So it's been a while since I posted something. I know that I promised to write more, but there was always something to do.
Ist lasted 10 days, and sometimes was the most boring experience of my life. We learned some really useful things, and some things that I cannot remember because I chose to stare at the wall instead. I got pumped but about some of the stuff that we learned, and now I have some ideas for my village. That's all I have to say about that.
Jenni, Amanda, Shayla, and I have now become regulars at this restaurant that has Karaoke on Wednesdays and Sundays. We are actually quite good. Sure we are tone-deaf, but we do a good job getting the crowd pumped up. Our key audience is prostitutes, British people, and what we think is an underground gay community. (If Jammeh knew, it would be off with their heads) Jenni and I have made "friends" (really they just get super excited to see us and will not leave us alone) with two prostitutes who are sisters from Liberia. The other night we upset the DJ because we kept turning in fake names because he would not let us sing as much as we wanted. Finally the owner of the place asked why we were not singing, and then told the DJ to let us sing whenever we wanted. We had an even better time after that. We sometimes talk to a woman from the British Embassy, and she has even invited us to a party at her house in a couple of months. We are going to go again on Saturday night, and then it's back to site.
I had all these major plans to do a whole bunch of things when I was here, but really I just ended up sitting around doing nothing. By the time we finished IST each day, I really did not feel like doing too much else. I took it really easy, and unfortunately got back into the lifestyle of electricity, running water, air conditioning, and everything else that is amazing about Farjara. It may be really hard to go back to site now. Oh well, I actually sort of do miss my host family. All 20 of them. They're annoying, but they are special. It will be nice to return to site because there is a lot of drama around the PC house. Being trapped here for almost 3 weeks has been long.
Jenni is creating a blog about our Africa trip that we plan on taking after we are done with service. http://120daysaroundafrica.blogspot.com We are not linking it officially because we do not want to have any stalkers. I think that Jenni wants to blog so that maybe we can get some money to help finance the trip. We are still working on finding some guys, but as of now we are turning up empty. We found a cool car, but we do not need a car at this point. It'll probably still be for sale in two years.
Oh well, if I happen to make it on here again, then awesome. If not, then so long for now. I'm planning on returning August 2nd to clean the PC house. If we clean it then we can stay the night for free. We have to come down any way for banking, so why not stay for free. I'll post again some day in the future.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Just a Test
Just wanted to make sure that I have corrected blog posting email problem, so needed to make a post.
I'm not sure what to title this as so I'll just call it "Shayla"
So I'm back in Farjara AGAIN!!! If you're like my mom who never remembers what Farjara is, it is the city where the PC office is located.
Jenni and Amanda went to Senegal for a PC event, and they told me that they were coming to visit on Wed, but surprise, they showed up on Tues instead. I got a call that they were coming to visit in two hours, and I had to make a mad scramble to do my laundry, collect water, sweep (AGAIN because it's been raining a lot so I've been tracking mud into the house), and many other fun things. So they came and we hung out. The next day Amanda and I traveled down to Steven's village for a party thing that he was attempting to host. The day went great until we decided to eat the hot dogs. As a person who really enjoys eating all-beef hot dogs it was already going to take a lot for me to eat one of these gross looking hot dogs, but I figured that I would just cover them with ketchup. So the first hot dog that I ate was some sort of chicken hot dog. It was gray and really gross looking, but with a whole pile of ketchup on the homemade buns from the bread at the bitik, it wasn't too bad. There was a weird sort of after-taste, but over all not bad. Then came the OTHER hot dog. This hot dog came from a can, and it was really, really gross looking!!! No amount of ketchup in the world could save this one. I wanted to throw the thing away, but now that I live in a poor country I feel bad wasting food. There are people starving in Africa, me included!!! (More on that later...) So I kept adding ketchup, but it could not change the taste of the thing. It was all mushy and so gross!!! Needless to say, DO NOT EVER EAT HOT DOGS FROM A CAN!!!
So the food situation is getting bad. I guess by the fall things will be pretty tight. My family seems to have a lot of money, so for the most part we will do better than a lot of the other families in my village. My lunch every single day consists of rice, fish, and some sort of sauce. Some days are better than others. There are the days in which I open the food bowl and get super excited because the food rocks, and there are the days that I just have water instead. I've learned to LOVE bread with mayo!!! It sounds gross, but it is amazing!!! I just found out that I am probably anemic now. I always get weird bruises on by body, and I had someone look at my eyelids. I'm also loosing a lot of weight. It's nice, but the weight is coming off so fast that I need to start exercising/toning or I'm going to have dangling skin. We are FINALLY going to get our new bikes, so now I will be able to ride all over my area, and I am so excited!!!
