Sorry It's Been Forever!!!

Okay, so I haven't written anything in a while. I think that I may have written some blogs out at site, but I left that book at home so I am not sure. I'll be back down here in Farjara at the end of the month for an All-Volunteer meeting as well as Thanksgiving. Every single person in PC will be here, so it's not likely that I will be able to get on the computer very much.
Right after Thanksgiving, on Dec 1, I am leaving for my Spain/Morocco trip!!! I'm super excited, but to be perfectly honest it really hasn't hit me yet that I am going on a trip. I've heard from other volunteers that it is really nice to just get out of The Gambia for a little bit. I really do like it here, but now that it is all "normal" (whatever that means) to me, I often get annoyed. I've gotten so comfortable with my family now that sometimes I just get annoyed with them like I do my family back home. Two weeks ago I got so annoyed with my Aunt for following me around and trying to boss me around, that I just left and went to see my friend Isatou all day. I cooked and cleaned with her, and then just ate lunch with her family. Her compound is small, so it's nice to go over there sometimes. It's just Isatou, her Mom, her sister, Isatou's 3 daughters, and her sister's 3 kids. Her sister is also about to have another baby very soon so I excited!!!
December will be a wild month. I have the trip, and I am returning the day after Tobaski starts. Tobaski is basically the Muslim version of Christmas, only the they are smarter about it because they spread it out over multiple days. I think that Jenni is going to come stay with me in-between when we return and Christmas. As of now the plan is to celebrate Christmas in Farjara at the PC house. I want to make Christmas cookies, so we'll see how that turns out.
This has been a crazy month!!! The first Saturday of the month we celebrated Jenni's birthday that actually took place at the end of September. We bought fried chicken, and made potato salad, a salad with ranch dressing and croutons, watermelon, and a cake. It was AMAZING!!! I either ate too much or my stomach isn't designed to handle that sort of food any more, and sadly I threw most if it back up. At least I got to taste it!!! I'm going to pig out in Spain, and even if most of it doesn't stay down, I'll be happy to have tasted it. Anyone reading this may think that it is crazy, but if everything you ate everyday never satisfied you, then you would be happy to taste something that does. Two weeks later, I attended a girls night at another volunteers house. It was interesting, and that is all I have to say about that. On the Wednesday before Halloween, I went up to Jenni's house. I decided to hang out with Amanda that morning in Farjara, so I got off to a late start. By the time I traveled all the way up to Jenni's house it was almost evening, so I got stuck on a gele to her village that took forever!!! I guess normally the geles take the paved road, but later in the day they travel down the bush roads. I'm really not sure that the paths we drove down qualify as a road though. Sometimes the gele was pretty much "four-wheeling it" over broken rocks. At one point I was certain that the thing would flip! This was also the week of my dreaded "running stomach." (This is the polite Gambian term for diarrhea.) Let's just say that when I finally made it to Jenni's house I was very happy. I hung out with Jenni and Shayla, ate a little bit of dinner because my stomach felt so bad, and then passed out. The next morning Jenni really wanted to walk to the river, so I decided to just go. She said that it was like 9k away, but it was cool (oh by the way, it gets cold here at night now), so I figured that I could tough it out. I also was stupid and wore a sleeveless shirt and forgot to bring sunscreen. By the time we were half-way there, I was really sick and starting to burn. It was ugly. When we finally got there I had to run into the bushes, and I spent a great deal of time there throughout the day. We walked home in the late afternoon when it started to cool down. We walked down a path from the river, and ended up in someone in the village's back yard. We walked right through their kitchen, and they invited us to lunch. We declined, but it was just showed how polite Gambians are. They didn't even know us, but they still invited us into their home. We walked to the water pump, and filled up our buckets. We also splashed water all over ourselves, but we were completely dry 15 minutes into our long journey back to Jenni's village. We walked through a couple of villages, and it was funny because I'm willing to bet that it was the first time that they saw a group of toubabs walking through their teeny, tiny villages in the middle of the bush.
