Fudaano

On Monday, the day before Tobaski I got something called “fudaano” done on my hands. It is kind of like henna. It was a day long process. It was decided (without me really) that I should do it during the day on Monday, even though people usually do it before they go to bed before the night. But the following day was Tobaski and everyone would be too busy to help. So at around 11 I ran to go to the pit latrine not knowing when I would have my hands available next to go. Then they took the roll of medical tape they sell specifically for this process and laid out strips of it on a plate. They then proceeded very laboriously to cut small strips with a flimsy, one dalasi razor blade. After they would get one strip cut it was applied around my fingers, about four or five strips were spaced apart starting from my fingertips and going back. Jalika started out doing this, then Adja took over, and Njemmeh our neighbor and the young boys watched.
After both hands were done they usually will tape some kind of design on the palm, but after attempting it with star stickers (wouldn’t stick) then the tape (still wouldn’t stick, hands too sweaty!!) we did a quick star pattern on the back of my hands. After that was all done it was time to apply the fudaano, which is some sort of small tree leaves, dried then pounded. This is mixed with water and made into a paste consistency. Then it was applied on top of the tape around the fingers and on the backs of my hands They also did a traditional splotch on my palm requiring no tape. It is sort of like covering your hands in thick strange smelling mud. After Ndea applied it she took strips of plastic bags and covered up the fudaano, tying it around my fingers and hand. Each finger was separately tied, but then a whole plastic bag was put over my hands and tied to my wrists. Immediately my hands started to sweat even more and then they asked me if I had any socks. So I had to lead Jalika into our bedroom (usually off limits) and have her rummage through my underwear and sock bag to find a pair. These were fitted over my plastic bag hands and then suddenly I was all alone.
Andy was out at work and as soon as they were finished the place was quiet. All I could do was sit or lay down. I had to make it until five o-clock and was counting down the hours. But of course, me being me, mid way through I had to use the pit latrine. Well, I won’t go into details, but lets just say it was freakin hilarious for Andy and I. When Andy had come home I was just laying face up on the bed in the front room with my hands up in socks looking like a sad burn victim. Adding to my helpless feeling was the thought that it wasn’t even over after this part was finished. After lunch I was finally able to fall asleep to pass the time and at around five o’clock Jalika came tearing across the compound to get me. Then Ndea and Jalika and other bystanders unwrapped me and flung off most of the paste. Next was some small mysterious bagged substance which was mixed with water making it into a grey smelly mixture. It was of course then applied to the parts of my hands that had fudaano on it. I was happy and relieved to find out that I only had to keep this on for an hour or so and I could keep my hands unwrapped. This was so much better that I had thought. I had misinterpreted and thought that this second application would have to stay on over night. When we finally washed it off my hands were wrinkly and pasty white and the parts with the fudaano were a lovely red color. Cool. I immediately had ideas for designs for the next time and am excited to try it again, only this time over night. Later on the same night I did get a chance to practice on someone else when Jalika came over looking for the tape. Andy suggested we use duct tape and I cut it into strips and quickly did one of her hands with finger stripes. Then I cut more strips and made a cool (if I say so myself) sun design on her palm. The next morning she showed me and it looked good! Well, it will eventually wear off and then we will get to do it all over again, but this time I will be more mentally and physically prepared for the process! After we come back from Guinea we will post a ton of pictures! Promise :)

Sorry for the lack of blogs lately, life is cruising right along. The weeks between have been filled with us putting a lot of time into getting things finished before we have to go out of town. Last Wednesday, we left to come to the main city and spent a few days doing typical American things in this unlikely setting, like playing softball, (preparing for our tournament in Dakar in February), eating Thanksgiving dinner, having an “Open Mic” night where volunteers displayed there vast array of talent. We had a general good time, but because of all the activities and lack of real down time we came back more tired than before. But, a bonus on that part was that we got to stay in someone’s house and of course their bed was infinitely more comfortable than our who-knows-how-old-foam mattress. We got back from the fun filled weekend on Sunday, and Sunday is a Study night in the compound, so I was busy with that for a few hours. This week is jammed because all the real work for the next month has to be done this week, being that next week is Tobaski, and no one seems to really know if they will be going to school at all next week. For us, the following week we will be traveling and then it will be Christmas and New Years time. The whole month is shot already as far as work.
My duties this term, even though I am not teaching classes now, is to still participate in the observation of the student teachers. The third week in November I was one of four that made the long journey up to the last region in the country, the furthest east you can go. Our task was to observe about fifty students in about 12 schools. Which may not seems like that big of a deal, but when you have to go four wheeling through the bush and ask a lone farmer in the field exactly which dirt track is the one that goes to a particular school, it is pretty tiresome. Needless to say, no air conditioning, and lots of dust with dry season. A good thing about this trek was that I had excellent sleeping accommodations because there is a peace corps transit house for volunteers to stay when they are traveling.
Well, after leaving Brikama Sunday, finishing the week of observations, Friday morning finally came. We left Basse at around 7:30 and did not get back to Brikama until 12 hours later. Three hours were spent trying to negotiate a place in the extremely lengthy car line to get on the ferry. All I wanted to know was, Where is the bridge?! When we pulled beside the compound door I could hardly wait to un-mangle my body from the seat and was extremely happy to back home, I love Brikama!
Along with this type of observation trek, we are responsible for observing students in our immediate area. I have nine students at the school I am attending to. And this week I have been trying to finish with their observations for the term. Going to these schools are extremely draining. Imagine you, lone toubab, walking through a sea of children all calling you “toubab”, just to get to the classroom you need to go observe a student in. Yesterday I had to be around for the dreaded …..
Break time.
This is when every single student in the school is out amongst the entire expansive school grounds doing whatever they want with no adult supervision. Now imagine having to walk through these hundreds of students to cross the school grounds as the only white person. Trying to hold your head up and be a professional that deserves respect even while they are calling you this name and asking, then demanding, everything from candy (minty) to shoes, to bottles.
Well, just one more day of observations today, then I will take a nice long break.
People are very busy preparing for Tobaski, the market is filled with even more vendors than normal, everyone is desperate to make some money to go out and buy a ram. Our host father recenlty traveled to Senegal and brought back with him a huge ram, it is so tall, it is a little scary. It is tied up to a mango tree near the cooking area and is constantly making a gutterl bah sound. With the compound so full this year, if every family gets a sheep or goat, we are going to have a meat festivist. But at least this time I can be prepared, and have my goat stew recipe ready!

Written Nov. 11

Study program:
Some of you know that for a long time I have been contemplating how I would start a structured study program for the children in the compound. Well, we started the program about three weeks ago. We have had to make some adjustments to the routines, but the program is well underway! The children are motivated to study and I am able to assist them in their trouble areas with one-on-one time, especially with English and reading. Just by studying with them (Andy helps Fatou M. with economics mainly), in which we ask them to work hard in a different, more complex way, than what is demanded at their schools, is making a difference in their learning already.
Even though they are not extrinsically motivated we have had the ability to reward them for their efforts (thanks to some donations from family) by providing small rewards. They earn the rewards by coming to do study work. When they do this they earn points and at certain levels they can attain a reward based on their points. The thing is because of their sharing culture, no matter who gets what reward, they all share it anyhow!
Case in point
The other day Alhagie was completely excited to achieve the 10 point mark. He looked in the box and squirmed with excitement. After digging through and reviewing the choices he said he would be right back and went outside to confer with our host mother what he should get. He came back inside and choose four packets of juice that you add to water.
Andy was sitting on the porch talking to the children that were waiting for their turn (they get a rock with a painted number on it and go and get the next person after their turn). Alhagie rushed back to tell Andy that he had given one to Ara (our neightbor), one to Ndea (our host mom) one to Sanussei (our host dad) and the kids all shared one.
Though Andy and I were a little afraid they would not like them he let us know he did and when Jalika looked in the prize box, she pointed out with a frown that there was no more juice!
Well, just in the fact that Ndea has been encouraging MoLamin to “go study!” in the evening, Alhagie and Alieu have made progress in reading and all the children are experiencing new ways of learning! (rather than their listening to lectures, or memorizing a text, in a language they understand very little of)


Random notes: This morning on my way to the corner near our house to catch a gelley to the nursery school a horrible thing happened. There were two dogs wandering around the road and one of them got squarely hit by a speeding vehicle.
I was watching it aimlessly wander around the road, I looked at the other dog, and that’s when I heard the horrible sound of car making contact with a body. I looked at saw the dog squirming on its back and howling in pain. After a few seconds of that, he tried to get up, his leg was clearly broken, he then ran crazily ran off the road and down a dirt side road with the other dog following. What bothered me most was of all the people standing around the road when it happened; I was the only one that looked like something bad had happened. It made me even more upset to hear the young men chuckle to themselves about the situation then move on in their conversation.
Now I realize that attitudes towards animals are different here, but I don’t think they even thought of the possibility and danger of the situation because it could have easily been a child that was hit because of reckless, uncaring, speeding drivers.
Because I am currently in the process of getting ready to apply for jobs in the states as a teacher I have been reading texts on teaching more vigorously. I am having these bad thoughts that I have somehow “absorbed” the teaching practices of people I have worked with here. This is because their style of teaching, treatment of students, and school system is the antithesis of what we strive for in the states. Because I am working within the school system here and now as a volunteer, I have to find a difficult balance between helping the educators themselves improve their work and still recognize cultural differences that I cannot encourage them to change. Some days I think it would be easier to say, “here, let me see your class, I will show you…” and then take it over for a few weeks. But that is not the solution and even though I know it, it sometimes enters my mind.
When I am sitting in classrooms where teachers are directly insulting children that sit idle for hours on end, I squirm. I think I will take a huge breath of relief when I see classrooms in America again. It may even bring tears to my eyes when I see the beautiful sight of colorful, thoughtfully designed classrooms that have enough desks and chairs for students and so much more! And I may even get hysterical at watching a teacher and students interact with a deliberate focus on positive learning experiences and environments.
Somehow, I think the more teacher articles, books, etc. I read about from an American perspective the more it will help me keep the “bad” thoughts and influences of working within a deformed school system at bay.
On that note, I will be leaving Sunday for a week long trek to the furthest region in the country to do student teacher observations! Wish me good luck!

