Adventures in West Africa

In October, Josiah and I traveled through Senegal, Mali, and Guinea. It was a great trip, overall, but not everything went as smoothly as planned. There were more than a handful of situations which tested our patience and tempers. Luckily, we turned out to be good travel partners. When we found ourselves extremely bored or anxious about something, Josiah kept us laughing with his unending reserve of poor jokes, random theoretical questions, or funny stories. Josiah combated the boring and tedious with witty and funny stuff. I kept us occupied with discussions of life, love, and spirituality. Between the two of us, we were able to stay sane through our more trying moments. We also found amusement in keeping a tally of various aspects of our trip. Here are some of the numbers from our tally. (keep in mind, this was over a period of only 11 days).

Number of different currencies we used: 4
Number of international borders crossed: 5
Number of attempted bribes: 3
Number of encounters with aggressive officers carrying guns: 3
Number of times Kristy had to prevent Josiah from getting arrested: 3
Number of different types of public transport vehicles taken: 7
Number of hours spent waiting for transport: 57
Number of hours spent actually traveling: 78
Total number of travel hours: 135
Number of times we had to say “I don’t speak French. A nani Pulaar?” (“Do you speak Pulaar?”):

approximately 20 times a day
Number of cups of coffee consumed (each): 28
Number of times we ate meals consisting of a combination of beef and egg: at least once a day
Number of cans of tuna we hauled along on the trip and consumed: 20
Number of salads consumed: 1 (each)
Number of times we were called “toubab”: 10 times, and all within the final 8 hours of the trip
Number of kilometers hiked through the beautiful forests of Guinea: 24
Number of open soars on Kristy’s feet after the 18km hike: 10
Number of stressful situations that occurred in Guinea (excluding travel situations): 0

Josiah and I think these numbers speak for themselves, but for those who would like a little further explanation, here is the story our adventure…

