If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

Okay, so I know that I haven't written anything in a while. I was actually planning on doing that in America next week when I go home for vacation. I also need to still write about my trip to Morocco.

I have one thing that I just had to write about now, now, so here it is...

Last Thurs night I had quite a shock! So it was probably about eight, and Lala and Sheriffo were hanging out in my house. Actually they were really excited and singing songs about cookies. I had gotten back from St. Louis that day, and I had to wait for Papa Jammeh to return home from work to give him my gift for the family. I bought some cookies, and you would have thought that I brought home visas for everyone. So then we hear a noise, and I look over. I see something dart behind my cabinet, and then my brain processes what I just saw. It was a rat!!! I kinda give out a half scream (I just had to for effect), and then Lala and Sheriffo freak out and tell me that they are going to go get Papa Jammeh. I tell them in English (they've gotten very good lately), "no go get Pa. Papa Jammeh was working all day and doesn't need to chase a rat." So I start chasing it around, and I got it cornered behind one of my side tables. With all of the happenings of Papa Jammeh running in with a machette, and me thinking "what is he going to do butcher the thing," the rat escaped. Papa Jammeh announced that it ran outside, and everyone agreed. I wanted to believe him, but I just knew better. I sent a pile of texts to Jenni that night, I'll just bullet them where they go in the story.

• Just found 1st mouse. It was behind cabinet. Actually may have come out of it. Then screamed. Kids went to get PJ. Cornered it next 2 door. Tried 2get its picture on its way out but it ran behind my end table. PJ came in w/ machette. The thing either ran out or hid really well. Afraid latter. (9:22pm)

So I didn't see it, but I just knew that it was still there. Couldn't do too much, so got ready for bed and did my nightly sudoku book.

• Ok now 11. doing sudoku & heard something on window pane behind bed. of course mouse. chased it out back door& it ran back in. Got it into other room after it went under bed. Thing kept trying 2 run out front door. Shined flashlight 2 keep it there but stupid thing kept jumping on the handle so hard to open door. finally got door open but think went behind cabinet. May have run out door when cornered but prob not. (11:14pm)

Sat down again to do some more sudoku. Some more texts that explain situation.

• Wish giant creature in rood could just kill it (11:15pm)



• Afraid to go to Brikama to get poison bc then it will die in here and if I don't find it then it'll stink up my house when I am in America. It's black and the body is the size of my hand. I'd offer it a cookie but then it'd ask for a glass of milk and so on. That book teaches important life lessons. (11:19pm)



• Just had another encounter with the mouse. Asshole was on my door into my bedroom. Got it in front again. Opened door but thing would not come out behind cabinet. Hope to God it didn't run back into my bedrooom. I locked my bedroom door. It can have the front. Pretty sure it can't squeeze under door. Good lord! (11:26pm)



• Off to bed. Hope it still in front and not now locked in my room with me. Good night. Enjoy reading these in morning. Turning off phone now. If you don't hear from me by mid morning assume I'm dead and call Pa to break in door. (11:41pm)



• A random thought had and wrote down before I went to bed: Could still hear in front room. Oh my God I'm super tired!

So the rat kept attacking my middle door while I was trying to ignore it. It ran around all night and at some point I went to sleep praying that it would not eat its way through the screen.

I woke up in the morning very tired. I went outside to greet people, and I saw Mama Tamba standing in the doorway to Papa Jammeh's place freaking out. I told her in Mandinka that I had a rat in my house last night so I couldn't sleep. I'm not sure if I used the vocab word for rat correctly, because she was like we had one as well. I looked into the parlor, and Pa was banging something with a stick. My first thought was "is this the same rat, and if so, how did it get into their house. Are our houses not completely sealed off?" Then when Pa was done, he put whatever it was onto the hand broom and started to walk out. He told Mama Tamba that he was going to throw it on her, so she ran out of the compound screaming. Then I saw that it was just a small lizard. I just started laughing. Believe me if there was concrete on the ground instead of sand, I would have fallen to the ground laughing. She told me to stop laughing because lizards are very bad. I was like it's a lizard! Then I told Pa about my visitor.

