Katie's Totally, Super, Awesome Gambian Adventure!!!

It's been a while...

2010-12-27T15:36:00.000Z

So, I just realized that it has been an EXTREMELY long time since I've posted. 1.5 years to be exact. Well I am still here in the Gambia. I'm half-way done with my third year now, and time is just flying by!

There's a new training group coming on the 6th of January, and talking to all of them, and answering their questions, reminds me of what I was going through three years ago. What to bring? Will there be toilet paper? Will I even survive? Well I'm happy to say three years later that I am still here.

Here's a little bit about what has been going on for me in the past year...

In January I decided to stay. I wasn't ready to go home yet, and I just had this feeling that I should stay. I ended up becoming the volunteer leader for health, and that has pretty much taken up most of my time the rest of this year. I've been working on site development for the new group, helping to organize training, working with other volunteers, attending well over my fair share of meetings, and other "exciting" stuff.

I went home to America in July, which was awesome! I got to hang out with my family, and see a lot of friends (including my RPCV friends!!!) That was crazy! Seeing them drive was mind blowing enough for me. haha. I also went on a family vacation, and met people that I am related to that I have never met before.

This past Christmas was a little weird. This year I not only had to go through the motions of missing my family, but I also missed my PC family, aka, my group. We had established our own little Christmas traditions, and it was really weird not to have them this year! Christmas ended up being fun though, but it was a lot different. There was a volunteer pancake breakfast, and I ended up with the important tasks of slicing fruit, frying bacon, and most important of all, cracking each and every egg to separate the rotten eggs. Let's just say that there were a few bright green eggs! In the afternoon I went over to our AO's house, and made Christmas cookies, and hung out. Then for dinner I had my staple for restaurant dining in the Gambia, a cheese sandwich and a pint of Julbrew!

Right now I am considering what to do when my time runs out in May. Graduate school should be at the top of my list, but honestly I am just not sure that is what I want to do. The foreign service exam is being offered here in the Gambia next month, so I am thinking about taking that just to see what it is like. And I'm also looking up jobs. I'll live anywhere expect good ole Fort Myers!!!

In the past year, my compound, Jammeh Kunda, has had three babies born. (Binta- September 26, 2010; Mariama- November 20, 2010; and Mohammed- December 30, 2010) I'm kinda a little auntie now I guess. Mariama always makes me smile, because like her older sister, Aje (my favorite baby when I moved in who will be four in March) she isn't afraid of me just because I am a toubab. In fact, whenever I return home, she's always one of the first to welcome me. All of the other kids have grown up a lot. Lala and Mariama are in grade 2, Maribe is in grade 3 (and can read!), and everyone else is doing well as well. All of the kids, minus the babies, are in school now, so weekday mornings are a blessing to everyone! The closer I get to leaving, the more sad I feel that I will no longer be living with everyone in Jammeh Kunda. I mean they pretty much took me in, and made me apart of their family. The hardest part of leaving the Gambia will be leaving them I think. I've seen all of them make so many big strides. Binta finished Senior Secondary School, taught school herself for one year, and now is enrolled in the teachers' college. One of my other host sisters made the difficult choice to end a difficult marriage, move home, and start over yet again with her two girls. I miss out on a lot of time in village now because I am the volunteer leader, but whenever I am home there's always something exciting.

In the next couple of months I'll be busy with training, and then before I know it, it'll be time to head home. I'll try to keep up more the next few months!

Happy New Year Everyone!

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

2009-06-10T13:12:00.004Z

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)

2009-02-04T16:40:00.004Z

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

2009-01-01T11:50:00.006Z

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!

Also, go to my blog and become a "follower." I'm not actually sure what it means, but the link for that is on the left side toward the top.

Just because

2008-11-21T12:15:00.002Z

I try to talk a lot on my blog, but I really do not go into too much detail. If you have any questions about The Gambia, my life here, or whatever, click on "comment" on this particular blog entry (you actually have to be on the website and not just reading in email), and ask your question. I'll answer all of the questions and post the answers here on the blog.

Random Thoughts

2008-11-21T11:42:00.002Z

From 11/14/08

Only 12 days to go til Farjara for Thanksgiving. Only 17 days to go til holiday!!!

I recently discovered the joy of bike riding again. I've been riding my bike all over the Greater Brikama Area. If I ride east of my village, then I have to ride up and down hills which can get quite tiring after some time. It's good for my legs, so I try to do it a couple of times a week. My family still doesn't get that I'm just riding for fun, and they always want to know where I'm going/where I've been. I always tell them, "N ka ta training," which means "I go training." They still think I'm a total weirdo, but I'm sure that they're just thinking, "oh that crazy Fatoumata." Some people in my village actually get what I'm doing though. The other day one of the bitik owners in my village told me that he saw me training, and how wonderful training is for the body.
I've had some crazy adventures while riding my bike. Today while riding through Brikama, some random Gambian man shouted out, "hey Katie!" That was a little odd! I also get a lot of kissy faces/noises and obscene gestures from the truck drivers, so I'm just as rude right back. I've given quite a few people the finger in this country. I also sometimes get bothered by the truckers that sleep by the road outside of my house, but I find that a few choice words usually shut them up really fast. They seem to understand exactly what I am saying to them.
Today I did a little "off-roading" in search of a lodge that I saw a sign for on the side of the road. The sign said that the lodge was "400 meters" off the road, but I have no clue how far of a distance that actually is. I road down the road and ended up in a village. I then turned around, and tried a different path, and ended up in a garbage dump. There were other paths left to explore, and I plan on going back soon, and this time paying closer attention for car tracks. I really want to find this place. I mean what if it has a pool!!! That would be amazing.
I'm still losing a lot of weight, and soon I'm going to be thinner than when I was in high school. Most people aim for their high school weight; looks like I'm going for middle school. I've been really hungry lately which I guess is because I've been working out. I eat a lot of food, and nothing satisfies me any more. What I wouldn't give for some french onion dip made out of sour cream and french onion soup mix! There doesn't seem to be any sour cream in The Gambia, but I have been told that the plain yogurt here is a great substitute.
Everything here for the most part is "natural," so I'll probably come home all "healthy" and unable to eat processed foods. Even though I've already decided that I'll only buy produce from farmer's markets from now on (it's cheaper and better quality), I swear that I will of everything in my power to get my body used to an extreme amount of processed foods again! I will also join a gym.
I've found that hot sauce makes all of the nasty food my host aunt cooks magically taste good. Just sprinkle a little, or a lot in some circumstances, and the food goes from bland to bam! I also can't wait to get the box that my mom sent because there is canned chicken in it. I'm going to mix some of it up with mayo and hot sauce, and then eat it on bread. I can't wait! Right now I'm just really hoping that my package came in, and that it will be delivered on mail run. Because of Thanksgiving and the All-Volunteer Meeting this month, mail run got shortened from 6 days to 4 days. I just hope that they'll deliver my package even though I live with 2 hours of Farjara.
I'm starting to get really antsy waiting for this trip! On Wed I cleaned my entire house (okay my teeny, tiny 2-room place) and even moved furniture. I dusted, swept, and threw things away. I even cleaned my windows.
The humidly has left for the time being, and it's actually starting to kind of get cold. At night it's in the 70s, and I've been sleeping with a sheet! I even wear my long-sleeve shirt in the mornings sometimes because it's a little chilly. I heard that the temperatures will drop some more soon. Then it'll just work its way up to being really hot and raining all the time again. A new group came last week, and some of them were going on and on about how nice the Gambia is. I thought, "just you wait!"
The problems with the bats seem to have been solved. Papa Jammeh put up some chicken wire along the line where the roof and the ceiling meet. I've been trying to keep the place nice just in case I do get replaced. I doubt it, but you never know. Papa Jammeh also showed up one day to fix the screen. I could hear him shouting my name while I was cutting down the top of my morigna tree with my machete, and when I went to greet him at the door he was outside of the window. He smiled and said, "Fatou screen mang beteyatta." (Fatou your screen is not good.) He said this with his arm inside the screen. I had been meaning to get the screen replaced, but I kept forgetting to buy a new screen. Papa Jammeh once again had taken care of me.
I still cannot believe that I have been here for almost one year. November is almost over, and then December will fly by. I've got the trip and Christmas, so that will fly by as well. Jenni is staying with me after the trip til Christmas, and she is bringing her bike, so we'll be able to do a lot of things. Maybe even ride to the beach! Before I know it I will have been here one year, and then it will be time to get all of my check-ups.
In February there's WAIST (West African International Softball Tournament). I'm planning on playing on the social team, which is the worst of the three teams that PC The Gambia is sending. I've heard that all of our teams do poorly, but I'm playing on the team where people might not even be able to catch the ball. I want to play with my friends, and to be perfectly honest I just want to have fun. People have been practicing for a couple of months for the other two teams, and if I'm on vacation then I want to have fun and relax. I gave up competitive sports a long time ago because I hate all of the pressure. Some time in the Spring I'm also going to get my Fula scars done. AKA let an old woman slice into my back using a razor blade.
I've got a lot to look forward to, and things are FINALLY picking up at site! The couple of months should fly by!

From October

2008-11-21T11:16:00.002Z

10/20/2008

Lately things have been going pretty slow here at site. Romonda ended with the celebration of Korieta. My fasting was cut short with a last minute trip to see Amanda, bit I was able to make it 10 days. I was supposed to wake up every morning around 5am to eat breakfast, but I was never able to do that so I just ended up starving all day. I did however sneak small sips of water throughout the day because I was getting dizzy spells. Every evening by 7pm I was pacing by my front door waiting for the women to set up the small meal to break fast, aka "the appetizers." By 7:20pm, I was outside pacing around with the rest of the family patiently waiting until the Iman called out on the Mosque loudspeaker that it was time to eat. I do not speak Arabic so I have no idea if this part is true, but I would like to believe that he shouted "people it's time to eat!!!" every evening.
I missed the first half of Romonda because of my finger infection, so by the time I started it was just an old habit for everyone else. Every night we had a mashed bean dip with a red pepper sauce. It was actually one of the most amazing things that I've had here. I was told by other PCVs that they didn't get anything like that. We had bread to dip in the dishes as well. Next, we always ate the millet porridge. We all had ladle-type spoons, and we ate out of a large bowl. Everyone also got a cup of tea to enjoy with the meal. We also usually had one large glass of cold water that everyone shared. Sometimes if one of Papa Jammeh's older children were visiting they'd bring juice mix. They sometimes also brought chicken along which was always amazing!!!
I ate with the women every night. Once we had all we wanted, the kids would move in to finish off the dishes. I never felt bad because the kids had been eating all day. Papa Jammeh ate alone in his house, and was occasionally joined by some of his friends. The other men ate around their own food bowl nearby to us women folk. Everyone that lives in the side house did their own thing. They just ate on their porch.
After dinner all of the adults, minus me, had to pray A LOT!!! Some nights they left to pray places, other times they just took their mats to isolated places and prayed. During all of this I just laid out on the mats with all of the kids. My cousin, Binta "LaLa," age 7, liked to cuddle with me. This was okay til I remember that LaLa would be an instant candidate for ADHD medication in the USA. She wiggled and turned all over, and constantly adjusted my arms. She also liked to call me her "daano" "baby," and it became our running joke. I also had to squeeze on the mat with Sirea and Mariama, so we all pretty much slept on top of each other. At around 9:30p or so, it was time to eat dinner. The food was a lot better than it normally is. We had a lot of vegetables, and all of the food tasted much richer.
A big part of Romonda is bread. Everyone breaks fast with bread. It's just what you do. Everything went very well with the bread the first two days that I was fasting, and then I noticed that they bread sections that everyone was getting was getting smaller and smaller each night until there was no bread at all in the whole village!!! I know this because I ran from bitik to bitik in search of bread. When I finally thought to ask someone what was going on, I was told that the Fula bakers went on strike, and that we may not have bread for a while. (The Fulas are one of the ethnic groups here, and they speak Pular.)
With the price of everything going up, the price of flour did as well. I heard that a sack of flour went up to D1,000, roughly $48 US Dollars. The bakers in Brikama started making the bread smaller, but they still charged the same price to buy each individual piece of bread. The Western Region Governor got wind of this, and told the bakers to reduce the price. The bakers said no, and eventually stopped selling the bread altogether. I've got to respect them for sticking it to the gov't and standing up for themselves, but on those days I really wanted my bread!!! We went two whole days without any bread at all, and then some of the small bakeries started baking bread. There wasn't very much bread, but we were all able to get a small piece each night. I loved the bean dip so much that I just ended up eating it with my hands most days. Then finally one afternoon I saw some kids with bread and asked them where they got it. I ran to that bitik which was overflowing with bread! We finally had bread again! I bought one loaf of bread, and ran home super excited. Turns out that the gov't really threatened the bakers about something with licenses. I'm not sure what it was but it worked!!!