On Halloween, Shayla, Jenni, and I traveled to another girl's site to celebrate Halloween. Her site was full of all these old colonial abandoned buildings. The place was really cool!!! They even have an outdoor movie theater that no one uses. Most of the party took place at an old peanut factory. All of the machines where still inside, and at night it was really creepy. We camped out on the dock, which was directly on the Gambian River. It got cold at night, and a little creepy, but I was still sick, so I did not sleep too much. On Saturday we traveled to Amanda's house because the week before her host Mother had twins. One boy and one girl. On Sunday the kulio (naming ceremony) took place. The four of us got dressed up in our matching outfits from our swearing-in ceremony, and we spent the day being stared at my everyone that came to the party. The babies were really cute!!! They were only a week old, so they just sort of sat there. They were named Adama (boy) and Hawa (girl). This is a pretty common name pairing for twin babies. On Monday Shayla, Jenni, and I traveled to Farjara and just hung out. On Tuesday we decided to just stop by the US Embassy because we were too tired to go to any parties. I stayed up until about 1am here (8p est i think), and then fell asleep on the folding chair bed that I made. I woke up every hour to see how the electoral votes were going, and then at like 4am they announced that Obama won. Outside the Embassy people started honking their horns and shouting. People of the Gambia were very happy!!! It's very different to have people actually like the US President. We'll have to see what happens. I think that Obama really wants to make a lot of change, and I pray to God that he can do it. I missed seeing his speech, but I heard that it was amazing.
On Wednesday, Jenni, Shayla, and I went to my house. We spent Wed and Thurs being lazy, and pretty much reading and napping most of the time. We hadn't slept much during the past week, so we were trying to play catch-up. We also messed with Ebrima aka the "little special boy" who lives in my compound. He's four, and he just started talking two months ago. He's "afraid" of my friends that come to visit, so I chase him and threaten to take him to them, and he screams. It's actually quite funny. Then when he thinks that he is tough, he comes to my door and shouts at us. It's very entertaining. We decided to come back today, Friday, instead of Sunday, because Shayla was feeling a little sick, and we were having a problem with bats.
Right now the moon is in the process each night of getting full, so the bats are going crazy right now. Usually they just dive bomb my house, and scream a lot outside. I've gotten used to this, and it doesn't even bother me anymore when they come close to me as I am bathing. On Wed night everything was going fine until we heard some movement in my ceiling (i have a aluminum ceiling under the roof, so I'm never worried about all of the creepy things that live up there). The movement was quickly followed by the worst screaming sound that I have ever heard!!! Imagine your worst and times it by one-hundred! We could also hear it trying to walk around up there, and what sounded like it tearing up the ceiling. Then last night, there wasn't as much screaming, but the bat really sounded like it was destroying the house. This morning when I woke up I found Papa Jammeh and tried to explain what was going on to him. Actually I spoke to Mama Jammeh first, and she didn't really get what was going on. I think that she really enjoyed watching me pretend to be a bat that was attacking my house. I kept saying "tansoo" which is Mandinka for bat. Then Papa Jammeh showed up and also got a kick out of my impersonations. I have no idea how to say ceiling, so he thought that I was just talking about them dive bombing the roof. Finally Brama, a bitik owner that is some how related to me, stopped by, and helped me translate into Jola what was going on with the bats. I led Papa Jammeh over to the part of the house where the bats had knocked away the rocks to get into my ceiling, and he promised me that he would fix it. I told him that I was just more worried about the bats destroying his house.
Now I'm back in Farjara until Sunday. The newest group of PCVs arrived yesterday, so now I'm getting to be even more of an upperclassman. I can't believe that I'm getting close to one year already! I heard that the second year goes by even faster which is really scary!!! My health group came in February, but now the group comes in November with the Agfos, so in a way I am a second year already. Yikes!!! Before I know it this entire crazy adventure will be over!!! Then it's back to the real world. Dear Lord I'm not sure if I can handle it after being gone for so long!