. What could be better? We also went to a nearby fort. I was more impressed by the village that housed the fort, where they had loudspeakers blaring a soundtrack for the entire village. Interesting. After the beaches at Butre, we headed to Cape Coast, a tourist hub that's famous for its old slave fort. You know you're on a Peace Corps budget when you skip the main attraction because you don't want to pay 4 dollars... Maggie hooked us up with a free place to stay in Cape Coast, which worked out great. Uncle Sam and his wife Victoria live in a big house on a hill overlooking Cape Coast. They took us out for a drink and fed us a nice breakfast and generally were really excellent hosts. Cape Coast was great for finishing up souvenier shopping, seeing the fort (if only from the outside), and eating lobster (this is where that extra 4 dollars came in handy). We also went to Kakum national park, which is a really excellent example of ecotourism working well in Ghana. They have really high suspended bridges that take you up into the rainforest canopy. A touristy but totally cool experience. We also saw Korateh going on in town. Even though Ghana is a generally Christian country, we still saw plenty of Muslims out celebrating the end of Ramadan. In general people in Ghana seem more open to dancing and making merry than Gambians, so the parade was much more festive than I imagine the celebration was in The Gambia.

Welcome back, suckers: And from there, it's all a blur. We took a midnight flight out of Accra, ended up on a bus back from Dakar that had no breaks, finally forced them to give us back half our money and let us off the bus, rented a sept place, raced to the ferry but didn't make it in time, took a big fishing boat across the river, haggled for a taxi for too long, and finally ended up back at the Peace Corps house in Gambia. It's not easy.

Pictures coming soon, but the internet connection is slow... So you'll have to wait. Be back in town in a couple of weeks so hopefully then.

At Work

Here are some pictures I was able to get of some recent work events. And you even get to see my face in one of them!

Here is me making neem cream, a natural mosquito repellant, with the health group in my village. After making it the first week, they decided they would continue to make it every week and sell it by the spoonful to villagers. Success!

Close up on neem cream: soap, tea made from neem leaves, and oil. My next experiment is trying to make it smell nice by infusing the oil with basil or eucalyptus.

Gmelina stumps that we planted for One Man, One Tree village tree planting day. I think maybe 200 people came out to plant trees, and probably about 4,000 trees were planted that day.

Preparing the gmelina stumps.

Planting the trees.

Who lives in my compound

Here's a run-down of the people who I see every day in my compound. Just in case you were wondering.

1. Nfansu - My host dad, the one who you give the "gifts from the road" to when you come home, which means he's the one in charge. He's featured in some of the pictures down below (sorry, no new pictures for a while while I sort out some camera issues). He grows cashews, has one tooth, and likes teaching me Mandinka proverbs.

2. Satou Dabo - Nfansu's wife. I think 4th down the line. She's quiet, nice, and has a baby that was born on the very first day I moved in to Jatta Kunda, which is supposed to be good luck. She does my laundry, and is probably the best cook in the compound now that Tida, my brother's wife, moved to Banjul.

3. Bubakary - Satou's baby. now about 7 months old and learning to stand. Mysteriously never bothered to learn to crawl.

4. Jere - Nfansu's younger brother. He used to sell used toubab clothes all over the country, but now just hangs out with his donkey and farms. Sometimes he tries to speak to me in Serahuleh, but all I can say is Peace Only, and that doesn't get me so far. He still has all his teeth.

5. Satou Toureh - Jere's wife. Definitely the dominant character in the compound as far as I'm concerned. In the mornings you can hear her berating all the kids for not getting up on time. She also is the buffest, and works in the rice fields from morning to night. That is not pleasant work. Has on occasion overcooked the rice until it is one giant glob... She also thinks that the time I said I liked coos sometimes but not all the time was hilarious and tells people about it all the time.

6. Mama - Nfansu and Jere's "mom." Mother is a loose term in Gambia, so she might just be their mom's sister, which is my guess because she's definitely old, but she doesn't seem old enough to be their real mom. She's pretty blind and just sits around all day outside her house.