The logical place to begin a trip east from The Gambia is from the bustling “city” of Basse, which has a large car garage with vehicles traveling to all major towns in Senegal and surrounding countries on most days of the week. The logical choice, however, was not the way we decided to go. If you look on a map, my village- Fatoto- is far closer to Tamaba Kounda (the first major town we would be traveling through) than Basse. Leaving from Basse would have meant traveling west from Fatoto to Basse, then back east again to Tamba. Besides, Josiah wanted to come visit my village for a few days before the trip. So we decided to take a “short cut” to Tamba from Fatoto.
The only problem with leaving from Fatoto was figuring out how we would get to Senegal. I am less than 15km from the eastern border of The Gambia and Senegal, but transport East from Fatoto is practically non-existent. My brother, Samba, told me about these tractors, which pick up bags of sugar in the Fatoto market and transport them to the border town, Picadus, in Senegal (sugar in Senegal is much more expensive than in The Gambia so they smuggle it across the border, then sell it for a profit). Samba assured me that the sugar tractors ran every day. So that was our plan… to hitch a ride on a sugar tractor to the border, and catch public transport from there. (I have to throw in a cheesy pun here. When I told my site-mate, Ian, about our plans to ride with the sugar tractor, he said “That should be a sweet ride!” ha ha.)
Due to the fact that we live in Africa, and should never have counted on something which happens consistently every day to happen on the day we want it to… we discovered the day before we were planning to depart for our trip that there was a good chance that no sugar tractor would be leaving the next day. They had hauled too many bags the day before, and probably wouldn’t have a full load to haul the following day. So we had to devise another form of transport. We considered walking it. But 13km with our large packs seemed a little ambitious. I spoke with one of my friends, Cherno, about hiring his donkey cart to give us a ride. He said he would be happy to let us use the donkey cart, but his donkey was pregnant, and could not make the journey. So then we asked a second man, Omar, if we could hire his donkey to use with Cherno’s cart. He agreed, so now we began negotiating the price. Negotiating and bargaining are the way things work here, but it can get tricky – especially when you have to negotiate with 2 people for the same service. After about an hour of negotiations, we came to an agreement and paid our money. They told us to come at 6:30 in the morning and we would leave.
The next morning, the donkey cart was only an hour late (not a bad wait for transport in Africa). Our “chauffeurs” were the two adolescent sons of Omar, the owner of the donkey. The road was very bad. In fact, it’s difficult to even call it a road in some places. Needless to say, it was a bumpy ride, and I felt lucky that I only fell off of the cart once. When we weren’t holding on for dear life, we were enjoying the scenery. We passed through villages and areas of The Gambia that most people never see. We felt the donkey cart ride was an appropriate way to begin our trip (thus began the tally of number of different types of public transport vehicles we used).
From Picadus, we caught a ride with a Gile Gile going to Tamba. Here, we were excited to find a restaurant that served hamburgers (hamburgers are a delicacy for us). The waitress asked if we wanted hamburgers or a king burgers. We had to laugh. The answer was obvious. “Bring us King Burgers, of course.” A king burger is a hamburger served French-style: two hamburger patties with a fried egg on top. Senegal is one of the many West African countries previously colonized by the French. Therefore, the main language spoken in Senegal is French, the currency is the CFA (Central African Franc), and much of the culture (including the food) has a French influence as well. Hence, the King Burger. We were so impressed by our King Burgers in Tamba, and we knew that all of the countries we would be traveling through are French-speaking countries, so we decided to make it a goal to eat as many king burgers as possible on this trip. (Thus, the beginning of another tally: number of king burgers or other combinations of beef and egg eaten on the trip). Obviously, nutrition was not a huge priority for us. This was our vacation. Bring on the king burgers.
After gorging ourselves on King Burgers, we found a bar that was playing the big football game between The Gambia and Senegal. (Just a side note here- by “football,” I’m talking about the game that everyone in the world besides Americans call football… not the US version of football, which involves very little contact between the foot and the ball). This was an important game for both Gambians and Senegalese, since they have traditionally been huge rivals. We sat in the very back and quietly rooted for The Gambia. Luckily, we left before the end of the game, which ended in a tie score between the two countries, knocking Senegal out of the play-offs and causing riots throughout the country.
The next day, we left Tamba, headed to the town of Kadira, which lies on the border between Senegal and Mali, and boarded a large bus for Bamako (the capital of Mali). At the border, we encountered our first aggressive officer with a gun (the first of yet another tally). He was the immigration officer. It seems that the basic role of an immigration officer is to collect all the passports and ID cards of the passengers in a vehicle and inspect them for authenticity and/or the presence of visas, if required. By holding on to everyone’s ID cards, they are able to collect bribes by demanding money in exchange for the return of your passport or ID card. And this guy was determined to get paid. He denied being able to speak any language besides French, which forced us to solicit help from one of the few English-speaking passengers on our bus. He was a nice man who was unfortunate enough to help us by translating for this belligerent officer. What caused the trouble was that we did not have visas for Mali, but this was not our fault. The Malian embassy in The Gambia does not issue visas, and told us that we would be able to buy them at the border. The officer told us our visas would cost 15,000 CFA (about $33) a piece, and we would also have to pay an additional 33,000 CFA each as a “penalty.” After many words were passed through our poor translator, the officer was getting very angry and shouting at all three of us in French. Josiah was loosing his composure, and I was forced to take over negotiations. Eventually, I decided to call the Peace Corps Safety and Security officer in Mali, but when I pulled out the phone to make the call, the officer angrily conceded to giving us our visas for 15,000 CFA a piece and dismissed the “penalty”. Unfortunately, when he realized he would not be able to get his bribe from us, he held the ID card of our “translator,” requiring him to pay 5,000 CFA before getting it back. Upon returning to the bus, we refunded the man’s money. We felt terrible that he was forced to pay simply for helping us.
Due to our delay at the border and several other long stops along the way, we didn’t arrive in Bamako until 3:30 in the morning. After a few hours of sleep, we found our way to the Peace Corps office in Bamako. This was on a Monday morning. One of the things we needed to do in Mali was fill out our ballots for the American elections. The reason why we needed to do this in Mali was because Peace Corps The Gambia had decided that the way they would get all Gambian PCV’s to vote was by sending ballots on October mail-run. They sent a message at the end of September to all PCV’s, stating that we should be at our sites when mail-run arrived so that we could receive the write-in ballots and vote. Mail-run would bring all the ballots back to the capitol, and they would mail them all out together. Unfortunately, Josiah and I would both be traveling when mail run came to our sites in October. I completed and mailed the paperwork for my absentee ballot in April, but had not received it yet. Before the trip, I called the office, searching for any alternative we may have to still be able to vote in the elections. Our office called ahead to the Malian office, and found out that we could vote through them, and they would mail the ballots for us… so that’s what we decided to do.
Unfortunately, we arrived at the office on Columbus Day… Not a holiday celebrated in Africa unless you work for an American institution like the Peace Corps. So the office was closed. We would have to vote on Tuesday. In the meantime, we found a room with the Catholic Mission in Bamako and set out to explore the city. Bamako is huge, busy, and crowded. The streets are packed with traffic and road-side vendors. There was much to do and see. We walked through the immense market, including the “fetish,” or witchcraft market, which consisted of vendors selling all sorts of creepy items: animal heads and bones, a variety of herbs, plants, animal skins, and much more. The street food in Bamako is delicious. I found fried dough patties filled with ground beef and boiled eggs, which I nicknamed “fried king burgers.”

