Happy (early) Birthday Dad!
Just in case I don't get a chance to talk to you this weekend!
20 plus some odd years... and still going strong! hehe
Friday, January 11, 2008
TGIF-Thank Gambia It's Friday
On Fridays in the Gambia people mostly cut out early because Friday prayer is at 2 o'clock.... so schools are only half days, and a lot of businesses are closed... sometimes that's nice because for those of us that don't go to the mosque we sometimes get out of work earlier . :)
So, classes at the college were scheduled to start this week.... But..... being that it is Gambia, no one really had classes I think... except for me! :) Well, Tuesday I went for the one class I was scheduled to have, but of course, ... should have known,... that no one would be there. Wednesday I had two classes scheduled, one in the morning, and one in the late afternoon... I think I caught some students unaware that were here to register, by having classes that first class, but of course in the afternoon no one came. This morning, I had two remaining classes back to back and I had fairly good attendance in the first and minimal in the second.... The problem is that the students have to come register in person, and there are always long lines, and problems, so, no one ends up really holding classes that first week.. Well, being the type A-(for American!) that I am,.. I just get a little confused about when exactly we are supposed to start if it's not when it says on the schedule...... Other than the minimal attendance, the classes went really well, so hopefully the influx of students next class won't change that.
Well, Andy and I have recently received many packages from you generous and caring people in the states. We really do appreciate those nice little treats from home, even though I am afraid that because we have so many treats that I will start to balloon up! hehe..
Yesterday, I didn't have classes at the college so I went to the nursery school early, then caught another gelley to keep on going to the peace corps office. Once there, I did some internet stuff, grabbed some more reading material, found our packages in the mailroom (!) and then hung around until Andy came into town. We were meeting a volunteer and her friend that came to visit from America. So we went to dinner and came back fairly late for us, catching a gelley after a little wait at around 9. When we got home (I hadn't been home since 7:30 am) it was about 10 and we still had to take our bucket baths (brrrr cold!) so it was nice to make tea after and open some Christmas gifts. Cozy Cozy.. It's so funny, because now we have a thermometer and can really see that we are cold when it is literally 70 degrees, because our bodies have adjust so much to being at about 100+
Well, I think that's about it for now, ... I have some random projects planned for this weekend... I want to try my hand at cooking some more things in the solar cooker (I think maybe beans this weekend), make some more tortillas (this time we will triple the recipe! Because they never seem to last long!) I really like finding things to make from scratch in the solar cooker.. I am looking for simple recipes for things I can find in the market to make, like breads, beans, etc., (only problem is lack of spices) so if you have a good simple recipe let me know!
I got some parsley seeds and want to plant them (though, I'm not sure about where they will be able to get sun because we don't have a back yard... or place that is protected from goats that we could put it out in) and maybe visit some local areas and volunteers.
Well, Andy has put up some more pictures recently of bee keeping activities, so make sure to keep checking it out.
Have a nice weekend,.. hope to hear from you!
So, classes at the college were scheduled to start this week.... But..... being that it is Gambia, no one really had classes I think... except for me! :) Well, Tuesday I went for the one class I was scheduled to have, but of course, ... should have known,... that no one would be there. Wednesday I had two classes scheduled, one in the morning, and one in the late afternoon... I think I caught some students unaware that were here to register, by having classes that first class, but of course in the afternoon no one came. This morning, I had two remaining classes back to back and I had fairly good attendance in the first and minimal in the second.... The problem is that the students have to come register in person, and there are always long lines, and problems, so, no one ends up really holding classes that first week.. Well, being the type A-(for American!) that I am,.. I just get a little confused about when exactly we are supposed to start if it's not when it says on the schedule...... Other than the minimal attendance, the classes went really well, so hopefully the influx of students next class won't change that.
Well, Andy and I have recently received many packages from you generous and caring people in the states. We really do appreciate those nice little treats from home, even though I am afraid that because we have so many treats that I will start to balloon up! hehe..