7. Suleiman - My host brother, I think he's about 25. He lives in the house next door to me, and once asked me to be his girlfriend but has luckily since dropped that aspiration. He works all day either in the bush or at the big corporate farm in the village. Can always be counted on to bring me a mango or a potato.

8. Yusufa - Another host brother. He's 14 and just finished 9th grade. Now he works all day on the men's farm. Just a nice guy, speaks decent English, brews some good attaya.

There is also a rotating cast of characters, like my host sister and her two cute kids who moved into the compound next door recently, some host brothers who come home on weekends and during school breaks, and other people who's relationships I can never quite figure out. But those are the stable people who are there basically every day. That's a pretty small compound as far as Gambian compounds go, and quiet. I feel pretty lucky.

Where I've been, what I've been doing...

Just a quick update because lately the internet has been really frustrating to deal with. Would like to put some pictures on here but I think today is not the day.

Here's how I've been spending my time lately:

1. Tree Nursery Competition Trek: I've been going around checking out the schools with tree nurseries in the Western Region. This has been really cool, since some of the schools are doing really amazing jobs. It has also made me want to pull my hair out. You try getting a vehicle from the Gambian Forestry Department some time.

2. My own tree nursery. So far my village forester and I have planted 200 mahoganies and 50 ebonies. We're still waiting to see if the ebony trees will germinate. Fingers crossed since this is a really rare tree.

3. Project proposals. Everyone in my village wants something done so I've been teaching people how to write their own project proposals. Maybe someday my village will have a nursery school bantaba, a new water system at the middle school, and a large scale tree nursery. Inshallah.

In other news I'm planning a trip to Ghana with my friends Maggie and Alex. My first vacation since coming to the Gambia. We're set to go in September. Hurray!

Rain!

Yes, rain has finally come to The Gambia. Everyone says that if the rains don't come by June 15, they're late. On June 14, suddenly the clouds opened up and let it out. It was really nice. It's been stiflingly hot lately and instantly everything cooloed down. My compound has a covered porch area that runs all the way around so everyone sat on the porch outside their houses and watched the rain. One of my host moms took advantage of the downpour to wash her baby in the roof runoff.

The next day was a travel day, and I kind of began to see the disadvantages of the rainy season in The Gambia. Huge puddles had formed everywhere (can you say malaria?). In the Brikama car park, people had to wade up to their shins to walk into the market. It was pretty gross trying to pass around these huge brown puddles and attempting to stay dry.

Now it's been a few days since the last rain. It's hot and sticky all over again, but the skies have been grey for a while now so I'm hoping for some more rain to cool things down, even if it means puddles.

Picture Post

Here are some boys from my village making cement bricks for the new Lower Basic School garden wall. The last wall was washed away by the rains since it was built pretty poorly, so here is the second go around.

Here is one of my host dads in his cashew orchard. He's seperating the fruits from the nuts. After spending a few days in the cashew orchard, I can see why cashews are so expensive. I have also discovered that I am pretty allergic to raw cashews.

Mom, I thought you'd like this one. This is the road I live on. I have yet to encounter a landmine, but I'll keep you posted.

In which Annie dons the beekeeping suit once more

I'm back in Kombo to do in-service training, and I have to say that so far this has been some of the coolest technical training Peace Corps has given me.

Yesterday we learned to process honey and wax (this is awesome because it's fun and you get to keep your end results), and also how to weave grass hives (I'm a natural, if you were wondering).

Once it got dark, we put on our bee costumes and tramped into the apiary. We were at an organization called Siffoe Beekeeping Association that kept their bees in a cashew grove in what kind of looked like bee prison, with about 30 hives locked up in a long row building with a barred front. I worked on hive 26. It was hot and sweaty, and I managed to accumulate a pretty impressive helmet of bees (I am chalking this up to the fact that whoever wore this bee suit before me was definitely wearing cologne). Being out there with african killer bees is pretty exhilerating though. We probably worked on our hive for about two hours, cutting through cross combing, taking out old hive and capped honey, and just investigating the world of the bees. I was also impressed because in the Gambia most of the bee keepers I've met so far have been men, but one of the people from Siffoe in my group was a woman. It's nice to see gener empowerment in the Gambia.