Sorry It's Been Forever!!!

2008-11-07T23:33:00.002Z

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!

I May Not Be Back On For A While...

2008-10-06T22:01:00.002Z

I'm not planning on coming back down here to Farjara until Thanksgiving. I may end up coming down one day just to use the computer, but I'm not sure yet. At the end of the month we're all heading to Basse for Halloween and then staying there to have a party for election night on Nov. 4th. I'll be back down for Thanksgiving and All-Volunteer Meeting, and then it's off to Spain and Morocco.
Knowing myself I will most likely come down here once to at least check my email. Luckily I can make it here in one hour so it won't be hard for me to get here.
See you all in a while!

The Crazy Story of My Infected Finger

2008-10-06T20:55:00.005Z

From 21/9/08

So, my finger got infected. It wasn't just some little thing, it swelled up to almost three times its normal size, and it turned bright green.

It all started around the time I went to see Shayla. It felt like I had an in-grown ail, so I just sort of ignored it. By Thursday it was starting to swell, and really starting to hurt. I knew I was going to Farjara on Saturday, so there wasn't really much I could do until then. By Friday night it was starting to turn green as well. I contacted PC on Sunday, and they told me to wait until Tuesday. (That Monday was Labor Day)

On Monday we had a bar-b-cue and a softball game. I of course wanted to play. I went to the field in a skirt and my crocs. Bad combination for any sport! By this time my finger was hurting badly, but I really, really wanted to play. I got to play first base. The first inning went really well. No one scored, and I even got a nice hit when I was up to bat. Running in crocs was quite difficult though! Then came the dreaded second inning. There weren't enough gloves, so we all had to share. (I had left mine at site) During the 2nd inning I got stuck with a really bad, thin glove. Someone hit the ball short, so the pitcher threw the ball to me. It came really fast, but I knew that I had to catch it. It was one of those catches that really burns your hand! I was really happy to have actually caught the ball, when all of a sudden my finger felt pain like never before! I threw the glove off onto the ground and looked at my bright purple finger. After that I was all-time catcher for the rest of the game.

I didn't want to look like a huge baby, so I waited until I got back to the stodge to complain to Amanda about my finger. By then my finger was even bigger, and the purple section had turned bright green. Now the entire tip of my finger was bright green. It was not pretty. I found some Advil and took it right away. A little while later some of us went out to get pizza for Amanda's Birthday.

On Tuesday I woke up early and headed to the med office. The head nurse wasn't there, so the second in charge said that I had to wait another day to see her. I guess that she wasn't able to make informed decisions. She tried to get the finger to drain, and she gave me some antibiotics. This was the day that I began my wonder medical hold experience. (aka PC pays your housing fees AND gives you a food stipend!) Jenni got med hold as well for some sort of lung infection, or a "tickle in her throat," as PC called it. I came back the next day and the head nurse was shocked. She told me to keep taking the antibiotics and to continue "swooshing" (aka soak while moving finger around) my finger in water regularly.

I came back on Friday and I actually got to see a doctor. This was a big deal because PC usually doesn't spring for a doctor. Jenni got to see him as well. The head nurse had talked on Wednesday about removing the nail. This made me nervous because some people at the stodge told me that one guy had his toe nail removed and it never grew back. I did not want to have a nail less finger! I vowed if they did have to take my nail, and it never grew back, then I would buy a fake nail for the finger.

When I saw the doctor, he decided not to take the nail. It did seem like the head nurse was pushing him to take it though. He peeled off the dead skin, and cut down into the finger until it bled. This seemed to make him happy. In those moments I wanted to take a scalpel from him and cut him as well. What he was dong caused quite a bit of pain! I got med hold over the weekend, and Jenni did as well. We ended up watching Alias all weekend and using the computers at the office. We both had a blast!

On Monday my wonderful dream ended and I was taken off med hold. Jenni got med hold for at least one more day. PC moved her from the stodge to the med office to see if the mold in the stodge was the cause of her infection. I was released by the 2nd in command, but the head nurse still wanted to see me again the next day. I told her that I wasn't planning on going home since the newest group was swearing-in in a couple of days. She told me that I could just sleep at the med office with Jenni. We were supposed to stay for two nights, but a girl came in that was pretty sick, so we got kicked out after only one night.

It took about one to two weeks, but now my finger is pretty much back to normal. As I type this on the computer on 6/10, my finger is back to normal. To this day I am still not sure how it got infected, but it did. Since then I've also had an infected toe, and an infected bug bite on my leg as well. Neither turned bright green, so I guess that they were okay.

One random crazy weekend

2008-10-05T20:35:00.001Z

From 21/9/08

Okay, so I just realized that I was in Farjara for two weeks and did not update my blog once. I'm really not sure why. Maybe I spent too much time on Facebook. I did manage to get some new pictures loaded on Facebook so that's good. Let me tell you a little bit about the past month...
On August 26th I road up to Shayla's house. I got to the Brikama car park right before 7am when the cars officially start running. I ended up on a gele that I guess was trying to cheat the car park because we road around looking for passengers. Normally the gele parks in a spot and waits. Passengers pay the attendant and get a ticket. The attendant gives the driver the money and keeps some for himself. I guess these guys want to cut out the middle man. After 45 minutes of looking for passengers we finally got to leave. These guys wanted to make as much money as possible, so they just kept cramming people in that were looking for short rides. I got to know everyone around me very well! For most of the ride I had either Isatou or Mohammed sitting on my lap. These were some random little kids that I met on the gele. Their mom was tired of holding them, and at one point she really wanted to eat, so she just handed me Isatou. That's how things work in the Gambia. Then after Isatou had gone to sleep on her mom's lap, Mohammed lost his seat to an older man. I didn't want him to have to stand, so on my lap he went as well. Could you imagine actually doing something like that in America? I'd probably would have been sent to death row, Throughout the ride their mom and I took turns buying little treats along the way, and the four of us had a good time.
Cramming 30 people (yes at one point I counted) into a gele at some points wasn't even the craziest things that happened on that trip! At one point we had a pregnant lady vomiting into a bag on her way to an antenatal clinic. We also had a flat tire problem. A little over 2/3 of the way there, we got a flat. This was my first experience with a gele flat, but I heard it can take a REALLY LONG time! All the men got off the gele to "assist" and the women got off to search for the sticks that they all use to clean their teeth. I really had to pee, so I got off the gele and searched for a nice, private place to use the bathroom. No rest stops or gas stations here! After about 20 minutes everyone got the new tire on, and it was time to go. The driver made the apprentice basically hang off the back of the gele to watch the left rear tire. The poor guy almost got pelted in the face by the lug nut when it shot off the tire. He never missed a beat. He jumped right off the gele, and ran after it. The driver stopped, and we waited for the apprentice to run and catch up with the gele. They sort of fixed the tire again (with the "help" of every man on the gele). We were able to make it the 10 minutes to a tire repair place. (no lie!) There the driver and the owners fought a lot about prices. There were a lot of "F-U's" going around. I wanted to scream "F all of you!" Everyone got off the gele, but I was tired so I just stayed on it. Mohammed stayed on too. Again, red flag in America! I think he was 7, so he could actually speak English relatively well for someone his age. We talked and ate pankatoes while they fixed the tire. 20 minutes later we were off again.
When I finally made it to Soma it was 2p. My cell phone had been dead for over a day, so I could actually call Shayla to see where she was. I ended up walking to her village hoping that she would be there. Isatou and Mohammed's mom wanted to make sure that I got there safely, so she forced some teenage girl to walk with me. Once we were out of the site of "mom," I told her that I knew where I was going. I walked what normally takes 30-40 minutes in probably 20 minutes top. I was so hot, thirsty, and tired that I just wanted to get there. I got to her house and she wasn't there, but I was pretty sure that she wouldn't be because she goes on trek a lot with the area clinic. I found a charged cell phone, put my sim card in, and received a text from Shayla that she had so brilliantly sent with her lock combo. I went inside and fell asleep on the couch til she got home from work.
Jenni and Amanda came the next day. I saw Shayla off as she went to work, swept her house like a good little wife, and waited patiently for Jenni and Amanda to arrive. I read Harry Potter while it stormed outside. They finally arrived around noon. The three of us hung around until Shayla got home from work. The next day Jenni and I walked Shayla to her clinic, and got a short tour of the place. She was going on trek that day, so the clinic vehicle dropped Jenni and I off in Soma. We had to buy some veggies and other things for the dinner that we were going to cook for the trainees the next night. After we got all that we needed we headed home. We realized that we didn't buy vinegar, so we had to stop at a bitik on the way home. The bitik owner really couldn't speak the local language (really we can't either), and instead of English he spoke French. He kept trying to give us white vinegar, and neither Jenni nor I knew how to say that we needed dark vinegar. Finally Jenni pointed to the vinegar and herself and said that we didn't need that kind. She then pointed to the guy and the dark vinegar, and said that we needed one like that. The three of us laughed, and he told us that he didn't have any. We ended up buying the vinegar in Shayla's village.
On Friday we traveled to Fula Kunda to cook dinner for the trainees. Before we left we stopped at a stand to get mashed up bean sandwiches. When Jenni and I were walking back to meet Shayla and Amanda, who got eggs instead, a group of kids started toubabing us and asking for money. Out of no where Jenni just started babbling and gesturing for the kids to come over. I just started laughing! Some kids got scared and ran away. Others figured out what she was doing and started to laugh too.
We got on a gele and traveled to Fula Kunda which is about a 45 minute ride. We decided earlier that cooking them dinner would be nice, so we arranged for all of the trainees to meet there. We cooked pasta and sauce, and made an amazing salad to go along with it. Jenni even made popcorn. The whole thing was fun til it was time to go to bed. At this point we still had that cat Toby. He still wasn't house trained, so he had to sleep outside. He kept climbing the screen and getting stuck at the top of the door. It was pretty annoying and it went on most of the night. We spent the night in one of the trainees' family's guest house. We had our own private little house complete with a pit latrine. That was really nice! We slept on the floor on mats, and things started out okay once we turned off the flashlights. Soon the floor was covered with bugs, and there were mosquitoes everywhere! At one point I got up and took a shower in bug spray. All of that plus stupid Toby kept all of us from sleeping much that night.
We got up around 5:30, and went out to the road to catch a gele. We boarded one around 6:30, and off we went. We had to stop at a mosque so people could pray, then off we went. It was still really early, so we didn't have to stop at too many police checkpoints. The driver drove like we were on a video game simulator. He didn't even slow down for the giant potholes in the road, and he did not take his foot off the gas once. He just kept jerking the gele back and forth. I wasn't complaining though because we were making great time!
Normally the car goes all the way to Serekunda, but on that day we got dropped on the side of the road in Brikama. (Right down the road from my house) We walked all the way to the carpark, and that is when we realized that there were no geles there. That's when we learned that it was a "country clean-up day" or something along those lines. We all got really annoyed, okay mostly me, and we, mostly me again, set out on a mission to find a way to get us to Farjara. We ended up walking back to the road to try to find a car. It was 9:30, (we had set a land speed gele record making it to Brikama by 9am), and cars wouldn't' start running again until after 1p. I was annoyed, so I walked ahead to cool down. I found a police checkpoint and sat down there. When the others arrived a few minutes later, Toby was gone. I guess that he broke free of the box and he ran away. Jenni was tired of chasing after him, so our journey together was complete. I can't say that I missed him for even one second. After multiple horrible gele rides, washing his poop out of my clothes when I got home from Jenni's house, and just dealing with him, he will not be missed. I'm sure that he hated us as much as we all hated him. I'm almost positive that he just ran away on purpose.
It started to rain so we had to hang out under some shop pavilions. When the rain finished, we set out to find a ride. We finally got a ride with one of the country's bank cars. We were so happy. Because we were in an official car we didn't have to stop at any police checkpoints. We also got to go really fast because there were no other cars on the road. Even with the two stops we had to make to drop money off at banks, we still made it to the PC office in 20 minutes! That normally takes 1 hour. We hung out all weekend and my finger got worse and worse...
Next entry, the saga of my infected finger...

