Okay, so now I have completed a little over one month. The time has gone by really fast, but it seems like it has also gone by really slow. The days are really LONG, but the weeks go by really fast. I find it helpful to make plans for a certain day, and then count down each day until that particular day comes.
So today I'm back in Farjara. I've actually been here since Thursday. So much for "three-month challenge." Oh well. Jenni had to drop one of her host sibling off in a village near mine, so her and Shayla came by on Wednesday and spent the night. Steven also came over because he did not want to travel over the next day alone. I told him that I would not wait for him in the morning because he always takes a really long time to get to my house. Rather it's a bike flat tire, or getting bitten by a dog, he always has some sort of mini drama that makes me wait an extra two hours to go anywhere. So anyway, the four of us came here Thurs morning, and then Amanda and Eugene came later that night. We've just been hanging out the past couple of days.
On Thursday, Jenni, Shayla, Steven, and I went to Serekunda to go to the market. We spent the entire time looking for "fabric street" which is really just one little alley way that sells fabric for the least amount of money. While we were looking for the street, I totally got hit by a car. Now it's always been my dream to be hit by a car in America. It's a great way to make some money. So I was standing pretty close to the side of the road, but I couldn't get all the way over because there was a very large group of old women blocking the way. Now I didn't want to just shove them all out of the way, so I was patiently waiting for them to keep walking when I got hit from behind. The car was going pretty slow, so it just knocked me off my feet, and I sort of just sat down on the hood. I was a little shaken, and all the old women came to my aid. They crowded me, and hit the taxi. Some old men came up running saying "sorry." The taxi driver drove off, and I just kept walking. Now if this had happened in America, I would have rolled off the hood and maybe faked a neck injury, but those things don't really work in a third world country. Oh well, I can now add being hit by a car to list of things that have happened to me.
Also, I am instantly the most popular female in my village. I've had numerous men propose their love to me, and one guy even sat me down and had a lot to say. I always get away, and then go home and call someone and just laugh. I also have the head of immigration for the entire district trying to court me. I live on the paved part of the road, so there are a lot of truckers that sleep on the side of the road at night right next to my house. When I am out in the mornings they like to say things to me. The other day I was walking back from the bitik, and one of them told me that he was going to "kiss me." I told him to come over and try and also had a few more choice words for him, and then I turned around and politely greeted a village elder. I find it's nice to yell at the truckers because you can get a lot of anger out. They really have no idea what you are saying, and apparently no one in this country knows what the finger means. One man who touched my neck and then made a kissy face got the finger, but he just waved and smiled.
I have a lot more that I want to say, but I need to go eat lunch and then head to Banjul for the Roots Festival. (Think Alex Haley) I plan on coming back here tomorrow, so look for a lot more stories soon!!! Also, I'll reveal what happened to the cats....
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
May 7 2008 Just a little something about what I’ve been up to…
Today is Wednesday, May 7, 2008, and I’ve been living in Mandinaba for 2.5 weeks now. I decided to write a blog entry, and then publish it later when I have the internet. Right now I am chillaxing in my friend’s house. She lives in Brikama (about 8K) away, and has ELECTRICITY!!! She had to go to a last minute meeting, so she left me here, but I’m not complaining because I can actually use my computer now. I tried to use the stupid thing last week in Farjara at the Peace Corps office, but apparently my computer needs to be updated or something to handle the wireless internet that the Peace Corps is using. Stupid government programs!!! So I lugged the stupid thing all the way there, and then wasn’t even able to use it. Oh well. Next time I go there I have to figure out what I need to download for the computer, and then do so and place it on my USB drive to be downloaded on my laptop whenever I have the chance. The Peace Corps has really come a long way. We are one of the countries that they are trying the wireless out in, so I really want to make sure that the Peace Corps keeps it here! I find it so funny that we all have laptops, and we have cell phones practically glued to our hands. (Okay, I’m sure not everyone uses their cell phone to text people as much as I do, but I consider texting to be therapy. If something goes wrong, or if I really need to share something funny that happens, I can always reach out to someone else. PCVs of the past are probably rolling over in their graves with shame at the amount of technology that is currently at our hands. If I really want to I could just ride my bike 20 minutes and use an internet café. I choose not too because I hear that the places are crawling with computer viruses, but I still have the option.