After closing back up the hive, we took our big buckets of honey comb and just kind of wandered in the forest in the dark for a while trying to get all the bees off our suits. This takes a long time. I learned my lesson last time I went beekeeping and got stung twice while taking off my suit. Patience. Patience. This time I am proud to say I was sting-free. I just loved the bees.

Variations on a Theme: Gambian Men Trying to Get my Attention

Toubab women in the Gambia get a lot of cat calls. A lot. Here are just some of the many that have come my way recently:

Hi! Hi! Hi! Hello! Hi! Hi! Hello! Hi! Hi! Hello! (Continue until out of earshot)
I love you!
Hey, beautiful girl.
Hello Toubab! What is your name?
Yo, come talk to me.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, I just want to talk to you. So can you come talk to me?
Toubab! How are you?
Hey, boss lady!
Hey, Chinese-o!
Hey, Chinese boss lady!
Hey, Chinois (I think at least 60 percent of all Gambians think I am Chinese)

These are just the ones I got on my walk from the car park to the internet cafe today. I wish I could remember more because some are pretty classic and hilarious, but unfortunately when you try to hard to ignore them they just go in one ear and out the other.

Sharing

Since being here, Ive started suffering from some major sharing issues. Gambians have a really giving culture, but they also ask for things much more than Americans are taught is polite.

I like your pants... Give them to me.
You have two pairs of socks? You should give me one.
And of course... Toubab! Give me money!

All this asking for stuff has started to make me hoard things. If I buy some cookies, they stay hidden in the house and I try to be quiet when I open the package... Okay, okay, its not that serious, but Im definitely trying to figure out how to balance the scales.

My newest strategy is just to ask Gambians for things I like too. I like your skirt, give it to me. Hasnt worked yet, but Im sure one day it will pay off.

Honestly, that sort of giving-taking culture has its benefits. When you go to visit someone just to chat, you can walk away with a bag full of oranges, like I did today. So I just try to remember that yes, they are asking for more than usual just because Im a toubab, but if I just ask for things back its not only my burden to bear.

A few unrelated pictures

This is my dad and my brother who was born on the very first day I moved in. My brother always has that kind of pained expression on his face.

They draw on new born baby's eyebrows... Flattering? Ummm....

Laundry. I don't do this as well as Gambians so I've stopped trying.

Work? Yes, I do.

So you might all think that I spend all day every day drinking attaya and fetching water, but I promise that I've actually managed to find work for myself. I haven't been at site too long, so most of these projects are in the very beginnings, but here are some of the things I have been doing:

1. Teaching forestry lessons - This is actually a pretty easy set up for me, and I think a more useful one for the village than if I really did just go teach forestry. Instead, I have been working with the students training to be foresters at the forestry station to make lesson plans, which they then go teach at the middle school and the primary school. I think this is more effective for lots of reasons: the foresters get some practice doing the things foresters in the Gambia are supposed to do, the students are taught by people they can look to as role models, and the forestry students are better in local language than I am. We just did our first lesson about bush fire prevention, and the next one we're planning will be about how to start a tree nursery. Which leads me to...

2. Gambia All-Schools Tree Nursery Competition - This is a country-wide competition that's run jointly by government offices and the Peace Corps. I'm studying up to take over the Regional Coordinator position once the older batch of volunteers goes home. Basically, it's just schools competing to see who can plant the most trees in the most organized, creative, useful ways. Then they can sell what they produce, and win prizes. To get started, I went to the awards ceremony at the first place school in the Western Division. It was quite an event, complete with a Howard Stern-themed tent (oh, the things that somehow make it from America), singing women hijacking the microphone, and some verrrrrry interesting speeches.

3. Tutoring math and science - This is just what it sounds like. I'm working with a young man in my village to do a few hours of classes every weekend to help 9th graders pass their end-of-the-year qualifying exam. This is a bit more challenging than I thought because it's really a struggle to teach fairly complicated science when foundations like reading aren't really there. I could say a lot more about this, but I won't because well, let's keep it neutral.