election fever

Since moving to The Gambia in June 2007 locals have asked, “which do you support?” referring to the top two presidential candidates. I always paused and wondered to myself, what do they care? Why would it matter to them? A local businessman opened a new stationary store about 6 months ago. He proudly displayed his stores sign out front, “Barack Obama stationary and bookstore”. As he sits outside he enthusiastically waves to us and shouts out “Obama!” as we zoom by on our bikes.
Election day finally came and the questions got more concise, “You support Obama right? And admonishing us, “Borry. Obama is the best one!”. I still played my cards close and reminded them there were more than two candidates and we would wait for all the information before deciding.
Jalika and Adja were over one day and I showed them the ballot we received in the mail. I showed them the top runners names and all the other peoples names in the presidential race. It was unique for them to see a U.S. presidential ballot and to realize that we could vote even though we weren’t even in our country.
On the day of the election we made plans to go in the evening to an embassy workers house so we could pull an all-nighter to watch it all unfold on CNN in real time.
I packed my bag before going to work and after work stood on the side of the road until I got a car to town.
The whole ride there sitting among the people that were so interested and pushing for me to vote for Obama, I had an unwelcomed, though slightly absurd thought…How will these people react to us as Americans if we collectively vote for McCain to be the next president?
As results came in slowly at first in which McCain was showing more support, I think the collective PC volunteer population had theset thoughts. They were expressed by some later after the results became clear, as “Wheew! Now we don’t have to evacuate the country!”
After more than 24 hours without sleep our gelley ride back to Brikama at 6:30 am was surreal, with Andy’s head precariously wobbling back and forth.
We entered the compound to see the usual morning bustle around the tap. As we approached we heard the women talking about the election, the word Obama as usual, jutting out from the conversation in Mandinka. They turned around to see us and I proclaimed the winner to which our host mother excitedly exclaimed, throwing her arms up over her head, “Obama wins!”
We stumbled through a backwards morning routine that was the usual night time routine. Taking showers, brushing teeth, closing doors. Then fell into a fitful sleep due to the normal daytime heat.
Awakening in the late afternoon we had to look at the pictures from the night before to assure ourselves it was all really real.
We don’t have to evacuate after all!

Time Warp

So, lately my part time job has been gathering information for my various employment requirements state-side. Often that means that I have to use my "connections" here at the college to call America through voice over ip calling. Then, through that, it feels kind of like a time warp, all of the sudden I am supposed to talk regular, non-Gambian English and speak to people in A-M-E-R-I-C-A! Which, the longer your over here, the more it becomes some kind of fantasy land, where everyone is rich and everything is wonderful.
Our pastime on "lazy" Sundays has been to plan various minute aspects of our move back home. Though this is good and makes us feel more proactive and excited about going back, it at the same time makes it sad that we are spending our time here doing that.
Today, being one of those Sundays, we have already made a detailed list of costs for moving back, moving to a new location, getting settled etc. Though for some it seems a long way off, only 8 more months of living here will go by so quickly because our weeks just disappear. We spent more than a year planning to come here, so moving somewhere else new is not far off in our minds. Always looking to the next thing. Sometimes we laugh, because I think if we weren't already married people would be wondering when we were going to settled down and live in one place for a while. I wonder too if I will ever have that desire!
Today we also made squash bread. I am becoming an expert in cooking with children. But I only always invite Fatou Bintou and MoLamin to help because they now know the ropes. Today, though Adama invited herself and added an extra spice to the mix. Andy did a good job wrangling her when needed and helping keeps things under control. Fatou Bintou holds the measuring cups over the sifter, MoLamin shakes the sifter (sometimes getting a little crazy). All the while we count out loud the amouts. Then after the squash was cooked I handed each of them a fork and they went to town smashing it in the bowl. All along the way MoLamin is taste testing everything sticking his finger in it all. Adama took the spoon that had cinnamon residue on it and stuck it to her mouth, then made a disgusted face. I smeared butter on her and MoLamins mouth. It was fun... It was carefully orchestrated chaos and we had a good time. After it was mixed I added a few raisins on top (MoLamin actually didn't like these) we put it out in the sun and a little over two hours later we had a delicious sweet squash bread. Man, gotta love the solar cooker. Fatou Bintou and MoLamin were the first to taste it and then we spread the wealth around the rest of the compound. Now... I wonder what we'll cook next week.
Oh, check out the new pictures of Andy putting in the solar system for our friend.

blog coming soon I promise

Hello people, I have been spending a lot of time working on state side job stuff, so I was going to write a blog today, but now I am sort of on computer burn out, so I will will write one this weekend and then post it up Monday! Have a nice weekend!

Mold glorious mold!

It sounds like this might be a tribute to that wonderful taste experience called cheese, but it is far from it…
This mold is the kind that has fairly rapidly invaded the household and which has overrun the surface of everything from leather bags, sandals, shoes, necklaces, even a wood mortar. In some cases the variety is white but in others it is a ghoulish green but in all instances is does an amazingly thorough job of encompassing the object. On my incense scented “jelly” (it is like a necklace for your waist women wear here) it went from being brown to a rainforest floor green.

The take over has even crept into my dreams. Last night I dreamt of Andy and I wandering around the house finding mold at every turn, and then not so mysteriously getting deathly ill from it. I specifically remember saying, “Andy it’s the mold, it’s killing us!” Now that’s just scary.
Now to shift slightly. Let’s talk about Fungus. Specifically, people fungus. The wet season creates such an environment where being dry (which in terms of bodies, I mean not sweaty) is something that never happens. And because of this my upper shoulder and back have been plagued by fungus. As it is right now, the transition to dry season is probably the worst time, because you still have the humidity hanging around along with blaring sun, but no relief in the form of rain, and the dry winds have not come yet. Even with an array of antifungal products, creams, powders, etc., it does not keep it at bay. In fact I think it is a lost cause, until dry season comes, or I move.
This may be one reason why many PCV’s from here move to someplace cold and dry afterwards. This is exactly what we are planning to do!

Written on Monday, Sept. 22nd

Andy and I had a pretty relaxing weekend spent around the compound. On Saturday I had a really trying day of fasting, because I was incredibly hungry. The reason I was hungry was because of something somewhat out of my control. During Ramadan a lot of people here break fast with French bread. At the local batiks around 6:30/7 o’clock there is a rush of people buying bread for their families to break fast a little after 7pm. Andy and I usually don’t eat bread then, we just eat what our family cooks. But we do buy bread at that time because it is when it is available during Ramadan, for our breakfast in the early morning. So on Friday, Andy went to the bitik to buy bread for Saturday morning, but after going several places, he found out from other people that there is some kind of “baker strike”. Apparently instead of 4 Dalasis a loaf, “they” (not sure who, I’m assuming government of some kind) wanted the bakers to sell their bread even lower than the already low price. Buying flour here is expensive and the price of the bread has remained the same for many years, going lower would mean for them to loose money, or at the very least, not make any profit.
So for early am breakfast Saturday morning, Andy and I had gathered up 3 smallish potatoes, and had that with our usual eggs. Apparently that was not nearly as fulfilling as the normal loaf of bread with eggs on it. Because by late morning I already felt very hungry. Since it was Saturday, there was not much to do, I wandered around trying to busy myself so that I wouldn’t think about how hungry I was. But I think my brain was refusing to engage, or was in some sort of deep fog, because I literally was pacing through the house, then would decide to see what was going on outside, stand on the porch, would get tired, then would go inside again.
When I did manage to settle down to do something like read, I found myself giving the task about thirty percent of my attention, while the other part was thinking about food, and how my stomach was telling my brain it was “dying”. So I would get frustrated and antsy and get up to try to find something else to do that would hopefully keep my attention. This of course led to more aimless wandering until I landed on something else to do.
This sort of schedule went on for most of the afternoon. The amount of activities I tried for small amounts of time did not eat away at much of the day. Each time I would move on to something else, I would check the clock, only to find very little time would have past, “what!? Its only 1 o’clock? But I’ve done this, this and this!?”
Of course eventually the time came to break fast for the day, but it was one of the weakest days I have ever had. Most of the time with our regular breakfast of bread and eggs, I don’t feel too hungry, especially with work and keeping busy.
On Sunday, because of this bakers strike, I decided to take it into my own hands and break out the solar cooker. Rain has still been coming sporadically, but I thought I would wake up in the morning, judge how the sun would be then, and if sunny, go to the market to get flower to make bread. And that is just what I did. The only thing is…..
I’m not a meteorologist. And the day had good blocks of time with sun, but also had large slow moving clouds that would cover it. Because of this situation, the bread was out there all day, and when we finally had to bring it inside, it was still a bit doughy. This, of course, did not matter to Andy and I, and we were eager to dig in as soon as the call to break fast came.
Because we like to share whatever we make in the solar cooker with the family, I gave them some large chunks of bread. I had pre-warned them that it might not be cooked all the way because of the weather.
Later that night, MoLamin came over, and of course as usual, he had some kind of food in his hands. At first glance we thought it was a pankako (a sort of doughnut) but then we noticed it looked a little different and MoLamin said it was mburro (bread). When Alhagie came in with a fistful of bread too we finally devised upon closer inspection that the bread they were eating was the bread we gave them from the solar cooker…but it definitely looked different…. Apparently they had fried it!
This was just hilarious because we always joke about how they fry everything here in oil. We eat fried everything (fish, onion, eggplant, etc.) on top of rice every single day. But also the fact that the shear principle of the solar cooker, to not use firewood to cook, was totally defeated. Oh, well.
We have had three new takers on the compound library in the past two weeks, three of which are adults, and one is a mid-teenage boy Muhammed, he lives in our compound with our family for the year to go to school here. Andy saw him looking at everyone else's book when they came out of the house and through encouragment got him to come check one out. Yah! And the other two adults are both women, one of which was a former teacher. Lately the women in the compound have been bugging me more to teach them English, but I am reluctant to say yes, because right now I don't know when I would have the time. But I would like to, so we shall see.