I've been getting along well with my host family. My host sister, Fatou, bought me a really cute looking beaded necklace that I wear every day now. Sometimes it's annoying because everyone treats me like a baby, but at the same time I have developed a nice case of learned helplessness. Everyday I have to walk to the pump and then carry my water home. I carry it on my head very well now, and I hardly ever spill any on myself anymore. My goal is to be able to carry water on my head without holding onto the bucket. I doubt that this will actually ever happen, but it gives me something to shoot for. The other day I did have a funny experience with a bedong. It was a 20-liter bedong, and I tried to be cool and carry it on my head. Normally I just carry it by the handle, but I wanted to impress my family. BIG MISTAKE!!! First of all, I could not get the damn thing up on my head. I finally had to have a teenage guy help me lift it up over my head (these things are REALLY heavy, so everyone needs help). Then I started trying to walk, and it just fell right off of my head. I just sort of laughed, and then picked it up and walked off. On my way home one of my host mothers saw me, now covered in sweat and water, and asked if I was going to go take a bath. (this is her polite way of letting me know that I looked dirty). I told her yes, and then continued home. I do not think that I will try that one again.
So now it is officially the rainy season in The Gambia. It had rained a few times in the middle of the night before, but two weeks ago there was a massive storm!!! It was the middle of the night, and I awoke to what sounded like a giant tidal wave. Then I realized that it was pouring down raining. I sort of started to get scared because the wind really picked up. My host father had not yet had a chance to repair a small section of the overhang on my roof, so I watched the piece of corgate flap around in the wind. Everything in my backyard was blowing around, and I would attempt to catch things as the flew by. I finally just had to close my back door because it was raining so hard that water was starting to come in. I finally went back to sleep, but I just kept thinking how much it sounded like a tropical storm. The next morning I awoke to a front yard full of mango leaves. It took all of the women in my compound (me included) almost one hour to sweep it all up. A few trees went down in other compounds as well. One family lost their ENTIRE roof. The whole thing just blew right off. One of the men in my village writes columns for "The Observer," which is a Gambian newspaper. He wanted to write a story about the damage to the storm, and he also wanted some pictures. The real reason that he was writing the article was to try to get some money off someone to help repair all of the damaged homes. I agreed to take pictures for him, so we walked around and took really dumb pictures of things. I am in no way a photographer, but I do have some idea of what makes a picture look nice. I took a picture of the house minus the roof, and he really wanted a picture of some wall that was blown down. I saw a structure that I really wanted to take a picture of. The writer guy told me that every time the man is almost done working on the roof the thing blows off again. I liked the way the roof was propped up against the house, so I took a couple of pictures. Guess what, the newspaper chose one of MY pictures. I would have picked the other picture that I took of the house, but hey I'm now still a published photographer. Oh wait, I live in the Gambia where no one ever gets any credit for any work that they do. I always know that I had a picture in the paper, but no one else ever will.
Link to the article:
http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/2008/6/23/storm-displaces-over-200-people
I also recommend checking out the observer website from time to time. Overall the paper is not too bad for a third world country. I enjoy reading it whenever I have the chance. Reading the paper will give all of you back home some idea of what is going on over here.
Okay, so I think that I am out of things to say for now. I will be here in Farjara til at least the 19th. I'm here for IST (In-Service Training) because my three-month (really 2.5 month challenge) is over. PC is really poor right now, so we are having the whole thing at "The Stodge," which is our PC transit house here in Farjara. Shayla and Steven both have birthdays the week of the 14th, so I'll have to stick around for those. I think that IST lasts that long any way. So basically what I am trying to say is that I will be here in Farjara for a long time, and I promise to post some more blog entries while I am here.
Jenni and Amanda went to Senegal for a PC event, and they told me that they were coming to visit on Wed, but surprise, they showed up on Tues instead. I got a call that they were coming to visit in two hours, and I had to make a mad scramble to do my laundry, collect water, sweep (AGAIN because it's been raining a lot so I've been tracking mud into the house), and many other fun things. So they came and we hung out. The next day Amanda and I traveled down to Steven's village for a party thing that he was attempting to host. The day went great until we decided to eat the hot dogs. As a person who really enjoys eating all-beef hot dogs it was already going to take a lot for me to eat one of these gross looking hot dogs, but I figured that I would just cover them with ketchup. So the first hot dog that I ate was some sort of chicken hot dog. It was gray and really gross looking, but with a whole pile of ketchup on the homemade buns from the bread at the bitik, it wasn't too bad. There was a weird sort of after-taste, but over all not bad. Then came the OTHER hot dog. This hot dog came from a can, and it was really, really gross looking!!! No amount of ketchup in the world could save this one. I wanted to throw the thing away, but now that I live in a poor country I feel bad wasting food. There are people starving in Africa, me included!!! (More on that later...) So I kept adding ketchup, but it could not change the taste of the thing. It was all mushy and so gross!!! Needless to say, DO NOT EVER EAT HOT DOGS FROM A CAN!!!