It's been a while...

2008-09-27T19:04:00.002Z

Okay, so last week at site I realized that I was in Farjara for two whole weeks and I never published a blog entry once while I was here. I'm not sure why either. It's not like I didn't spend 6+ hours a night on facebook.
I actually have been writing blog entries in my journal at site, so I'll leave all of that stuff for when I come again next weekend for Jenni's birthday party. Exciting topics for future blogs: visiting Shayla at her site, hanging out in Farjara for Amanda's birthday, and most exciting of all, my infected finger!!!
I didn't plan on even coming here this weekend, but some times the most exciting things happen randomly. Last Monday I went to Amanda's site to hang out and keep her company. On Thursday we decided to come down to Farjara because Jenni was coming in for an infection on her nose. (Jenni is now officially the Queen of Med Hold!!) It took Amanda and I like 1.5 hours to even get a gele out of her site. Jenni who lives almost 3 hours from Amanda actually road past us on a gele, and she only got about an one hour start on us. Then we had to ride the ferry. I've actually only done this at night, so it was fun to actually see my surroundings. We sat up on the top deck, and it sort of felt like we were on a family cruise or something. While we were rock hopping, (literally we were because it had rained and the area was flooded so we had to jump cinder block to cinder block to avoid the standing water) some guy shouted "hey gambian toubab" to me. That was pretty cool because I guess I am sort of starting to belong now. I was wearing a wrap skirt to my ankles and a t-shirt that was at least 2 sizes too big, so I really didn't look much like a tourist. I'm sure that my hair was standing up as well. It always seems to be here.
While on the ferry we met another volunteer and her parents, so we spent some time talking with them. They were getting taxis already, so they invited us to just ride from Banjul to Farjara with them. That was really nice because it saved us a lot of money and hassle! Jenni was waiting for us at the ferry so she got a ride too. Amanda and I road with "the parents." They were both really cool, and we've actually seen them many times this weekend, and they are both really nice people! Amanda and Jenni went to the office and both got med hold, so we have just been hanging out all weekend. It's been nice to just hang out with both of them. We've watched some Alias, and spent time online. My two favorite things to in Farjara!!! We're all pretty poor right now because we are saving money for our trip to Spain and Morocco in December, so we spent as little money as possible. It's actually possible to pay for majority of the trip if you spend almost no money each month. It's been interesting, but the trip will really be worth it.
We are flying out of Dakar around midnight on December 1st. We will just take a gele from the Gambia to Dakar, Senegal. It was a lot cheaper to do it this way!!! We'll spend a couple of days in Madrid, and then head down to Morocco via Easy Jet. I think that we are flying into Marrakesh, but don't quote me on that. To save money we are not checking a bag on that flight, so I am just going to wear all my clothes on the flight then change out of them once we arrive. I think that the flight is about one hour, so it shouldn't be too bad. I'm still not entirely sure what we are doing while we are there. Jenni knows some guys there that run a tour company, so I think that we are just tagging along with them. We may even get to ski!!! I may see snow for the second time (not counting living in IL as a baby) in my whole life!!! We are also planning on eating at Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and KFC (yes there is actually one there) while in Spain. We also plan on eating the street food, but at that point it'll have been almost one year since we've had familiar food. Keep your fingers crossed that they'll have fountain soda!!!
I'll post more about the trip when I actually know more about what is going on. I think that the whole thing will be a lot of fun, and I can't wait!!! I'll also post the entries that I have been writing at site next week.
Have a good week everyone, and look for me next Friday or Saturday!!!

Silly People

2008-08-23T13:03:00.003Z

From Thursday, 21/8/08

The Ambassador's visit was two days ago. Actually, the Ambassador was sick, so he sent an officer from the Embassy instead. In my opinion the whole thing was a complete disaster! There was a funeral that morning, so everyone in the village had to go, so I was left to clean/set everything up. Sometimes I feel like a party planner instead of a PCV. It is nice though to have something to do. I'm never sure if I am actually supposed to go to the funerals. No one ever invites me or tells me to tag along, so I never go. We had planned a grand welcome of singing and dancing, but we are technically in mourning now, so all of that jazzy stuff was out of the question. I got everything ready, put on my outfit, and then ran around trying to make sure that everyone else was ready by 11:30; the time that we were told everyone would come. When 12p came and still our guests had not arrived, I felt like an asshole for hurrying everyone along.
The plan was for this to be a small, but by the time the Embassy group arrived close to 12:30, there were at least 20 people. More people continued to filter in as time progressed. I had the chairwoman of the women's group go first since she had to go cook lunch. Then the youth group men took turns speaking. All both groups did was basically praise the last pcv. I just sort of sat there with a fake smile, trying to hide that I was really angry. It was all, "she did this," "she was wonderful," blah, blah, blah. They also kept trying to get money for things. They thought that they were so sly, but it was so obvious. When a hour had passed, and our guests had to leave, I pretty much had to sew everyones mouths shut. After they left, no one in the village could get over that fact that two people came in two different SUVs each with a driver. Even I was a little taken back by the whole thing, but said, "hey that's America for ya!"
I guess the thing that makes me the most upset is the fact that all everyone wants here is money. I've suggested ways to make money, people agree, then later they keep bring up sponsors. I'm always told that we won't make any money selling things. I want to say, "well you'll make a lot more money then you have right now." I have however found another group that does want to do something. These men planted over 40, 000 moringa trees, and they just want help learning how to care for the trees in the dry season. These are the kind of people that I want to work with. They want to teach others about the tree, and they don't need some fancy skills center to do it. Sure it would be nice if everyone had fancy phones, TVs, and clothes, but if people are starving or dying from preventable diseases, then what good would the latest technology do anyway? That's the problem with people helping developing countries. Sure a lot of good is done here, but in the process we've also shown the people what the Western World has to offer. It would be nice if everyone in the world had the same great things, but a country can't magically shift from third world to an America overnight.
Even America was once a struggling nation. All the big companies come here offering fancy gadgets, but what they really need to do is start from the bottom up. Great, everyone has a cell phone, but right now no one can afford fuel for the few generators that are here, and the Gambian NGO that is here can't charge everyones phones. My cell phone has been dead for three days now because there hasn't been any sun to charge everyones phone. My cell phone has been dead for three days now because there hasn't been any sun to charge my solio. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if people had normal cell phones, but everyone here has to have the fancy phones with mp3 players and cameras. Those use up the battery even faster. Everyone talks of buying cars or visiting Europe, but when they can barely afford food for their family, they need to switch their proprieties.
So who really is to blame for all of this? In my opinion: everyone. Africa is the "cradle of civilization." We're taught that life began here. Rather you believe mankind evolved or "poof" we were here one day, all hard evidence supports the idea that it all started in Africa. Over time some people left Africa, and soon people began to inhabit other parts of the world. For some strange reason, the rest of the world began to flourish, while Africa stayed the same. My first group to blame, colonists. Countries from all over came to Africa, robbed her of her natural resources, and also tried to "save the savage beasts." Those who were not sent away on slave ships were left to be "colonized" and "taught the right way to live." Really all that happened was countries were created, lands were robbed of natural resources, and the people began to fight back.
Most African countries at some point gained their independence, but now they were left a complete mess. Most countries quickly became ruled by vicious dictators, and most are still that way today. At some point it was time to make amends for what the "white man" had done, so then came the foreign aid. If you saw how that money was spent it would make you sick. However, I just as equally blame Africans for all of this. Sure there wasn't much they could do when people arrived with guns, but still today continuing to take and more importantly, expect handouts is wrong. I understand that everyone wants the sort of treasures I was lucky to grow up with (and will in fact return to in less than two years), but we grew up in two different worlds. Ideally everyone should have the same things, but like I said before, it is not possible for these things to happen overnight.
People in Western Societies really just need to stop feeling bad for the people of Africa. All that has done is create a continent that is completely dependent on the world. People need to put away their checkbooks. If someone really wants to make a difference, then they need to come on over and help teach the people of Africa to be independent. Instead of watching late night TV and then sending money to some organization that promises to send kids to school, people need to sit down with the people here and explain to them that if 30 people sell the same thing, then no one is going to make any money. Sure they'll make enough to buy food for the next day, but they'll never make enough to get ahead. I've personally seen some of these organizations that advertise for money to send kids to school. They've got nice cars and computers, but I still see a lot of kids that are not in school. I'm not saying that these organizations aren't trying to do their job, but again, maybe a big pile of money is not the solution to the problems of Africa. Every day I'm asked for something, or told to go get money from some organization. I didn't come here to give away handouts, but unfortunately that's exactly what I'm expected to do. Some people see this part of the world as a lost cause. As horrible as it sounds, sometimes I almost have to agree. While everyone searches for the newest thing they must have, people are still dying every day over simple things that could easily be taken care of. Malnutrition, malaria, AIDS and many other things that have been taken care of (minus AIDS) kill people every day here. I was here two months ago when the country ran out of fuel and I saw first hand how ugly things got. I do not even want to imagine how things will get once the food shortage arrives.
The President may not be the most popular man in the world because of the things that he has said, but at least he is trying to push people to farm and feed themselves. I can look past his entourage of 10+ cars, trucks, and hummers, because if what he said at a conference recently on a national holiday. He said many things that day, but what really stuck out (and got my attention) was his request for the people of the country to work hard and take charge of their country. Sure he went on to blame Western Society, but in a way he's right. Nothing will come if the people here are not willing to take a stand and work hard for their country. Also, nothing good will ever come if people continue to thoughtlessly just send money here without actually knowing what it will be used for. Don't get me wrong, some donations are good and really do a lot of great things here. However, a large number of donations are not used properly and in turn are just wasted away on things that will do nothing to help. and soon will be disguarded when the generator runs out of fuel and no one can buy anymore.
One time I heard a story about a PCV in another country putting a video on You Tube and getting in trouble. The video showed a very brief clip of someone dumping trash on the ground and people running and fighting to collect it. The harsh reality is this is what we do everyday to the people of Africa.

Time to put on hostess hat yet again...