The weather has been changing. The humidity is still high, but now there is no relief from the heat sent in the form of rain storms..yesterday I asked Fatou M. if rainy season was over, and the sad thing is, she said yes! :( But I try to console myself by remembering all the good things I am going to cook in the solar cooker in the dry season. But I guess the real reason I am more sad about the change this year is that the end of the rainy season means end of mangoes, and if we are lucky we will get some more before we move back to the states, but you never know next years rainy season might be late, and this years could possibly be our last. We are also at the turning point in our service where we can say, "this is our last _____(insert month) in the Gambia" And that is just sad. Andy says he keeps having dreams that he leaves without saying goodbye to MoLamin.
We are beginning the moving process already. It is always on my mind now. It is going to be a difficult year, it will be like living two seperate lives, and towards the end of our stay here, it will be like I will already have a foot in America and one foot all the way across the ocean in Gambia. I will start making lists of things to do before we leave here, job/accomodation deadlines in America, things to sell, give away here, etc. It will kind of be like the "Gambian me" is writing her will, "I want my radio to go to Jalika, my jewlery to Fatou B....."
Fasting has been a whirlwind of emptying our stomachs, stuffing ourselves, sleeping at random intervals. When fasting stops we will have to remember to listen to our bodies signals again, because right now we are getting pretty used to ignoring them.. eating when we are so full already, not eating when our stomachs are shrinking during the day, etc. This is going to be one of my accomplishments here do to it the whole time, when last year I only did it for a week. I think that on the first day when I can eat during the day, I might forget. When I remember I will be so excited, "Hey! I can eat now if I want to! Isn't that great!?" We will both being working back into our routines our respective workout routines, and that will be nice, because vacationing (eating pretty good food) and then fasting all without exercising has made my body feel so... so yucky!
The primary, secondary, schools have started but the college still has not,.. we are looking at possibly the 6/7 th of next month,.. making for the shortest term ever. But I am trying to look into other options rather than teaching a class again. We shall see I can convince the people that matter.
The library at home is going great! Thanks for those who have sent books, we are building real book culture here! :)
Well, signing off for now...

We're back!

“Blue sky is all the more beautiful with a few clouds”

We got back from our three week trip to Mali on Monday, September 1. Because of the sheer amount of things we saw and experienced it is going to be quite a task to write a comprehensible blog about it. But, of course, I will try. And though what I describe may sound like we sought out torture, I assure you we knew what it would be like ahead of time, it was how we spent a majority of out “vacation” time, and actually we enjoyed it. It wasn’t a sit on our butts and sit strawberry daiquiris by the pool type of vacation. No way, it was a sit in a people frying hot bus, as it bounces along a pot holed road, eating street food, dodging rain storms and herds of cattle, kind of vacation. Also be warned that all of the statements written below are just maybe a little less than the average ignorant observations of an American tourist-traveling in an African country they don’t live in-so would have absolutely no idea what really goes down.

Route:
Our trip route went from Brikama (our home base), across to the north bank of the Gambia by ferry, and all the way to Bassee, in the far east end of Gambia. From Bassee we went up through some points in Senegal, staying for a night, before crossing into Mali, where we visited places like, in no exact order now, Bamako, Kayes, Sevari, Sedou, Bandiagara, Dogon Country, Mopti, etc… On the way back we pretty much retraced our steps. I believe this is a common route.

Transportation:
Because this is Africa, transportation is of course… a little more interesting to get from place to place. Even when we thought we were getting on a decent vehicle, circumstances always reminded us where we were. In Gambia, transport was typical, get the car, wait forever for it to fill up with people, cram yourself in the back seat with absolutely foot room-the sun blaring on you, diesel fumes tainting the only air you are getting, that is if the person in front of you so considerately closes the window because they are getting “too much air”, and then of course go through a million check points (I think it was affirmed as 15 just along the north bank). Once getting to Bassee, we had to get a car to another car park, in order to get a car to Senegal, and the description of the car park in the guide book was along the lines of,… this car park has the most decrepit cars you’ll ever see, it is amazing that they still run…is this a junk yard or a car park? etc. If you saw it, you might think it was one of those pictures where junky broken down cars from the old days are tossed in an empty grass lot under a nice tree. We checked with this particular car park the night before coming to leave from it as to what time we should be there, they first said 7 am, then changed that and insisted we should come at 6. After we got there, got our tickets, we of course waited the mandatory 3-4 hours, during this time, we amused ourselves with the car park “attendants” doing their morning car checks. You know, like before you go on a road trip, AAA, recommends you do some odd number check on your car. Here, these checks may include: 1) checking if there is water behind your door panels, (and when you do the panel falls off, so you have to figure out how to finagle it back on) 2) somehow pushing all the rain water out of the back where all your luggage will get put 3) fishing out the string that hooks onto the door lock so you can open the door 4) finding the string that enables you to lower the window, then rehooking the string through something else so it will stay put 5) taking a metal bar, opening the hood and banging relentlessly on some part of the engine, and so on..and when you finally get through all those mandatory checks, you have to load all your passengers luggage in the back, tell them to wait while you have your attendants push your car until it starts, take off down the road, while your passengers look on, wondering if they made it too easy for someone to take off with their baggage,.. until the driver turns the car around without braking and heads back towards the car park where you are all waiting, and without turning off the engine you all pile in and off you go! On a wonderfully pot holed dirt road with giant lakes, mud holes, etc.
Entering Senegal and Mali, transport changed somewhat, in that instead of fighting your way for a seat on a seriously decrepit car, you waited civilly until you bought a ticket, where they even gave you a seat number, (you will be in seat 8, you know that comfy corner spot in the back..) The roads were considerable better, and there weren’t nearly as many checkpoints. We discussed that Gambia may have a “small country complex” in thinking it may be so important to warrant so many checkpoints on a road that goes east and west, and of which there are basically only two of in the whole country, one on the north and one on the south sides of the river. In Mali there were also bus companies that ran somewhat more organized operations, but we inevitably got the bus that had gigantic windows, that, did not open, and as the only sources of air the emergency exit on the roof propped open a little with plastic bottles, and the entrance door open the entire journey. One such bus we caught, luckily (we thought) when our taxi driver taking us to the bus station spotted a bus in route and flagged it down for us. Not long after getting settled, headed for Bamako at an alarmingly high rate of speed, the driver approached an intersection, I guess found it a little confusing as to which side of the road to be on, and braked hard, veering to the extreme right of the road, where they shoulder was very soft from rain all the previous night, and skillfully slid our charter bus into a grassy, muddy, ditch. I only realized the angle at which the bus was leaning, until I approached the door to exit. Everyone filed off, and the genius men of the passengers and bus workers, put their minds together to formulate the plan to all stand on the tilting side of the bus, “hold” it up, while the drive first goes forward into the mud more, then backwards into the ditch and mud more, all the while we are standing their thinking, man, what is going to happen when the bus makes that final tip and falls on all these men? Eventually, thank goodness, someone came by with a industrial size tow strap, and a little while later a truck that could pull us did so. Everyone got back on the bus, and we were blasting our way down the road again. Sometimes I think I may feel safer on the old decrepit vehicles, because they can’t go fast enough really to get into any real trouble, but with newer vehicles, and no roaming police force enforcing speed laws, and country roads with lots of cattle and donkey carts, it definitely is a dangerous mix.

Food:
On to a very important topic (especially now that fasting has started). We delighted at the wonderful array of food you could buy at all the stopping points our transport route. And because these stopping points were numerous, I sometimes felt like we were eating our way through the country. Having vendors shove any and everything in your face while on transport is nothing new to us here, because it happens in the Gambia too, but the new array of choices got us excited. We would inexplicably stop for a little while, people would start to get hot, and we’d all get up and go outside where there would be tons of people selling. We would all Becca, Andy and I would pile back on the bus each with a new food item for everyone to try. Food choices included things like, shea fruits (shea butter is made from it, it is a nice and creamy fruit), peanuts, many shapes and sizes of breads, cold drinks (that’s right I said cold! Amazing!) already brewed attaya, yogurt packets, ginger juice, and lots of meat being grilled up. This is a noticeable departure from the Gambia, where we tend to eat 99% fish. Meat was everywhere it seemed, and so was dairy. They seemed to have a lot more cows, goats, etc. (hence more meat and more dairy).
A noticeable difference in the food taste from Gambia is that it lacked the usual salt content that we are used to here. (not as much magi (msg) cube prevalence) The peanuts needed salt, the sauces with the rice needed salt. Though this was probably more pronounced to us because of our “need for dehydration” while traveling in the above described conditions, it was apparent that I may have a salt addiction from living here. And the abundance of meat caused uncomfortable but not serious gastrointestinal issues for me. My body is just not used to digesting meat as protein anymore (just peanuts and fish) and it would just get stuck right below what felt like my ribcage and stay there for days, during which my stomach would bloat and cause me to look several months pregnant. I stopped eating meat and it went down after a few days, and thank goodness for me that was the only issue with health that I had.
One more note on food, several times I found myself thanking the influence of the French on the food here, patisseries were such a treat, and the French bread was great.