Pa and I went looking for the mouse. I moved my cabinet and there it was sleeping. Pa told me to stand to the side. I volunteered to go into my back room and shut the door to keep it from running into there. I should have also closed the front door so Pa could kill it with the machette (Jammeh's do not mess around!) but I forgot. Pa got the rat out from behind the cabinet, and it took off out the door with Pa right behind beating it with the hand broom. It got into the barn and Pa was smashing rocks down on it. Or not, Pa wasn't sure. I really, really hoped that he killed it! Pa told me if it came back later to let him know, and walked away.

All evening, and like 5 times before I went to bed that night, I looked for the freaking thing behind my cabinet. I never saw it again. We'll see now that I've been gone a couple of days again...

Some photos of it attacking the door.

All of January and February (and Now Some of March too)

Hello again. I decided to fill everyone in on what has been going on since I last updated. Let's start with the exciting things...



January

January was a pretty exciting month. The biggest thing to happen at my house was the kulio (naming ceremony) of the newest Jammeh, Jaama Jammeh. (Jaama means peace in wolof) Jaama was named after her touma (namesake) Mama "Jaama" Jarju. I'm still not supposed to know Mama Jarju's first name, but I figured it out when everyone told me that the baby was named after Mama Jarju. She still refuses to tell any of my friends that her name is anything other than Mama Jarju. Jaama's kulio actually took place about three weeks after her birthday because we had a death in the family, and we had to wait until we were finished mourning. Kulios in the kombo area are quite a show! I remember kulios in Kaiaf as a simple breakfast, maybe lunch, and the whole ceremony took place in the morning. This was not the case at my house. The men spent days preparing the yard, i.e. moving our giant pile of dirt for brick making into one nice pile, complete with a brick border. They also put up a rather large tent. All of the holes made by the rain rushing through the yard in the rainy season were also filled in. The place looked great! I had to spend the two days before doing my "womenly duties," i.e. helping to prepare the food. Now that I've been here for almost one year, I no longer get to weasle my way out of helping. At one point I was called over and told to help pound the rice. This is never easy for me. I blame my horrible pounding on the fact that I am at least 7 inches taller than the average Gambian woman. The pounding sticks seem to be too short for me. I don't really know, I just know that I am not very good at it, and if I am actually asked to pound, then they must really need me.

I had to pound all morning, and then in the afternoon I got to help make the pancaketoes. (kinda like donut holes) Since it was a large ceremony, and like hundreds of pancaketoes were needed, it took a lot of women and laundry pans to get the job done. Large laundry pans were set up all over the house, and two to three women sat around each pan. Large amounts of flour, baking powder, water, and essesence were added. My Aunt, Mr. B's wife, Fatou, walked around and added more water as needed, while the rest of us mixed everything together. Everything was mixed "blender style" with each of us using most of our right arm to mix. It was one of the most fun things that I've ever done! I had to work all day on various chores, and then by the evening it was time to pound again. At one point my older sister, Jainaba, arrived. She came on a gele from Brikama, and when the gele stopped in front of our house, I was amazed at the amount of things that were taken off the top. She brought, two boxes of Tyson chicken, one 50kg bag of sugar, rice, and flour, a lot of vegetables, and so many more things! I had to help carry it all into the house and I was amazed at the amount of food that she brought.

By the evening it was time to pound again, and most of my family had arrived. I found Yende (my niece born in the fall) right away and grabbed a hold of her. All the women were telling me to pound, and I was like "I can't, I have to hold the baby." They all just laughed, and I actually ended up getting away with it. The next morning we all woke up, and it was time to cook. I spent all morning cutting up fish and vegetables, and I also had to help make the boabab juice. This involved mixing with my right arm again, and squeezing the juice out of the fruit. We were all quite sticky when we finished. At some point Fatou and Agge Fatou also arrived.

I made Steven come to the kulio as well, because it is so much easier to have a friend there so you do not get stuck talking to some old lady the entire time. I'm not very good at getting out of conversations. Steven was supposed to sit with the men, but he ended up hanging out with me and all of the women. By the late afternoon, everyone was dressed up nicely. Agge Fatou was wearing a really nice party dress, and not ten minutes after Fatou had dressed Agge, she was covered in icces. I asked Fatou if she wanted me to clean Agge Fatou up, and she was pretty much like "sure." I washed Agge off, and I attempted to clean up her dress as well. I found Agge a half-hour later, and quickly learned why Fatou was that worried that Agge was covered in icees before. Agge had covered herself in the icees again. I gave up at that point.