Yesterday, I didn't have classes at the college so I went to the nursery school early, then caught another gelley to keep on going to the peace corps office. Once there, I did some internet stuff, grabbed some more reading material, found our packages in the mailroom (!) and then hung around until Andy came into town. We were meeting a volunteer and her friend that came to visit from America. So we went to dinner and came back fairly late for us, catching a gelley after a little wait at around 9. When we got home (I hadn't been home since 7:30 am) it was about 10 and we still had to take our bucket baths (brrrr cold!) so it was nice to make tea after and open some Christmas gifts. Cozy Cozy.. It's so funny, because now we have a thermometer and can really see that we are cold when it is literally 70 degrees, because our bodies have adjust so much to being at about 100+
Well, I think that's about it for now, ... I have some random projects planned for this weekend... I want to try my hand at cooking some more things in the solar cooker (I think maybe beans this weekend), make some more tortillas (this time we will triple the recipe! Because they never seem to last long!) I really like finding things to make from scratch in the solar cooker.. I am looking for simple recipes for things I can find in the market to make, like breads, beans, etc., (only problem is lack of spices) so if you have a good simple recipe let me know!
I got some parsley seeds and want to plant them (though, I'm not sure about where they will be able to get sun because we don't have a back yard... or place that is protected from goats that we could put it out in) and maybe visit some local areas and volunteers.
Well, Andy has put up some more pictures recently of bee keeping activities, so make sure to keep checking it out.
Have a nice weekend,.. hope to hear from you!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Happy New Year!
Hey, Happy Birthday David! hehe
and Happy Anniversary (you know who you are!)
Well, now it is officially 2008. Andy and I didn't do much for New Years. We hung out with another volunteer for a little bit, but then came back home. Andy had bought these little fireworks at a bitik in Sera Kunda when we were there for Christmas, and he had about 2 left. He set them off, and the kids stood around and watched. It was funny though, because it was only 10 o'clock. After that took 2 seconds, (the grandma aka: Mama, cheered for Andy when he set off the fireworks and thanked him as she sat in her normal spot on the porch. It was funny.), we went inside our house and tried to stay awake till 12, which we successfully did by making some tea and eating some stollen Andy's mom sent us (Thank You! For everything!).
I have been busy working on various things for work. I have all my lessons completed and typed, along with my syllabus. This term, I had to find a solution to the problem of having 350 plus students, and needing to get information to them to read. Because the college doesn't have textbooks, that usually could be dealt with by giving handouts, but there is no way I could make that many copies. On top of all that, I don't have a permanent office here at the college (still haven't found that empty closet I could fit a desk in!) So I have decided to make a binder, put some copies of the articles in sheet protectors and have the binder up at the library. The students will be able to sign out the article they need, make any notes they want, return it for others to use during the week before they see me again, and it will be available during more hours that I would even be if I did have an office.
The school term starts next week. It seems like it is going to be hard to get back into the groove of going to work, because of all the holidays, plus the randomly declared national holidays here. I am apprehensive about the new term (not really sure I have it in me to teach another term!) but at the same time, when I go through what I have planned I am optimistic that it will be a good learning experience for the students at the college and that it will work out. It reminds me of the phenomenon like when you hike up a mountain or some other physically and/or mentally painful event (childbirth comes to mind, though not from experience!) and you tend to forget all that pain once you are past it, and you want to climb another mountain! (or have another child!)
Andy went to the beekeepers late the other night. They went at night to harvest honey at the bee's calmest time, but he still ended up with 20 plus stings in various places, but came home very excited about it, and I think exhilarated by finally getting to experience the harvesting. Along with the excitement, he also brought home a cup of freshly harvested honeycomb. Yum!
And, Dad, he got some use out of the sun hat you sent me, it is apparently great for wearing under the bee suit!
Well, I feel like I'm kind of running on fumes with what to say here, so, questions/comments would probably do some good from you readers. *It is amazing how normal everything feels here, how if someone came to visit, it would take me a while to realize something wasn't normal for them in any given situation here. So, being that way, it is harder to come up with "interesting" things to write about.
Wish me luck for the start of classes next week!
Later.
and Happy Anniversary (you know who you are!)
Well, now it is officially 2008. Andy and I didn't do much for New Years. We hung out with another volunteer for a little bit, but then came back home. Andy had bought these little fireworks at a bitik in Sera Kunda when we were there for Christmas, and he had about 2 left. He set them off, and the kids stood around and watched. It was funny though, because it was only 10 o'clock. After that took 2 seconds, (the grandma aka: Mama, cheered for Andy when he set off the fireworks and thanked him as she sat in her normal spot on the porch. It was funny.), we went inside our house and tried to stay awake till 12, which we successfully did by making some tea and eating some stollen Andy's mom sent us (Thank You! For everything!).