One of our favorite places in Bamako was a bar and restaurant called ‘the Apaloosa”. Picture this if you can: The owners are French, the cocktail waitresses are Ukrainian and Malian, and the wait staff are Malian. The owners have a strange affinity for the American West. The place was full of pictures of Native American Indian Chiefs and cowboy paraphernalia, as well as other American pop culture items. There was a large American flag with a picture of Jimi Hendrix printed over the stars. There were American license plates and bumper stickers. Josiah said the walls looked a lot like a TIG Fridays or Chilis. And the best part: the Malian waiters wore complete cowboy ensembles, including cowboy hats.
We enjoyed Bamako, but we struggled with language. The official language in Mali is French, but the dominant native language is Bombara, which is similar to the Gambian language, Mandinka. Both Josiah and I were taught Pulaar, the language of the Fula tribe. Fulas are all over West Africa, and we were lucky enough to find a few in Bamako, but not many. And although we’re both familiar with Mandinka, neither of us speak it well enough for it to help us understand or communicate with Bomaras. In addition, neither of us speak French.
One unfortunate incident occurred while in Bamako: while walking back to our room from the large market, I was taking pictures of the streets of Bamako with my brand new camera. There is so much to see on these streets. We passed a crowded alley full of people shopping and selling goods. I snapped a picture of the alley, which, unfortunately, was right next to a large bank. In front of the bank was a security officer (this is #2 on the aggressive officer with a gun tally)… The man shouted for us to come to him. Looking back on it now, I wish we had just kept walking, but instead, we obeyed and went to him. He was pointing at my camera and shouting at us in French. I may not be able to speak French, but I could understand that he was upset about the picture I had just taken. I was about to turn my camera on to show him that the picture I took was a picture of the market… not a picture of him. At this point, he and second officer both grabbed me by the arms as he tried to pry the camera out of my hands. I was holding onto it tightly. At some point in the chaos, I heard Josiah’s voice in my ear: “Kristy, let go of the camera.” I let go, and the officer took the camera and put it in his pocket. I asked Josiah “Why did you tell me to let go? Now he’s going to keep my camera.” Josiah responded, “Well, you had two men with guns grab you violently and try to take your camera, but you refused to let go of it. I was worried about what they would do next.”
Josiah went to find a phone to call the Peace Corps office while I stayed with the officer, trying my best to communicate with him. After much pleading, we finally went inside the bank to talk to the bank manager, who also could not speak English. Eventually, I did get my camera back, but it was a grueling process. And being a Peace Corps Volunteer is what probably saved the day. In Africa, white skin is a symbol of wealth. Almost everyone believes that being white means being rich. It helps that I can speak one African language and that I have a better-than-average understanding of West African culture. However, I am still white, which makes me a red flag for greedy people looking for money. As often as I’ve found myself trying to reason with people who tell me I am rich, I also can’t help but understand why they believe this. By American standards, I am nothing close to rich ( I live off a few dollars a day), but in comparison to most people here, I am still rich. The camera I was using was a gift from my family. It was probably worth a half a year’s salary to that man. It didn’t justify his aggressive actions, but his ignorance is based on truth.

After this encounter, we decided to cut our trip to Mali short by a day or two. I was ready to head to Guinea, where Fula is a common language, and we would be hiking through forests in the mountains. We arrived at the garase (place for taking public transport) in Bamako at nine in the morning on a Thursday. The way transport works in many places is like this: you join a vehicle, pay for your ticket, then wait until all the seats are full. I've had to wait hours in The Gambia before for one vehicle to fill before we can leave. That's why, in The Gambia, I often travel in a vehicle called a "set-plas," which is a french word borrowed from the Senegalese, meaning "seven seats." These are what we would call a station wagon in the states. In a set-plas, one person sits in the passenger seat next to the driver, three in the middle, and three in the back. These vehicles are more expensive than the common Gile Gile, but they fill faster and make fewer stops, making them ideal for traveling longer distances. In The Gambia and Senegal, drivers are penalized if it is discovered that they have more than seven people in one of these vehicles. Hence, the "set-plas" part of it.

In Guinea, however, the roads are too poor for larger vehicles like Gile Gile's and Busses. So the "set-plas" is the primary means of transport. But they have no regulations for how many people can be seated inside of one. So Guinean drivers typically squeeze about 9 inside: 2 in the front seat, 4 in the middle, and 3 in the back. Then they allow other passengers to ride on top of the vehicle. So it was one of these vechicles that we were taking to Guinea. Josiah and I were numbers 4 and 5. We still had 4 passengers left before we could leave. So we waited, and we waited, and we waited. It's amazing how time seems to have a different quality to it when you are just waiting around. I made friends with a nice Fula lady who was selling food in the garase. I sat with her all day long and watched her fry up pieces of plantains, sweet potatoes and potatoes. Josiah wandered most of the day. Sometimes he would sit in the car. Sometimes he would join me and my new friend, Fatoumata. Sometimes he just wandered around. He became particularly attached to the senile old lady in our vehicle that we nicknamed "crazy," after we found her talking to her reflection in the car window. Josiah and Crazy would sit in the car together and share food... she would pass him peices of oranges, and he would bring her some of the fried plantains that Fatoumata had cooked. After waiting for 10 hours (at this point, it's dark outside), the driver told us we would have to come back in the morning. We found a hotel room, slept a few hours, and returned early the next morning.