Accommodations:

Our first night of our trip we spent in the Peace Corps transit house in Bassee. And for all of us this was a torturous night. No mosquito nets could be found, so we got so many mosquito bites that our skin felt on fire, not to mention the vast array of other unidentifiable bugs berating us all night long. Though covering up with a sheet could have helped alleviate the problem, the sheer amount of heat and sweat this caused made it impossible. The night was sleepless for all, and when a rainstorm came we couldn’t bring ourselves to close off our only air flow, so rain kept being blasted in. That morning we had to wake up to be at the car park at 6,.. so we were off to a good start.
Other memorable nights included our first arrival in Bamako, it was late at night, we got a taxi to the mission we were going to stay at, and were surprised to find that they were full, so we were taken by a boy to another “hotel”. While walking there through unknown streets, we nearly got taken out by being in the vicinity of men fighting, throwing fists and chairs, and then we see that it is just outside the gate of the place we are supposed to stay. We go to talk to the person there, and he proceeds to ask us if we have a reservation (what!? This is Africa!, reservation!?), we say no, then he says he doesn’t have any spaces left, as we go to leave through translation we figure out that he suggests we could sleep on the terrace of one of the rooms, so, giving little other choice, we take it. There was just room for three people across on mattresses we laid down, and rigged a mosquito net, and hoped it didn’t rain (it didn’t).
The time we spent in Dogon country we stayed at camps, that were actually just another building among the tightly arranged village buildings-where tourists stayed. The first night we stayed on the rooftop of a mud roofed house. To get to the roof you had to carefully climb a log with notches cut in it and was laid against the side of the building at an angle. Getting up and down this “ladder” with your pack is a little tricky, and forget about going down to pee in the middle of the night. Our guide thankfully told us before sending us up to bed, “you see those spouts for the rain water coming off the side of the roof, well, just pee into those” Which we did, and it was pretty funny, to get up in the middle of the night, glance up at the moon and stars, and pee into the spout, and listen as you hear it fall from the spout to the ground. Ahh… Africa. Waking up from this first night (of course at the crack of dawn, because we were fully exposed on the roof top) I realized it was my birthday!
While staying in Sevari, we stayed at a wonderful bed and breakfast place, Mac’s Refuge. Mac’s turned out to be a great staging point for many of our excursions, and the fact that he served great course dinners if you wanted and an amazing breakfast was included in the price we didn’t have a hard time deciding if we wanted to stay there more than a night. Comfortable beds, relaxing atmosphere, and good prices made it a perfect choice.

Communication:

When we crossed into Senegal we immediately had to start trying other forms of communication. French was the majority and we had little to no practice. This always made things interesting, and we usually just ended up negotiating to the best of our ability in a mixture of French, Mandinka, and English. Mandinka helped us considerably throughout our travels because Bambara is spoken widely in Mali, and it is close to Mandinka. These negotiations usually started out like this,.. “Bonjour, Ca va? Uh….paso mu jelu? Uh… how much is the bus ticket?” until we hit one that worked. Each time we eventually got the right bus ticket, and actually made it on the right bus, we were immensely proud of ourselves! Hehe, lots of fun.

The People:

In Mali, traveling through I found that people all together bothered us less about giving them free stuff (money, empty bottles, minty etc.). When people did approach us it was with something to sell a majority of the time. And it wasn’t some cheap plastic good that was imported from China, a majority of the time it was something that they had made, and even though it may have been specifically geared towards selling to tourists, locals are abundant users of the local products as well. We were discussing why that may be the situation, and thought that perhaps, just because of the shear sizes of the comparing countries (Mali vs. Gambia) people just don’t have the first hand experiences of getting so many hand outs, and dealing directly with so many NGO’s that they wouldn’t think that every white person is there to give them something. What they would think is that that white person is a tourist, and tourists like to buy souvenirs, so I’m gonna make something for them to buy, and because tourists may be discriminating when buying, I will have to make a good product, something people will want to buy, and because it will be good, locals will find it useful and good too, therefore creating a market… and all that good stuff….
The general health of people that we saw was better, more toothpaste, toothbrushes, healthier constitutions from meat and dairy consumption, fatter babies. But we also did see people peeing, pooping, washing (clothes then body), then drinking the river water, all at the same edge. I would just love to gather a sample of this water and send it to my environmental engineer brother-in-law, he’d have a heart attack! We saw people enjoying a hearty breakfast of a cup of river water, a hunk of French bread (thank goodness for the French influence of food!) and then proceed to dip the bread in the river water till it was dripping and slightly soggy, then wash it all down with the rest of the water…yum.

So, I hope through those topics you can get an idea of our trip, and of course, through the pictures we will post. Now a short bit on coming home…

We turned to walk down our street and right away saw everyone was out selling their usual (ebbe- a fish type stew), out in front of the compound gate, as we were walking up closer, Adama saw me, and with a sort of reprimanding look on her face, didn’t say anything, just raised up her arms in hug-position until I picked her up, everyone was happy to see us and we immediately had a brood of kids following us in the door. Ndea came over to chat with us for a minute, so did Sanusse, then we had to close the doors, because we had to get to cleaning. Several things were covered in mold, and the musty smell of the house was strong. Andy went around knocking down all the termite trails and spider webs. After we finished cleaning we were ready to relax outside on the porch, it was so nice to be back!
The day after we got back, (Tuesday) started fasting, so we had to get up early (5am) to eat as much breakfast as we could. After that we got back to bed around 6 (30 minutes making then eating breakfast, then 30 reading while sitting up) until 8: 15. Then no food again till fast is broken at around 7:30 or 8. Last year we were learning how this all works, now I feel a lot more comfortable because I know what to expect. I know now that the first dish they bring is not the only thing we are having to eat, so I can take my time, and not get beyond full before they bring the next thing. I also more fully understand that Andy and I in the morning, rushing around trying to make and eat breakfast as fast as we can so we can get back to sleep often has some mishaps along the way, this due to our state of confusion, our anxiety to eat as much as we can, and the fact that we didn’t even clear any sleepiness from our eyes before trying to operate open flames, and fragile things like eggs. Case in point: the first morning of fasting, making eggs for breakfast, we each had two eggs, Andy set his on the edge of the stove and of course, one fell off the edge and exploded open on the cement floor, I swear he almost cried. This being because we can’t buy breakfast items in the morning (we buy it the night before), for one the bitik is not open, but also we are usually minimally clothed, and I wouldn’t want to waste any eating time running around looking for an open bitik at 5 in the morning, that would cause me to be a little too awake, and ruin my going back to bed chances even more than my extremely full stomach. All in all though, we had a good first day of fasting, the weather wasn’t too harsh, therefore making you sweat out precious fluids, we had a chance to go to the market to buy a flat of eggs and other supplies to prep us for the mornings to come, I took a nice afternoon bath to cool off after the market, and then had a good long nap, after which we only had a couple more hours to go before breaking fast, which was a delectable dish of spaghetti noodles, onion mustard sauce, fried fish, fried potatoes, and slabs of mayonnaise.. delicious!
The first day of fasting, was Tuesday, and Tuesday of course is library night, as Alhagie so readily reminded me of. I was happy that after we broke fast and were sitting on the porch sipping our break fast tea, waiting for the next dish, two of the kids came up with books in hand, ready to get a new ones. After they showed up, everyone else showed up all at once, all eager, and I just sat there directing the chaos, sweating, but with a smile on my face. Library night is back!
The second day of fasting we resumed work. I went to the nursery school for a little while, but was very happy to see they were/had been working on prepping the classrooms, making number lines, rules posters, they had cloth set aside for cloth pocket calendars, Tolu had a book out I lent them, making items from it, Mary had proof read the curriculum, and had done some work on the schedule. They definitely did the work I outlined for them before I left, and I was really proud of them. Most importantly they seemed to have a clear idea of what they were doing, where they were going with what they were doing, and all this while I was gone! Meaning, on their own terms, through their own initiative. Yaay!

So, this week is pretty busy putting "finishing" touches on things at work before we go away a little while. We are also trying to run around and gather supplies for our trip from the city before we leave. I've been packing and repacking in my head at night and probably will until we leave and it's too late to do anything about it anyways. We are trying to be really conservative on the packing, but it's hard when you have to take practically a whole medical kit. It's not like we can be like... ah, well, I will buy it there,.. or I will just go to the atm when I get there.... nope. We will probably want some things to bring back from Mali, so we need to leave space and don't to lug around a huge pack for three weeks.
I am nervous about leaving our house for so long, several things can happen, floods, rodents, termite trails will be everywhere, bugs and dust, mold and mildew etc. I also don't know what to do about the library while I'm gone. I think it is probably best that I don't let them come and get new books every week, but I also hate to shut it down for three weeks. I thought about loaning more than one so they could keep them for the time we are gone, but I think that is too much for them to handle... but one thing we have going here, is the general lack of keeping track of time. Time here, well, it just passes with little to no notation. I'm sure they won't even notice that we're gone. Well, I just wanted to make sure to drop a line in before we go.. though I may get another chance at the end of the week. Have a great week!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Have been really busy running back and forth between home and the nursery school. We are finished doing the preliminary stuff on the new curriculum, I'm typing it up, and then we will go back over it for proof reading, etc. It is a lot of work. Next weekend is when we leave to go to Mali! We are very excited. Birthday for me in Mali!
Tonight we are supposed to meet up with some friends at a "pork bar" in a neighborhing village.. supposidly they serve pork there, but I'm not sure if it is pork like Porky the Pig, or like Pumba from Lion King... if you know what I mean. We shall see. We have seen/eaten those before here, they are large, smelly, hairy creatures! Anyhow...I'm thinking about bringing my own makeshift bar-b-que sauce.
We have been having good storms pretty much every day, it is nice, except for the part where our street turns into a river and we have to wade through it to get home everyday. Last night we had a good thunder and lightning show and shower, the thunder would just roll on and on. Random question. Does anyone know why cats aren't scared of the thunder like dogs? Just wondering. I thought this was a cool picture of the clothesline during a good rain.