I have been busy working on various things for work. I have all my lessons completed and typed, along with my syllabus. This term, I had to find a solution to the problem of having 350 plus students, and needing to get information to them to read. Because the college doesn't have textbooks, that usually could be dealt with by giving handouts, but there is no way I could make that many copies. On top of all that, I don't have a permanent office here at the college (still haven't found that empty closet I could fit a desk in!) So I have decided to make a binder, put some copies of the articles in sheet protectors and have the binder up at the library. The students will be able to sign out the article they need, make any notes they want, return it for others to use during the week before they see me again, and it will be available during more hours that I would even be if I did have an office.
The school term starts next week. It seems like it is going to be hard to get back into the groove of going to work, because of all the holidays, plus the randomly declared national holidays here. I am apprehensive about the new term (not really sure I have it in me to teach another term!) but at the same time, when I go through what I have planned I am optimistic that it will be a good learning experience for the students at the college and that it will work out. It reminds me of the phenomenon like when you hike up a mountain or some other physically and/or mentally painful event (childbirth comes to mind, though not from experience!) and you tend to forget all that pain once you are past it, and you want to climb another mountain! (or have another child!)
Andy went to the beekeepers late the other night. They went at night to harvest honey at the bee's calmest time, but he still ended up with 20 plus stings in various places, but came home very excited about it, and I think exhilarated by finally getting to experience the harvesting. Along with the excitement, he also brought home a cup of freshly harvested honeycomb. Yum!
And, Dad, he got some use out of the sun hat you sent me, it is apparently great for wearing under the bee suit!
Well, I feel like I'm kind of running on fumes with what to say here, so, questions/comments would probably do some good from you readers. *It is amazing how normal everything feels here, how if someone came to visit, it would take me a while to realize something wasn't normal for them in any given situation here. So, being that way, it is harder to come up with "interesting" things to write about.
Wish me luck for the start of classes next week!
Later.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Christmas Day
So, it's Christmas Day, but doesn't really feel like it at all. We are here in the Peace Corps office now, and we are staying at the hostel here. We got here yesterday afternoon, and some other volunteers are down too. Our country director somehow got a turkey for us to cook at the hostel, so everyone is doing there best trying to come up with other things to cook with it. I think I'm in charge of mashed potatoes :) But even though we will have a Christmas type dinner it still doesn't even remotely feel like Christmas time, and I guess that's OK, but it still feels a little strange to know that family and friends in the states are doing the same things that we did every year, just minus us. Last night we tried to watch the only Christmas movie we had (Elf DVD) on the computer for everyone to watch, but the DVD was so scratched we got about a quarter of the way through and it just wouldn't go any further. So, that was a bummer. Then they put in The Italian Job (sooo not Christmasy) and so I went to bed. I think that I will really be looking forward to a white Christmas when we get back! We will have to move somewhere where there is a guarantee that there will be snow! Well, we may or may not stay in town another night, (depends when the turkey gets finished!, if it's late we will not be able to get transport back to Brikama) so we may end up going home tomorrow. I don't have to report back to class or the nursery school until the 7th of Jan. so, I have been planning things for the term, and since I'm here at the computer, have printed out some stuff for college, that I will take home, look through and tweak later this week to have it all prepared. Well, I don't want to bore anyone with work today, so
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Merry Christmas
Just in case I don't get to a computer again before Christmas, Merry Christmas everyone!
Tobaski Time
Last Monday I went to the college one last time before the break to meet with my counterparts and discuss this term and the coming term at the college. We decided on what we will be teaching next term. I will be holding the class on Teaching Strategies, (yeah fun!). I have already planned a lot for the term and hope it goes well.
On the following Tuesday, everyone was getting ready to travel to their families upcountry. So when I went down to the market, surprise, surprise, it was mass chaos. I've never seen it so busy before, people everywhere along the streets, cars lined up bumper to bumper (gelley gelley vans mostly), people selling via yelling through megaphones, and just tons of people winding their way around the market trying to buy silifando (souvenirs) to take for their families. Along with all those goods, there was a major influx of rams in the country. They are loaded where ever they can fit, on top of the vans, in the back seats of cars, trailing behind bicycles, etc. The good think about all this madness is that hardly anyone paid attention to me (lowest toubab tally yet!) because they were so busy trying to get out of town. I was thinking as I pushed my way through the market, " Man! People at home think shopping during Christmas time is bad!, At least in America we have some semblance or order in things we do, (like, we know how to get in a line, take turns, etc!) But here, the lack of order is the normal order of business.