I spent a lot of the afternoon holding Jaama while her mother, Kaddy, got dressed again and again in one of what must have been at least six outfits that she had made for the kulio. Some of the women in the room asked me why I don't have a baby. (this is always a popular question because I am 23 and should have a baby by now according to the culture) I told them that I was ready yet because I do not have a husband. Then they asked why I'm not married. I told them that I wasn't ready for a husband because I still have a lot that I want to do, and I'm not ready to clean up after a husband all day. They laughed, and told me that I clearly want to have a baby, and asked again why I don't just have one. I told them that I do really want to have a baby, but now is just not the right time for one. They backed off, and then I just got to hold the baby again. I proved about 15 minutes later why I'm not ready for a baby. Jaama filled up her diaper, and I had no clue how to change her. I gave Jaama to my sister, Jarie, and she had no clue how to change the diaper either. One of the other women present with kids stepped in and changed the diaper.

Around this time I also realized that lunch was being served. Steven had apparently gone off and found some people to eat with, so I was trapped with the baby and nothing to eat. In the past, or when I visit other people's homes, I'm always top priotry for food. At one point one of my host sisters walked up to me and asked if I had eaten. I was sure that I would get a bowl now. Instead, I was told that I better go find some food to eat. I guess that I really am apart of the family now.

The ceremony started after the five o'clock prayer. Jaama had already been to the Iman when she was born to have her head shaved and to be named. We were only holding the ceremony now because we had to wait to celebrate, so they really didn't spend a lot of time on her part of the show. Steven had to sit with the men on the mats, and I guess that someone got upset and was rude to him. Steven of course got mad too, and told the man that we were all equal and should be treated equa, etc. Another man told the first man to back off, and he let Steven sit on the mat. That man turned out to be the Iman, and when he gave his sermon he spoke all about how we are all equal. Steven inspired the speech.

Once Jaama's portion was complete, she was sent back into the house, and the real party began. We had so much food, and a DJ was even hired. Dancing went on most of the night, and my new favorite Obama song was played many times.

Two days later I learned about the death of P Diddy the kitten. I was a little annoyed that I was told over his dead body, but I've learned to handle death a lot better here. He was just to young to have been seperated from his mother, and it probably didn't help that he loved to play with the children too much. P Diddy had gotten an eye infection two days before the kulio, and I spent a lot of time flushing his eye out. He disappeared sometime during the kulio, so I guess that it was just his time.

Agge Fatou ended up staying with us for one week. She was a total handful the entire time. No one was sad to see her go home. She beat up poor Ebrima the entire time, and any other child that hit him got a severe beating from her. The crazy part is that she won't even turn two til the end of March. She is already way stronger than the other kids. I saw her body slam Ebrima one day, and the day that little Fatou hit Ebrima, Agge Fatou gave her quite the beating as well. Ebrima and I hang out a lot, and Agge would have none of it. She wanted my attention all the time, so poor Ebrima got beat a lot for that as well. One day she had running stomach in the front yard, and there were no adults to clean her up. Luckily she was smart enough to take her pants off before hand. Normally I find an adult and tell them, but I was all alone. I had to clean her up. I took her to the bathroom and then poured lots of water on her backside. Ebrima kept gesturing for me to scrub her butt, but I couldn't find any soap, so I just used lots of water and prayed that it was enough.

A new group of PCVs also swore in mid-January, so I spent some time in Farjara. Jenni's mom also arrived, so I hung out with them as well.


February

On February 7th, I officially had spent one year in country. It was pretty exciting to know that I only had a little over one year left. The big event in February was attending the softball tournament in Dakar. I traveled up to Jenni's house a couple of days early, and hung out with her and her mom before we traveled to Dakar. The car ride up there was horrible! My left knee always starts throbbing after being crammed in a small space for about two hours. The ride took about six hours, so I was a mess by the end. I played on the "c" team, so that meant that most of my team had never played softball at all. Also most of my team had hit up the "drink stand" so it was a real experience. We officially came in last place after losing every single game. I had fun, but I realized that I am too competive to play on that team next year. We stayed with a very nice family, and the whole weekend was a lot of fun.