Our car finally left at 8:30... we were excited to be moving on. At the border of Mali and Guinea, we encountered our third agressive officer with a gun. Actually, he was quite calm compared to our first two, but was still requiring us to give him a bribe. I called the Peace Corps Saftey and Security Officer in Guinea, and handed the phone over to the immigration officer... Yet another incident where it was good to be a Peace Corps Volunteer.

After traveling for 21 hours, we arrived in the town of Pita, where we stayed for one day and one night. Josiah slept for most of the day, while I walked around town and into the market. Pita is a large town surrounded by mountains and rivers. The weather was cool and sunny. The people were almost all Fulas... so I could actually talk to them. The food was delicious, and cheep. I ate a lot of local fruit. Oranges, guavas and a strange-looking fruit the locals called sop-sop.

The next day, we took transport to the small village of Douke, where a man name Hassan Bah (a Fula), runs a sort of eco-lodge experience. "Eco" in the sense that you live in a hut, use a guest house, and bathe outside (This is really no different from how I live in village regularly, so it was kind of like being "home"). Then, either Hassan or his brother Abdoulie, take the guests on hiking tours through the forests to see amazing rock formations, cliffs, valleys, and waterfalls. They also provide all of your meals. We only stayed for 2 days, but I wish we could have stayed longer. The scenery was amazing. The weather was beautiful. It was exactly what I needed after our hectic travels through Mali.

We went on a nice, easy hike our first day there. On the second day, Abdoulie took us for a strenuous 18km hike that they have named "Chutes and Ladders." The first 10 -12 km of the hike is all down-hill through high grasses, rocky paths and overgrown trails. It was beautiful, but I couldn't help thinking "We're still going down. We'll have to begin going up at some point." We stopped for lunch by a waterfall before beginning our upward journey, and it's a good thing we did, because we really needed all the energy we could find. This was the part that earned the hike the title of "Chutes and Ladders." We were essentially climbing up a steep canyon wall. In some places, we used a steep and rocky path, but in other places, we had to climb ladders. The ladders are locally constructed from thick tree branches and peices of bark. They were very sturdy, but slippery in places. In some instances, the ladders were positioned right next to waterfalls, which provided a steady mist of water, making the wood slippery. I lost count of the number of ladders we climbed... perhaps 20? And the "trails" we used in between the ladders were just as challenging (continuously steep and slippery in places). I'm thankful that I managed to keep my balance. Josiah called the trail the "stair master." It never really flattened out until we were finished with our hike. We just climbed straight up for 8 km. I was wearing my new Chaoco hiking sandals, which still need some more "breaking-in." By the end of the hike, I counted 10 open cuts and blisters on my feet. As exhausted and soar as we were after finishing the hike, it was by far my favorite part of our trip. And here's an amazing fact: that path we hiked on is a main route for locals traveling between the villages on top of the canyon and in the valley below. The women climb those slippery ladders in flip-flops and with loads on their heads!

After 2 days in Douke, we said farewell to Hassan and his family and headed to Labe, a crowded town with a busy market place. We walked around the town, bought some fruit from the market, ate some good food (including more king burgers), drank coffee and good beer, and found a cheep but clean place to stay the night. The next day, we decided to begin our journey back to The Gambia. This time, we headed to the car park fully prepared to wait a while, even stay an extra night if we needed to. After waiting for 11 hours, we were told there would be no cars leaving directly for Basse (possibly for several days), so we joined a vehicle going to Senegal. Once again, it was 10 people crammed into a station wagon. They told us we would have to share the front passenger seat. Thus began the most physically uncomfortable, sleep-deprived, 21 hour journey of my life. Looking back on the experience now, we have had a few good laughs, but at the time, it was pretty miserable. When we were finally dropped off in Senegal, we were thankful to get out of the car and stretch our cramped muscles. We waited a few more hours for yet another ride to Velengara, Senegal. This should have been a quick trip- about an hour- but our gile gile ran out of gas, so everyone in the vehicle had to get out and wait for a few more hours while the drivers went to find gas. Finally they returned, added a little bit of gasoline, push-started the vehicle, and eventually dropped us off in Velingara. At this point, we are less than 15 km from the border of The Gambia and Senegal, and less than 25 km from Basse. In Velingara, we had to deal with yet another money scam, which almost required another phone call to Peace Corps. Fortunately, we settled it ourselves before it got too far. After waiting for yet another vehicle to fill, we finally piled into a "bush-taxi," which started after several pushes around the car park and spouted out a bunch of toxic fumes. At this point, the sun had set, and the road to Basse was terrible and full of huge mud puddles. We spent more time pushing the vehicle when it would get stuck or stall than we did actually inside of the vehicle. At one point, I realized I was standing knee deep in a large mud puddle and had lost my flip-flop somewhere... And we still had to go through customs and immigration for The Gambia.