My first goal was to learn everyone in my compound’s name. I believe that I have now accomplished that goal. Okay, there are some family members that show up sometimes on the weekends that I have not managed to get down, but they’ll come sooner or later. I have a host father, two host mothers, and a whole bunch of siblings and other extended relatives. One of my favorite people (other than my niece of course) is my host uncle. He speaks English fairly well, and seems to be educated. I’m not sure what is wrong with him exactly, but I plan on figuring that out over the next two years. It’s not uncommon for me to find him at the pump watering imaginary buckets of water. He sits along the side of the road every day (our compound is right on the road), and just greets everyone that walks past. I’ve started sitting with him sometimes because he is a really nice person. We watch the cars drive by, and we just sit and talk about random things that come up. He seems to have a really good memory, and can remember meeting my friend Steven, and also is learning all of my other friend’s names as well. Today when I said that I was going to Brikama, he remembers which friend I was going to see. I asked someone about him, and it just seems that one day he sort of lost it, and just ran away into the bush. He reappeared some time later, and since then has never been the same.
I still cannot figure out what to do exactly as far as work goes. I’ve been traveling with the nuns to a nearby village to help out at the “clinic.” I used the quotes because it’s really just a room with medical equipment from the 1950s. The group is funded by the Catholic Church, and I guess that the group has not been getting as much money lately. I love to ride in the truck with the nuns, because the “driving nun” always cracks me up. Every time we pass a small child on the side of the road it’s “Thank you Jesus.” She does this every single time the car starts, we clear a crowded area, go up or down the hill to get on the road, etc. I don’t really do too much there, I just weigh the babies, and help fill out their vaccination cards, but I enjoy going every week, so I figure that I’ll keep going for the time being. Next week I guess that I am starting to work with the nursery school. My village has a library, so the headmaster of the school wants me to teach “skills” to a different class each day. I’m hoping that this will eat up a good deal of my morning each day. When I was talking to the headmaster we kept saying that he wanted the children to learn “skills.” I finally asked him what sort of “skills” he wanted to children to learn, and he told me drawing, tracing, and reading. I just sort of said, “um okay,” and decided that I would work on something better later. A few days ago I spoke to the guys who run the library, and we decided that I would work on the alphabet, numbers, and tasks like washing hands. If anything I figure that the kids might enjoy being read too, especially the smaller children. The nursery school is made up of kids aged three to seven, who are learning English, so it should be quite an experience. I’m sure that I’ll have many funny stories to tell later.
I still feel like I am not doing enough, but when I talked to other people who were assigned jobs, they seem really stressed out. They were not given the chance to really get to know their families. I guess that it is a good thing that I have this time to get to know everyone, because these are the people that I will be living with for the next two years. Now that I am starting to feel more comfortable, I also have the time to go and meet other people as well. There are roughly 3,000 people here, and everyone claims that the last PCV knew everyone’s names. I find this hard to believe, but I guess now I have to try. The other day I was walking down the road when I met a small child that was named after the previous PCV. I then thought, “oh great, now I’ll have to work extra hard to get one named after me as well.” One of the host sisters told me that I’d also probably have a child named after me before I go. I really hope so. There are no little girls named Katie here, so it would be pretty cool for that one, very special child to be named the most wonderful name in the whole wide world.
Now that I have the burner working, I’ve started making my own dinner. My host family is having a hard time understanding that I want to make dinner myself, but I’m working on making them understand. One day I ate the Ramón noodles that PC gave us. This was my first time ever eating the things, and honestly they weren’t too bad. I’ve also made pasta and sauce a couple of times. I’ve created a pretty good sauce. I take mashed up onions, tomatoes, and garlic, and then add tomato paste, water, and parm cheese. It’s actually pretty good, but a little seasoning would probably make it better. If worse comes to worse, I just buy a potato sandwich from the market. It’s probably the best thing on Earth!!! It is bread, with mayo, cut potato, and a little Jumbo sprinkled on the top. Now I’m not sure what Jumbo is exactly, but it is some sort of seasoning that I’m pretty sure as MSG in it. Whatever it is it is amazing, and the people put it in everything. I want to add hardboiled egg to the potato sandwich and make some sort of potato salad sandwich. The other evening I created what is probably the best thing ever!!! I took bread, and added mayo and ketchup to it. Then I fried some potato, onion, and egg, and added that to the bread as well. Of course I added Jumbo on the top when I was all done. I’m sure that the thing was packed with fat, but seeing how I mostly just eat rice and fish, I figured that I am allowed to splurge every once and a while.