After the softball, we all travel back to Gambia. I spent a day in Farjara, and then me, Jenni, and her mom traveled to my house to spend the week there. We traveled down to Steven's house, visited Brikama, and went to Kanali. Kanali is the president's home village, so there is a really great lodge there! The room had a real toliet, shower, a pretty comfortable bed, a fridge, an air conditioner, fan, and a TV with satelite programming. We fell in love with the TV right away! We were there over the weekend, so we got to meet the president. Jenni and I saw him standing with some women while they were pounding, so we walked over to pound too, aka meet the president. He saw us and called us over. We learned that he's been to Epcot, and he seemed interested that I could speak some Jola language. I also told him exactly where I live, and I've noticed that we usually get cookies thrown at my house now. He also arranged for us to visit the zoo. That was a great day!



March

March kicked off the beginning of wedding season. The first weekend of the month was Yesi's wedding. She moved about one hour away. Ebrima is going to stay with us until her and her new husband get settled. I had Amanda go with me to this ceremony, and thank Allah that I did. The thing started on Friday night. We had a nice meal, and Yesi was prepared to go. Her wedding was pretty low key. Some of the women went with Yesi in the middle of the night to go to her new village. Amanda and I passed out long before it was time to go. I woke up at 3am to close my door because Mr. B was shouting for me to do so. The next morning we had breakfast, and then Amanda, me, Suntu, and Fatou (Mr. B's wife) traveled to Yesi's new house. We took a car, and then had to hike about 4k from the road into Yesi's village. This was the middle of the day, so it was not very fun.

I spent most of the day sleeping, while Amanda entertained my family. Her name is Bori (just like Mr. B) so everyone started calling her "Ms. B." When I woke up from one of my naps they had even braided her hair. In the evening Mama Jarju arrived with all of Yesi's gifts. She got driven in a truck. Another reason why it's better to be a first wife. We had an amazing dinner of benechin, cow meat, and lots of vegetables. I ate a lot, and tried to avoid the internal organs because they taste so bad! That night we danced a lot, and Amanda and I kept getting pulled out into the middle of the circle to dance. We looked ridicalous, but it was fun. Jolas can dance really well, so we were really put to shame. We had to spend the night, so I ended up sharing a bed with Mama Jarju and my cousin, Mariama. Mama Jarju got the comfortable part of the bed, and the blanket and pillow. Mariama and I ended up practically spooning because of lack of space, and in an attempt to stay warm. The next morning Amanda and I hiked out of the village with my sister Hawa, and returned to Mandinaba. I had to go to Brikama to buy fabric and get an outfit made for my sister Neima's wedding the following week.

Then the next weekend, it was Neima's turn to get married. This was quite the production. A lot of food was purchased, but this time I was in Farjara working, so I didn't arrive home until the evening time, so I missed the set up. It was freezing cold that night, so I ended up sitting close to the fire pretending to help cook/hold the babies of women that were actually cooking. We had benechin for dinner, and I ate so much I was certain that I was going to be sick! After dinner, I was taken by two of the women to go collect water for Neima's bath. Along the way to the pump we passed through the dance floor, and I jammed out to one of the Obama songs. We brought the water back and set it down in the front yard. I was a little confused since most people bathe in the front yard.

I asked around after Neima's bath time, and no other PCVs had witnessed what I saw. It must be a Jola thing. Neima sat in the middle of the front yard with all of us standing/sitting around her in a circle. She wore fabric to cover up her legs. Two women washed her while Mama Jarju stood next to Neima. The rest of us sang, and danced around the circle. It sounds weird, but it was actually a lot of fun. Some of the older women even shook their butts in Neima's face which I found to be quite funny. Then the Iman gave a speech to Neima about her wifely responsibilities. A lot of take care of your husband, etc. Then some of the girls took Neima and wrapped her up in a blanket and held her for ransom. This was pretty funny. People were tossing money into the pile to get Neima back. This happens at all weddings. I read in one book and some of the groups even hid the bride in houses. Thankfully Neima was just wrapped up in a sheet. Finally someone told the girls that it had been enough time, and so began the epic "one hour to walk the 10 meters to the car." This was the worst part of the night! I stood there watching it take literally one hour to get her in the car. I felt like I was watching the third lord of the rings movie, and I found myself wanting to shout "get on the boat already!" Most of the women left that night, but I was really tired, and I just wanted to sleep in my own bed. It was after two am at this point.