The following day, (Wednesday) Andy and I braved the market again because we wanted to get our host family some things to cook with the family's ram (the ram was tied to the tree by the cooking area since about Monday)
We bought: 5 Liters of vegetable oil (very important here, it is the second food group besides rice!)
2 large eggplants
5 carrots
2 piles of potatoes (about 8-10)
2 piles of onions (about 8-10, and the 3rd food group)
1 jar of Senegal dijon mustard (used for sauces)
2 small plastic bags of pounded black pepper
then we went to what I call "the black light district" which is an area of the market where you can buy ready-made clothes, that is covered so that it is dark from the canvas roofs and lit with black lights (not so good because last time we went there to buy Andy's kaftan we didn't realize it was purple because of the blacklights, we thought it was blue!). We got Andy another outfit this time we made sure we figured out the color before buying it (a nice brown)!
When Thursday rolled around it was Tobaski. I woke up a little late (for here 8 ish) and felt kinda out of the loop because Andy had already woken up early and helped wash the rams to prepare them for the slaughtering that day. Everyone in the compound was very busy preparing things, and I felt like I had nothing to do. Like last holiday, it is slightly unnerving when you are involved in a holiday that is new to you, and you aren't quite sure what is going to happen that day. But eventually things got going and they prepared to kill the rams. Our family had a large ram, and a small family that just moved in at the end had a ram, and our next door neighbors had a goat. It was very eventful for me, because I witnessed the slaughtering of these animals. I documented the whole thing with our camera, which for me was easier to do,than just stand by and watch. It was easier to have something to do, if there was a particularly gruesome part, I would zoom in on what was happening, but looking through the lens helped me feel a little detached from it. After the animals had died, the men cut the meat up, after skinning and de-gutting the animals. While they were doing this the small children poked around watching them, touching the dead animals foot and at one point poking at the filled, detached belly of one of the rams laying on the ground. I got a lot of intense pictures of Molado and the other small children in the compound. One in particular of Moldao in her cream frilly party dress standing next to a pool of blood and a slaughtered goat in the background. I couldn't help taking so many pictures of her in the situation because of the contrast between her apparent cleanliness and innocence, prancing happily around what became a slaughtering ground that day.
Well, after the meat was mostly cut up the owners of the meat gave Andy and I some, and suddenly I was thrown into a panic, because I hadn't planned on cooking and I'd never cooked goat or ram before! I got stressed and in an effort to gain control of the situation, took off to the market to get something to cook the meat in. I got to the market and discovered that it was a mere skeleton of it's normal self because of the holiday and everyone had left town. But I found a few things and made my way home only to find out that Fatou Mata had brought over meat to roast in our oven and offered to keep the stuff we had in their fridge till Saturday. So that's what we did. We gorged ourselves on meat and food on Thursday and when bedtime came around Andy realized he had become sick. He moved to the other bed in the main room in the middle of the night, and vomited. We were up all night and he spend all of Friday and Saturday recovering. On Saturday afternoon we had to cook the meat that was being kept for us, so we marinated it in a mixture of: tomato paste, garlic, mustard, black pepper, maggi cubes, water, oil, and onions, and then put it in the solar cooker (after draining the marinate away) with some chunks of potatoes and onions. After about 3 hours in the sun it was a delicious roast. The solar cooker is magic! But it was a little tainted by the fact that we are a little sick right now of so much meat, because it is not a normal thing in our diet and honestly we've had it for every meal except one since Thursday. I think I'll be good for a while after this if I don't have meat!
On the following Tuesday, everyone was getting ready to travel to their families upcountry. So when I went down to the market, surprise, surprise, it was mass chaos. I've never seen it so busy before, people everywhere along the streets, cars lined up bumper to bumper (gelley gelley vans mostly), people selling via yelling through megaphones, and just tons of people winding their way around the market trying to buy silifando (souvenirs) to take for their families. Along with all those goods, there was a major influx of rams in the country. They are loaded where ever they can fit, on top of the vans, in the back seats of cars, trailing behind bicycles, etc. The good think about all this madness is that hardly anyone paid attention to me (lowest toubab tally yet!) because they were so busy trying to get out of town. I was thinking as I pushed my way through the market, " Man! People at home think shopping during Christmas time is bad!, At least in America we have some semblance or order in things we do, (like, we know how to get in a line, take turns, etc!) But here, the lack of order is the normal order of business.
