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

Happy Anniversary of We Got Married Date

Just wanted to say, this is our official "marriage date" and yeah for us. 2 years... (plus the other 6 before hand being official on paper)

And it all disappears... almost

Well, yesterday, when I set out to the the rant and rave on the blog, I set out with the intention of mentioning one thing at then end, but of course, forgot it, once I got started on the downhill slope.
After all the venting, I meant to write that all of the below situations will happen on your way home, and you will turn in to your street, and run into a family member, and boom! All of those annoying things will somewhat dissapate for the time being, because they knnnooowww your name is not "toubab" and they can ask you where your going, what you did, with genuine interest. You can have a genuine exchange. After these "breath of fresh air encounters", you sometimes walk a few steps and immediately get toubabed again, but hey, it gives you a little breather.
Another thing that the family redeems is if I'm sitting out on the street with my host mom, and someone tries to be like, " hey, who is this toubab here?" in Mandinka, she will tell them what's up, she'll say things like, she's not a toubab her name is Borry, and why don't you ask her? Which is great. :)

Complaint of the day

Well, yesterday, was one of those days here in the Gambia, where I often felt like I was going to strangle someone, or yell English expletives at them even though they wouldn't understand what they meant [though they hear them from our proud exports of rap music and r rated movies] Let's be honest here, many volunteers have days like this, where people here in this other culture do things to seriously offend your American cultural attitude. Even though you are here in their country, you can't help but feel like they are purposefully offending you. Like hiss at you every time you walk by, make kissing noises, yell, "Hey, hey, hey!", over and over again across the street, even when you ignore them, say, "Hey boss lady, boss lady hey!" say things they probably don't even know what they mean like, "I like your structure lady!", and all of the ones listed so far are generally from men in the 18-28 age range, but then you have to add on to that the majority of the population of 2-18 years olds that seriously populate the country, yelling over and over again, "toubab" toubab!", "Give me minty, spare me pen, give me money" like they expect you to answer .. honestly, on these days, I always think, um,... if this is a word in your language, and I am a "foreigner or tourist", why the heck do you think I would know what that means? This is also a reason why, if I ever see a tourist personally handing out giant gifts of minties to the local children, I will have a coniption, tackle them to the ground, of which I'm sure would be in super slow motion, Lydia, flying threw the air, "NOOOoooooo" landing on top of specified tourist which I'm sure would be clad in cut off jean shorts, and no shirt with hair chest blazing for all the ladies to see. And maybe instead of yelling out "foreigner!" to get said persons attention you could say the traditional greeting of someone you don't know, like "hello" [they do know this word], or, salamallekum.
As I'm walking around ignoring these happenings on the outside, on the inside I'm thinking about all these thoughts and on these days, I walk around, with what I call a "quiet annoyance". I just keep walking, and am calmly annoyed, because what else can you do?
I know some of this probably doesn't even make sense to most of the people that are reading this, but this is my outlet, and there it is.

Hip Hip Hooray!

It's Saturday!
Well, I have officially finished my grades, printed them out to turn in (even though the few zeros in each class mar the finished product). Andy and I are here at the peace corps office for my end of term "celebration". (A beer and something we call pizza, but believe me it's no papa johns or dominoes, it's some lebenaese person making a good effort!--small aside--one time I got it, and was surprised they offered "sausage" and it turns out what was presented to us was pizza with hot dogs cut up on it.. not exactly gourmet... hehe One we ordered in Senegal had a big fried egg in the middle of it... strange variations, I wonder if that will be the next papa johns gimmick!?)
Some of the new pictures Andy put recently are of my observation trek the other week. Not too many, because I didn't want to get mobbed by a ton of school kids. But there is one of a little girl pointing with a pointer to a blackboard set on the ground. This was just a sad/funny situation, because there were about forty little tiny kids (about 5/6 years old) crammed in this little low ceiling concrete building, and they were chanting what the little girl was pointing at after her,.. with no teacher around.... and I just thought.... ya know, she is doing just as good, or better of a job as any grown up teacher with training does here a lot of the times.... point to crap on a board and having the kids chant in a sing song manner. At the same school, I went around to look at this library, (noticed it, because it was a nicely painted) thinking it looked pretty nice from the outside, and when I went in, I had that emotional pull again to cry/laugh at the same time, because there were a ton of great books, some of which were on the dusty shelves, but there were a ton of these good new books sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the library, with inches of dirt on them, like they had been there for a long time. Sometimes you just want to yell at people to stop sending money and crap, because they don't know how to take care of it, or use it here... but then again how will they learn.... but also they won't respect it as much unless they've earned it! sorry, these are an example of the back and forth thoughts that go through my mind all the time here.
Another thing that I noticed by visiting a lot of schools last week, was that at any given school, in the headmasters office there must be: 1. a blow up globe, or ball of some sort [not being used by children it was meant for, but for decorating the headmasters office] 2. a giant map of some either obscure or random place [heavely favored is a map of the place that has given money, like the UK, or the netherlands] 3. Random health/social posters made here in the Gambia For example, that show a picture of an older man with devils horns giving a little girl candy,.. and saying, "He is not your daddy, and what he has is not sweet!" (the message is clearly, no sugar-daddies please!).
Well, I think we are going to get a move on, Hope you are having a good Saturday.
Talk to you all soon. I hope!