The next morning I woke up late, and had breakfast with the family. Ebrima had an accident earlier in the morning, so Mama Jarju jokingly told him that he could not eat the whole day because it would end up in his pants. Ebrima imediately started screaming, and ran around. He ended up in Suntu's room, and slammed the metal door. We all laughed and started eating. When Ebrima was finished he joined us as well. I traveled to Neima's new village with Kaddy, and spent a good portion of the day sleeping. I was tired from the night before, and that's what most of the women do all day anyway. I woke up to eat each time and that was about it. By the time evening came around, I was dressed in my matching outfit (asobi) for the party. I had dinner and hung around, and around 9pm I left with some of my neighbors because I had a meeting with the youth group that night.

The previous week I traveled up to Basse with Jenni. It was so hot there, but the people are really nice. We didn't get toubabed for hasseled like we normally do, and most people just shouted "hey Peace Corps" at us. It took like 6 hours to get up there, and we had to cross on two ferries up-country. Instead of having a bridge to connect the 20 yards, there were tiny ferries. By the time Jenni and I got up there we were exhausted! We ended up staying for three days, and then we stopped at Jenni's house on the way home to stay the night. On Saturday one of the girls here had her 30th birthday party. It was toga themed, and a lot of fun! Now today I am going back home to my site.



That's some of the highlights for the past couple of months. I'll work on updating my blog more regularly from now on. I'm returning to America to visit at the end June. April is my Birthday, and it looks like there are a lot of things planned for April and May, so I will be back in America before I know it!!!

Christmas and New Years 2008

So I haven't written in a little while, so I decided to update everyone about what has been going on. The first two weeks of December I took a trip to Morocco. I'm planning on writing a rather lengthy post about that trip, so look for it in a couple of weeks. I have to come back down to Farjara around the 11th I believe to help with some of the new group training. I'll have a lot of free time since all other pcvs are banned from staying at the stodge, so I'm hoping to get the details all typed up.


The title didn't mention anything about Thanksgiving, and I do not think that I wrote anything about that so here I go. For dinner that evening we all met at one of our bosses houses for a huge meal. I helped cook all day, and all of the food was amazing! We had chicken, turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, coleslaw, potato salad, pie, cupcakes, cake, cookies, and many, many more yummy things!!! I ate a lot that night! The next day we all had to attend an all-volunteer meeting. I'm pretty sure that pc reads our blogs, so I'll try not to say anything negative. I'll just say that it was quite a boring day! Anyway, I spent the rest of the weekend getting ready to leave for my trip.


When we returned to The Gambia from Morocco, I believe the date was Dec. 15. Not one-hundred percent sure since I clearly didn't know what day it was the entire trip. (More on that in the official trip blog) Jenni and I hung around the stodge for a few days before returning to my site on Saturday. One of our friends here had his family visiting, so we helped him out a little by taking his sisters around to go shopping. We also ended up dying their hands with henna the next night. That same night Jenni and I also dyed our hair with henna. This required covering our heads with a substance that both smelled and looked like cow poop, and then sleeping with plastic bags on our heads. When I woke up the next morning I had to get it all out of my hair which was difficult because it had caked on pretty hard. At first I thought that the henna did not dye my hair, but later I realized that it made my hair shine purple. Jenni wanted highlights, but that did not turn out the way she planned. We read in Cosmo that if you french braided your hair, and then applied the color to the braid, then you'd have highlights. That really did not work. Her roots near the front of her head turned bright orange, and then she had random spots in her hair. So much for what Cosmo said! Later in the week she washed her hair a few times with the local "donkey soap," aka what we all wash our clothes with, and the spots lightened considerably.