The following day, (Wednesday) Andy and I braved the market again because we wanted to get our host family some things to cook with the family's ram (the ram was tied to the tree by the cooking area since about Monday)
We bought: 5 Liters of vegetable oil (very important here, it is the second food group besides rice!)
2 large eggplants
5 carrots
2 piles of potatoes (about 8-10)
2 piles of onions (about 8-10, and the 3rd food group)
1 jar of Senegal dijon mustard (used for sauces)
2 small plastic bags of pounded black pepper
then we went to what I call "the black light district" which is an area of the market where you can buy ready-made clothes, that is covered so that it is dark from the canvas roofs and lit with black lights (not so good because last time we went there to buy Andy's kaftan we didn't realize it was purple because of the blacklights, we thought it was blue!). We got Andy another outfit this time we made sure we figured out the color before buying it (a nice brown)!
When Thursday rolled around it was Tobaski. I woke up a little late (for here 8 ish) and felt kinda out of the loop because Andy had already woken up early and helped wash the rams to prepare them for the slaughtering that day. Everyone in the compound was very busy preparing things, and I felt like I had nothing to do. Like last holiday, it is slightly unnerving when you are involved in a holiday that is new to you, and you aren't quite sure what is going to happen that day. But eventually things got going and they prepared to kill the rams. Our family had a large ram, and a small family that just moved in at the end had a ram, and our next door neighbors had a goat. It was very eventful for me, because I witnessed the slaughtering of these animals. I documented the whole thing with our camera, which for me was easier to do,than just stand by and watch. It was easier to have something to do, if there was a particularly gruesome part, I would zoom in on what was happening, but looking through the lens helped me feel a little detached from it. After the animals had died, the men cut the meat up, after skinning and de-gutting the animals. While they were doing this the small children poked around watching them, touching the dead animals foot and at one point poking at the filled, detached belly of one of the rams laying on the ground. I got a lot of intense pictures of Molado and the other small children in the compound. One in particular of Moldao in her cream frilly party dress standing next to a pool of blood and a slaughtered goat in the background. I couldn't help taking so many pictures of her in the situation because of the contrast between her apparent cleanliness and innocence, prancing happily around what became a slaughtering ground that day.
Well, after the meat was mostly cut up the owners of the meat gave Andy and I some, and suddenly I was thrown into a panic, because I hadn't planned on cooking and I'd never cooked goat or ram before! I got stressed and in an effort to gain control of the situation, took off to the market to get something to cook the meat in. I got to the market and discovered that it was a mere skeleton of it's normal self because of the holiday and everyone had left town. But I found a few things and made my way home only to find out that Fatou Mata had brought over meat to roast in our oven and offered to keep the stuff we had in their fridge till Saturday. So that's what we did. We gorged ourselves on meat and food on Thursday and when bedtime came around Andy realized he had become sick. He moved to the other bed in the main room in the middle of the night, and vomited. We were up all night and he spend all of Friday and Saturday recovering. On Saturday afternoon we had to cook the meat that was being kept for us, so we marinated it in a mixture of: tomato paste, garlic, mustard, black pepper, maggi cubes, water, oil, and onions, and then put it in the solar cooker (after draining the marinate away) with some chunks of potatoes and onions. After about 3 hours in the sun it was a delicious roast. The solar cooker is magic! But it was a little tainted by the fact that we are a little sick right now of so much meat, because it is not a normal thing in our diet and honestly we've had it for every meal except one since Thursday. I think I'll be good for a while after this if I don't have meat!
Friday, December 7, 2007
Nice
Well, it has been pretty nice weather here lately. Some days we will wake up and both grab for the blanket, because in the morning and as soon as it gets dark it is very cool. Very desert-like weather. I have to make sure to get my bath in before 6:30, because after that its a bit uncomfortable to take a cold bucket bath. The routine has been that I usually get home from work, read or practice letter activities with our host family, and then jump rope just before I take a bath. After that I make tea with powdered milk for us, and we sit out on the porch in our long sleeve shirts (or sometimes I've even broken out my hoody!) and chat with the family.