2008-08-23T11:41:00.002Z

From Monday, 18/8/08

Okay, so when I signed up for PC, I had no idea that it would involve so much event planning. Maybe I'm the "lucky" one. Most pcvs here will never have anyone important come to their site at all. Two weeks ago like half of the PCMOs (PC medical officers) from all over Africa stopped by while they were here for a conference, and now tomorrow the US Ambassador is stopping by as well. The Ambassador is visiting various PC sites along the South Bank, and he's coming here. Oh yeah, sooo excited! Thankfully, another PCV from a site down the road is also coming here to talk to him, so that will take a lot of the pressure off me. The Ambassador went to Amanda's site last week, and she said that it really was not too bad. She said that he stops by and just talks to you. She also said that he's really laid back, and nice to talk with. I'm mostly nervous because I am waiting for PC to call and let me know what time he is coming exactly. I didn't even know that he was coming til yesterday afternoon, so the whole thing is really last minute! Oh wonderful, the PCV that I thought was going to come to my site just texted me to let me know that the Ambassador is coming to her site as well. Oh great, now I have to go after her. I'm sure that she has some great talk planned, and mine will be a complete train wreck. Okay, I just spoke to her on the phone, and she made me feel a lot better. She said that really all we have to do is sit down and talk to him. He's new, and he's really unfamiliar with PC, so he just wants to know what is going on. She said that basically she's just going to sit down with her women's group and have them do most of the talking. They'll just talk about their goals and what is going on. She heard that other villages went crazy, and really he is just there to learn about PC. So now I feel a lot better again. We also talked about how things are going at site. Every day little things are really something to be proud of.
My cell phone will probably die again soon, because it appears to be another rainy day. I also just managed to drop my solio off the roof. It seems to be okay, it's just a little wobbly now. It seems to still be able to get a charge from the sun. I checked when it stopped raining long enough for the sun to come out for 15 minutes. Thank God! If that thing broke then I would really be screwed!
Now I have to walk around and find my counterparts and explain what is going on tomorrow. I can handle a "little chat" so it all should work out fine. Current goal: find a mobile phone that is charged so I can put my sim card in it and call PC so I can figure out when people are coming exactly. Things are pretty dull most of the time, but every once in a while they get really crazy!
(Couple of hours later...)
All of my counterparts are away til the afternoon, so I'll tell them about the "Ambassador chat time" later. My cell phone is dead, so now I just have to wait for my solio to charge. Please do not rain! It's getting dark again which is never a good thing. Okay, it rocks when you want to be locked up and left alone in your house, but when you need the sun to charge your mobile it is not good! Right now there are a whole bunch of kids that want to come into my house and color. This is not a good time. Now it's raining again, so I guess the cell phone will stay dead for the time being.
Almost 2 weeks ago was when the PCMOs came to visit. This was the program that I was stressing about in a blog before. Surprisingly, the whole thing went quite well. Even about 30minutes before everyone was scheduled to arrive, things were not looking good. We had the library all set up, and the bags were there, but no one seemed to be coming, I had spent three hours the day before weeding the area, and a good two hours sweeping and collecting trash around the area that morning. When I went back home to wait for PC, only a couple of the 20+ people that I live with were at home. Right before PC came Papa Jammeh came home, so I told him what was about to go down. The visit to my house had only been added that morning as a way to stall to give the women more time to arrive at the library. Papa Jammeh realized what I was trying to say, and then ran into his house to change. Then of course Ebrima was walking around with poop all over his legs because he was sick. I really wasn't too worried about that; I thought why not let people see what it is really time to leave here. Sunto, my binkie (aunt/father's sister) grabbed Ebrima, cleaned him up, and was in her plastic chair ready to go when PC showed up. Papa Jammeh was also dressed, and it was show time.
Now I had been told to expect 25 people, but close to 40 piled out of the PC bus and various suvs. I welcomed everyone, well as much as one can welcome people when their guests are being bombarded my children that want candy and their picture taken. I let all of them parade through my house. I walked in when a woman who was a guest speaker from an infectious disease place was in there, and I got sucked into a detailed conversation about everything from how I cook to where/how I bathe. All she kept asking were "why questions." That was a real experience! The PCMOs gave me a gift bag (which I later opened and discovered that it was gull of food!). Once everyone got a look around, and people got enough pictures to satisfy themselves, it was time to go buy the bags, so I led everyone to the library. I warned them about the geles, and I told them that they would get hit! In every group there are the people too cool to listen, so a few people actually did get close to getting hit. Geles do not have the best brakes, so unless you have enough time to dart across the road in front of one, always wait til they pass. When we arrived at the junction, the village chief just happened to be there, so everyone got to meet him as well. By this time the kids had all gotten really bad, so I was trying to get rid of them. I told them to "go away" in Mandinka "Ta," and when that didn't work, I said "Penugie te" (no clue how to spell that), which means "I will beat you." Then in English I said, "scram, you know I will beat you!" (Okay I actually never have, but people always tell me to. I can't do it with the peer pressure, but one day a kid almost did get a whack with my broom if I had been able to catch him). The PC Country Director heard this and shouted, "oh she just told them she was going to beat them in Mandinka." I told him, "no that was jola." He just seemed really excited, so I wasn't worried that I threatened to beat kids in front of a whole group of PC nurses. People just laughed. While all of this was going on, one of my host mother's, Mama Jaju, got off a gele, so everyone got to meet her as well.
I was still really nervous about the library, but when we arrived there were actually women there singing and dancing! I was so happy! The women performed, everyone spoke a little, and then it was time to buy bags. The women were able to sell all of the bags minus a few of them. Everyone seemed really happy. It helped that the CD was there really pushing people to buy the bags.
After all that, I grabbed my bag, and hitched a ride with PC to Farjara. We stopped and picked up another PCV that I was going to be traveling with, and then off we went again. Olga and I grabbed a taxi in Westfield, and then headed to Banjul to catch the ferry. We traveled across the Gambia River as the sun was setting. This took about one-half hour because we were crossing at the mouth of the river from Banjul to Barra. I heard that this was actually a really great time because most people end up on ferries that get stuck sitting out in the water at some point and the whole process takes like an hour. We arrived at the other side after dark, and we fought our way off with other people and cars. The road from the ferry to the carpark is walled all the way down, so we were joking that it felt like we were in a refuge camp. We got on a gele and started driving to Amanda's village just as it started to pour. At one point we stopped and the driver escorted a girl home via running through the pouring rain. Who said that chivalry is dead? We met some people on the gele that knew where Amanda's house was, so they promised to help us get there. It was dark, and the rain was really coming down, so I really was not able to see anything. The next thing I knew everyone was telling us that we arrived at Amanda's house. This was probably the nicest gele driver ever! Because of the rain he was going to drive each person home. We jumped out into the rain, I kicked off my sandals, and we ran around trying to figure out which compound was Amanda's. Then we found Amanda and Jenni who had been waiting for us at the gele stop in the rain, and we all went into the house.
Jenni had been in Farjara all week because she was sick, so she just stopped at Amanda's house because we were all traveling to her house the next day. We all had mac&cheese for dinner. Amanda, Jenni, and I ended up staying awake most of the night just talking. The next morning we all stopped at one of Amanda's friend's houses because her daughter was getting married. We ate some breakfast, and then it was on the road again.
When Jenni, Shayla, and I were in Farjara the previous weekend to work on the computer, and collect our "living allowances," Jenni found a kitten in front of the US Embassy. It was little, and super cute, so against her better judgement she picked it up. She was able to find a home for it with another PCV, but that PCV was going on vacation to Spain, so Jenni had to watch little Tobey for the time being. The cat was also coming on the road trip. Jenny brought him in a box the day before, but the box got damaged in the rain. On the short gele ride back to Barra to catch a ride to Farfeni, the cat completely tore the box apart. Now we were forced to hold the silly thing. Jenni was made at him after the box incident, so Amanda and I volunteered to hold him. I put the cat's bottom in a plastic bag to serve as a diaper because he was not yet trained. About half-way through the trip, the kitten got all upset and kept trying to get out of the bag. I looked into the bag and it had pooped everywhere. Amanda and I wait until he was done, and then threw the bag of poop out the window. Amanda even had to wipe him with TP! We quickly got him into another plastic bag diaper, and I just looked over and smiled at the Gambian woman sitting next to me. She looked back at me like what the hell?
We made it to Jenni's house safely. We had to change geles and Olga started holding him without his diaper. We warned her, and he peed in her bag. The weekend was fun, and we all just sort of hung out. Shayla joined us a little while later. Everything went well til one girl there went on and on about how hard she works while PCVs in villages just sit around a lot. This got all of us pretty upset, and we let her have it! It didn't help that most people already feel like they don't do anything in the first place. She's now talking about joining a gym in the town where she lives, so I really do not think that we are apart of the same PC world.
When Sunday came it was time to go. This time I was traveling down the South Bank road, so it would be a long day. Olga and I traveled with Shayla to Soma. It took almost four hours to get there and it really isn't even that far! We had to ride to Farafeni, take a gele to the ferry, cross the ferry (a bridge would have been useful because it was maybe 25 yards across), and then take another gele to Soma. Then we boarded the gele for the 4-5 hour ride home. This particular gele did not have a lot of leg room, so my legs were really jammed in. Luckily they went to sleep quickly, so there wasn't much pain. By the time I was able to get out in my village, my ankles were so swollen that I had kankels! The lack of circulation and lack of water really did a number on them. I returned home, and then took a bath and went to bed as soon as I could without looking weird. I find that 9p seems somewhat okay. I guess that they just think I'm a crazy toubab that needs lots of rest sometimes.
(Many hours later...)
Right now it is about 8:30pm, and I am still waiting to talk to one more person about tomorrow. As of now, things are good to go. We lied and told the women the program started at 11am instead of 11:30 hoping that some of them would make it on time. It really is stupid to visit at that time because the women have to cook lunch and others work in the fields, but the US Embassy doesn't seem to get that. Now the Ambassador is sick, so he's sending someone else in his place. Throughout the day, the time also kept changing, but now things seem good to go. Let's hope so! I'm really glad that I've made some friends, because today I was able to look sad and beg them to come help me out. Life here is always an adventure! I also got to spend some time talking to one of my counterparts about some of the things that he would like to do. One of his sisters had a baby last week, so I also got to see the baby, Adama, as well. I did my good toubab deed, and held the baby. I always have newborn babies thrown at me. They're always so small and alien looking, and I'm always afraid that I'll hurt the baby.
Today when I went to see Kaddy, one of my counterparts, her baby, Ababukar (age 9 months) peed all over the front of my shirt. Apparently that's good luck here, so I know that things will go well tomorrow.

C'mon meeting, let's get started!!!

