Hungry!

Hey, all,
Man, I am so hungry. I am trying to fast today, an I only have about 3 more hours to go, but I am soooo hungry. I think that I would die and go to heaven for a cheeseburger and a coke right now! And I havent really craved that sort of thing until now! I am here at the internet cafe again, trying to keep my mind off food, (and water), but I got lost getting here, because I came from a different way, and went a long ways out of my way, was about go home, but suddenly came upon it. The sun in glaringly bright today, there are some sparse white clouds around, but it is difficult to keep from sweating out all the water that I dont want /can tafford to loose! Anyhow! I started ¨work¨ this week, and I use that term loosely , because we were supposed to have an all staff meeting but only about 15 people showed up, and we started about an hour and half past the meeting time. We got together in our respective subject groups, and then could not go any further than that really because we were supposed to plan for the term, but the syllabus was not printed out, they tried for the rest of the day to get it printed, but it never showed. Yesterday, only a few people showed up for our group, and today, I hung around for an hour, and no one was there. But everyone says this is how it works in the Gambia. :) Yesterday, they provided ¨lunch¨ for us, and it was a large hoagie with a ton of mayonaise on it, and french fries, and fried eggs, and later that night I threw it all up! It was the first time I have been sick here, but after I threw up I felt fine :) I sure you all wanted to know that, but hey, you get what you get! Man, there is this posted sign right next to the screen here at the cafe, and it says, ¨cool water for sale now¨, it is kililng me! Ok, well my main reason for coming here was to do some research on learning theories, because I think that is what I will be teaching this term, (not for sure as always) but they dont have any resources at the college, the students dont have books, and the teachers dont either,.. Time to do some research, talk to you all later!

Monday

Hey all. I had another day of nothiness planned for today (I mean, realy difficult work of reading everything in sight!) , but instead went with Dharma to Fajara just to do some internet stuff and pick up a shirt had am having made at the tailors. Hopefully! Because I actually went there to have it made the Tuesday before our swearing in ceremony, and I came back like a week after he said it would be done and he still didn't have it,.. he should have it by now! I talked to my parents and David last night(hello) it was good to talk to them, though its hard to know what to say. Because I'm sure its expensive to call, there is a rush feeling to the conversation, at the same time there is so much to talk about. I feel like I don't give enough back in terms of conversation, blogging emailing, etc., to warrant all the great packages people have been sending. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
So, anyhow, I got my hair braided the other day by the landlord's wife. It was a fairly painful experience, because they pull on your head, and I was leaning over for a couple of hours, while sitting on a little tiny, barely above the ground, stool. After they finished I felt like an 100 year old woman getting up! Last time I had it done my head hurt really bad right away.. this time it took a little while for the numbness to dissapate before I started feeling the pain. And because I don't wash my hair while I have it in, after the pain goes away, it starts itching a lot! But I guess it looks pretty cool, ... ahh. the pain we go throuh for beauty! So lately I have been trying to find ways to relate to the landlord's family, ..( I will just call them my host family from now on).. That was a major reason for the hair torture-I mean-braiding. I made alphabet flashcards and they liked those, but what I really wish I would have brought is some children's books to do a kind of story hour. Another volunteer brought one and translated it into the local language, but I also think it would be good just to foster literacy and interest in reading, (they would probably just be facinated by the pictures) because right now I don't see that there is much. The kids in the compound are as follows: Fatou J. 16, Hadja ? (about 15) Jalika 12, Alieu 11,Fatou B. 6 , and Lamin 3, and all the neighborhood kids frequent our porch too. Lamin has a lot of little playmates that come around and are soooo cute, because they are all about the same age, and they fight each other over Lamin's little red rubber ball, and run around doing whatever. The other day they were freaked out because there was a spider on the porch with its web across it, and they were throwing their little flip flops at it. What's really cute is the tiny girl (Ma Binta) that hangs out with the boys, she has such attitude and once you start playing with her, is so lively. She, like many of the little girls you see here, wear little party dresses sometimes, they probably get from the many used clothing places in the market. You will see this little tiny girl, all dirty from playing in the dirt, runny nose, etc, with this gauzy, satin brightly colored party dress. It also just looks strangely out of place amongst the wrap skirts everyone else wears. The little girls also wear the wrap skirts, and for some reason, to me, they look like little grown ups in their full Gambian outfits.
Last night we went over the the host family's to talk about what we were going to do during Ramadan. I don't know if I have it in me to fast! But it might make things easier because pretty much everyone else will be fasting. They will get up early in the morning (like 6am) to eat breakfast, and then they don't eat or drink anything again until sunset . When we went to go talk to them about arrangements (because we get lunch from them and they won't be eating lunch) we didn't get much talking done, because the family was sitting in their living room watching Charlie Angels movie (Camerion Diaz and the like) on their tv! So we watched that with them, so it was funny because on the part where Camerion Diaz starts doing her booty shaking in her underwear, the dad fast forwarded through it. hehe, it was a little strange because there are a ton of sexual inuendos and I'm not even sure how much English they understood.
Today looks like it will be a fairly clear day, maybe its taking a break from all the rain this weekend! I hope at least until we catch a gelle (the transport van) and make it back home. Well, thats it for now, I think I am going to look up a few recipes, for things like corn tortillas (mom maybe you can help with these) , goat milk caramel, etc!