Lately we have been making more of an effort to help out host brothers and sisters learn letters, letter sounds, numbers, etc. One of them Fatou Bentu who is 6, is really enthusiastic about studying with me. I think because she is at the age where her brothers and sisters are older than her, (except MoLamin and he's 3) she kinda gets left out, or bossed around. I think she relishes the alone time we spend together studying, because I don't let anyone else come around, because she gets shy in front of the boys (cultural gender roles). What I really love is that every time I say "Ok, we're done!" she jumps up happily runs back to the house. Andy and I are really trying to set up a situation where they come to us in the evening to study, or do something academic, even if its just looking at a book with us. Andy and MoLamin were looking at "Goldilocks and the three bears" last night, it was very cute. Molamin just likes to point out things that he knows (in mandinka mostly, but if we don't know the word in Mandinka, we will tell him the english word, like the word "bear"), so he just goes turning all the pages, and saying "bear a fele, bear a fele, bear a fele", (bear is here, bear is here, bear is here) I have put alphavet letters on bottle caps and he really likes those, right now, he knows abc, so of course, every bottle cap is a, b, or c. He also likes to count with those, practicing dumping them out of the container, and putting them back in, (alternating between fistfuls, or 1 at a time) and counting, which he is good at. In the morning if I don't go to work until a little later, he comes in the house and asks where the bottle caps are, after the bottle caps, he will ask where the "booko baa" is (big book) that I got from the peace corps office. He likes to point out the girl and her father on all the pages of it, and when our host mother came over to see what he was up to, he showed her too! Gotta love it!
The other night we were have a laughing good time, and it all has to do with a plastic bag and frogs. (Tootoo in Mandinka). Andy had his plastic bag of charcoal on the porch for brewing attaya, and we were out there playing cards when the bag started to move and wriggle around. With a little bumping from me, out hopped a charcoal stained frog)
Well, one day when we were cleaning out the house, I put a plastic shopping bag outside on the porch. Well, it kinda just stayed there, because Andy thought it might be useful. The weather turned cool at night. And one day the bag started moving like the charcoal bag. MoLamin, (who used to scared of them, but has gotten braver) picked up the bag a little bit off the ground and 4 frogs plopped out. Well, this got him very excited and he started chasing them around our porch with a miniature sized grass broom, flicking them and trying to sweep these frogs off our porch. Well, after he had gotten those off the porch he went to get the bag, to throw away, and out plopped about 8 more frogs of all different sizes! They started hopping away for there lives away from MoLamin and he was ecstatic chasing them around the porch. Meanwhile, Andy and I are sitting in our chairs (like an old married couple on the porch) laughing our heads off, it was the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. Well, after a few more frogs got swept off the porch MoLamin and Fatou Bentu started chasing them in the dark around the compound, whooping and hollering. hehe.
The other day when I was getting water the cute white kitty kept sneaking up to my filled buckets and taking a drink. It was so cute, but he/she left dirty paw residue on the edge of my buckets. On his third attempt up to the bucket I got a hold of him and picked him up, he was purring! (must have been confused....) It was funny, and Ndea (our host mom) was on her porch laughing at me.
Oh, I know this is the most random of blogs but I'm just flowing!
The other day at the nursery school I made a teacher bulletin board, for me to put up things about particular topics for the teachers to come and look at. With the help of one of the teachers there we cut some poplin fabric into the right size, made a border with some left over fabric, pinned that in place, glued on some letters I had cut out, and then pinned on some information cards I had printed and mounted and colored poster board. With great effort I put two nails in the concrete walls, cut small holes in the fabric, and looped it over the nail heads. We also had a little table set out in front of it, and there I spread out some examples of items I had made, having to do with our theme. The teachers there were sooooo excited, and I think it will be a good way to get information to them about other techniques and issues, so they can start seeing new ideas and ways of teaching.
Well, next week grades are due at the college, and I still have about 250 test papers to grade., then I will have to go through all approx. 350 students grades and average those, it is going to be a quite a task. I can only sit there and grade for a little at a time before my bottom goes numb or I goes crazy with the answers I'm getting. Next week we are having a friend stay with us, she will be down here doing a training with the college, so that will be nice, and I think we are planning to do some hot chocolate get-together with some of the other area volunteers for Christmas while she is here.