Perks of working at the nursery school is that they have big mango trees and unloaded about 12 or so mangoes on me yesterday, that were literally as big as my face! They were so heavy, I put all I could in my backpack and had to strap it to my waist, then was sweatily carrying a huge plastic bag full of them with both arms all the way home. I went straight to my family's porch and unloaded the one's in my arms... My arms were dripping with sweat from the contact with the plastic bag, dropped them on the mat, and said to my host mom... "Ndea,.. dutoo a fele" (Ndea, mango is here) and they all laughed at me (of course! hehe). I am going to attempt at making mango "sorbee" icees again with them maybe next week.

Atlas Has Shrugged!

I haven't been too up to date on saying:
Congradulations to Mark and Jen! Yeah your married!
And Most Recently to Nick and Amanda on the recent Gerkin addition! Lucky baby!

Let the dotting Aunt and Uncle type stuff begin!

Ok, it only took me about a month and a half, but I finished Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It is a unique read especially in this kind of society and setting that I am in now. Philosophy quotes like, "Drifters and physical laborers live and plan by the range of a day. The better the mind, the longer the range. A man whose vision extends to a shanty, might continue to build on your quicksands, to grab a fast profit and run. A man who envisions skyscrapers, will not." In relation to daily rural living.

"He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly-yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child's education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think." In relation to education

"From the first carch-phrases flung at a child to the last, it is like series of shocks to freeze his motor, to undercut the power of his consciousness. "
This in realation to things like the essential conflict between the western style education trying to be pushed here, with even the accompanyment of standardized test that are way beyond their comprehension that are taught in schools where to really know and undestand what they are supposed to know they must be good thinkers, questioners. But when the students go home they are expected never to question, to always obey anyone that is older than them, and to do things the way they have always been done, not because they are necessarily good and could be done no better, but because no one has been allowed to think of how to make it better. Even with Western education they have no hope to actually learn it fully, so they apply the same methods of "learning" as they do to things like memorizing the Koran, repeating anything the teacher, the religious leader says with no understanding of what it means. This can also explain why grown men, men that have been supposidly been practicing their religion for their entire lives since they were old enough to walk with their brothers to the mosque, have to cheat (and get caught) their way through their islamic knowledge test using crypt notes.

Sorry I didn't mean to go on and on about this kind of stuff, I guess once I get going... Though it may sound like it, I am not dissolutioned, but in fact, (with the gift of my strong stubborness) keep pounding away, the only ways I know how. And, by luck, and a mixture of others things, have had great successes so far.

Speaking of which, the library has continued being a draw for the children in our compound. They look forward to it every week. In fact I am sure that word has gotten out to the other kids in the neighborhood, because they have come up to me, and just say, "Borry,.. book!" For now I am adamant that it stay within our compound, for several reasons. I know the people here more personally than anyone (that is especially important when it comes to enforcing the rules with the parents on your side), also because there aren't that many books right now and there are a lot of kids in the neighborhood!, and most strongly, that the kids in this compound through earlier efforts have been sensitized to books before the library started. Not to say that it has all been glorious, there have been a couple of children in particular that have had their priveleges suspended because they let something happen to the book in their possession, but if something has happened to it, they all repeat the consequences for the person because they know what happens,.. "two weeks, two weeks",.. in which they can't have a book.

As soon as I finished Atlas Shrugged, I went on to a less serious, but seriously funny book, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson. Short little snippets on funny experiences when he moves back to America after having been in England for a long time. Sometimes when I'm reading them I think,... hmm.. I wonder if we will go on a crazy junk food binge like he did?.. among other things.

Well, I guess that's it for now,.. this weekend I plan to do fun stuff like, clean the water filter, redip the bednets, fill some sandbags... and oh yeah,.. laundry... whoohoo!

Copied from journal entry Sunday June 29th

Starting Friday night it was an eventful weekend. As I sit here on the front porch, after bathing, feeling nice and clean and comfortable I think about the past few days, feel the weight of my tired body and appreciate the time to relax. I see thousands of flying (termites) fill the compound from the ground up. This is wonderful for the chickens. MoLamin just came to me to say hello and then ran off to join Buba in an attempt to stomp, or catch the flying insects. He runs along in a weird stomping run that seems to take a great deal of effort to do. The sky is wonderfully blue with great white clouds around-the blue sky is always startling and refreshing after a storm. I just now spot a fluffy grey cloud that may bring more rain, but that would not be a particularly good thing for some people right now. That’s because yesterday we had our first day of rain that set off some destruction in some parts of the neighbourhood.
But first back to Friday night in a fairly unrelated story. Lately, the cats that just hang lazily around the door frames of our back latrine area have been accompanied by some kittens again. They all just sleep somewhat precariously during the sweltering heat of the day until evening, when they disappear. The mother must move the kittens back and forth between the back areas of the rows of flats. On Friday morning there was one kitten that I hadn’t seen before up on the roof looking down at me meowing. Meanwhile all of the other cats had already assumed their positions on the door frames and weren’t minding it. So I picked it up and put it on the door frame with the others. Later Friday, Andy alerted me that the kitten was now in the shower area on the ground, cowering behind a bucket. But, believing that the cats would tend to it, I left it alone. In the evening I saw the kitten in the back where we do our gardening projects. When night time came around and it was the only cat there, I was worried that it had been deserted. After some hesitation, I gave it some milk (my basic policy is not to feed the cats there, but they still come), and went to bed. In the middle of the night rain came-not too heavy-just a little-but enough to wet the back shed area with a few puddles. Of course, as always, when the rain started I had to go to the latrine. As I was doing my business I heard a strange mangled cat sound. When I was finished I went to look where the kitten was before and saw it lying in a puddle. I immediately thought it was dead and the strange noise I had heard was its last. But as I stood there it rose like a zombie and made still more strange sounds, all the while shaking throughout it’s body. Andy had gotten up when he heard me call and was standing there sharing in my horror. We then discussed that perhaps the kitten had rabies. After a moment more of watching as the kitten shook and shuttered we decided that we should just let nature take its course and went to get back in bed. I felt unable to sleep and read for a while until my mind stopped going to the place where it was thinking about this poor little creature suffering and dying a few meters from where we slept.
In the morning I got up and fully prepared myself for the fact that I would find the kitten in the place we had left it, dead. But I was astonished to find it still suffered-huddling its body near the wall. We went through our morning routine thinking it was better for it to die in peace back there, away from the small children that would most likely cause it more pain and suffering. The turn to get water fell to me and as I headed to the tap the rain started again, and after filling up only one bucket I was standing out there in the pouring rain. I stopped and waited out on the porch enjoying the first heavy daytime rain. It seems so relaxing when it comes and each family is on their respective porches. We wave to each other, sometimes try to yell though the noise of the rain on corrugate roof, but it’s kind of like we are on our own little island and can see each other but are unwilling to venture out through the compound that becomes our "moat". At one point Aleiu was sent out in the rain to gather a chicken and it’s chick and try to make it go under the porch. It was out running around the compound freakin out from the rain-chickens really don’t like rain. As the compound filled with streams and puddles of water Alieu chased the chicken. Around and around, circling the middle mango tree, getting close, losing it again, stomping through puddles, trying not to slip and fall in his slide sandals.
Meanwhile Jalika is on their “island” laughing and I’m on ours laughing at the spectacle, and at how Alieu is maintaining a straight face for the 3 minutes or so that he is chasing the chicken and it’s chick around. Finally he got it on the porch. After breakfast Andy came out and I joined him on the porch again to enjoy the rain with our cups of tea. We stood at times watching the happenings in the compound and noticed that Sanussi sent Alieu and Alhagie to the compound door-apparently water was gushing in from the street and they were attempting to place cement blocks in front of it on the compound side, essentially barring anyone from opening the door. This, we soon saw, was a good thing, because as Sanussi climbed the rubble pile of cement blocks in the corner of the compound he was able to look out over the street and neighbourhood. Andy and Ndea accompanied him and what they saw was the entire street flooded and moving like a river through it but being blocked somewhere where our street met the main road. This sort of thing had never happened last year to this extent and I was shocked to look and see only about an inch of space left on the external blocks before the water would be able to come in through the spaces in the big compound gate. But hey, I wasn’t really worried yet.
As I was walking back from the rubble pile our neighbours come out with a bucket full of water from their house and dumped it into the compound, next thing I know the people down at the end are doing the same thing, and people are running with pickaxes to the back of their house. Then Sanussi yells to Andy to check to see if water is coming in our back. I walked in the house, went to the door that goes out back in the kitchen and watched in disbelief for a second while water was coming in somehow through the spaces in our metal door and flowing through the screen door. I ran back out and said “yes! Its coming!” then ran back in and started to try to get some things out of the way. At that point I didn’t really realize the extend of the water in the back and was only trying to find a few crucial things from the back rooms into the front living room, just in case. Family members were coming in and out asking “Borry, it’s coming? Water is coming in?” Like they didn’t believe it either even though they were standing there as I am going through the rooms trying to remove things. As more water started to come in and gather in the low points of the back rooms (the bedroom and the kitchen) we all started to get buckets to fill. The entire family was in there helping, from 4 year olds to people I didn’t even know. I grabbed more pots off the shelf in the kitchen and started filling up the bigger buckets. After minutes of shovelling water in the kitchen I went back to the bedroom and realized that it was coming in more there. By that point we had started taken all the things from the front rooms that we had moved first and were putting them on the front porch. At some point it turned into a more dire situation for our possessions and everything in the house started going out front.
It is funny the things that happen in that kind of situation, things that people do or say and things you notice or remember from it. Andy was helping shovel water and then at one point started going around trying to find the camera in the messy jumble of our things but was unable to locate it in the craziness. At another point I just looked at Fatou Matta and started laughing, I guess at the craziness of the situation. We were going back and forth with giant laundry tubs of water, emptying them out into the compound and coming back. Coming back from one of the runs I came into the kitchen and the “linoleum” type floor covering the last volunteer had put down was floating; it was like trying to walk on water trying to step on it. MoLamin is walking around trying to help, seriously concerned for the safety of the toilet paper tubes and boxes he uses as blocks, Molado is in there with her little bucket trying to fill it, the entire compound was in there helping. After a morning of bucket brigade, we started to try to soak of the last of the water with towels and to pull up and roll out the “linoleum”. Ndea was a expert cleaner and whipped the bedroom into shape where Andy and I are still like,.. “How did she do that!?” When we were looking for towels or rags to soak up water MoLamin, who had two shirts on that morning because it got “cold” with the rain, first took off his long sleeve and started to clean up with that, then took off his second one and was pointing out that he looked like Andy who had in the course of things taken off his shirt because of the shear amount of sweat and heat he was producing from filling and carrying buckets.
When we were finally able to get the back doors open. Along with some random things floating there was our poor little sick kitten, “a faata le” (it died). Andy discreetly carried it out in a plastic bag while I was out on the street and put it in a currently unused garden plot nearby.
Now, stop and think a minute about how the back of our house area is situated. There is about 3 feet of space between that area and our house. In the back in one cubby-like space is the pit latrine and separated from that by a wall in another cubby area is the shower area, then under a corrugate roof there is open space where we have some small potted plants that we are working on. When the water came in from the street and the back, it filled the pit latrine, and the water that came out of there and mixed with the other water from the street. Yep…that’s right, we were sloshing through sh%* water. Gross. Luckily the concrete lid kept anything from getting out that was unable to seep out.
The amazing thing is, that this all happened in the morning and by lunch time everything was basically cleaned up, by a little after lunch we brought some things back into the house. And by an hour past lunch we had showered, and Andy and I were on our way, with Ndea, to Fatou Bintou’s end of the year sort of awards ceremony. When we sat down in the chair for the couple of hours of ceremony it was the first time I had sat down all morning, and it was hard to think of all that had just happened in our house just that morning.
The major cause of the flood (that was much worse for some people in the neighbourhood with chest high water) was the lack of good engineering in new structure build by the main street to help with the water retention situation on our street. Some of the men in the neighbourhood had taken to the street by climbing over their fences, waded through the water with pickaxes and shovels and went to the end to try to help the water flow into this idiotically built structure.
Coming back from Fatou Bintou’s ceremony in the evening, we started back on getting the house together again. The great thing about it is, a lot of the things that we had been meaning to get rid of but didn’t have a reason except we just didn’t’ want it anymore, were thrown out because they had gotten soaked with yucky water. Our floors got a good cleaning. We gave away the “linoleum” that Andy hated anyhow. Did a little rearranging and are much happier with our bare concrete floors in all the rooms now. And I pointed out how glad I am that Andy and I are the kind of couple that can clearly communicate with each other even in those kinds of situations. No one was getting frustrated at each other or biting each others head off because of the stress of the situation. We are also thankful for the lack of washers and dryers, major electrical appliances, carpet, etc. Because it made the clean up much easier and with the help of our amazing! family we were completely back to normal in a cleaner house than before on Sunday.