Internet cafe

Hello all, I finally got to an internet cafe here in Brikama! Man, it took two tries in one day to find it, and very muddy feet to get here. Speaking of muddy, Yesterday I made the great decision to venture out for a bike ride to release a little energy, and ended up in the craziest rainstorm yet. Or maybe because I was on my bike in the middle of it that it seemed so crazy! I started out going towards the market, and I could see these impending clouds rising up behind the market, but I thought,¨eh, so I get a little wet!?¨ I should have known because everyone at the market and on the streets were running around like crazy, fast walking to where ever they were going , and putting away their wares. Then in the middle of the place, it let loose, so, I put on my raincoat, and was going to keep riding until the wind started blasting and great claps of thunder and lighting came! So I started to head home, which was a bit of an ordeal, because the roads are a muddy mess when they have had rain, and evern worse when your in the middle of the rain. So I finally got to our street and through the pelting rain could see that the street all the way past our compound is totally flooded, and not only that, it is gushing water from the perpendicular street! So I just charged it, and hoped that there werent any creatures washed away in the water.! After that I took advantage of the rain and got my evening bath.
Right now, are far as work goes I am not doing much, but hopefully a series of meetings next week will launch me into work full time.
I have received a number of packages since I have been here, thank you everyone! That list from the first blog is probably obsolete now, but if you have sent some of it, dont worry I wilĺ def. use it! Now that we are in our permanent living sitaution I have a better idea what I can get, and what I can´t. Hope all is well, maybe I will here from some of you this weekend!

Check it out

Hey peoples I just read Andy's blog and it is much better at giving the overall feeling of the place, so read up, and ignore the misspellings like on mine! He also gives a link to a good compilation of our pictures! Yeah! http://nasdrovya.blogspot.com/

Day after swearing in!

Yeah! We are officially VOLUNTEERS now! golly, that took a while :) Yesterday morning we went to the U.S. ambassadors house and had the ceremony. It was very nice, pretty simple, and they had a wonderful array of food! Of course we are very excited about anything that isn't rice, but seriously it was awesome. I could have filled up on desserts alone, of which they had about 20 different types. So, we took the oath, and now have our id's and no one, no one may call us "trainees" anymore! We were happy this morning when we came to the office and the guards asks us for our id's for the first time:)

Well, I'm sure you will get more details from Andy's blog about training village and I think he spend a good chunk of time yesterday putting up pictures up so make sure to check those out.