Oh well, it seems that the power just went out. The electricity is turned off during the day, and then comes back on at night. Hopefully my camera got charged pretty well so I can take some more pictures. I think that things will be okay, especially if I can get rid of these cats (see previous blog entry.) I feel happy most of the time (minus Thursdays when my malaria medication makes me depressed), and I really cannot see myself doing anything else right now. The whole thing is annoying, and sometimes pretty lonely, but I figure that I am living the American Welfare dream. How many people can say that they live off total monetary support of the Government? Not too many. For the next two years Uncle Sam will be paying all of my bills. Sure there’s a lot of responsibility, but at the end of the day all I really have to do is be my charming self.
My first goal was to learn everyone in my compound’s name. I believe that I have now accomplished that goal. Okay, there are some family members that show up sometimes on the weekends that I have not managed to get down, but they’ll come sooner or later. I have a host father, two host mothers, and a whole bunch of siblings and other extended relatives. One of my favorite people (other than my niece of course) is my host uncle. He speaks English fairly well, and seems to be educated. I’m not sure what is wrong with him exactly, but I plan on figuring that out over the next two years. It’s not uncommon for me to find him at the pump watering imaginary buckets of water. He sits along the side of the road every day (our compound is right on the road), and just greets everyone that walks past. I’ve started sitting with him sometimes because he is a really nice person. We watch the cars drive by, and we just sit and talk about random things that come up. He seems to have a really good memory, and can remember meeting my friend Steven, and also is learning all of my other friend’s names as well. Today when I said that I was going to Brikama, he remembers which friend I was going to see. I asked someone about him, and it just seems that one day he sort of lost it, and just ran away into the bush. He reappeared some time later, and since then has never been the same.
I still cannot figure out what to do exactly as far as work goes. I’ve been traveling with the nuns to a nearby village to help out at the “clinic.” I used the quotes because it’s really just a room with medical equipment from the 1950s. The group is funded by the Catholic Church, and I guess that the group has not been getting as much money lately. I love to ride in the truck with the nuns, because the “driving nun” always cracks me up. Every time we pass a small child on the side of the road it’s “Thank you Jesus.” She does this every single time the car starts, we clear a crowded area, go up or down the hill to get on the road, etc. I don’t really do too much there, I just weigh the babies, and help fill out their vaccination cards, but I enjoy going every week, so I figure that I’ll keep going for the time being. Next week I guess that I am starting to work with the nursery school. My village has a library, so the headmaster of the school wants me to teach “skills” to a different class each day. I’m hoping that this will eat up a good deal of my morning each day. When I was talking to the headmaster we kept saying that he wanted the children to learn “skills.” I finally asked him what sort of “skills” he wanted to children to learn, and he told me drawing, tracing, and reading. I just sort of said, “um okay,” and decided that I would work on something better later. A few days ago I spoke to the guys who run the library, and we decided that I would work on the alphabet, numbers, and tasks like washing hands. If anything I figure that the kids might enjoy being read too, especially the smaller children. The nursery school is made up of kids aged three to seven, who are learning English, so it should be quite an experience. I’m sure that I’ll have many funny stories to tell later.
I still feel like I am not doing enough, but when I talked to other people who were assigned jobs, they seem really stressed out. They were not given the chance to really get to know their families. I guess that it is a good thing that I have this time to get to know everyone, because these are the people that I will be living with for the next two years. Now that I am starting to feel more comfortable, I also have the time to go and meet other people as well. There are roughly 3,000 people here, and everyone claims that the last PCV knew everyone’s names. I find this hard to believe, but I guess now I have to try. The other day I was walking down the road when I met a small child that was named after the previous PCV. I then thought, “oh great, now I’ll have to work extra hard to get one named after me as well.” One of the host sisters told me that I’d also probably have a child named after me before I go. I really hope so. There are no little girls named Katie here, so it would be pretty cool for that one, very special child to be named the most wonderful name in the whole wide world.
Now that I have the burner working, I’ve started making my own dinner. My host family is having a hard time understanding that I want to make dinner myself, but I’m working on making them understand. One day I ate the Ramón noodles that PC gave us. This was my first time ever eating the things, and honestly they weren’t too bad. I’ve also made pasta and sauce a couple of times. I’ve created a pretty good sauce. I take mashed up onions, tomatoes, and garlic, and then add tomato paste, water, and parm cheese. It’s actually pretty good, but a little seasoning would probably make it better. If worse comes to worse, I just buy a potato sandwich from the market. It’s probably the best thing on Earth!!! It is bread, with mayo, cut potato, and a little Jumbo sprinkled on the top. Now I’m not sure what Jumbo is exactly, but it is some sort of seasoning that I’m pretty sure as MSG in it. Whatever it is it is amazing, and the people put it in everything. I want to add hardboiled egg to the potato sandwich and make some sort of potato salad sandwich. The other evening I created what is probably the best thing ever!!! I took bread, and added mayo and ketchup to it. Then I fried some potato, onion, and egg, and added that to the bread as well. Of course I added Jumbo on the top when I was all done. I’m sure that the thing was packed with fat, but seeing how I mostly just eat rice and fish, I figured that I am allowed to splurge every once and a while.