About 37 hours after beginning our journey from Labe, we finally arrived in Basse, covered in mud, and absolutely exhausted. Traveling in West Africa is a truly unique experience. I'm happy that I did it, but as they like to say here... "It's not easy!"

So that's the whole trip, in perhaps more detail than it needed to be. We ended up coming back a few days earlier than planned, so we spent one whole day sleeping, and two more days just relaxing in Basse before heading back to our sites. It was quite an adventure!

Today is September 11th. The new group swears-in as Peace Corps Vounteers tomorrow. They are very excited and quite ready to finish with training and get on with the rest of their service here. And I agree... it's been a busy 10 weeks. Since they arrived here on July 3rd, my life has been a blur of traveling between Fatoto and various training sessions. But my brief visits to Fatoto this summer were calm and relaxing. It rained there every day in August, which kept the temperatures down and made it possible for me to spend time lying in bed, listening to the rain patter on my family's corrogate roof and reading books. I've always enjoyed rainy days, but after the 3 months of living through temperatures in the 110's and 120's, I have a whole new aprreciation for rain, or even just clouds. The country has undergone it's rainy season transformation. Areas that were sandy, brown, and barren are all lush and green now. The roads, which are difficult enough to travel in the dry season are just patches of mud, with scattered lakes and numerous potholes. Every available patch of land has been sowed with seeds of millet, rice, and corn. Most of these plants are already taller than I am.
When it was not raining, I was outside in my garden, weeding and composting and sowing new seeds. Those who sent me seeds from the states will be happy to hear that I've managed to get some of them to grow, including zucinni, cucumber, cilantro, basil, sunflowers, and watermellon. In addition, I have three garden beds full of tomato plants, one bed of bell pepper plants, and a few sickly-looking cabage plants. Nothing has fruited yet, but some of my plants have begun to flower. I also intercropped squash, pumpkin, and watermellon in my family's cous fields, which have also begun to grow nicely. I've discovered a new passion for gardening that I never knew I had before now. Sometimes I wonder what my Peace Corps experience would be like if I could just plant seeds and work in gardens all day. I hope that I'll have the time keep up with it once school starts.
I will be heading back to Fatoto on Sunday. School was supposed to open this week, but in typical Gambian fashion, few teachers, headmasters, or students actually show up for the first week of school... so I'm not actually missing anything. I'm excited and hesitant to get back into the classroom. I am working on a few projects that I'd like to implement in my school and my community this year. If I manage to do it all, it will be a busy year, once again. In addition, I'm planning on taking a few weeks off of school next month and actually getting out of The Gambia. Josiah and I have decided to do a little bit of traveling. Originally, we planned on traveling to Sierra Leone, but after researching the costs of that trip, we've decided to do a slightly different trip. The visa itself for Sierra Leonne is $100. There are less expensive countries to travel through, so we will be traveling through Senegal, Mali, and Guinea. I'm really looking forward to it. Now that I've traveled all of my little slice of West Africa, I'm ready to see some more!

Training

The past three weeks have seemed to pass by in a blur... After finishing the planning sessions for PST, I had two or three blessed days to relax. One of these days was my 3oth birthday (June 30th). Luckily, most of my closest PCV friends were able to share it with me. When they asked what I wanted to do, I told them I wanted an American cook-out. So we grilled burgers, ate potato salad and garden salad, listened to music and just relaxed. It was perfect. Then a few days later, the pace of my life picked-up again...