Not much here

Not much going on here this week, no big plans for the weekend either, except an
end of the year program at school that Fatou Bintou invited us to on Saturday. I'll let you know how that goes. I was supposed to go up country with the college on trek this week, but it got canceled due to fuel shortages. So, with my scheduled cleared because up until a day before we were supposed to go I thought we were going, I haven't had much to do this week. Next week I will be playing proctor (policewoman) to the students taking end of the year exams at the college. Should be interesting. But at least this time I will have just about 45-50 students in a room instead of my class size of 75-80. I will be helping to plan the preschools "graduation" tomorrow and next week as well. Andy and I are trying to get our plan on for "vacation" later this summer with a friend. Well, hope all is well.

Library night

So, just wanted to quickly update how the library thing is going. So far it is continuing well. I have since decided that I needed some sort of organized system to teach the children how to put the books in some sort of order, facing the right way, etc. At first I had the kids put them in alphabetical order by title... but that was very difficult to keep straight, even though I employed the ruler technique where they stick the ruler in where they are taking a book out and know where to put the book back because the ruler is there sticking out, they didn't quite get it, and had a hard time consistenly using it. So, last night before the enslaught of children came to return their books and get new ones, I decided to put tape on the spine of the books and numbers them. In no particular order. Andy saw this and was like... um... what good is that? But I tried to explain that it doesn't really do them much good to use the ruler system to keep them in alphabetical order if it is only helping me,.. for my minds sake that they are in a logical order. I want them to be able to use some system and to keep it in some sort of order. Last night they did well, they made sure to put the books in number order and even made sure that I wrote down the number on their library card of the book they checked out. I was really happy that it helped tremendously with them putting the books back with the spine out! Yeah :) Oh, also another pcv made this great life size "book" out of sheets that she had sewn together... it is where you can put it on a person, so they become the "book".. since she is great in Mandinka and was staying the night at our house this week I asked her to do a little presentation to the kids in our compound. It was really good, she talked to them in local language, demonstrating with the person that was wearing the book, how to treat them, where the front, back, spine, title, etc is.. they really enjoyed it. So, for now that is how things are going. Progress. Slowly slowly.

Yeah yeah

Well, it's official we have been in The Gambia now, one year, and 4 days.

I have been thinking of a sort of year in review, but it is so hard to put things into perspective and look back at what has happened over the past year, when it doesn't even seem like it's been that long. It also doesn't feel like everything that we've experienced actually happened to us.

I was going back and reading some entries in my first journal, it is so great to see the progression of things. Things that surprised me, or I found interesting are just commonplace now. (women with babies on their backs, the market craziness, gelley rides, etc.) I don't think I am to the point where I don't see those new things, but I just see them, and think, yep, that's that. In encountering new situations I find myself more able to take it in stride as they say. I guess that is what happens when you come to understand more about all the things that come together to make a particular culture.

I can't go through and analyze everything from the past year,.. my mind is not capable of it! We (you and me too) can go back and read the blogs. And one day maybe I will type up my hand written journals, but not now.

I can analyze the way I feel about myself now and my perspective on life here.

Making the decision to come here has always felt right. But I do realize that I have grown up to be the kind of person that can move to any town and feel like, yeah, this is good. Before coming here I tried not to have any ideas of what it would be like, and I think I did a pretty good job of doing that, ( I just felt anxious to find out what it was like, but did not speculate before hand)

I can't name how many times I have thought to myself in the course of our time here, this is where I am supposed to be.

I feel like I am a more confident and open person. In areas of work I have a deeper understanding of what I thought from an American perspective and from my education. This was one of the reasons I wanted to come here, (and the reasons I will travel more in the future). I wanted to be one that could genuinely understand why the things and ways I teach are important. And what can happen, and what it looks like when those aren't used or aren't happening. Not that I completely understand it all of course! But I am extremely aware and interested in those things, and want to study them more in the future. Childrens development, and the influences of culture in learning are in full view for me here to watch and experience, because I am in a sort of twilight zone of being somewhat acculturated but still an outsider. And I am thankful that I had the background that I do before coming here and think that the experiences here will be useful for me and my career in the future.


In work, I have had to become the master flexibility. Like navigating the market, I can change direction with whatever is happening at the moment, (that's how things work here if you don't already know) This is a useful skill that I think will help me in the future. And though I am still on toubab time when there is a meeting, or somewhere I have to be, I am much more casual and understanding of the people that don't follow mono chronic principles of time. It is just me, I will always be on time, but you don't have to be.

In daily life here I have hundreds of exchanges between people I don't know, and people I do know. Being able to have the social standards of greetings and the common conversations that go on, I feel free to say hello to strangers, and more comfortable in unfamiliar situations. This has carried over even when talking to other pcv's and so I feel like I am more social, (but still not spectacular).

From being here my confidence has grown. Being stripped of familiarity, having to learn what kind of things are essential to me being me, what kind of things are important to me, etc. have all contributed to this.

I feel very comfortable and at home in our living situation. Some days I come off the streets feeling a little harassed, and tell myself in my mind that I am definitely going to have some alone time today, but then I come in the compound, greet people, drop my things on the floor and immediately want to interact with our family and other people in the compound because I feel so comfortable in the space.

I think the comfort factor is also heightened because I am here with my husband. To us, it is just another part of our lives.. this is it,.. we are not waiting around for this to be over to start our real life,.. and say later,.. "yeah, I did that little stint in Africa" . /What we will say is , "we lived there for part of our lives". This is probably hard to understand, but sometimes I get the feeling from other volunteers that they are just enduring, waiting for the time to go by, trying to do things that pass the time, until they get to start really living again (when they go back to America). This is a part of my career, a part of my life with my husband, and thats that.