So the food situation is getting bad. I guess by the fall things will be pretty tight. My family seems to have a lot of money, so for the most part we will do better than a lot of the other families in my village. My lunch every single day consists of rice, fish, and some sort of sauce. Some days are better than others. There are the days in which I open the food bowl and get super excited because the food rocks, and there are the days that I just have water instead. I've learned to LOVE bread with mayo!!! It sounds gross, but it is amazing!!! I just found out that I am probably anemic now. I always get weird bruises on by body, and I had someone look at my eyelids. I'm also loosing a lot of weight. It's nice, but the weight is coming off so fast that I need to start exercising/toning or I'm going to have dangling skin. We are FINALLY going to get our new bikes, so now I will be able to ride all over my area, and I am so excited!!!
I've been getting along well with my host family. My host sister, Fatou, bought me a really cute looking beaded necklace that I wear every day now. Sometimes it's annoying because everyone treats me like a baby, but at the same time I have developed a nice case of learned helplessness. Everyday I have to walk to the pump and then carry my water home. I carry it on my head very well now, and I hardly ever spill any on myself anymore. My goal is to be able to carry water on my head without holding onto the bucket. I doubt that this will actually ever happen, but it gives me something to shoot for. The other day I did have a funny experience with a bedong. It was a 20-liter bedong, and I tried to be cool and carry it on my head. Normally I just carry it by the handle, but I wanted to impress my family. BIG MISTAKE!!! First of all, I could not get the damn thing up on my head. I finally had to have a teenage guy help me lift it up over my head (these things are REALLY heavy, so everyone needs help). Then I started trying to walk, and it just fell right off of my head. I just sort of laughed, and then picked it up and walked off. On my way home one of my host mothers saw me, now covered in sweat and water, and asked if I was going to go take a bath. (this is her polite way of letting me know that I looked dirty). I told her yes, and then continued home. I do not think that I will try that one again.
So now it is officially the rainy season in The Gambia. It had rained a few times in the middle of the night before, but two weeks ago there was a massive storm!!! It was the middle of the night, and I awoke to what sounded like a giant tidal wave. Then I realized that it was pouring down raining. I sort of started to get scared because the wind really picked up. My host father had not yet had a chance to repair a small section of the overhang on my roof, so I watched the piece of corgate flap around in the wind. Everything in my backyard was blowing around, and I would attempt to catch things as the flew by. I finally just had to close my back door because it was raining so hard that water was starting to come in. I finally went back to sleep, but I just kept thinking how much it sounded like a tropical storm. The next morning I awoke to a front yard full of mango leaves. It took all of the women in my compound (me included) almost one hour to sweep it all up. A few trees went down in other compounds as well. One family lost their ENTIRE roof. The whole thing just blew right off. One of the men in my village writes columns for "The Observer," which is a Gambian newspaper. He wanted to write a story about the damage to the storm, and he also wanted some pictures. The real reason that he was writing the article was to try to get some money off someone to help repair all of the damaged homes. I agreed to take pictures for him, so we walked around and took really dumb pictures of things. I am in no way a photographer, but I do have some idea of what makes a picture look nice. I took a picture of the house minus the roof, and he really wanted a picture of some wall that was blown down. I saw a structure that I really wanted to take a picture of. The writer guy told me that every time the man is almost done working on the roof the thing blows off again. I liked the way the roof was propped up against the house, so I took a couple of pictures. Guess what, the newspaper chose one of MY pictures. I would have picked the other picture that I took of the house, but hey I'm now still a published photographer. Oh wait, I live in the Gambia where no one ever gets any credit for any work that they do. I always know that I had a picture in the paper, but no one else ever will.
Link to the article:
http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/2008/6/23/storm-displaces-over-200-people
I also recommend checking out the observer website from time to time. Overall the paper is not too bad for a third world country. I enjoy reading it whenever I have the chance. Reading the paper will give all of you back home some idea of what is going on over here.
Okay, so I think that I am out of things to say for now. I will be here in Farjara til at least the 19th. I'm here for IST (In-Service Training) because my three-month (really 2.5 month challenge) is over. PC is really poor right now, so we are having the whole thing at "The Stodge," which is our PC transit house here in Farjara. Shayla and Steven both have birthdays the week of the 14th, so I'll have to stick around for those. I think that IST lasts that long any way. So basically what I am trying to say is that I will be here in Farjara for a long time, and I promise to post some more blog entries while I am here.
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