The new group of education trainees arrived on July 3rd. I spent one hectic week in Kombo with them, running from one session to the next, spending time with them between and after their training sessions, and trying to sqeeze in my own meetings and work on secondary projects on the side. I've enjoyed getting to know the trainees and being a part of the training process so far, despite the long hours. They are so full of energy and motivation. In some ways, it has re-charged me a little too. I'm excited for them and all of the things they hope to achieve! I've especially gotten to know the four trainees that are learning to speak Pulaar, which is the language I learned (am still learning, actually). On Thursday, the trainees left for their training villages, and I went went them. I spent 3 days in a village called Fula Kunda, which was only 4km from my old training village, Jiroff, so I was able to go back and visit my old family for a few hours. It was nice to be back in my old training village when I could actually have converstations with people! The rest of the time, I spent with the trainees. In the beginning, I helped them set up things like their water filters and bed-nets, but I basically just answered a lot of their questions and provided a little emotional support. They seem to be going through the usual things that happen on your first move to village. Stomach issue, language communication problems, getting used to eating the food, missing family and friends, etc. A few of them had leaky houses or insect issues. In the beginning, these things can be overwhelming, but I think they're doing great despite it all. After only two days, they already started working together in the garden. A nice thing for me was that the four of them gave me thank-you letters and a little gift bag filled with treats they brought from the states to say thanks!

Tomorrow, I will be traveling back upcountry. I have been gone for over three weeks now. I miss Fatoto and I miss my family. I'm looking forward to getting back. It will only be a short trip though, because I will be meeting the trainees in Tendaba in less than two weeks! This summer will involve a lot of traveling for me, but I'm looking foward to some of the work I'll be doing. I'm sure September will come again before I know it....

Fudon

For special occasions, African women like to dye their hands and feet in different patterns, using a plant they call Fudon. My sister, Salimatou (who lives in Senegal but was visiting last month) did my feet and her own.

Scorpion

With the rains come all sorts of small creatures that have been in hiding through the hot season, including scorpions. This little guy was found right behind my back yard, hiding under a brick. We also found two more in my compound recently and my friend, Alieu, got a nasty sting from one the other day.

Neem insect repellant

One activity I did with my science club was making making insect repellant. Leaves from the Neem tree naturally repell insects, so we extracted the insect repellant from the leaves by boiling them in water and using the water to make the lotion. The students sold the insect repellant in the community to raise money for the science club.

Challenges from the last few months

I have just finished one more “chapter” in my life here in Africa. School is finished for the school year, I have finally prepared my garden and planted some of my seeds (including some of the seeds that were mailed to me from the US… lets keep our fingers crossed that they will grow here!), and I have also been coping, internally, with some serious cultural issues that have effected me on a deep emotional level (more on this later, perhaps). Between my work, extra projects, my emotional journey, and the continuous heat since February, the past few months have gone by in a blur. On Monday, I traveled from Fatoto to the Kombos to begin my training and preparation for PST (Pre-Service-Training) of the new group, who will be arriving on Thursday. It was the first time I have made the entire trip in a day, by myself. The trip took about 10 hours (which is making pretty good time for travel conditions in The Gambia, despite the fact that it’s less than 500 km), and I spent a good deal of this day reflecting on the whirlwind of events that have consumed my life recently. Since arriving, I have been caught-up in a series of training sessions, meetings, and reconnecting with friends, so today is the first opportunity that I have had to sit down and write about some of these things.