My pastimes here have also helped shape who I am becoming. With no television, I have taken back up reading with a vengeance, and though my eyes are the worse for it, I think my mind and perspective have benefited. Without the common American life distractions like tv, shopping centers, driving, unnecessary (but somehow "necessary") materials, the list could go on and on, I find myself more able to think clearly, and I have achieved the amazing feat (for me) to just be able to sit on my porch and think... with nothing in my hands, nothing to read, just sitting and thinking. As a result of all this thinking, I feel more sure about what kinds of things I like, what kinds of things I don't, what I personally think on many different topics, etc.

In college I got a little bit more of the "life lesson", "If you don't do it, who will? and when?" But here I realize it more and more. Even though some people find it harder to get things done here, I have had the freeing mind set that if I can't buy it, or find it, I will make it, get it made, etc. This happens daily, with school supplies, materials, things for our house, gardening, etc. I don't need that premade thing I can buy at Target, I can use a thing meant for another purpose, (find it on the ground even) reshape it, and wala! Its re-purposed! This makes me feel much less constricted and lets your mind get more inventive and creative with what you have.

The next year, (actually starting now, until we leave) seems to be shaping up to a whirlwind of activities, and I am going to be undoubtedly more busy next year, that I ever have this year. I only hope that I won't miss out on quality time with our family and the people here that we will sorely miss when we leave. I can't believe it is happening already, but some of the kids, when we are just sitting spending time together will, out of the blue, beg us not to go. Right now I feel thankful that I can say, "don't worry about that now! We still have a whole year!" But I really don't know what I will say when our time here is dwindling away.. What will I say? What will I be able to promise, to keep some sort of connection? And will I be able to do it?

I could go on and on, (and I might later) but on that note, I just want to say that being here for this portion of my life has always felt right. It feels like it is good timing to help me become more me.

Rain!

Yeah Yeah Yeah! We got rain! Yesterday evening was very humid and hot, and there were storm clouds in the sky. We woke up in the middle of the night with strong blowing winds. Then the rain broke loose. At first slowly, and then letting it all out. It had all the trimmings of a good storm too, with good peals of thunder and flashing lightning. Andy and I got up out of bed to tend to our plants in the back. We didn't want them to get pummeld by the rain, but they were also in danger from getting toppled by the winds. The rain falling off our our roof was milk chocolate brown. Andy noticed when he looked at me while we were standing under the corrugate roof in the back and said, hey, your dirty! It was also cold with the rain and the temperature suddenly dipping. Today on my way to work at the nursery school I surveyed the damage from my seat on the gelley. There are major puddles (in some places more like small lakes!) everywhere. There was also a big billboard sign that was torn up. The winds must have been really bad. Our power went out for a little while, but then amazingly enough came back on.
I was a little worried about a certain kitten last night. The story goes like this. The same cat that had kittens before, had another set in our shed. There were three of them. Because we have gotten some new neighbors on either side of us now, like last time she needed to move them out of the shed before they got too big. In the corner of our compound is a pile of rumble of concrete blocks from when a portion of the concrete block fence just fell down in the middle of the night. The day before yesterday I kept hearing a very faint meow when I was walking around the compound, but just thought it was the kittens in the back. So yesterday I was hanging out in the compound, playing with the kids, when they all started screaming and running towards the concrete rumble pile. I looked, and there was this little kitten, all scraggly, frightened almost to death, shakily standing on a piece of the rumble, as all these kids came running and screaming at him/her (?) I made sure I got there first, swiped it up, before they could frighten it back down into the ruble, and took it into through our house, (with a whole group of kids following me), closed and locked the door, (so they wouldn't follow me through the house) and took the poor little kitten to the shed where it was born, and was living until recently. As I did that, it was meowing its head off, and I could hear the momma cat meowing for it. I just put the kitten down, closed the shed door, and went away. I figured that the cat would know the place, and hear the kitten, and come and get it again. I went and checked if it was still in the shed about 15 minutes later, and it was gone. The only way out is from the top of the shed in a space between the corrugate and concrete blocks. So, I think my planned worked! :)

Well, more on the "library" thing on the home front. Last Saturday I went to the carpenter and showed him my drawing for the bookshelf I wanted. He said that it would be done Monday. Now, living in Gambia, on Gambian time, I totally didn't believe him when he said that, and even though I had a chance to go check on it on Monday, I didn't. I went Tuesday, and he wasn't there. So, on Wednesday I got home from the school, and got Adja to come with me to see if it was ready and it was! So we carried it home. That night Fatou Bintou and Alieu helped me organize the books. Fatou B. wrote the alphabet out on pieces of paper the size of flashcards. We spread them out on the floor in alphabetical order, and then I went through each book, and held it up for them both to see. They looked at the first letter of each book title, and then put it under that letter in a stack on the floor. Once we had them all done, Fatou B. put them in the bookshelf. yeah! The kids have already starting checking out books. They have a colored index card which they wrote their names on and I have stored in a box (old platex wipes plastic box actually), and then the title of the book they checked out and the date. I decided that I would let them come and check out and return books one day a week. We started on Tuesday, so next Tuesday they will come to return the one they have and get a new one. The great thing is, that since Tuesday, a few of them have come over with their books to share something they have notice about them, get help with reading them, etc. MoLamin came over yesterday (he is almost four yrs. old) and Andy and I were sitting on the couch, and he came over and showed Andy a picture in his book, (it was of a dog chewing on a shoe) and he said, (in Mandinka of course) Look! This dog.. He is chewing on a shoe! Like he couldn't believe it and got such a kick out of it. And then he flipped through a few more pages, and then went back to his house. Alhagie and Dembo both came over at different times last night to sit there with their books, trying to read, while we helped. They are all very enthusiastic about it, and I hope it lasts. But right now everything is going good! We shall see what kind of shape the books come back in. Though we reiterate every time, no water, no food, etc.. with the books.
My plants have been growing slowly slowly, but hopefully they will soon get a burst of fertilizer.... Because Andy and I have been preparing to try a fertilizing technique, by making our own urea. How do you do this you ask? (do you really want to know!?) We take what is called a bidong here (big plastic container that originally holds vegetable oil) and fill it up part way with water, then pee in it (instead of our pit latrine) until it reaches a certain level...let it sit for 2 days then, apply to the soil! Wallah! Cheap home-made urea. The only thing is,..for woman it is a little bit trickier (of course). But a funnel can (and was) made out of a liter water bottle, so it all worked out fine. :) Tonight, we will get to try our first test with it. We plan to use it on the plants I have been working on in the back, and also on some of Andy's trees in the compound. To be able to demonstrate how fertilizer helps the plants, we will have ones we use it on and ones without. We figure, if they see the difference with their own eyes, it will be easier to then explain that we did the above process and we just poured watered down urine on the soil.... We'll see how that goes!
Well, this weekend I plan to get a some curtains hemmed to goes across the front of the bookshelf to help protect it from the dust. I'm running a training session at the end of next week at the nursery school so I will be preparing things for that next week, and maybe some this weekend. I want to make something in the solar cooker, but haven't decided what yet. I have also started Atlas Shrugged.. Andy got it and I started to read it,.. he said something about 13 years bad luck if I didn't finish it once I started it).. so the challenge is on! But man, the type is so tiny!

Friday May 30

Yeah! Andy wrote a blog… finally! Haha.
Anyhow, just a few things going on. I have noticed here with my real lack of work schedule, the day always seems to have a list of things that I could possibily get done, and sometimes, because I am incredibly indept now at being flexible in my work, I feel like I often get things done. Even if it is not exactly the way I had planned, or in the order of things in my mind, it seems to work out for the most part in the end.
Case in point. My “library” idea for the compound. I mentioned the books I come into last blog. For about a week my subconscious, anytime it had a free minute, was thinking of ways to utilize them. I then came up with the idea that I would loan them out, with the help of the older girls, and then eventually give them to the family when we leave. They may choose to continue loaning them out. So, even though I hadn’t done anything concrete with the project, I had mentioned the idea to any of the kids that would come over and look at the books in the house. After that, with some spare time on the computer, I typed up a list of the titles, and made simple bookplates that I printed out at the office. All this while my subconscious is still working on how I would get the kids involved. Even though in a perfect world, I would have liked to take the girls to make the bookplate design, I couldn’t bring them to the college, or the office with me, so, I will look at it like an interest generator, because now I had something concrete to show them, to get them excited about doing work. At the beginning of this week, after going to the nursery school, I was on the front porch reading and MoLamin came and was looking at a book he picked from the stack, when Adja came over and started looking at the book with him. (she is about 15 years old). Then I mentioned my idea again, and brought out the bookplates to show her. We talked about cutting them out and pasting them in the books. Then it kind of went from there where next thing I knew we were inside the house, listening to music, and cutting out the bookplates from computer paper. A girl that lives next store (Jainaba-15 years old also, a Guinean, married! And does not go to school) came over and started helping us paste the bookplates to the inside of the books. After a little while, another girl FatouMata (not our host sister, but a neighbor-she is the one with the bookplate on her forehead in the picture) came over and was looking through the books. We finished soon after and the only thing that was left was to have a dance party… then Ansumana came in! hahah. Where we all pretended to be reading the books that were conveniently in reach. So, progress is being made there. The next day, being inspired by their efforts, I got up the gusto to talk to the carpenters about getting a bookshelf made. I got an estimate, and plan to give the ok maybe tomorrow.

