In The Gambia now

I have now officially survived my first day here living in The Gambia. Yesterday really does not count because I did not leave the airport until almost 11pm. I just finally realized that we have a pretty large time difference. It’s about 10pm here, and I am planning on going to bed after typing this. Where most of you are, it’s about 5pm, and you are coming home from work, and probably thinking about eating dinner soon.

Our travels here were rather interesting. We left Washington, DC, via Dulles on time, and the flight over to Brussels was awesome!!! I included a couple of pictures of the vehicles that transported us between the terminals at the airport because I got a big kick out of them. About half of us got to ride in “Economy Plus,” which really meant that we got more comfortable blankets, better service, and MUCH more leg room. The plane that we flew over on was set up as 2-5-2, and my seat was the seat that was in the dead center of the row. The two seats next to me were empty on take-off, so I moved over, and had even more leg room. The meals were great, and I ended up watching three movies!!! Each person had their own little TV in the back of the seat in front of them, and we had like seven movies to choose from. We then arrived in Brussels, and my traveling luck began to change…

So we arrived in Brussels, and we had to go through some sort of security line again to get into the terminal where the planes where taking off. Of course both of my bags set off the censor, and I forgot to take a wrapper out of my pocket with a tiny, tiny metal piece embedded in it, so of course I set off the metal detector as well. I then was pulled aside, and had to deal with a woman who did not speak English patting me down (including copping a feel on my chest), and then I had to deal with the wand. Next, I had to watch as two guys went through both of my bags taking EVERY SINGLE THING out of BOTH of my carry-ons. Thankfully other people had to deal with those problems as well, so I did not hold up the group at all.

Once we all made it through security, we checked in with Air Brussels, and we all just sort of lounged around the airport. I was starving, so I ended up buying a sandwich and a Coca-Cola light. All I had was a 20-dollar bill, so I ended up getting back six Euros and some odd change. My favorite part of the airport was the Coca-Cola machines. I guess that there is some sort of famous statue in Brussels that looks like a small boy peeing, and they used that on the machine. On the machine is the statue peeing into a bottle of soda above the phrase, “taste the Coke side of Belgium.” Soon after all of that excitement we board the plane, and then all of the real fun began.

The people checking us in only managed to tell one of us that we were going to be making a stop in (famous city that starts with an “M” in Liberia that I cannot remember now), so it was some time before we all figured it out. The flight was basically a disaster. At this point everyone was exhausted, and there was a considerable less amount of leg room than my previous flights. Everyone but me passed out before we took off, and once we were off the ground I went to sleep as well. The flight attendants kept waking us up trying to give us food, so we all basically missed the snack and main meal. This was the craziest flight ever. After spending a good amount of time the past couple of days on planes where if you got up to go to the bathroom you were questioned, watching people stand in the aisle, and jump all over the plane was really different. The worst part of the flight was watching the map on the one, very small TV screen in the middle of the plane, and knowing that we had passed The Gambia.

We landed in Liberia, and the trip got much worse from there. First of all, the airport was something out of a horrible Africa movie. There was only like one hanger, and the entire place was full of UN planes. As we were landing, there were hundreds of soldiers loading onto a plane. That was our first piece of entertainment, closely followed by watching our pilots fight on the runway with the men who worked for the airport. There was a lot of hand-gesturing, and both sides looked rather upset. I have to say that my favorite part of that part of the trip is when they made an announcement 1.5 hours into the flight that they were going to finally fuel the plane. This came after the fuel truck proceed to drive around the plane multiple times. FINALLY, everything was dropped off and fueled, and were off to The Gambia. After this, everyone was starving, and we were served some sort of fo-turkey, cream cheese sandwich on soggy bread. At this point it was pitch black outside, so we really did not have the chance to see much of The Gambia as we flew into the airport.

The airport itself was really not that bad. We flew in on a pretty big airplane, (2-4-2) and then all loaded into buses for the drive up to the one and only terminal/baggage pick-up. Never in my life have I ever experienced any thing like what I am about to described. As we all walked into the terminal room we were greeted by some of the Peace Corps workers. Our special treatment began immediately. As everyone else waited in line to make it into the baggage retrieval part of the terminal, we were all let through a side gate as people gave us mean stares. We all quickly grabbed luggage carts, dodged the people that were trying to help us handle our luggage, and wait nervously as our luggage comes out. I was freaking out waiting for my luggage because not only did I want it to actually make it here, but I also wanted it to be free of tampering. After what seemed like FOREVER, both of my bags came out on the ramp, and I quickly got them. Once we all gathered our things, (this actually took a good deal of time because the plane had not been loaded the right way, and eventually they had to take every single piece of luggage off the plane, and then reload it all for the final destination in Dakar, Senegal), we slipped through the side door again, and this time totally bypassed the men who go through the luggage. My luck continued as I realized that I had the cart with a broken wheel, so it was rather difficult to get my bags out to the PC SUVs. The workers loaded up our bags, and we all pilled into the PC bus. The bus had like five or six rows with jump seats in each aisle. I sat in the row next to the door on a jump seat, and the ride was actually quite comfortable.

We had about a 20 minute drive, and there were a great deal of things to look at along the way. One of the current PCVs who came along to assist us this weekend, told us that when he came two years ago the roads were not lit. I wish that I had been able to get a picture of it, but as we were exiting the airport, we saw a billboard thanking the President of the country for curing HIV. (Yes I forgot to tell you all, the President did cure HIV recently, and when people bring this up we have to agree with them, but also tell them that we still need to prevent the disease.) Sex tourism is pretty big in the main cities, so along the way we saw some white European women hanging out with local Gambian men. That was quite a sight. Along the way we passed through SeneGambia, which is a big tourist trap. There were flashing lights, and we were told that this was the place to go if we wanted to go clubbing. Apparently there is even a PC discount. We even got to see the very first stop light. As we traveled, we probably passed through at least 3 or 4 police roadblocks. We were told that this is completely normal, and that The Gambia is really into security. As soon as the police saw the PC van, we were flagged through.

We made it to our home for the next few days a little after midnight on Friday morning. On Monday or Tuesday we will move out to the training villages, so for the time being we are staying at the PGI (which I believe stands for Pastoral Gambian Institute.) We were told that this is a sight were priests are trained. The rooms are actually pretty nice. I am sharing my room with another girl, and the room comes with a shower and a sink. We have to use the toilets at the end of the hall which are actually pretty gross. The tanks will only flush a few times a day, so everything just sort of sits in the toilet all day. We have a bucket in our shower, but I am opting to take a freezing cold shower with a regular water flow for the next couple of days because this will be my last chance before I have to take bucket showers permanently.

It’s now rather late here, and I need to go to bed. I will pick up where I left off tomorrow and walk over to the PC office sometime tomorrow and post this page and possibly another if time permits. I also plan on putting up some random pictures if I have the chance.