So first, some school stories....
My last trip to Kombo at the end of April for IST (In-Service-Training) took me from my classes for about a week and half. So upon returning to Fatoto, I was scrambling to make up the classes that I missed. With the limited time I have to teach, it makes it difficult to make-up for lost days (And there’s no such thing as “substitute teachers” in The Gambia). Keep in mind that the Gambian curriculum is shaped by the syllabus for the WASSCE exam. For general science, this comprises about 40 pages of science objectives that each student is “required” to learn from grade 10 thru grade 12 in preparation for the final exam. There is no division of material for each level, and the scope of material is vast. Topics range from human body systems (the skeletal system, the digestive system, the respiratory system, etc.), to basic biology (cells, biological classification, nutrition, ecology), to more advanced biology (genetics, photosynthesis, cellular respiration), to all levels of chemistry (the periodic table, chemical reactions, acids and bases, biochemistry, even organic chemistry), to all levels of physics (Newton’s laws, forces, torque, levers, electromagnetic radiation, magnetism, circuits, and much more), to geology (soil and water sciences), even nuclear fission and biotechnology. Basically, all of the topics that most high school students in the united states cover in a four year time period, while attending each class approximately five hours a week… these are expected of Gambian students to learn in three years, while attending each class for approximately 2 hours a week. Since I had little information about what each grade level learned in the prior years (teacher turn-over is high and there are no previous records to refer back to), I ended up developing my own list of topics, based on the syllabus, for each of the three grade levels, that I hoped would expand on the few things I was sure they had covered in previous years, after looking at old notebooks that students allowed me to borrow.
The most difficult class for me to teach this year was my grade 11 class. For this class, I decided to focus on basic Chemistry and Physics, since it seemed that none of the students in prior years had seemed to cover any of these things, and after looking at some copies of old WASSCE exams, I realized that at least 2/3 of the questions related to these branches of science. So I’ve found myself trying to teach topics that I learned years ago myself, with limited laboratory resources, and a classroom of students who’s math skills are at least 5 levels below their grade level, and who have little to no experience in abstract thinking skills. Needless to say, this adventure was a continuous learning process for my students, as well as for myself. At one point, I realized that we needed to stop and just practice math. We spent about three weeks on basic mathematics skills that are absolutely necessary to understand and complete basic science problems. For example, adding and subtracting negative numbers (My students told me that -3 plus 2 is 5), or simply dividing numbers like 25 into 100. Once you add a second digit onto a number, they loose any interest in trying to multiply or divide with that number. Even if it’s just a zero. Most students can’t tell me that 60 divided by 30 is 2. And don’t get me started on decimal points. I hate giving them any problem that involves numbers with decimal points. A few of them have calculators, but most cannot afford them, so I try my best to keep the math as simple as I can, just to get the basic scientific ideas across to them. Some of my students have been working very hard. I spend a lot of time after-school or in my compound with students that come for extra help. And fortunately, these students are excelling. I am very proud of them. But without the extra help, it would have been hopeless. I have experimented with different group-activities that divide my 4 or 5 exceptional students up into separate groups to work on problems with their classmates. We’ve turned them into friendly competitions between “teams,” and this has been somewhat successful. I’ve found that when a peer is available to explain a difficult concept, it can be immensely helpful for the struggling students. This is why I’m working on developing a peer tutoring program at Fatoto SSS, which I hope to implement next year. I’m also toying with the idea of starting a “Math club,” but I have few ideas of what I could do with a club like that, since my background is not in Math. So if anyone has any suggestions, I would definitely welcome them.
While I’m still on the topic of school, I would like to describe what I privately call the "final exam fiasco". Because the school does not have computers, typewriters, copy machines, or even electricity, it is impossible to type and print exams or tests. When we give tests to the students, the questions are written on the blackboard, and the students copy them down on a piece of paper, then answer the questions. This limits the amount of questions you can give on a test, and increases the opportunities for cheating, which is very common here, since most students just memorize sections of their notes and write them as answers on tests, whether they understand the words they are memorizing or not. For final exams, however, each student is supposed to have their own test copy for each subject. In order to accomplish this, all of us teachers had to type our final exam questions back in April and mail them (when I say “mail”, I mean pass them to someone who is traveling that way) 450 km to Kombo, where the school hires someone to type and copy each of the exams… then sends them back up-country, hopefully in time for the final exams. We received our exams in time, but when we opened them, we found terrible mistakes made by the typist, and they copying job was absurd. You couldn’t read most of the questions on some of the exams, which meant that before the exam, the teacher had to read each of the questions out-loud for the students to fill-in the missing portions on their exams. The Math exams were the worst, with numbers super-imposed on other numbers, and tons of mistakes in the problems which would change the entire outcome of the students’ answers unless corrected. On top of it all, I had gone through the trouble to type my own copy of the grade 11 exam because I wanted to include diagrams that I could not expect the typist to reproduce. I had done this on my last trip to Kombo in April, then met with someone who passed my exams along to the typist/copier. However, instead of simply copying my exam, which was already typed nicely with no mistakes, they re-typed it, with many mistakes, and excluded the diagrams completely. Those were the copies sent. We discovered this on a Monday, and they would be taking the exams on the following Tuesday. The principal decided to bring the original copy with him to Basse the next day, where he was traveling for a meeting, and make copies at the REO (Regional Education Office) there. When he returned to school on Thursday, I asked him if he was able to get the copies made. He said the REO was too busy to do it on Wednesday, but they said they would copy it and try to send it with someone heading to Fatoto before Tuesday. I was traveling to Basse on Saturday and returning on Sunday, so I told him that if they could give the copies to my friend who works at the REO, I could pick them up from her (the REO is closed on week-ends). He said he would call them and tell them. Then Fatoto lost all cell-phone service from Wednesday evening until Friday afternoon. No one was able to make or receive calls, so we could not get through to Basse until the REO was already closed for the day, and the papers were locked inside of it. After several phone calls, we still could not reach someone to get the papers for us. I traveled to Basse on Saturday to buy some fencing material for my backyard (which has fallen down four times now). I tried several times that weekend to reach someone who could help, but it was useless. On Sunday, I got onto a gile gile going back to Fatoto, just hoping that we could work it out in the next day. My gile gile stopped to get gas before leaving Basse, and as we were sitting there waiting, a motorcycle pulled up beside the vehicle and the man on the bike said “Are you Maimuna? These are for you.” and handed me the test papers. It was like some strange scene in a movie. I’m still not sure how he knew where to find me, but I’m happy he did!
Now allow me to describe the testing situation. The school moved all of the students’ desks into the rooms that would be the designated exam-taking rooms. The 7th and 8th graders were put together in the large assembly hall, and the 10th and 11th graders were put together in the library. (the 9th and 12th graders already took their exams). In the library, the students were seated, 2 to a desk… one tenth grader and one 11th grader together. Because of all the corrections that needed to be made on the exam, the teachers had to spend a significant amount of time reading the questions out-loud (for the 10th grade science exam, I spent an hour on this). Since there were two different grades taking exams in the same room, the teachers had to take turns correcting the mistakes with the class, since they could not both talk at the same time. There was a flip-chart at the front of the room for us to write on, but only about half of students were close enough to read it, which is why we had to read the corrections out-loud. So we probably wasted a good hour or more before each exam just making sure the students made all of the necessary corrections. Then, since each teacher set different time-limits on their exams, and all exams had two parts (objective and theory), there were constant interruptions when one group finished and left while the other group was still working, or when one group began the next portion of the test and the teacher had to make more corrections. Then the students were trying to share things like calculators and pencils, which caused even more interruptions (Since materials are scare, students are accustomed to sharing in class, but they don’t understand why you cannot do this on a final exam). The whole process was disorganized and disruptive. And I’m not convinced all students were able to make all of their necessary corrections, so they probably answered incorrectly on many questions, just because the questions contained mistakes, (or in some cases, weren’t supposed to be there at all).
These are just a few of the things that have happened lately in school… I could tell more, but just writing about it is making me tired! So now onto the rest of my life….