Well, I think thats it for now, later!
Lately we have been making more of an effort to help out host brothers and sisters learn letters, letter sounds, numbers, etc. One of them Fatou Bentu who is 6, is really enthusiastic about studying with me. I think because she is at the age where her brothers and sisters are older than her, (except MoLamin and he's 3) she kinda gets left out, or bossed around. I think she relishes the alone time we spend together studying, because I don't let anyone else come around, because she gets shy in front of the boys (cultural gender roles). What I really love is that every time I say "Ok, we're done!" she jumps up happily runs back to the house. Andy and I are really trying to set up a situation where they come to us in the evening to study, or do something academic, even if its just looking at a book with us. Andy and MoLamin were looking at "Goldilocks and the three bears" last night, it was very cute. Molamin just likes to point out things that he knows (in mandinka mostly, but if we don't know the word in Mandinka, we will tell him the english word, like the word "bear"), so he just goes turning all the pages, and saying "bear a fele, bear a fele, bear a fele", (bear is here, bear is here, bear is here) I have put alphavet letters on bottle caps and he really likes those, right now, he knows abc, so of course, every bottle cap is a, b, or c. He also likes to count with those, practicing dumping them out of the container, and putting them back in, (alternating between fistfuls, or 1 at a time) and counting, which he is good at. In the morning if I don't go to work until a little later, he comes in the house and asks where the bottle caps are, after the bottle caps, he will ask where the "booko baa" is (big book) that I got from the peace corps office. He likes to point out the girl and her father on all the pages of it, and when our host mother came over to see what he was up to, he showed her too! Gotta love it!
The other night we were have a laughing good time, and it all has to do with a plastic bag and frogs. (Tootoo in Mandinka). Andy had his plastic bag of charcoal on the porch for brewing attaya, and we were out there playing cards when the bag started to move and wriggle around. With a little bumping from me, out hopped a charcoal stained frog)
Well, one day when we were cleaning out the house, I put a plastic shopping bag outside on the porch. Well, it kinda just stayed there, because Andy thought it might be useful. The weather turned cool at night. And one day the bag started moving like the charcoal bag. MoLamin, (who used to scared of them, but has gotten braver) picked up the bag a little bit off the ground and 4 frogs plopped out. Well, this got him very excited and he started chasing them around our porch with a miniature sized grass broom, flicking them and trying to sweep these frogs off our porch. Well, after he had gotten those off the porch he went to get the bag, to throw away, and out plopped about 8 more frogs of all different sizes! They started hopping away for there lives away from MoLamin and he was ecstatic chasing them around the porch. Meanwhile, Andy and I are sitting in our chairs (like an old married couple on the porch) laughing our heads off, it was the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. Well, after a few more frogs got swept off the porch MoLamin and Fatou Bentu started chasing them in the dark around the compound, whooping and hollering. hehe.
The other day when I was getting water the cute white kitty kept sneaking up to my filled buckets and taking a drink. It was so cute, but he/she left dirty paw residue on the edge of my buckets. On his third attempt up to the bucket I got a hold of him and picked him up, he was purring! (must have been confused....) It was funny, and Ndea (our host mom) was on her porch laughing at me.
Oh, I know this is the most random of blogs but I'm just flowing!
The other day at the nursery school I made a teacher bulletin board, for me to put up things about particular topics for the teachers to come and look at. With the help of one of the teachers there we cut some poplin fabric into the right size, made a border with some left over fabric, pinned that in place, glued on some letters I had cut out, and then pinned on some information cards I had printed and mounted and colored poster board. With great effort I put two nails in the concrete walls, cut small holes in the fabric, and looped it over the nail heads. We also had a little table set out in front of it, and there I spread out some examples of items I had made, having to do with our theme. The teachers there were sooooo excited, and I think it will be a good way to get information to them about other techniques and issues, so they can start seeing new ideas and ways of teaching.
Well, next week grades are due at the college, and I still have about 250 test papers to grade., then I will have to go through all approx. 350 students grades and average those, it is going to be a quite a task. I can only sit there and grade for a little at a time before my bottom goes numb or I goes crazy with the answers I'm getting. Next week we are having a friend stay with us, she will be down here doing a training with the college, so that will be nice, and I think we are planning to do some hot chocolate get-together with some of the other area volunteers for Christmas while she is here.
Well, I think thats it for now, later!
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