Let the updates begin!

Oh, gosh, Where to begin... Well, we reached out two month marker recently but it seems like a while ago that we came here to the Gambia. So the last time I wrote we were preparing to go off the training village. Our training village was called Bambako. It was a very momentous day when we all hopped on the Toyota coaster van with all our stuff strapped to the top of another car and bumped down the horrendous road to drop people off at their respected villages, group by group. Whenever someone would get dropped off you could just see the mob of children surrounding them and the look of "Oh boy what have I gotten myself into!" look on their faces.

So Andy and I were dropped off along with one other volunteer in Bambako. We met our language teacher there and we just sat in some chairs under the shade of a mango tree adjusting to the heat and the realization that we were actually there. After a little while, and a few glasses of attaya (strongly brewed green tea) we went around to meet people in the village and meet our families. The arrangement that we had was a little different because we are a married couple. I had my host family that would provide my meals, and Andy had his own host family that would provide his meals. But.... we lived in Andy's host family's compound. My host father is the alikahlo of the village, which is like the chief of the village. The compound is a group of houses in which a family lives. Now, the general family here is a very extended affair, because a lot of the people are poligamists, and of course they usually have the regualr extended family there too, like grandmothers etc. So, my host father had three wives, but most of the time only one was around. Andy's family had three wives and they all have a ton of children. So when we first got a chance be alone in our new living situation we were not really alone, because of the kids would just stand outside the screen door and talk about us. Whenever you are home the general rule is that you have to keep your door open, (but you can have the screen door closed) because people think that you have something to hide if you have your door shut when you are home. It would probably also be a bit crazy because it is so hot inside a tin roof house in Africa!