Wheew!

Well, on this past Friday evening I came back to the happy chant of our compound little ones saying, "Borry nata, Borry nata, Borry nata..." (translated means "Borry came", like, I came back) I was sooo happy to be back home!
short rundown of the observation trek...
Sunday, they told me between like...9 am and 12 they would pick me up... (big window), so we were kinda waiting around the house, and at about 12 the truck came to my compound. I ran last minute to the back to make the last pit stop for a good while.
After going around and collecting one more teacher from the college, we were off, and then I realized... oh no! We were headed out on the south bank road. Which is notoriously ridiculous for being more pot holes than actual road surface. So, it was a long hot bumpy road for about 5 hours (no air cond, sandwiched in the extended cab of a truck between two Gambian teachers). When we got to Brikamaba (a village in the central river region) we immediately went into a school compound, and sat for a little bit, while the guys prayed and drank attaya, before they led us to a place that we were staying. It was a guys house that was not there at the moment. I quickly realized the goal while on trek for the other lecturers was to find any means of not spending the per diem you get from the college to go on trek and pay for food and places to stay, so they can bring it home to their family instead) It was an ok place, it was just that the room I was staying in had absolutely no air flow, and I lay there are night trying to barely move, and at the same time move my hand fan a little bit, alllllll night long! I pretty much went the entire week without sleeping. The central river region is a lot hotter than down near the coast.
The next day we got up, and started doing our job, of observing teaching students. A lot of the times the observation was extremely painful to watch, but there were a few good ones in there too. Sometimes, it felt like the state of the schools, were so awful that I wanted to cry, but then of course you can't do that, so, you just have to laugh!
All five of the days went fairly the same, we would get breakfast from a school, or find it along the way, go bouncing off road to a remote village school, do the write ups on observations, end up back at our home base in Brikamaba in the evening, where I would usually go off by myself and find something to drink and some oranges to buy, before walking back to hang out with the people in the compound we were staying in.
I feel somewhat accomplished now that I have gone, and will go again later. Though I've been in many schools here before, it is still very insightful into the problems that the school system has here.
But after all the work, the flat tire, the bumpity, bump road, the sleeping in smoldering rooms, I made it, I can do it again!
Well, That's enough of that for now,
Thanks to all that commented on the new hair do... hehe, We plan to periodically (maybe monthly) take pictures to document the strange growth patterns I will surely encounter, and struggle with. I feel like I will need a lot of hair wraps, maybe I need to start wearing mascara to draw more attention to my eyes, though I don't' know where I would get that, hehe. I need to make more of an effort to be feminine somehow...must find more cheap earrings, because (like my track record has shown, ) I have successfully lost, or broken all the earrings I brought with me! ... But, Like I said, when else was I ever going to get a chance to have this haircut and start from scratch!?, and this way, by the time I get back, I will have a good length to get a nicely styled short haircut from a salon.
Work has been very busy, I don't really feel like lately I have the free time during the week especially, to sit and relax and read like I used to, because I'm always thinking of new things to do, and more things to do. This week at the college, I am giving the final exam, and then will have the daunting task of compiling lots and lots of grades. But afterwards, I like to treat myself to something in the city, so I will do that after I finish my grades, (ways to self-motivate!) At the nursery school we had a successful training on lesson planning preschool style the Friday before I went on trek, and they seemed pleased with it. We will have to plan another one soon.
Well, with no shortage of work, I may be in the position of co-writing the education sector's newsletter soon, so we'll see if that turns out!
Thanks for all the support from all you guys back home,
Later,
Lydia