Another similar project that was completed a while ago, but I just forgot to mention it, is the chalkboard on the front porch wall. Adja and I painted it black, and then I got some of the kids to put color paint handprints on the border. They have it memorized who’s hands are which! It is a good thing to use while we want to hang outside on the porch because of the heat. Because I have discovered they love word finds, I will sometimes make up a simple one and put it on the chalkboard for them to do. We have also had races, where I put addition or subtraction problems on the board, divide it into two sides, and have two lines of kids, they run to the board, doing one problem and kind of relaying it between their team members. Whoever finishes all the problems first wins! They enjoy that. It is also just used when the kids want to draw, “play school”, or writing anything they know how.

Enough about “work”.. Last night we had a traditional wedding ceremony for our host mom’s sister. The wife lady gets dressed up, washed by the elders, and a white headscarf is put on her at her father’s compound. I went to her father’s compound last night. People pretty much just sit around, all dressed up and decked out, and food is served (in a large tray to a group of people to share-eating with the hands of course). People sing and serenade the wife and those people are given some money. That’s about it. Tonight, day two of the ceremony, she will be taken to the husband’s compound and her covering will be changed to black. Then there will be a “program” (that will be tonight) where there might be drummers, a dj if they can afford it, and more of the same stuff as the first day. What I don’t understand yet, (and haven’t had the chance to talk to anyone about that can explain it to me) is that the couple has already been together for a while, have two children, and a third “on the way”. The explanation that really isn’t an explanation is that this one is the “traditional” ceremony. Uh…. Yeah… I don’t know. Whether or not I will go to the program tonight, remains to be seen,… I don’t really want to just because of the attention I get focused on me being a “toubab”. The singers and dancers always pester me for more money.
On a quick note, I have a couple basil plants, parsley, and about 8 tomato plants coming up. This weekend I will hang the basil and parsley in the hanging potter I made. But I am still waiting for the tomato plants to get bigger before I transplant them to their upside down growing position.
Next week PC is having a meeting near us about the food shortage problem and how it will directly effects our families and what we can help do about it being in the “grass roots” position. That will be interesting.

Fatou Bintou-Looking very stylish in the hat Cheryl sent me-Thanks!

Smoke

Well, all this week they have been burning trash behind our house, and the smoke smell is literally making me sick! The smell of burning plastic and who knows what else is making my throat feel constricted and sore, especially in the morning. Ugh.
But on a happy note, I haven't really thought about it since we moved here, but I no longer have the problem of jaw-clenching in my sleep and the related pain associated with it. It was just something that Andy pointed out to me, and I was like, "hey! Yeah!" It's nice. Maybe it is because of the lack of stress from the "time-is-money" society, but who knows.
The other night, I didn't have much to do, and decided to tape a physical map of the world on our front table, (coffee table size). It is a good conversation starter especially with the kids that come over and hang out with us on the couch. One night Fatou Bintou (our 6 going on 7 year old sister) was over and I was asking her to point to Africa, (she couldn't find it), and then we found it, and then Gambia, and I said in Mandinka, "you are from Africa" and she vehemently denied it. It was funny.
Andy and I have shifted our routine again due to the weather. Because it is hotter during the day, and we are taking baths later in the evening, we were struggling to find time to fit out individual workout routines in. So, we decided to try this week to wake up in the morning and work out. It has had several advantages. One being that because it is before our front door is even open, we have complete undisturbed time to do all the things that look extremely weird to our family in the name of exercise. I have even cleared an area where I can get up and jump rope in the house, in peace, with no googling eyes staring at me. Then afterwards I get to take a nice cool shower. Though, because of water use, the morning shower takes away from my ability to take an afternoon one to cool off, I still, at this point think it's worth it. Because now at the end of the day, when I just want to chill out, I can, because I think, "well, I've already worked out!" This morning though I had a hard time getting out of bed, because I did not get sleep between the hours of 1:30 and 5 approximately, probably due in part to the malaria meds, it being hotter yesterday and night, and my throat pain, but I did get up and do a little with the intention of taking a nap after breakfast. Which I did try, but to little avail, I was too uncomfortable in the hot house, with my throat bothering me. I got up and went to the college to get online.
At this point I have cut my time at the nursery school to Tuesdays and Thursdays, even though I don't have classes at the college right now. This is because I found that when I went every day, it was harder on me because I saw little measurable progress, and was always compiling lists of things that could be improved. This routine left me feeling discontent with the work, and frustrated. Now we are making plans for the summer, which, if possible to actually achieve, will be a big project. We are going to attempt to rework the entire curriculum, and the school policies and procedures. Can you say daunting!? But it will be an accomplishment if we achieve any improvements on the current curriculum. It is difficult working within the school system, because this whole year I could see things that needed improving in it, but at the same time was working with other more pressing issues, while still getting to know the system and the way people work here. Hopefully we will be able to work out the major portions of it this summer, then be ready to start the next school year off in a better, more workable position.
Ohhh, I almost forgot, I have been struggling to find places to plant some basic herbs and tomatoes here, because we don't have any backyard space, and our compound is lacking too. So through the volunteer info. newsletters I have decided to try the "hanging upside down" tomato plant thing. Where you take a container of some sort with a handle, like a paint can, and poke a hold in the bottom, and stick a tomato plant through it to grow upside down. this way eliminates the need for staking it, and conserves space too. Andy and I went around the bush last weekend, and got some good dirt, found an old enamel pot, and some peanut shells saw some cows, had a nice walk, etc . For now, I have to wait to do the tomato plant thing until I have actual tomato plants started from seeds, which I planted last weekend in paper egg crates (they have started to come up! yeah!) But to satisfy my instant gratification need, I poked holes with a nail in the bottom of the old enamel pot I found (for drainage), and four holes near the opening on the side to string wire through to make a hanging plant holder. We are going to hang it under the eaves of our roof, (I hope it'll hold!). In that pot I planted around the edge parsley, and in the middle basil (started to come up too!). Yesterday is when Andy discovered they were coming up, and I was really glad, because I've had some failed ones before, and was going to be very disheartened if these didn't start to even grow. The funny thing is, the drain that we throw our dishwater out in behind the house is "magic" at getting seeds to grow, just toss some seeds down there and bam, there they are. So, the next progression is to help the tomato plants grow for a little bit, then transfer them to their upside down hanging place, and hope they grow... and once the herbs get a little more along, hang that pot too. Hopefully soon we will have fresh basil....but there are a few worries, one is that from the position it will hang in the back, there might not be enough sun for them, and two, when rainy season really gets going, the downpour from the edges of the roof will ruin them, so we will have to make sure that doesn't happen.
Lately the onslaught of mangoes has begun, where we are eating about 5 a day.... At night it is entertainment and excitement when the bats knock down mangoes and them come crashing to the ground, and because it is early and they may not be completely ripe and smash, whoever is around as far as the kids goes, take off in a race to get to the mango first. Ansumana (sorry used to calling Andy Ansumana) has been known to take part in this race. It is funny, because, last night I was sitting there reading a story to Fatou B., Mo Lamin, and a boy named Dembo, and then in the middle of it, the crackling of leaves and crack! they bolt and I just look at Ansumana like..."dude I'll take what I can get"...
But they really are beginning to appreciate and get the concept of "reading" for pleasure. I recently, through a round about way, came into ownership of some good childrens books. I have decided that instead of giving them to a local school library where they will likely be mistreated, abused, stolen, not used at all etc... I will directly enrich our kids lives. I have decided that I will get a bookshelf of some sort made, and with a little help maybe from the older girls loan them out to the kids in the compound (of which they are plenty). Then after our time here, I will give them and the bookshelf to the family to enhance their relationship with books in their daily lives. I see this as a more fulfilling prospect, because I know I can and already have, taught them a lot about print concepts and the importance of reading in every day life not just in books. This will help ensure that someone will benefit from the books, like I benefitted from having literature opportunities availaible to me when I was a child. But, unlike me, these children don't have a library to go to, to check out books, or a bookstore, or even people to know the importance of them and buy them for their children. I think it will be a proud thing for them to actually own these books. They already have favorites, Fatou B.'s favorite is a book called Rosie's Walk and also one by Ladybird company called, The Enormous Turnip. Mo Lamin is very good about lap "reading" with me, we talk about things in Mandinka that he sees, he repeats things in English, etc. His favorite right now, is the famous, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I notice that these books that they like are ones that most often involve nature and the things that they see in their daily lives, and we can talk about the words in Mandinka and English. In Rosie's Walk there is a hen, and a picture of a farm, and goats, all of which they are familiar with. In the turnip book, there is a man gardening, a cat, a mouse, etc, which they know as well. The funny thing is, even though I just said all the above, in The Very Hungry Caterpillar book they have never seen things like, pears, plums, orange colored oranges, and until recently strawberries. (Some people have started growing them here through ngo farming type situations, and I bought a little bit from a lady selling the other day, I was dumbstruck that there were strawberries here,... even though I'm kinda allergic we ate them. We gave some to the family too and the kids kept coming to our house all day asking which part it was ok to eat. ) Anyhow, as the book progresses, and the caterpillar goes on to eat things like cake, salami, sausage, etc. they haven't a clue. They keep saying that they sausage is a banana, because it is the only thing they are familiar with that it could possibly be. But it keeps the interest going and the discussion on. We can't find a word for caterpillar, even though they have one for butterfly. I just keep calling it a "butterfly baby". I explain the cocoon concept in my simple Mandinka by saying "and now the caterpillar is fat because he ate a lot of food, (Mo Lamin makes big cheeks like I do when this part comes) and then he goes to sleep in this house, and when he wakes up, he is a butterfly!" hehe.
Well, I figure that is a good long blog for ya, because someone (aka Ansuamana) has not had any inspiration to write lately.... Have a good weekened!