This will be the last full day here in Kombo before we go back to our site to officially start our service tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be very chaotic, I foresee, (actually this isn't a big leap because it seems everything orchestrated for us is!) because we have a ton of mattresses, gas burners, propane tanks, metal trunks, food, etc. that everyone provisioned for the "3 month challenge". Getting all those things in cars with the right people going the right direction in the country, and making sure it's strapped down enought to withstand the leaps it will surely take because of the roads, is going to be a great challenge. The "3 month challenge" is something that our PC people request you take on. It is a challenge to you to stay in your site for 3 months without leaving it to spend the night somewhere else, or travel outside of your village very far. They want us to really force ourselves to get to know our surroundings very well, so that after the three months we will be able to know what the community needs and will really know our family well. For Andy and I it won't be very difficult because our site is a pretty good size city. We will be able to get everything we could get in Kombo there too. Though we surely will have a hankering to get out and explore the upper regions of the country after three months.
The place we will live in is called Brikama. When we first drove to it on site visit (last week) I was a little apprehensive because coming from Bambako a pretty small village, it felt like a big bustling city. I still think that it is a pretty good size bustling city, but only in the Gambian sense! There is a large market about a K from our house. It is open every day instead of just once a week, like most of the village markets are. There is a lot of fresh produce, and fresh meat (large livestock slaughtered and alive), and all kinds of things.
The Gambia college is located about a kilometer from our house, (really quick bike ride or short walk) All the teachers in the Gambia are trained through here, so I'm hoping that I will be able to make a substantial impact because I am at the center of the action. Andy will be working there too, though he seems like he might want to spend more time with the National Beekeepers Association. There is also an insane "carpark" which is where all the gelley gelley drivers go to pick up passengers to cram into their vans and take across bumpy roads to pretty much any destination in the country. You can not even imagine the chaos that ensues when a "toubab" (too-bob=outsider or white person) is near the carpark. Everyone is trying to hustle you into their van, and you have to be very wary of pickpockets we have heard. There are a ton of cars trying to go from a culdisack type area through a bottleneck entrance and exit. Horns are honking, the van driver's apprentices are yelling at people different destinations, men are yelling at each other, there are people winding through the narrow spaces between the crammed cars selling things like bananas, boiled mangoes, etc. from trays they carry on their heads, it is crazy! Last week when we walked down there to make our first trip from Brikama I saw this man sitting on a mat on the ground, surrounding by severed goat heads, and he was roasting one. I did a double take! Did not see the other parts of the goats though.... hmmm..??.. Anyhow you get the picture.

Passed!

Yeah! We just found out late today that we all passed our last language test! Now the 50 ton truck of pressure will finally be lifted, and be replaced with a 15 ton truck. :) Now we are all looking forward to the swearing in ceremony, and not really looking forward to buying stuff for settling in to our new abodes. It will be a bit chaotic finding everything, because its so spread out, and getting all 20 trainees things in cars to take back to their sites!

Ok, anyhow, I left on the getting to training.
In the morning in training village we would get woken up at about 5:30 with the prayer call from the mosque, and people and donkeys (making the weirdest noises ever!) and roosters, and any number of other things. We would try to sleep till 7:15 when we had to get up and get ready. As soon as we put ourselves together one of us would go out to open up the door to the house and prop it open. We would then greet all the people in the compound (these greetings are sometimes lengthy) Then we would leave Andy's family's compound and go across the village to my host family's compound to greet them as well. Sometimes they would have my breakfast for me and I would take that to class. Breakfast usually consisited of a small baguette type bread, and tea. On rare occasions I would have rice porriage, but Andy got that a lot. We could get ahold of local peanut butter which is delicious, because its just ground peanuts not added anything, but we would sometimes add a little sugar!) We would then head over to our teachers compound and have class for about 4 hours. After class we would often go take a nap, (the heat, lack of high energy foods, and of course lack of sleep makes you tired!) because the middle of the day is the hottest part, most people would hang out in the shade. Locals ( mostly boys/men) would hang out under shaded trees in certain areas of the village called "bantabas" The women, always doing work for the household, would sit under the porches on plastic mats called "basoos" (pronounced kind of like 'baa-sews') and do idle work like shell mountains of peanuts so as not to get too hot.

Let the updates begin!

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

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