Long time no blog

Well, it has been a little while since I've written.... and I hate that, because there are so many things that are going on, and have happened that it is hard to decide what to talk about. I've been mainly busy with work, and I did some traveling.
Well, let's see... I came back on Sunday from a trip up country with a friend. I hadn't been up that far yet, (Basse) so I really wanted to go. And I was finally able with my schedule less restricted by class times. I don't have any classes at the college this term because there are some specific special topics that other Gambian teachers are teaching this term, because we pushed them from the first and second terms. Honestly, I was really glad that happened, because if I can work out an auxillary purpose here, instead of myself having a class, the better in the long run. Anyhow, my friend and I went the south bank road all the way to Basse. Now the south bank road is notoriously bad, with more pot holes than actual asphalt, some of the times you have to go literally 5 miles an hour. But lately there has been some work going on it, they have dug up the cement on all the bad parts, and then grated down the dirt, which, even though still bumpy and very dusty, it better and more smooth riding than what was there. And at least it is on it's way to being better after so many years. I just hope it gets done before the rainy season, because you can just imagine the mess that would occur if it wasn't!
Well, our journey started at the Brikama car park, where we immediately secured a van going almost all the way to where we wanted to go, so we hopped in, and...... there we waited for about an hour and a half. hehe...at one point we actually did move... to the other side of the car park. Once I started to have to go pee, we started off on our journey, where we would continued on for about 12 hours. At one of the many police checkpoints, I ran out of the van, and found a pit that didn't offer much in the realm of privacy, but hey, when you gotta go! Because of the dusty road, we arrived in Basse after a few switches of cars, looking like we had a really bad spray on tan, because of the dust. At one point we got squished on a seat with about 5 people, and 3 kids, where my legs were so pressed together, that sweat started to drip down my legs, and I looked down, there was a brown river of sweat.. because of the dirt that had accumulted on me! Well, up in Basse, it is significantly hotter, so a lot of the time, we sat around the hut, trying to distract ourselves from thinking the only thing that seemed to register in our brains... "um... it's hot.... Its Hot!..... Ugh ITS HOT!" Needless to say I was very happy to be back in Brikama :) I love Brikama!
Let's see, what else.... we have inservice training this month, that should be..... good... maybe. It will be a week in Kombo away from work, so I don't know, I think I would rather get on with my work, but I'm sure there will be something useful. (?!)
I have been trying out themed nights in our house with our host family, and the neighbor kids. I put a sign up on the door that indicates what kind of activity they can do if they come hang out in our house. So, one night will be reading night, the next game night... I have a mat I lay out next to the trunk with supplies in it, and they just hang out look at the books, I read to them, Andy helps them work on reading some of the books, but right now, because none of them can really really read, and only have english words memorized like this " c-a-t cat, o-n-e one", even the easy books are way above their head. So, on games nights we play things like ABC memory, where they match up captial letters with lower case letters, bingo with letters or sight words, or a cube game where the cube has different consonants on each side, and they have to come up with words that start with that sound, or identify the letter name and sound. Even Mo-Lamin gets involved and he's 3, by looking at the books, he is very good at pointing out things in Mandinka that he regonizes in the books (mostly farm animal!hehe) and I have some toilet paper tubes and boxes he play with like blocks. I'm always working on new games, but the ones they have played so far they really get a kick out of. I'm going to try out a sort of verb charades soon, with the word and a picture on a card, and they act it out for the other kids to guess in english what they are doing. The reason I started these themed nights is that they often come to hang out, but, like kids do, they would just fool around, fight, etc, so I just felt we needed to do more to help them academically at home, because they don't really have the help from anyone in their lives, (parents-don't speak english, teachers-barely speak english, both can't really read.. yes,.. many of the teachers can't read... etc.) And like kids anywhere they need incentives to study, so we give them things like a sticker if they win bingo. Mom and dad sent a football and frisbee, that we just got,.. (yep, took 6 months to get) that I'm trying to think of a way to give away for a reward of some kind of academic achievement.. but haven't figured that out yet....
Well, if there are any packages that you've sent, but haven't heard that we have gotten them.. don't worry because even after 6 months there is still hope it will come! My parents shipped the packages around the middle of November, and as far as we can decipher from the many tags on the postal bag, it went from New Mexico to Johannesburg, to JFK airport, to the Gambia... so.. yeah, so the candy was a bit less chewy than it was originally meant to be, but just as tasty! and the ants or rats hadn't gotten to it. :)
Well, I think thats all I have right now.. I'm sure I will have more to talk about later! Hope to hear from you.

What day is it?

Well, just a quick note to my sister and mom, Happy Birthday! (I would have put it up on their respective birthdays, but I understand that there was little chance that they would have actually looked at it then, seeing how my sister doesn't have internet, or an email address.. ! and my mom probably did not want to waste her birthday away waiting for their slow internet to get going). But anyhow if there is a chance that you read this, hope you had good birthdays and I did try to text both of you,.. don't know if you got it.
Well, this morning I had gotten dressed and gathered our buckets to get water and went outside to the tap. My host mom was there washing clothes, Fatou Matta was there washing dishes, Alieu was there eating, and Alieu asks me in Mandinka to answer Ndea (our host mom),... I was thoroughly confused, seeing how I had just gotten outside... and Fatou M. just started laughing, so I just thought... uh.. I don't understand, and now they are laughing at me,..(albeit a familiar situation here in this different culture and language).. I just thought they were all a little coookie this morning. But then Fatou M. said, "April Fools" I'm sure I gave her a puzzled look before I realized, oh yeah! Today is April Fools day! Wait,...! How did you know about it? But before they could answer they asked if Ansumana was in the house, and went to knock on the door. When he came out they told him his co-worker came by and said he needed to get to work right now! (which wasn't true) but they are amateurs at this April fools thing so give them a break. Of course he didn't really understand what was going on, but figured it out when I was smirking when we came in to eat breakfast. So during breakfast we were rapidly contemplating a turn it around on them joke. After getting shot down a few times, Andy finally agreed on one that we could do.
I am always making "strange" things to eat that I give to the family to try, and most of the time, they smile pleasantly and I'm sure feed it to the goats! I was sipping my tea when I got inspiration, and said that we should put some water in a mug like mine, and then spice it up with some Gambian style hot pepper sauce. But then I had to get over my giggles before taking it over. I first started looking for Fatou M. because I was a little scared of giving it to our host mom,, but when I was carrying around the mugs (mine with real tea in it and the "joke" mug) looking for her, Ndea saw me, and I took the opportunity to play the joke on her instead. So I said, oh, I was looking for Fatou M. to let her try some of this tea,.. do you want to try it? and gave it to her to sip, sipping on my own tea cup for encouragement. hehe. And I watched her take a drink of the cold hot pepper water, her face instantly contorted then immediately she put it into a pleasant look, but I could tell that she was just thinking,"Another one of Borry's crazy creations!", So I started laughing and called out April Fools!" and she burst out laughing. Meanwhile Ansumana is watching the whole thing through the front window, and comes out where everyone is laughing some more. It was great! But now I'm on the lookout for any jokesters out there! hehe