4. Rehabilitating the womens garden - This is a slow, slow, slow process because it involves money and frankly, projects that involve money usually flop so while I think this is a great idea and should happen, I'm a little wary. There is a large space in my village that has basically been left to fallow for upwards of 10 years because the original (donated) borehole and generator broke. So there's no water there. And no fence really. Those are two major issues in this country. But there have been some offers for help in terms of funding and seeds made, and the village seems behind the project, so I'm proceeding slowly, slowly.

5. Computer help - Okay, I don't really even know computers that well but when people see toubabs they think computer genius. So all the places in my village that have computers (skills center, middle school, nursery school) have called me in to help with things like switching their computers out of swedish, teaching typing, helping them do fancy borders... Luckily these are for the most part things that I can do.

I have lots of other project ideas but for now I'm kind of letting the Gambians steer my direction because I haven't been around long enough to know for sure if my ideas are good, useful, realistic, sustainable...

Make Your Own Attaya

Okay, I've gotten some flack for not defining terms, so what follows is a recipe for the national drink of Gambia, attaya:

Ingredients: Water, loose Gunpowder green tea leaves, sugar (lots), maybe some extras like mint, nescafe, etc. if you've got them around

Put charcoal or coals from the fire in a metal stand with a handle and swing it around until it gets really hot. Then, pour three shot glasses of water into a very very small kettle. Add a bunch of tea leaves and let it sit until it boils. Once it boils, add 1-2 shot glasses full of sugar. Sit back and wait until it boils again.

Now is where practice makes perfect. Pour the tea from the kettle into a shot glass from as high up as possible to start creating a foam. Alternate filling one shot glass and then pouring it (also from very high up) into the other shot glass, filling both and pouring them into the kettle, and any variation on the theme. Now is also when you add any extra goodies to the recipe. All this pouring from a great distance goes on for at least 10 minutes, until a good foam head forms in the glasses. Then, it's back into the kettle and back onto the coals to heat up again.

Take a moment here to rinse off the outside of your glasses and your serving plate. Once the attaya is hot again you can fill both cups. Make sure to serve in order of seniority. When it's your turn, make sure to slurp and drink as quickly as possible so that the next person can get some too.

Back to Site

Hey all,

Just wanted to tell you I'm heading back to site the day after tomorrow, so expect another long gap in communication.

I'm now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! Don't forget to write PCV instead of PCT on anythign you send to me starting... well, probably three weeks ago but oh well. We were sworn in at the US Ambassador's house. He used to work for Peace Corps, as did his wife. Now he lives in an amazing beach front house with a swimming pool...

And I went bee keeping last night! We put on big suits and went out in the dark. African bees are a little harder to work with than American/European bees since they haven't been bred to be docile. We smoked them to get them kind of dopey, and then opened up the hives and looked at the honey. My group didn't end up finding any good honey to harvest in the two hives we looked at, but the other group did. It was probably the best thing I have ever eaten in my life.
Looking at the hives was really interesting. We were able to see where fresh and capped honey was, where the brood cells were, and the difference between drones and worker bees. We also saw some comb moths that were infecting one of the hives and the cells where new queen bees were laid. The whole time you could hear the bees buzzing around your ears and bumping into your head piece. When they landed on my gloves I could feel them vibrating. We watched one sting Andy's glove, which was interesting to see.
The main problem with African bees, and why they are deemed "killer," is that when one stings, it releases a pharamone that attracts other bees to sting also. So when you're beekeeping and you get stung, you have to either get the heck out or cover yourself in enough smoke to mask the pharamone. I didn't get stung in the bee suit, but once we took it off and were eating honey I got stung twice. I'm still standing.

My break in the big city (relatively speaking) has been nice, but I'm excited to go back and try to get used to my real life. Please keep up the snail mail, since it's been really nice to get your letters and packages. Lots of people have asked what might be good to send in a package, so here are just a few suggestions:
Dried fruit, magazines, anything just-add-water (soup mix, boiling bags, pasta, powdered sauce mix), any kind of bar (Lara, Cliff, Luna, Chewy, etc.), nuts, granola, juice powder, books, any kind of yummy snack you can think of that won't rot in the mail... Just nice notes from home are also really, really, really nice.