On Saturday we returned to site, and just sort of hung out until we returned to Farjara on Christmas Eve. We road our bikes around, and one day we even road approximately 25k for exercise. This is a rough estimate, and I really have no idea how far we actually road. We also went shopping at the market in Brikama one day because I needed a kettle (to make washing dishes easier), and a new bathing cup because my old one had a HUGE hole in the bottom. It was now more like taking a shower. We bought some other stuff, including piercing earrings, strapped it all to my bike, and headed home.
Later in the day we, okay more Jenni saying that I couldn't back out of it anymore, we decided it was time to pierce our upper ears. I went first. We cleaned my ear with rubbing alcohol, and also soaked the earring in the rubbing alcohol as well. The earrings have sharp edges so all you have to do is push the thing through. Jenni pretty much just shoved it right through my ear. Then it was Jenni's turn. I knew that I couldn't pierce it myself because Jenni is afraid of needles and always screams. I didn't want to deal with that sort of pressure. We decided to have my aunt Suntu do it instead. The three of us went into my house, and Jenni sat on the ground in case she passed out. Suntu tried to shove the earring in, but Jenni was just screaming too much. I think that poor Suntu was a little freaked out! She couldn't shove it all the way through, so she went looking for one of my other aunts, Amee. Amee came in and got right to business. Jenni wanted hers a little higher, and I guess that part of the ear is really hard to pierce. I don't know, but it took forever. Suntu and I stood there watching in horror while poor Amee tried to shove the earring through Jenni's ear. It was really a bad sight! Suntu and I stood there trying to calm Jenni down while Amee struggled with the piercing. The earring would just not go through! To make it worse, Jenni was screaming, and Amee just kept shouting "sorry, sorry!" When it was all done and Jenni was still upset, Amee just kept repeating "sorry!" I then gave Jenni the mirror, and she seemed happy. We had quite a gathering of children outside the door at this point, and they were all also really excited when the whole thing was over as well.


On Tues we road our bikes down to Steven's house for the day. This was a much better trip than it used to be. The road is being worked on to be widened and paved, and it has been going on over one month right now. It was flat, packed sand all the way! This was much more enjoyable than some of my bike rides during the rainy season where I literally had to swim across deep potholes of water with my bike to make it to Steven's house. Steven's house is a short walk off the main road, so on our way in we came across a small kitten. The people pretty much handed it to Jenni, and it was love at first site. We brought the small, white kitten to Steven's house hopping that we could pawn the thing off on him. Steven almost took the kitten, but his cat hated the kitten, so Steven won't take it. We also tried to get Steven's cat's mother to take the kitten since she was nursing a litter of kittens herself, but she also just growled at the poor kitten. Originally Jenni named the cat Eve since we found it on Christmas Eve Eve, but later we figured out that the cat was a boy. He's all white so Jenni named him P. Diddy. She had also just finished reading an Augusten Burroughs book in which he has a story about seeing P. Diddy at the Kentucky Derby. Jenni couldn't bare to just leave the kitten behind, and we even tried to find the kitten's mother. Everyone in the area where we found the kitten kept pointing to a particular compound where they claimed the kitten's mother lived. That mother had much larger kittens and clearly did not want this cute little kitten. Jenni decided that she would take the kitten to Farjara to try to find him a home with a PCV.

Now came the hard part... getting the kitten back to my site to take him to Farjara the next day. Steven had a box, so we decided to put the kitten in the box and strap him on the back of Jenni's bike. I really did not think that this was the best idea, but Steven assured us that it was. Jenni looked really uneasy. When we passed the spot where the geles pick people up in Steven's village, there just happened to be a gele. Jenni ran up to the gele and found someone to take the kitten and drop him off at the Police checkpoint in my village. We road our bikes back to my site and when we arrived P. Diddy was waiting for us in his box at the Checkpoint. Previously I had mentioned that if all else fails my host family would probably take the kitten. They had a cat when I first moved in, but she died a short time later giving birth. Ever since then they've really wanted another kitten. Well there was one kitten, but I'm not supposed to talk about that one. My host sister Sirea accidentally rolled over the kitten in her sleep killing it. oops!

So we pick up little P. Diddy, and headed to my house. As we are about to enter the compound, Jenni turns to me and says "watch this." She then runs into the compound shouting "Merry Christmas." "This is your Christmas present." Everyone starts cheering and seem to be excited that they now have a cat. Jenni hands P. Diddy off to Mama Jarju, and tells her that the kitten's name is P. Diddy. Mama Jarju then says, "yes his name is P. Diddy Jammeh." She didn't say P. Diddy completely clearly, but she got the point. She then handed P. Diddy off to Sirea, and I thought "watch out P. Diddy!" All the other kids were really excited as well. Later I went to see Mama Jarju to let her know that P. Diddy could eat rice and fish. I tried to tell her, and she told me that he couldn't. I told her "well he ate it earlier." Then she said something about him being a baby and that he needed to drink milk. I wasn't going to argue with her about her cat, so I said okay. The next day when Jenni and I were leaving for Farjara we went into the main house to greet everyone and say good-bye. Mama Jarju was sitting there trying to get P. Diddy to drink his milk. She just kept saying, "P. Diddly attacha." (P. Diddy go) The night before she had also asked me if P. Diddy was going to sleep in my house. I sort of laughed and said "no he's your cat now."