2008-08-23T11:14:00.003Z

From Saturday 16/8/08

I haven't written any blog entries in a long time, so I decided to write one while I wait for a meeting to start. Right now it's 8p, and I'm super tired! I really just want to go to bed! This was a long, emotional week. For a good part of the week I felt unmotivated and depressed. I just felt like I wasn't getting anything done. I talked to other people, and I realized that we all feel the same way, so I guess that is just apart of the PC lifestyle. Today was a great day! All week long I've really had no cell phone because we haven't had very much sun. No sun=not being able to charge my solio=no cell phone. I couldn't believe it, but there is no where to charge cell phones in this whole village! Today I decided to ride my bike down to Steven's village to charge my phone. I couldn't call him to let him know that I was coming, so I just sorta showed up. It started raining around lunch time (aka 2:30p), so I waited for it to let up a little, and then I road home. I don't think that I have ever ridden my bike so fast before!!! I just kept turning around to look at the big wall of water that was slowly coming toward me. I made it back to my village, greeted everyone, ran to the bitik for food, and back into my house just as a huge storm hit. It was really nice because no one bothered me for almost three hours.
During the storm I actually got to talk to my mom for the first time in about one month. That was really nice. I ended up talking to her for almost one hour, and pretty much emptying my battery in the process. So much for having a cell phone. Oh well, it was really nice to talk to my mom.
For dinner I made a chicken salad sandwich. My mom sent me some canned chicken, so I made one amazing sandwich. It was the chicken, mayo, onion, paprika, tomato, black pepper, AND ranch dressing mix. I put all of this onto bread and it was amazing! MY propane tank ran out of gas a couple of weeks ago, so I've pretty much just been living off bread and butter or bread and mayo. I still get a cooked lunch from my host family, so I have plenty to eat during the day. When we get paid again next month I'll be able to get another tank and cook all of the yummy looking food that I have waiting in my house.
Right now everyone is walking to the mosque (well the men) to pray. Women are not allowed in the mosque, and must pray under a covered porch. Most women don't go. Actually to be honest with you I think some of the women just skip certain prayers. There are some women that I know that I have never seen pray once, and I spend a lot of time with them. I think that they just make up the prayers that they missed at the end of the day or something. The women that do pray all five times a day just pray at home. The men never seem to miss going to the mosque though. Even the old blind men go because they are escorted there all five times by one of the younger people. Even on days like today when it is pouring outside, everyone always goes.
Ramada starts September 2nd, and I've decided to fast with everyone else in the village. If everyone else isn't going to eat during the day, I might as well join in. Everyone in the village knows that I have decided to fast, and they are all really excited. Really it will not be that bad because we are only not allowed to eat from sunrise to sundown. Once the sun goes away it'll be chow down time! I've been told that we will rise around 5am, pig out, and then have our dinner late in the evening. The part that will be the hardest is the fact that we are not even supposed to drink any water. I usually drink a ton of water during the day. I'm going to try, but I may end up cheating a little bit on the water. Does it count if you just put the water in your mouth, and then spit it out? I asked someone about this, and they just sort of laughed. I'm serious though, so I will have to find out.
I'm getting really tired, and it's pitch black, so I'm going to stop writing. All week we had the moon getting larger as it moved across the sky slowly becoming a full moon. This is my favorite part of the month because you do not need a flashlight to see outside at night because everything is illuminated. Tonight when I take my "shower" aka dumping cup fulls of water on my body, I won't have to worry about bringing a flashlight out with me too.
Thanks for reading my blog. I'm super tired, so hopefully this meeting will not happen, or at least it will be quick and we won't fight about the same thing as last week. HA HA, it's a meeting run by men so that is exactly what will happen.

2008-08-01T17:04:00.002Z

From 29/7/08

So today I really freaked out! I went to see Steven in Jiboro because I wanted to have a nice, relaxing day, but no luck. I went with Steven to his meeting at "Christian Children's Fund." We spoke with the chairman about neem cream and mosquito nets. The man was more excited about the fact that Steven was able to get a CD that had been stuck in the disk drive for five days out of the computer than anything that we had to say. That's why I love the Gambia!!! We road our bikes back to his house, and then we were going to head over to the village clinic to watch DVDs. (Not my village, so I'm more than happy to abuse the system.) On our way out the door, my boss, Gibril, calls to tell me that next week I have to play hostess to 15-20 PC people that are here for some sort of medical conference. I knew that something like this was coming, but I did not realize that it would be this soon! I started freaking out and actually said, "but I do not do anything at site." This was after Gibril told me that I was supposed to show them what I do in my village. We talked a little more, and then Gibril said that he would talk to the Country Dir, Mike, about the details. I was not happy!
After that Steven and I went to his clinic to watch movies. First though, I saw the nurse about my ear. My ear had been hurting all morning. It felt like I had a simple ear wax build-up, so I thought (against my better judgement) that maybe the nurses could handle it. Big mistake!!! The nurse tried to flush out my ear, but all he did was spray water all over me and the floor. I thanked him, and continued to freak out! I decided then that I should call the PC nurse about it, so I actually called her. (I was not in a proper mindset at the time) Of course she really did not think that it was a big deal, so she told me that I could come in if I wanted to, but I could also just stop by whenever I came to Farjara next. Due to my altered mental status, I decided that I did not like this answer, and I would come in. I went back to Steven's house, got ready to go, and then Steven found some ear war drops. I used that instead, and decided not to go. Poor Steven! We just went back to the clinic.
When we got back there were some tourists visiting the clinic. They were in from Holland. The four of them were very nice, but I felt that the two women had shorts on that were way too short! Anything above the knee is just wrong in a Muslim country! Steven gave them a tour, and I just started chatting with the Gambian guy who leads the tours to various villages. Why not network? At this point anyone may be able to help. I told him about my village, and the things that I'm trying to do. Then out of no where I started talking to him about all my frustrations and problems that I am having. He listened, and then told me that I have to do what makes me happy. These are my two years, and it I'm not happy, then nothing will get done. He told me to work with the people that I want to work with, and do the projects that I want to do. He made me feel so much better. Gambian therapy really works! ( I also have a Gambian man that I go to for love advice at the Karaoke bar we all like to go to when we are in Kombo.) Then we talked about PowerPoint, and how it would be important for him to learn to use it when he makes presentations to tourists to get them to go on the tours. Usually Gambian men are annoying and always try to hit on me, but he was very respectful about it. He dropped hints, but he never acted creepy or even asked for my number. He just gave me his business card and that was that. About this time Steven came back and apologized for leaving me alone with the guy. I told him not to worry. The guy was very respectful, and he really made me feel a lot better!
Around this time the staff brought out lunch for the tourists. Now I didn't want to be rude and eat their lunch, but the dish looked amazing and smelled really good! It was Gambian food, but it looked like the really good kind. (Not sure what this means, but basically it did not look like vomit or baby poo) We were invited to join them for lunch, so we stayed. We got to eat out of really nice bowls from Ikea. We had some sort of fried rice, potato, beef, carrots, and a really good seasoning. I was in heaven! The tourists were all complaining about how spicy the food was, but I loved it! The Gambians and I finished our bowls really fast, and even had seconds. They even served cold water. While the tourists drank out of their fancy bottles, I drank cup after cup of cold water that probably came from an open well. Oh freaking well, it was cold. You learn to never turn down a glass of cold water! After lunch we spoke to the tourists about the Gambia. They seemed very nice. The tour company that brought them recruits them, charges them a great deal of money, and then hits them up for donations at the end. All of the money goes to an association that gives the money to villages. The whole idea is genius.
After that, we went back to Steven's house, and the tourists left. Gibril called again, and we spoke about the upcoming program. Turns out that I only have to entertain the guests for about 30-60 minutes. This is between all of you and me, but I'm pretty sure that PC is only stopping by so the women have a chance to sell some bags. I'm going to the PC office on Friday to plan it.
After the call, Steven and I watched "Beauty and the Beast," AND "The Little Mermaid." Both classics! We had actually started watching "Beauty and the Beast" earlier at the clinic, and let me tell you the nurses loved it! Toward the end of the second movie it started to pour, so I had to wait the rain out. Normally I probably would have just stayed the night because of the rain, but I really couldn't since I was going to Farjara for a few days. It finally stopped raining about 7pm, so I went home.

The road was all muddy from the rain, so I got covered in mud! (not looking forward to cleaning everything tomorrow!) I made it home right before it got dark. When I showed up I was actually covered from head to toe in mud. I actually had some mud on my helmet. My whole family just stared at me, and they looked horrified. Gambians do not like to get dirty. I'm already strange enough to them, but riding home through mud puddles may be my top for the month! I greeted all 20 of them, and then headed to the pump for water to take a bath. I took a nice, long bath, and then felt great! I had some dinner (Easy Mac), and then my aunt, Yesi, showed up. She's been coming by in the evenings to chat. She just sort of walks in, grabs my mat, and sits.It's sort of weird, but nice at the same time. We usually "talk" close to an hour, and then she goes to bed. She's super nice, and works really hard. She's one of the lowest in terms of women, so she has a lot to do! She's a funny, little, caring lady. She speaks English so-so, so we have a random English-Mandinka conversation. To tell you the truth, I think she's just as lonely as me sometimes, and that's why she stops by.
Things are random, but if I just breathe deeply, lean on my friends (and Gambian therapists), things will be okay. It's my two years and it's up to me to be happy. I have no desire to come home, I think that it's just part of my nature to freak out about everything. It should be a really interesting 21 more months!

Deodorant, bikes, and other random things

2008-08-01T15:50:00.003Z

From 27/7/08

So, my Mom sent me men's deodorant. Because I'm weird and do not want to smell bad (although none of the Gambians actually wear it). I now smell of "mountain spring" or "forest something" or whatever random name that they give to the stuff. When I first found it in one of my care packages I was sort of annoyed, then I thought "oh whatever." So now I just smell like a man. I also got this really cool water backpack system. It's a fancy pouch with a tube that I can drink right out of as I am riding my bike. The best part of the whole thing is the mini backpack that it goes into. This is the most magical bag ever!!! It looks small, but the thing actually expands pretty big. It has hidden straps everywhere, and even has a hidden net to hold onto my bike helmet. Not that I really plan on using that part much, but it's nice to know that it is an option. Honestly the thing has so many "bells and whistles" that I had to look at the card that came with it to find everything that the backpack has. There is a compartment for every little thing possible. This is by far one of the coolest things that I have ever owned!!! Sad I know, but it really is the little things that get me through each and every day.

PC finally got around to giving us our new bikes. Now I go on really long bike rides whenever I can. This is often quite hard because it rains A LOT. Also. because of the rain my clothes have not been drying on the clothes line, and my host family has been holding onto my only pants that fit for three days. They do my laundry, so I sort of have to work with their schedule. I currently have all of my undergarments hanging on a clothes line that I hung myself inside my house. Just like every other Gambian, I now have a line outside, and one inside as well. This has been a lifesaver so far during the rain season! Back to the bike... so this is a really nice bike!!! I try to ride 15K, and then turn around and head home. I like to ride on the south bank road because it's paved, and it has a lot of hills that really work my legs. There are also a lot of things to see!

Whenever I'm having a bad day I feel so much better once I'm out on my bike. I get "toubabed" a lot, but I'm usually riding by too fast to notice. The other day when I was almost home and really tired, a grown man actually shouted "toubab" at me. It's one thing when the stupid kids do it, but it's rude when it comes from an adult that knows better! (God I sound just like Steven) I looked at the man and said, "Hey mofingo, n so minte!" (hey black person give me minte/candy.) The man just started laughing, and then said something about me knowing the local language. The kids usually scream, "toubab give me minte." (This is about the only English a lot of them know) They all do this because stupid tourists actually drive by and throw candy at the kids. I guess that they think that this is cute. I would love to know how the whole thing actually started. The real problem with this is the fact that it only encourages the people to expect handouts from white people. This has been their survival tactic for years, and they do not realize that they are actually being exploited. Toubabs (hey when they behave that way, they earn the name) come through my village all of the time and act so stupid. If I were saw one of them throw candy at kids, then I'd give them a piece of my mind! Just like when you feed an alligator, the kids learn to associate people with food and free stuff. Kids will run right up to me when I'm on my bike and try to tough me or my bike. Now I just swat them away. Maybe that form of positive reinforcement will teach them to associate toubabs with violence. Or if anything they'll leave me alone when I ride by. When the kids run up to the road it is so dangerous! Cars (especially Government vehicles) drive really fast down the road, and I'm always worried that someone will get hit. I now have no problem with parents beating their kids for playing too close to the road. I also joke with people about starting an "anti-minte campaign." Every time I catch a tourist throwing candy at kids, I'm going to throw a piece of candy back at them. I of course would really never actually do this, but it would be fun!
I now have all of the furniture that I planned on purchasing for my house. Thanks to a married couple that decided to leave, I saved a lot of money!!! I'm thinking about buying a couch, but I'm not sure if I really need it. My toy chest seems to double as a couch pretty nicely. I've even started hanging things up on my walls.
I currently do not have much food because I spent most of my money at IST on junk food and beer. Once I get money again, I plan on buying groceries and making some really yummy food! I really want to buy eggs in Brikama, I just have to figure out a way to safely get them home on the gele. I can buy 36 for 80 Dal (4 dollars), so it's worth it to me. I need more protein in my diet, so eggs seem to be the easiest way to do it. I'm also running low on propane, so I'll have to deal with that too. I've been cooking my own dinner, so if anyone has any ideas for things I can easily make on a single-burner stove that does not require too many ingredients, PLEASE let me know. I want to figure out a simple way to make wraps. Also, if someone could send me some dried fruit that would rock!
I've seen some really interesting things while riding my bike. Now that it's raining everything is green, and the place is actually really beautiful! I like to ride to spot where the paved road ends, so I really have the chance to see a lot. There's always a lot of children playing football (soccer to us Americans). The other day I actually saw a dead animal carcase being eaten my vultures. That was pretty cool! Sometimes while I am riding I just look around and observe how beautiful everything really is. Then I start to think about how lucky I actually am. Really, how many people my age, or any age for that matter, can say that they have gone on a bike ride through Africa? As much as I sometimes feel lost and wonder why I'm even here (surprisingly though I never actually want to go home), I always feel lucky at the end of the day. I'm usually high on endorphins at this point so that probably plays a big factor in my whimsical thinking. I also always think about how much my friend Kyra would love to ride her bike here. (This is usually as I am swearing while biking up a huge hill!) Kyra is finally going to get married this December. I'm really sad that I'll miss her wedding, but that's life. I knew I'd miss a lot by coming here (including her wedding), but I made the decision to become a krazy world traveler. Jenni and I jokingly made a pact that we had to be in a promising relationship (aka looks like it'll lead to marriage) by New Year's of our 33rd year. We got the idea from our favorite singleton, Bridget Jones. That gives me a little over ten years.
In about two weeks it will be six months that I have been here. Part of me says "wow it's gone by so fast," and the other part says "that's really all it has been?" Only 21 months to go!!!