Fo wati do (Until next time).

Picture Post

Typical breakfast: Rice Porridge

Food bowls

Marathon March

My henna-ed hand

My namesake's mom and siblings

Me and my namesake

The beach in Fajara

The Konkuran

There is a circumcision camp going on in Wurokang right now. As a girl, I don’t get to see much of anything, but there are certainly some noticeable changes in the village. The first day of the camp all the women in the village wore pants and danced. Scott went to the bush to see the boys and he said they were sitting under a mango tree nursing their wounds. He thought some were girls before they were wearing headscarves. He gave them cookies and they said a prayer. At night you can hear drums and see a bonfire going in the bush.
But the really noticeable change in the village is the entrance of the konkuran. Today, as I was walking back from Kwinella with Scott we saw a parade of drumming, clapping boys coming toward us. One of them was dressed all in straw and wielding machetes. Scott turns to me and says “Seriously, you might want to run.” And I do, along with all the other women outside their compounds. This is a serious run, not a little jog. People want to get home. When I got back to my compound the women were standing at the gate peeking out, but soon Kombe hustled us all into the women’s house and locked the door. When Fatou went outside into the backyard, she got yelled at. This is serious business. If the konkuran catches a woman, people say he will beat you unless you give him money. But in practice you never really know what to expect, and it’s not worth messing with.
The konkuran came through the village several other times, and even if it was dark or the middle of dinner, all activity stopped to go inside and lock the door.

Gambian Questions & Comments

Do you know 50 cent? What about Tupac?
Is America bigger than the world?
You walk like a soldier.
Are there stars and the moon in America too?

My Name

My new Gambian name is Sarata. It was given to me by Kombe, passed through a man in sunglasses who prayed over me while massaging my hairline and blowing in my ears. All Gambian names are passed on, and my namesake is Kombe’s shy 3-year old neice. For the ceremony, I wore one of Kombe’s fancy prayer outfits, bright blue with a multicolored shawl. The men of the village sat around me on mats, eating kola nuts. The women and children sat behind. Once all five of the trainees had been given their names (the others were Bunang, Nfamara, Fanta, and Nyima), the men grabbed their fried pastries and mango-flavored juice and cleared out. The women stayed in the alkaloo’s compound to drum on plastic jugs and dance.
Since I’ve moved to Kafuta, I’ve taken on the last name of the family I stay with: Jatta. Most people call me Sarata Jatta-Njai, since Njai is traditionally associated with “friend of the toubabs.”

The toubabs at the naming ceremony (Fanta, Nyima, Sarata, Bunang, Nfamara)

Scott getting his name

Tobaski

For Tobaski, the celebration of the end of the Hajj, Wurokang just about doubled in size – all the bumsters came back to play. The city folk definitely stand out, with clean white sneakers and blue jeans. Also lots of 50 Cent clothing and one brand new Cannabis t-shirt. The night before Tobaski the village was humming with women pounding rice for the following day and the little girls getting mesh braided into their hair.
We woke up in the morning and I put on my nice dress and sat on the road with my family. After breakfast, my host mom handed me a pink salibayoo outfit. I guess my American dress didn’t quite cut it. I put it on with a headwrap and headscarf and followed most of the villagers to the mosque. Everyone sat in front of the mosque, outside, on mats with the men in front and the women and children behind. There was a group prayer and then the elder men of the village stood and draped themselves in a sheet and prayed for about 15 minutes. All of a sudden it was over and everyone shook hands and dispersed.
The rest of the day I wandered around kind of aimlessly, not sure what exactly this holiday meant. The men slaughtered a goat by slitting its throat and then dissected it for our lunch time feast. The women cooked fried rice with potatoes, onions, and eggplant. It was tasty. I avoided the goat.
Toward evening time, all the little boys and girls and the women got dressed up in fancy new clothes and walked from compound to compound asking for prayers and minties. One little girl had shoes that were way to big and had to waddle to keep them on. A speaker system was set up at the water pump by the mosque and people stayed up late into the night, dancing and drinking attaya and lait.
And I thought that was the end but it wasn’t. The next say was kind of like a giant hangover until the evening, when people did the whole thing all over again. And the next night. A little more of a holiday than I expected.