Oh well, it seems that the power just went out. The electricity is turned off during the day, and then comes back on at night. Hopefully my camera got charged pretty well so I can take some more pictures. I think that things will be okay, especially if I can get rid of these cats (see previous blog entry.) I feel happy most of the time (minus Thursdays when my malaria medication makes me depressed), and I really cannot see myself doing anything else right now. The whole thing is annoying, and sometimes pretty lonely, but I figure that I am living the American Welfare dream. How many people can say that they live off total monetary support of the Government? Not too many. For the next two years Uncle Sam will be paying all of my bills. Sure there’s a lot of responsibility, but at the end of the day all I really have to do is be my charming self.
May 7 2008 Didn’t I learn anything from watching “The Lion King?”
There is a natural order to the world, a “circle of life” if you want to call it that. It’s survival of the fittest, and it is not our job to save every single animal on the planet. I always felt this to be the case, but my judgment lapsed last Friday morning and now my life will never be the same. I went to Farjara on Wednesday (PAY DAY!!!) and then returned on Thursday. All night on Thursday I heard small cats crying but did not think much of it. Then on Friday morning I was hanging out with my host family like I ALWAYS do, and I heard them again. I asked were the sound was coming from, and my host sister, Fatou, took me to see the kittens. It turns out that our compound cat died giving birth to three kittens a few days before. Some how two had managed to survive. I immediately fell in love with the first one that I found, and I stupidly just had to save her. (I blame Missy for this and hope that she is laughing on the other side of “the rainbow bridge.” Look up mourning the loss of an animal sometime, there’s some really interesting stuff out there.) So I find one kitten there and immediately decided that I must try to feed it. First we try to use a plastic bag as sort of a nipple, and then I figured out that she could drink out of an eye dropper. I took the kitten home, and fell in love with the damn thing! Not too much time pasted before my host aunt brought the other survivor. Now I had two cats. I told the family that I would raise them and then put them outside. They seemed to think that this was a great idea because they needed another cat to replace the one that they lost anyway. The first couple of days were so much fun. I now had little friends to talk to, play with, feed, and give baths. I went to a circumcision ceremony on Saturday and worried the whole day about them. I was such a proud mother. Then what I like to call the post partum depression set in. By Sunday evening I officially started to hate the kittens. What was once so cute about them now made me hate them. They would sleep through the night (THANK GOD), but as soon as they woke up they cried all the time. People are always telling me that whenever they walk by my house they can hear the kittens crying. I always tell them to try to live with them. No animals are clean here at all, so now the stupid kittens keep getting ticks. Yesterday I had to pick them off the kittens, and I’m pretty sure that I got one as well. Now I refuse to touch them at all. I’m trying to teach them to drink their milk out of a bowl (not having much luck) so when I have to touch them to feed them I wrap them in magazine pages. At this point I really just want to drop them off in the bush somewhere. They’ve stressed me out beyond anything ever will in my life. I now feel horrible for every mother on this planet. I have to wash them, do their laundry, feed them; the whole thing sucks frankly. I joined the Peace Corps to put off that life as long as I could!!! I’ve asked my friends if they would think less of me if I did just drop the kittens somewhere, and they’ve all pretty much told me to just get rid of them. It’s stressful enough being here without having to worry about two other creatures everyday. I’m sort of hoping that maybe I can just drop them outside, and maybe they’ll just come back for food or something. I might also just put them in my back yard. They’ve got to get used to living outside, so why not learn now. I fell horrible about it, and know that I should have just let nature take its course. I’m pretty sure that I am going crazy at this point anyway. I hear small animals and I start to cringe because I think that they might be kittens. At this point it is probably the best mentally for me to just get rid of them. I’m in the process of trying to find PCVs that want cats, but I may just have to drop them off somewhere. They managed to survive three days alone as newborns, so they must be able to do it now 2 weeks older. I am going to visit a friend that lives a couple of hours away next weekend, and they can’t survive alone for three days anyway, so they are going outside one way or the other. Hopefully I can find them a home before then, but if not, then they’ll just have to learn to survive. If I can just get them to drink out of a bowl, then I can just leave them water outside while I am gone. Animals here are much tougher anyway. (Or at least that is what I tell myself to feel less like a monster.) I think I’ve learned a valuable lesson in all of this: It’s not my job to save the world. Better these two cats, then an entire village. I’m here to assist people, not take on all the weight of the world.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
It was supposed to be 3 months, but I could only hold out 10 days...