I survived IST

2008-07-18T10:52:00.002Z

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.

Just a Test

2008-07-05T10:59:00.001Z

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"

2008-07-05T09:56:00.002Z

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.

Sleeping at the PC office!!!

2008-06-02T04:22:00.002Z

So Shayla, Amanda, Jenni, and I all decided to just spend the night working on the computers here at the PC office. With the PCV meeting here tomorrow, the computer lab is pretty full during the day, so we just decided to stay over so that we do not have to wait in line to use the computers. Plus, we saved 90 Dal not staying at the stodge.

The main thing that I wanted to do tonight was work on my pictures. For whatever reason, PC decided to disable the "right click" on all of the computers, so the whole process was taking FOREVER!!! I decided to just bring my computer back next month and use wireless in one of the restaurants. We have a place where we like to eat, and the place next store to it does not block their wireless Internet, so we're free to use it as much as we want. I probably will not be back here until July. Because of the 4th of July, and various PC meetings, I will be spending a lot of time here in Farjara in July, so I am going to try to stay at site all of June. So for the present time, my pictures are "out of order." I have some really great pictures to show, and I organized them pretty well. Hopefully by this time my house will be ready to go, so I will also be able to show those pictures off as well. Look for some great pictures in July!!!

On Saturday, Shayla, Jenni, Amanda, Steven, and I all went to the Roots Festival in Banjul. The event was held at the "22nd of June Field." The whole day was great!!! There was a parade with some really entertaining performances. I took some great pictures of it all. My favorite group was the "Bumbsters Rehabilitation Group." Bumbsters are men (and sometimes women) who show the tourists around, and basically function as paid escorts. This group is looking to stop these men from really being sex workers, and teaching them to put their "talents" to other more positive uses. Before the parade, President Jammeh drove by the stadium in his hummer. Jenni and I ran up to him along with about 100 other people. All we wanted was a really good picture of him, and we ended up in some sort of riot over the cookies packets that he was throwing out. Jenni quickly moved to the side of the group, but I figured that I could hold my own, so I stayed. It seems that Jammeh spotted me in the group, and he started throwing all of the cookie packets in my direction. People where pushing and shoving, so I was having a really hard time catching a packet. Finally I just boxed someone out, and jumped up in the air for the cookies. Another guy had the same idea as me, and we both caught the cookies mid-air. Neither one of us wanted to let the cookies go, so we ended up sort of struggling, and then we literally ripped the cookie packet in half. I also got some really nice pictures of Jammeh. Later, Jammeh made is grand entrance into the stadium, and we all got some really great pictures of him. Both Jenni and I wanted a picture of him on his red leather couch, so we moved up close again. We were wondering what was taking him so long to get up there, when I realized that he was actually walking around the stadium shaking hands. A security guard offered to let us pass the rope to make sure that we actually got to shake his hand, but we decided to just wait with everyone else. As he got closer people really started to push. I boxed them out, and also tried to help shield Jenni. We both stuck out our hands, and he looked at us strangely, and shook our hands. I was really excited to shake his hand because his hand may very well be the only hand of a President that I ever shake. Jenni totally one-upped me, because she had previously shaken his hand the week before. We skipped back to the group all giddy, and we were really happy that we had decided to enter the mob. After that we all had to go to the bathroom, so we went in search of one. We were walking past the President's Palace, when some of the guards called out to us. Everyone here seems to know that we are PCVs, so they are usually pretty nice to us all. The guards asked us if we needed any help, and we said that we were looking for a bathroom. I made the comment that we were really looking for any place where we could squat. He told us to wait a minute. I assumed that he was going to take us somewhere with a little privacy where we could do our business, but then he opened the door, and told us to come in. We were taken to a really nice room with leather couches, and a TV. One at a time we were all lead to a "real" bathroom. We were so impressed with the waiting room that we all began taking pictures. Then one of the guards walked in, and started posing with us in the pictures. He then told us that we were in the same room where Ambassadors and other important people wait to be cleared to see Jammeh. One of the guards told me that I was fat (the story of my life here), and that he knew a woman who was fat just like me. I said "oh really, she must be an American too." He said that this woman was "active" because she could run 4K. I then somehow ended up challenging him to an arm wrestling contest, but I never got the chance to follow through because it was finally my turn to use the restroom. Once inside I started taking a lot of pictures of the place, because I figure that things like this may not happen a lot. I returned to the room, and we all left in search of something to eat. As we were walking around Banjul, one man walked by and told me that I was "too long." I then said, "gosh apparently not only am I too fat, but I guess that I am too tall as well." We ended up eating random things that street vendors were selling, and then we went back to the stadium. We stayed a little while longer, but then we all started getting harassed by men, so we figured that it was time to go. We went to the car park and tried to catch a gili, but every time one came people would fight their way on, and we (I) really did not feel like getting pushed. We decided to try our luck with a taxi. There were five of us, so four people had to sit in the back. I road shotgun, so the others had to squeeze in the back. The taxi driver wanted to charge us extra because there were five of us. Some people wanted to get out, but then I pointed out that it would be more expensive for each person if we spilt up. I also pointed out that the real reason that he wanted more money was because we would probably get stopped in the Police check point, and we would have to bribe the officer because we had too many people in the car. As we approached the check point Jenni decided to duck down, and everyone in the back sort of stretched out over her. We all then began talking to the officer to distract him. The whole thing ended up working, and the taxi driver was really thankful to all of us. We were taken back all the way to the stodge in Farjara instead of being dropped off at another car park, and being forced to haggle our way into another taxi. The whole day was great, and I was SOOOO glad that we all decided to go.

The cats. Without going too much into it, I decided to let the cats go. I couldn't take being around them anymore, so I took them to the bush to "run free." I really have no idea what became of them, but I'm guessing that a monkey ate them. My family thinks that the cats were given to a "good home," but if I told them what I really did, they really would not care.

Village is going very well now. I started working with the nursery school in a "kiddies corner" thing at the library. It's really actually a total train wreck because the kids really do not speak English well, and I do not speak Mandinka well. Grade one is made up of five-year-olds, and that was the day I was left all alone without a translator. We ended up spending the hour taking turns dancing in front of the class. It wasn't really very educational, but it was a lot of fun. I spoke to a teacher from Canada here, and she said that one one really knows how to read, so I am going to try to work on reading and phonics with the kids. They do not have to take any tests until after grade four, so the kids can get that far without really being able to read. I'm thinking about working on some English/Mandinka stories to help the kids learn how to read. I'll probably work on that over the summer break so I'll be ready in the fall. I've also been attending the village football games. I find football to be pretty boring, but it makes the people happy so I go.

Two weeks ago we all traveled to see Shayla. I had to travel the 10 minutes to Brikama (aka "B-Town') and then I had a four-hour ride on the gili. Amanda had gone into Farjara with me the day before, so she spent the night, and we headed out at first light. We got into a huge fight with the gili apprentices over Amanda paying to put her bag on the top, and we ended up losing. We fought hard though. The ride was really long, and we got super dirty because the paved road ends like 20k after my village, so we spent a great deal of the trip four wheeling in the gili. The trip was actually pretty fun. Every time the gili stopped at a Police checkpoint, we got something to eat. We even ended up purchasing water bags that were made by someone in their house. The bags looked pretty dirty, but we thought "why the hell not." Really the worst that could happened would be sour stomach, and that happens at least once a week anyway. We finally made it, and then we hung out with Shayla and Jenni. On the way home after the weekend was over, surprise, surprise, we got in another fight over Amanda's bag. This time it turned out that the guy giving us problems was not even an apprentice, so we spent a lot of time yelling at him for nothing. The real apprentices told us to just put the bag under the seat. The driver also tried to over charge the two of us, but we put him in his place as well. The gili was pretty full, so we all moved some random bag out of the way, and got comfortable on the seat. As we were pulling out of the car park, some guy came running after the gili. Turns out that the bag belonged to some Police officer that felt he was entitled to save seats. He got mad because I was "in his seat," and he tried to make me move. I then informed him that one cannot save a seat on a gili, and politely that he was shit out of luck. The apprentice told him to sit down, and he started yelling at us to move down. We all squeezed together, and there really wasn't a lot of room for him to sit. He kept screaming for us to move down, but there really wasn't anywhere to go. He then told Amanda and I that we were fat. I then responded (in English), "You know you're right. We're fat, lazy, and we eat a lot, but we still can't move down anymore." I also then started shouting things in Mandinka along the same lines. People on the gili started laughing, and basically told the man to sit down. We finally got going, and then about 2 hours into the trip all hell broke loose. The same man got out at a checkpoint to smoke, and when he got back in one woman started yelling at him for wasting our time. He yelled back, and then the woman's friend got into the argument as well. Amanda and I started saying things like "you tell him," and the gili driver had to pull over and tell the women and the man to stop because they were getting other people on the gili into it as well. Finally a soldier got on the gili, and the group calmed down. The rest of the ride was fine. We were all really crammed tight, and all super dirty. Apparently the people that wrapped themselves in towels had the right idea. The two of us kept giggling about it, but they were clean when we reached Brikama.

I talked about the "car accident" in the previous blog, so I really do not think that I have too much else to say. Things are going well, and for the most part I am really happy. Everyone has their tough moments, but that is just a part of being a PCV. The best part of all is that I have the chance to read a lot of books over the next two years!!!

One month down, only 23 to go!!!

2008-05-31T11:38:00.002Z

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....

May 7 2008 Just a little something about what I’ve been up to…

2008-05-16T14:28:00.001Z

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.

May 7 2008 Didn’t I learn anything from watching “The Lion King?”

2008-05-16T14:25:00.000Z

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.

It was supposed to be 3 months, but I could only hold out 10 days...

2008-05-01T08:09:00.002Z

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.

Pictures!!!

2008-04-19T23:50:00.000Z

okay, i posted some random pics. I did not have any time to label, so sorry. The link will probably take you to an older album, so just click on "my photos" in the top left part of the screen (toward the middle) and look for "more pics from the gambia." Enjoy!!!

It's official... I'm a PCV!!!