Me in my salibayoo

Killing the goat

Little girls all dolled up for Tobaski

Kamara Kunda

My training family was fairly small as far as Gambian family units go. My host mother, Kombe, is the head of the compound. Her husband lives in SerraKunda, along with many of her 9 children. Her husband’s brother, Ousman, lives in the compound in Wurokang along with two of Kombe’s children – Ibraima (14) and Nyominding (10). When I first arrived, this was it for the members of Kamara Kunda, but after Tobaski the compound filled up a bit. Two of Kombe’s son’s wives came to stay in the compound with their children – Ayiso brought her two daughters (Fatu and Nyima) and her toddler son (Mohammed), and Kaddie Toureh came with her baby, Fatu.
The compound itself is really clean, in part because Kombe doesn’t keep any livestock. There is a round central area with a cement bantaba, and several houses along the edge. I lived in a mud house with a corrugate roof, attached to the house where the women and children lived. My section of the house had two rooms, a front room with a desk and a chair, and a back room with my bed and a trunk. My own backyard is fenced off and includes a cement walkway to a latrine and shower area.
At night, we would lie outside on the bantaba chatting (mostly listening for me, since my Mandinka is still small small) or playing cards. Visitors usually come by after dinner, and since Kombe is the chairperson of the Village Development Committee, there is usually some official business to attend to like clearing balances with the flour mill. The sky is clear and starry and the nights are cool.

Me with some selections of my training family (my neice Nyima, siter Nyominding, brother Ibraima, wife Kaddie Toureh, neice Fatou, and mom Kombe)

Training Village

I spent the past two months living in a very tiny village called Wurokang in Kiang Central. The whole village consisted of one row of compounds on either side of the main south bank road. I could probably walk from one end to the other in about 5 minutes. Wurokang has two pumps where the women go to get water, one mosque, and probably about 300 inhabitants. It has two small bitiks, where you can buy common necessities like soap and oil, and one tailor. On either side of the village fields extend back. This is the land where the people make their living growing groundnuts, rice, and coos. We lived in Wurokang toward the end of the groundnut harvest time, which meant that I had a pretty serious blister on my thumb from cracking peanuts on the concrete for long stretches of time. If you walk through the fields, the peanut plants have all been pulled out of the ground and piled in big bushels that the men guard from mischievous cows. They use thin wooden hockey-stick shaped tools to separate the nuts from the ground nut hay.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the work in the village falls to the women. They cook, fetch water, garden, keep the compounds clean, pound the rice and coos to extract it from its shell…
The kids put on their blue and white uniforms and walk to Kwinella for school, a larger village about 2k away. On Fridays and weekend nights they go to Arabic school, where they build a huge bonfire and sing late into the night. Everyone in Wurokang is Muslim, but bits of African animist culture still remain. The babies, and many of the grownups, wear jujus around their necks, waists, and arms to protect them from harm or evil. To pray, women wrap themselves tight in scarves but otherwise modesty applies only to the bottom half. It’s too hot and there are too many babies to feed for the women to worry about covering up on top.
As for the Peace Corps Trainees, the five of us meet every morning at our teacher’s house to learn language, and again for lunch, which is, like all meals in The Gambia, served in a communal food bowl. Usually it’s rice with some kind of sauce – peanut, leaf, or oil and tomato. We spend the rest of the day filling our time with chores – laundry, fetching water, studying, doing assignments, gardening – or hanging out with our families and each other.

The Wurokang Health/Agroforestry Training Class of 2008.

I'm back!

Okay, after two months with no access to the internet, I am back in the land of computers, cold beverages, and food that does not include rice! So, what follows is a whirlwind adventure of my past two months. Read on.