We went to Farjara on Christmas Eve, and had a pretty low-key day. We had chicken and salad at a local place right around the corner from the stodge. We also spent time on the computer and read a lot. I think that I went to bed pretty early that night. I also listened to my NSync Christmas album. The next morning we all woke up and Santa had not come. I did have a care package from my mom, so I had some candy to eat. Someone had also decorated the mirrors and windows with fake snow spray. I feel like not much else happened that day. Amanda came down on that day, and we all sort of bummed around. That evening however was completely different! Some of us went to the British High Commission Christmas party, and let me tell you Brits party hard! Without going into too much detail, a lot of alcohol was consumed, and most of us PCVs watched in awe as the Brits broke probably ever single wine glass used at the party. The highlight of the entire evening was when one of the girls tried to dance on a planter and shattered it. She was able to do some sort of dance move that allowed her to land on her feet with falling. I was impressed!

Jenni and I returned to my village the next day, I think, or maybe Saturday. On Sunday Steven came to visit, and the three of us road to Brikama to buy some juice and other goodies. Jenni and I were actually throwing Steven a surprise Hanukkah party. I even attempted to make a menorah. The first two attempts looked great. I just melted the bottom of each candle to a box I had laying around. But with all the moving, the candles would not stick. In the end I ended up just poking holes in the box and shoving each candle into one of them. We cooked potato pancakes, bagels and locks (aka tuna with ranch on bread), and some pancaketos (kinda like donuts) that Steven had brought. Steven was pretty surprised, and he even did a traditional prayer. We blew the candles out after that because it was hot, and I really wanted to be able to use the candles at night.

On Monday, Jenni and I went to visit Olga, another PCV that lives down the road. We all went to dinner at this really great chicken place, and then Jenni and I slept over. We road back home on Tuesday, and then just sort of bummed around all day. I did some laundry and that was about it. Then on Wednesday, we returned to Farjara to celebrate New Years. It ended up being a small thing which was really nice. In attendance was me, Jenni, Steven, and Olga. Olga's boyfriend and some of his friends also joined us later. We decided to have a bon fire on the beach, and wanted to be down close to the touristy area so we could see the fireworks. We left the stodge around 9 or so, picked up pieces of wood along the way. It's about one mile to the beach, and by the time we reached the beach we already had an assortment of branches, including an entire top section of a tree. Olga dragged that thing all the way down the side of the road. When we got to the beach I traded my log for Olga's tree, so I ended up dragging the tree down the beach well over one mile. We walked down the beach until we came across an inlet that could not be crossed due to high tide. We decided to have the bon fire there.

Steven went to work making the fire while the rest of us watched him. He wanted to do it, so the rest of us just watched him. When he finally got the fire going, we made s'mores. We found marshmallows at one of the grocery stores here, and we also bought these weird graham cracker style cookies that also had chocolate on them. The s'mores turned out really well. After we had been sitting for a little while, someone finally noticed that the water line was getting a lot closer to the fire. We all failed to notice that there was a water line on the wall behind us. Oops! As it got closer to the New Year the water kept getting closer. At midnight all the hotels around us starting setting off fireworks. One of the hotels that was setting off fireworks did a really bad job, and they almost blew themselves up a couple of times, and shot some fireworks off into the building and trees. We watched their fireworks a little closer than the others. The water never made it to the fire, and Steven declared that it was symbolic of our fires not dying out in the next year. Whatever gets him through the next year I guess. Jenni had also made about five pounds of confetti out of magazines, so we had quite a bit to throw around. The whole night was really great! We walked out to the road and got a ride home a little bit after 1am.

Not too much else has happened here in Farjara since then. I've just been hanging out at the Stodge watching Alias and spending time in the office on the internet. Jenni and I went down to Serekunda on Thursday to do a little shopping, and last night we made a pizza. Nothing crazy. I'm planning on going home today after I run a couple of errands. I hope that everyone else had a really great New Years!!! Happy 2009!

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