2008-04-19T18:28:00.002Z

Last evening, in front of the Director of PC and the US Ambassador to The Gambia, all 15 of us swore in. All of the girls wore matching outfits. I really thought that the whole thing would look really lame, but we all ended up looking really good!!! Most groups just sort of pull together any random outfit that they can find, but our group really put the time into making sure that we looked really nice. Our performance went really well. All day long we all have been told that we did a really good job, and that the whole thing was really cool. It's great because we all come out looking like stars, and really all we did was create a program for the Dir because the PC forced us to do so. The best part of the whole thing was the giant feast that followed!!! There was so much food, and we all really made pigs of ourselves. Swearing in really reminded me a lot of graduation. We had to walk up to the front and shake hands with everyone, and we even recieved a certificate with a patch and pin. As I was shaking hands with a Sec of something in The Gambia, he asked me if I played basketball. I was like um I used to, and then everyone around me started to laugh. The stage was really small, so my picture with the director probably turned out really bad because I couldn't figure out where the photographer was standing. The whole thing took place at the Ambassador's house, and let me tell you it was a really nice place!!! It was located on the beach, and everything was super nice. We all took turns using the bathroom, and it was like being back in the US for a few minutes. I felt really special when we were kicked out of the place because the Ambassador had ANOTHER event later in the evening. After that we all attended a Jul-Brew party that sort of acted as a welcome party.

Today was my big day with the PC worldwide director. I had to meet every early for the trip (which is not fun after a night of socializing). We picked up the dir, his personal asst, and the director of Africa for PC, and we were on our way. I ended up riding with the Africa Dir, and she told me all about the election. She was that McCain has it for the Republicans, and then went on to describe how things are going crazy for the Democrats. Sounds like things are really interesting back in the States. The presentation for the Dir was really supposed to be all about the Women's group and what they are doing, but it sort of turned into a appreciation thing for the girl that I am replacing. I felt really weird at first, and then they mentioned me and said that they are very excited that I am coming to live there. The director looked really uncomfortable the whole time, and it made me really think about how the little things do not bother me any more. Watching him look nervous around the random people that would scream, and just do weird, every day things, made me realize that nothing bothers me any more. Most of the time I never even remember that I am in Africa, and then I have these random moments where I am like "oh wow, I really do live in Africa." When the program was over, the director really needed to use the restroom, so he had to use my pit latrine. My host family was working on raising the wall (currently I am taller than the thing), and everyone had to be called from what they were doing so the dir could use the restroom. It was pretty funny. We took a group pic, and then it was time for the dir and his posse to move on. I thanked him for coming, and then I had a random little conversation with him that ended with him telling me "thanks for serving." It was pretty random, and I was just like thanks.
So tomorrow I move to my new home for two years!!! It felt really nice to visit today and have everyone remember me from last week and be really excited to see me. The village is really nice, and everyone there seems to be really cool. I plan on going back to GPI right now, and downloading some pictures and then coming back tonight and downloading them. Talk to my mom about getting pictures. I found out from one of the girls in my group that our moms have been talking and that my mom got some pics from her mom. I have a lot to do tonight, but I would really like to be able to put some pics up. I think that they are all pretty random, but there are some from swearing in that are pretty nice.

Swear-in is tomorrow!!!

2008-04-17T17:03:00.003Z

Okay, so some how I survived my language test. I had the test on Monday, and I actually had a nervous breakdown during the test. About half-way through I literally forgot everything that I learned/memorized to say, and I just sort of sat there. My instructor kept signing for me to ask questions, but I could not remember anything to save my life. Then out of no where I just started talking about my friend Amanda and her dog Adiyata Atticus Rambo Drapcho (The two middle names where my doing... I am an awesome godmother!). I just sort of said "Ning mu teerima le ti." My instructor sort of looked at me like I was crazy, but I continued to talk all about Amanda and her stupid dog. (He's a puppy right now and all he does is bite everyone.) I felt really bad after the test, but two days later I found out that I passed, so everything worked out. I really had to learn A LOT of language for this test, because I basically failed the first two tests. In fact, all three of us in my training village did horrible on the previous tests, so we all spent the last three weeks studying Mandinka non-stop. But I totally passed, and now I get to swear-in tomorrow.

So swearing in is going to be very "interesting." The Director of the entire Peace Corps is coming to tour the country, so he will be in attendence for the swearing in. Because of this, the PC is making us put on a little dog and pony show for the Dir. All of the girls in my group had matching Gambian outfits made, and we have to put on a little song and dance show. Also, because the PC Dir heard how awesome I am, he wants to meet me personally. Okay, actually I am meeting him because he is touring the country and my village is one of the stops. The girl that I am replacing did a lot of really good things, and the PC wants to show off the site. We have swearing in in the afternoon, and then a dinner at the Ambassador's house.

Never in my life has shopping been so bad!!! Today we went shopping for items for our houses, and I've never been more annoyed in my life. First, I had to buy a propane tank and a burner for the tank. A couple of us went to the market yesterday and recieved quotes for different items, so we did some bargining, and haggling. (Everyone here in Farjara speaks English, so it wasn't too hard.) I found a place with really nice burners, and I convinced the guy to drop the price. Then today when we showed up, everyone tried to get the guy to drop more, and we basically pissed him off. In the end we lowered the price a little more, but my work yesterday got us the good price. Then I went to buy paint. At this point, things were still pretty interesting. I picked two different colors of blue paint to paint my microscopic house, along with some paint brusheds and a roller. Everyone else seemed to think that we needed to buy hammers, so I thought, why not. Then I bought some random kitchen things. My favorite buy was this really krazy hand-made broom. Just think firebolt or neimbus 3000. Next, I purchased a mattress, and I had to carry it on my head across the road, and then watch the driver attempt to stack 10+ mattresses on top of the PC bus. (Totally not street legal in the US) I also bought some fabric for my curtains, and some other random odds 'n ends. In the fabric store I made friends with the shopkeeper. I met her the day before, and then today when I came back she went on and on about how we were friends (in Mandinka). She ended up giving me her phone number, and said that we were now friends. The whole experience was a little odd, but she had really nice fabrics. It's important to have friends in the right places.

Everything here is great!!! I feel really comfortable here, and half of the time I forget that I am living in Africa. Please write me tons of letters, and don't forget about my bday on Sun!!! I will be visiting Mandinaba on Saturday to meet the Director, and then I have to take a gili-gili back here to Farjara (takes about 1 hour or so, and I only have to change cars two times.) I want to try to make another trip to the office to post again (I'll try to include swearing in) and also post the handful of pics that I have. I really didn't like Kaiaf, so I really did not take too many pics. I hope that things are going well, and look for another post soon!!!

I'm back!!!

2008-04-13T21:27:00.002Z

After two whole months I am FINALLY able to use a computer again!!! I survived training village, and now I have to pass my language test tomorrow. I'm pretty nervous, but one of my teachers promised to pray for me each day. That's five times a day, so hopefully I'll get some help from above.

I just spent the past two months living in Kaiaf, and let me tell you it was a real experience. Kaiaf is located in Kiang, which is one of the poorest parts of the country, so things weren't always very nice. For the most part some of the people were nice, but a good deal of them were pretty rude. As we left the village on our last day we were still dealing with people calling us names.

All the little things that I thought would be horrible (ie pit latrines, bucket baths, going to the pump, etc.) were really not at all bad. I've really come to enjoy bathing under the stars, and i'm getting a nice set of arms from pumping and carrying water every day. Also, the pit latrine is amazing because it doesn't smell, and squating really seems more natural on the body than sitting down for long periods of time. I've also some how magically begun to loose weight on a diet of rice. I started calling it the survivor diet (after the tv show) because all I eat is rice (breakfast, lunch, AND dinner) and the pounds are just melting away.

Kaiaf wasn't that bad (wink, wink). I am super happy to be done with training village. I wasn't sure how much more I could take of being made fun of on a regular basis. On one of the last days that we were in the training village, Kaiaf recieved a donation from some guy from England. The school recieved a new computer lab, and a big screen tv. They also recieved a generator, which they imediately hooked the tv up to the second day. Instead of conserving the generator, they decided to watch football (soccer) games on tv all night. It was a very nice gester, however it was really not thought out. The guy simply dropped off computers and other items to people that have no idea how to even use them. That's the problem with Africa; they've been given too many handouts. Everyone always wants to give money but it really doesn't help the people too much. I've heard stories of village heads using the equipment dropped off by various organizations for their own personal use and then returning it to school right before the organization returns. The worst part of the whole experience was when the guy set off fire works during 7 o'clock prayer. I was walking to a site mate's compound to get some water when I saw a flash. My first thought was lightning, but it's not yet the rainy season. Then I saw/heard another and I honestly thought that we were being bombed. I finally looked up in the sky and saw the fireworks. Most of the people in the village had never even seen fireworks before, and some people were scared. I walked right past the mosque, and everyone there, as well as people in compounds, were attempting to pray over all the noise. All I could think was how rude!

So I no longer go by the name Katie Clifford; I now go by Fatoumata or Fatou. In training village I had the surname Kolley. In my new village I will have the surname Jammeh. I learned to speak Mandinka in training village, and now I will have to Jola as well. I am moving into a Jola-speaking compound in the Jola part of the village, so I guess that I'll just have to learn. All of the people under about 30 can speak English pretty well. It's not the same English that I speak back home in the United States, but it is a version of English that I can understand. I will be moving to Mandinaba next week. I spent three days there last week (Wed, Thurs, and Fri), and I should be returning permanently on Sat. I will be working with the women's group, as well as the youth group. The term "youth" in the Gambia encompasses people up to the age of about 30 or so, so basically I'm really helping out with a young men's group.

I mostly wanted to post just to let people know that I survived and that I was still in Africa. I have my final test tomorrow, so I have to study/cram Mandinka. I'm pretty nervous about the test, but I've studied a lot of phrases that I can use on the test. I am in Farjara all this week. If everything works out, then I will be swearing in on Friday. I promise to write more later this week, and go into more detail.

I hope that everyone is doing well!!! I'm super happy here, and I can't wait to actually get started working as a PCV.

Tomorrow is the big day

2008-02-12T18:26:00.000Z

Okay, honestly right now I am starting to get really nervous!!! Tomorrow we are being dropped off in our training villages where no one speaks english. When meet with our instructors we will be able to speak in english, but other than that, I have to try to remember any Mandinka that I've managed to pick up over the past couple of days. Out of the 16 of us (one person has already dropped) 11 of us will be speaking Mandinka in our permanent villages. There are three of us going to my training village, and we like to call ourselves the "slow learning" group. Basically we are the people that rate ourselves the lowest, and we clearly have the most problems memorizing the language. I will be staying in Karif (or something like that) for my training. It will not be too bad because we are only staying there for like 2 0r 3 weeks, and then we are traveling to a tourist spot for a couple of weeks. Then later in March we will do the same thing again. (I know that I am missing a "we" between when and meet, but the computer would not let me add one.)

This morning we went to a farm and learned about gardening. I'm not sure how well I will do, but everyone keeps telling us that the whole process is very relaxing. We visited the Gambain National Archieves, in Banjul, the country capital. I tried to read and see as much as I could, but we really did not have a lot of time. I got a kick out of the fact that The Gambia has also managed to completely destroy their land as well. (or at least the settlers I guess.) We then visited the marketplace which there are no words for. Immediately we were swamped, and everything was really dirty. Females are supposed to wear wraps in the villages, so we all had to pick up some fabric. I ended up getting enough for four skirts (which will probably make me look like a huge jerk since I'll probably have more than most people). I'll have extra fabric, so I should be able to make some sort of bag or something like that. I also was followed by a man that kept announcing that he was my husband. We spent most of our time hiding in the fabric tent, but when we all gathered to get on the bus, things got horrible!!! We were attacked by the "bumsters" (aka men that try to sell items, and sometimes even themselves.) They all thought that we were from Europe or on vacation, and they were really annoying. One of the girls in my group gave the "nasty finger" by mistake ( when you are shaking hands with someone and you tough their palm you are basically giving them an invitation for other things), and the guy started stroking her arms until one of the older PCVs who is almost done with his two years knocked the guy's arm away. Everything was really dirty, and I really prefer the city environment where the PC office and transit house is located. It's still a city, but things are actually a lot cleaner, and the people are way less scary. The PC office is also right down the street from the American Ambassey (not spelled right).