Hello people... I'm back!!! Peace Corps set a goal for us to make it three whole months in at our site without leaving. The original plan was for to come to town to bank, eat pizza, and then go home, but I sort of ended up spending the night. Ten days was plently long enough for me.
I really like my site, but the problem is that I really can't figure out what I am supposed to do. Peace Corps wants us to sit around for three months and figure everything out, but after a couple of days, this is actually pretty boring. I've had a lot of attaya (it's basically brewed green tea with a lot of sugar), read a lot of books (but I tell people that I am doing official PC research), and played a lot of snake on my cell phone. I can now really see why people want to go home!!! It's really not that bad. Everyone is actually really nice, although I learned Mandinka, and most people in my village speak Jola, but we do a lot of smiling and greetings in Mandinka at least. My favorite person is my host niece. She's 14 months old, and probably the largest child that I have ever seen. She's larger than all of the kids in my compound under the age of five, and she's got to be about 25 pounds. I lift her up over my head in the air everyday and I count that as a arm workout.
The problem is also that because I am an American, apparently I am not capable of doing a lot of things. I'm always given the least amount of things to carry, and every time I go anywhere, someone practically holds my hand. I'm developing a nice case of learned helplessness. I wish that I had a really exciting story to tell, but nothing much has happened. I painted my house last week, and managed to get myself covered in oil-based paint. I tried EVERYTHING to get the paint off (I even rubbed my skin with dirt) and nothing would work. Finally I went outside, and my family laughed. My host father than told someone to get the kerosene (well I'm assuming that's what happened, I really do not speak Jola). Then one of my host sisters preceeded to wash off the paint with kerosene and dirt. That was probably one of the most humbling experiences of my life. After that, I was afraid to go near open flames for a couple of days. Not that it mattered anyway, because the burner on my propane tank was broken. Basically for the past 10 days I hungry ALL of the time because I could not eat any food that I wanted to make. My family feeds me, but rice and fish does not do too much. I went and got my burner fixed yesterday, so now I plan on eating a whole lot more!!!
I really do not have too much else to say at this point. I'm surviving and I'm happy, and that's all that really matters. I figure that eventually I'll figure things out. Everyone that I've talked to says that the PC is really all about doing whatever job you want for two years.
I really like my site, but the problem is that I really can't figure out what I am supposed to do. Peace Corps wants us to sit around for three months and figure everything out, but after a couple of days, this is actually pretty boring. I've had a lot of attaya (it's basically brewed green tea with a lot of sugar), read a lot of books (but I tell people that I am doing official PC research), and played a lot of snake on my cell phone. I can now really see why people want to go home!!! It's really not that bad. Everyone is actually really nice, although I learned Mandinka, and most people in my village speak Jola, but we do a lot of smiling and greetings in Mandinka at least. My favorite person is my host niece. She's 14 months old, and probably the largest child that I have ever seen. She's larger than all of the kids in my compound under the age of five, and she's got to be about 25 pounds. I lift her up over my head in the air everyday and I count that as a arm workout.
The problem is also that because I am an American, apparently I am not capable of doing a lot of things. I'm always given the least amount of things to carry, and every time I go anywhere, someone practically holds my hand. I'm developing a nice case of learned helplessness. I wish that I had a really exciting story to tell, but nothing much has happened. I painted my house last week, and managed to get myself covered in oil-based paint. I tried EVERYTHING to get the paint off (I even rubbed my skin with dirt) and nothing would work. Finally I went outside, and my family laughed. My host father than told someone to get the kerosene (well I'm assuming that's what happened, I really do not speak Jola). Then one of my host sisters preceeded to wash off the paint with kerosene and dirt. That was probably one of the most humbling experiences of my life. After that, I was afraid to go near open flames for a couple of days. Not that it mattered anyway, because the burner on my propane tank was broken. Basically for the past 10 days I hungry ALL of the time because I could not eat any food that I wanted to make. My family feeds me, but rice and fish does not do too much. I went and got my burner fixed yesterday, so now I plan on eating a whole lot more!!!
I really do not have too much else to say at this point. I'm surviving and I'm happy, and that's all that really matters. I figure that eventually I'll figure things out. Everyone that I've talked to says that the PC is really all about doing whatever job you want for two years.
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