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.