I'm going to charge up both of my camera batteries tonight, so I can take a lot of good pictures. Get my numbers from my mom, and call me sometime if you can afford the phone card. (make sure that she gives you the AfriCell number, which is the number that I gave her when she called me on the GamCell number the other night).

I cannot believe that I've been in Africa for like six days now!!! Things are so much different than back home. Sometimes I get really nervous, but then I just think about the fact that this whole experience is so much fun and really life-changing. I got some really great pictures today in Banjul, but I did not have a chance to get to my computer to put them on a thumb drive. I wanted to make sure that I got a good spot in the computer line, so I jumped out of "the coaster" with some of the other people in my group. (The coaster is this huge, 26 passenger bus/van vehicle that the PC uses to transport us until we are out on our own.)

I'm guessing that I will be able to get to a computer when we reach Tenanbum in a couple of weeks, but I'm not 100-percent sure. This may be my last time writing for a while, so good luck to everyone. Things are going to be insane, but I'll be okay. Most of the volunteers have said that they just started to cry when they were dropped off in village for the first time, but sooner or later, things start to work out. Bye, and look for letters in the mail if you gave me your address (or if my mom did).

Pictures

2008-02-11T21:16:00.001Z

Okay, try pictures again.

Pictures...

2008-02-11T14:07:00.000Z

Okay, maybe the pictures will work now. I set the pics to public, so hopefully they will work.

I can't type much now because we have a class in like 20 minutes, and I have to run back (through piles of sand in my cheap Wal-Mart sandals) to where we are staying.

We've been getting a TON of shots, and we move to our training villages on Wednesday. (That's when things should get real interesting...)

We have a three-hour ride to look forward to, and we have been learning random things about malaria, water, and everything else that might kill us along the way.

Hopefully I will be able to get back over here before we leave, but if not, than I'll talk to you when I can.

I plan on taking A LOT of pictures, and when I have a lot of time I'll try to upload them.

I hope that things are going well with all of you!!! = )

Update

2008-02-10T14:53:00.000Z

I added some photos today as well. The other post that was added is from the other day. I found an internet connection where we are staying, so I may try to get on later this evening.

It looks like it is going to be REALLY hard to get on the internet for the next two months (after wed when we move to our training villages), so it may be better if you write to me via regular mail instead.

In The Gambia now

2008-02-10T14:35:00.000Z

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're here...

2008-02-08T19:19:00.000Z

I do not have much time for this post, but we flew into The Gambia at about 9:30pm. We ended up taking a detour to Liberia to deliver parts for another airplane that was stuck there, and that added on a lot of time. Our six-hour flight turned into an 11-hour flight complete with 2.5 hours of sit time on the runway in Liberia.

We are spending the first five days in the city, and then we will be moving out into our training villages. I'll write a more detailed blog another time. In the future I plan on writing these things before hand, and then coming over here to the PC office to post.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I made it safely, and so far things are going well. Today I got a rabies shot, and we are learning all of the rules.

My First Day

2008-02-05T03:32:00.000Z

Today was my first day of staging, and things are going well.
My first goal of this entire experience was to actually make it to D.C. with all of my luggage, and I made it here!!! I'm also proud that I did not have a nervous breakdown as I continued to pack and re-pack all of my items over and over again.
My day started this morning at 4am when I woke up to finish getting ready to go. (I had a wonderful two hour nap) I made it to the airport, and of course my carry-on bag was inspected in security, so I had to stand there barefoot watching a man poke through my bag. The flight to Miami was short, and I even got to sit in the emergency exit row which was nice because I was able to spread out and enjoy the flight. My flight arrived in Miami around 8:50am, and by the time we waited for the people to come out to the plane and park it, ride the shuttle, and make it upstairs, the time was 9:07am and my connecting flight departed at 9:20am. I took off with my huge carry-on bag, and I made it just as they were closing the gate. I got some flack from the gate guy, and I just told him that we sat in the plane parking lot for over 10 minutes. I got to my row 11 seat, and all of the over-head bins were full, so I had to put my bag in the over-head bin in row 42!!! ( it was really fun to wait for EVERY SINGLE PERSON to walk past me so I could go gather my bag. The only advantage was that I did not have to wait at all at the luggage pick-up.) I had the window with the engine below, but I was all alone in all three seats!!! I moved over to the window, put up the armrest next to me, and just sort of spread out. I was alone for quite some time until someone else moved to the aisle seat. I was shocked when the flight attendent gave me the ENTIRE can of soda without me asking her to do so.
I made the mistake of reading the book sent from the Peace Corps entitled, " A Few Minor Adjustments." The book only introduced more things for me to be nervous about. As we were landing we flew past the momuments, and I waved to the President in the White House. Once I got there I had the pleasure of trying to navigate my HUGE backpack on my back, a rolling suitcase, my nike duffel bag carry-on thrown across my chest, AND my crocs regular-sized backpack half dangling from my shoulder. I now have random bruises all over my body, and my bra straps indinations may forever be on my shoulders.
I took a five-minute shuttle ride to the hotel, and me and all of my bags checked into the hotel. A few minutes later my rommate showed up, and we spoke briefly. I didn't want to be rude, but I had to excuse myself because I really needed to eat something before staging started.
Lectures/group activites are never good on a couple of hours of sleep. I almost fell asleep many times, and there were quite a few of us doing the head-bop. I spoke to one of the Peace Corps people, and he told me that a new person made the list. I was joking with him that if you tried to pack everything on the packing list, it was impossible to get it all in. He was laughing, and he explained that he tried to tell that to the new person, but he guesses that it didn't stick. I was glad to see that other people had the exact same problem as me. We are all going to be getting a lot of packages over our first few months of service. Everyone was really nice, and I think that we are all going to have a lot of fun.
There will be 17 of us heading to The Gambia on Wed. Now that I am here, I'm starting to get nervous. That's okay to me because it just makes the whole experience more worth while. Today I read a quote on the wall that stuck in my mind: "A turtle can't walk if it doesn't push its head outside its shell." Even though I am nervous and really scared, I just have to get out there and do this or I may miss out on a lot of things in life. I am about to start something that might possibly be the most exciting thing I do in my life, and I can't wait to share it with all of you along the way. I'll write when I can, and I look forward to hearing feedback from all of you. Email me, or just leave a post right here on the blog.

I'll write again tomorrow if I have time. (Note: This blog is set to the time in The Gambia.)

ps if things are not clear, or there are spelling mistakes, I wrote this when I was really tired, and I really do not feel like proof reading it.

Things should be REAL interesting...

2008-01-18T05:55:00.000Z

Okay, I'm beginning to think that most people think that I am crazy for willingly moving to a third world country. I can tell that people think that it will be an interesting experience, but I can also tell that most people will never have the nerve to actually do something like this. Deciding to join the Peace Corps, and making the commitment to move to The Gambia, West Africa, is by far the most random thing that I have ever done, but I can't wait.

Why the Peace Corps?
It would be a wonderful story if I could say that throughout my childhood and teenage years I dreamed of serving overseas in the Peace Corps, but that's not the case at all. I'm often asked, "why the Peace Corps?" I then give my standard answer: "oh I wasn't ready for graduate school, and with an undergraduate degree in Psychology there wasn't much else to do." Some how that standard answer sounds so much better than what really happened.

The summer before my senior year (that is a year-and-a-half ago), while most of my peers were deciding what graduate school they wanted to attend, I began to wonder what I was going to do with the rest of my life. The only real decision I had previously made was that I was not at all ready to attend grad school!!! After spending 17 of my 22 years of life in school, I was ready for a break!!! I knew that I wouldn't be able to find a job with my degree, so I was left with the option to teach school (sorry for downplaying that Mom, teachers really do rock), or figuring out something else. I looked up AmeriCorps because I heard about other people in my situation joining while they "figured out what they wanted to do with their lives." I then discovered the Peace Corps, read all about the incentives, and then said, "why not." I wavered back-and- forth for months. Okay, confession, I actually didn't even apply until an entire month AFTER I graduated, but this was a HUGE decision, and I was really intimidated by the application. About one week after I submitted the application I had my interview, and then all of the craziness began!!! Getting through the application, medical clearance, and assignment has got to be more time-consuming and stressful than serving will ever be!!!

Africa... that must be exciting.
I never really had a real passion about going to Africa either. (Are you seeing a pattern forming here?) Africa came about during my interview when my recruiter told me that I had to pick a place that I would like to go.
Me: Um… Africa. Okay, sorry, that's really general, you probably want a country.
Recruiter: No, that's great, I can work really well with continents, give me another.
Me: Um… South America.
Recruiter: Great, and another.
Me: Asia.

Shortly after the interview I got a call from my recruiter informing me that I was nominated for a program in my first choice, Africa!!! She was so excited, and all I could think was um okay, oh yea!!!
At this point, I really truly am excited. Sure, I'm being sent to the one continent in the PC were 46% of the Volunteers are without electricity, but since the writer's strike will probably continue for some time, I really won't miss too much in the world of TV. And sadly, I really think that I will only miss TV. Okay, and air conditioning, and refrigerated foods.

You won't have electricity???
I could share pictures of living conditions, but I think that it's better for everyone if I wait and "show them off" after I get there. I won't have electricity, or even running water, but it can't be that hard, right? People lived long before any of these "luxuries" were available. I’ll also be sure to share all of the “interesting” things that I eat along the way.

I’m too stressed out to be nervous!!!
I'm often asked "how do you feel about all of this," or something else along those lines. Honestly, I really have no real emotions at this point. I'm extremely stressed out about getting my things onto the plane (who has ever heard of linear inches anyway?), and I really cannot wrap my mind around what this entire experience will be like. Thankfully, I'm not going into this with the feelings that I am going to save all of the people of The Gambia. I really just want to be a productive member of my community, and hopefully that I can make some sort of contribution to the place that will probably change my life forever.

I still have a little more than two weeks (Feb. 4th) before I leave, and I still have so much to do. Because I've made the decision to apply for graduate school while I'm in The Gambia (that should be a blast), I have to take the GRE before I leave. Rather than getting the GRE out of the way in the fall (like a normal, level-headed person would have done), I finally made the decision to take the GRE in the middle of the night while I was freaking out what I would do after I completed my service as a PCV. (If you know me at all, the fact that I sat up late at night worrying about something that is two-and-a-half years down the road makes perfect sense!!!)

Keeping up with this blog
I promise to update this thing once I’m in The Gambia whenever I have the chance. I still have no idea where I’ll be living, or what my internet situation will be like. I plan on going to internet cafes, or if I’m close enough to ride my bike there, using the internet at the PC house.
I’m sure that I’ll have more to say before I leave, but that probably won’t be able to “blog” until after I take the GRE. There is a PC tradition of posting a packing list, so once I’m all packed up, I’ll be sure to include a list. (In a few months I’ll post another list of all the items that I bought that I never use) In the next couple of weeks if you hear a story about a girl weighing luggage on the scale at Publix, you can smile knowing that that was me.

How to send things to Katie

2008-01-17T05:50:00.000Z

I "borrowed" these recommendations from PCVs that are already serving in The Gambia. I'll add more to the list when I have a better idea of what is going on.

Purchase international postage (approx. 90 cents for a letter, or 3 regular stamps) and write "Air Mail/Par Avion" on the envelope.

Padded envelopes and small/medium boxes work best for packages (large boxes may take a long time to reach me). If you're sending a lot, the post office has a flat-rate box for $37.

Label the green customs forms with "school supplies," "religious materials," "food," "personal health supplies" etc. DO NOT write down anything valuable (like batteries, solar radio, etc.) even if they are in the box. You can use generic terms like "electronics."
Avoid sending expensive items, cash or checks.

Number your letters, it will let me know if I've missed one.

Packages may be subject to intense heat, small mammals and theft.