Planting a Garden
Anyone who has kept in touch with me knows that I have been trying to plant a garden since… well, October or November, at least. I have finally started the process, but here’s why it has taken so long…
In the dry season (November thru July), the animals roam freely and eat anything in their paths, so if you want to plant a garden, the first thing you need is a good fence. When I told my family that I wanted to plant a garden in the compound, they said “Sure! We will help you build a fence first.” This was a relief to me, since I had no idea how I would get the materials myself to begin building a fence. This kind of work is typically left to any teenage boys in the compound. In my compound, this is Abdoulie (my brother), and a Musa (the grandson of my siblings’ half-sister, who stays with us). They go into the bush, cut wood, carry it back, then use it to build a local-style fence. The whole process began back in November. We designated a space for the garden, and they began gathering wood and putting up the fence. When it was about one-third finished, the work stopped. My family began building a new hut in the compound, which required the help of Abdoulie and Musa, so the garden fence project was put aside for a while. The new house was made of mud, which required digging a huge hole in the ground to get the mud from. This large hole was dug right next to my garden-plot (I didn’t think about it at the time, but this would end up being a big problem for the garden). After the house was completed, I mentioned the fence to my family, and they told me that the boys would resume work on it soon, but then nothing happened. For the next few months, I struggled with how to deal with the situation. I didn’t mind helping to get materials for the fence, because now that I had seen how much work was involved with just gathering wood, I felt guilty about asking them to do this for me. When I would mention something to my family about buying material for the fence, or asking for help from someone else, they would tell me that I did not need to do that. Sometimes, it’s difficult to know whether I am crossing a cultural boundary… is it disrespectful to seek help elsewhere after my family assured me they would take care of it? I did not want to seem ungrateful or impatient, so I just waited. In the meantime, my sister, Amie, got married. Her new husband has money, and he gave her money to build a large new house in the compound. For this job, men were hired to build the house, but my family was constantly busy helping in various ways. And one day, I noticed that all of the wood from my garden fence was gone. I think they used it to build the fence for the back-yard of the new house. So now, we had to start from scratch. I began to feel guilty about asking anymore, and I was very busy with school, so the whole thing was forgotten about for a while.
Then, rice prices began to rise, and I began reading about the food-shortage crisis that is happening world-wide. I knew that having a family garden would be a good way to deal with some of these problems, so I sat down with my family and talked to them again. We worked out a time-table. I told them that if we wanted vegetables by the time hungry season comes, I should sow seeds very soon, but I would be leaving for a while in June and July, so I would like to get it started on it soon. We agreed on a time-table… they told me they would have the fence up in two weeks, and I could start sowing my seeds. I had already started composting, and I knew the compost should be ready by then as well. Everyone was motivated by the talk of a food shortage, and work resumed quickly.
One day, Abdoulie and Musa went out to the bush and cut a lot of wood, but it was too much to carry back on their heads at once. They decided to hire a donkey cart to go collect the wood all at once, but when they finally arranged it a few days later, the wood was gone. Someone had come and taken it. So they had to begin again. In the meantime, the fence in my backyard fell down (for the fourth time) from the wind and the animals eating parts of it. Since my back yard is essentially my “bathroom” and where I sleep at night, this fence had to take priority over the garden. I had to take several trips to Basse to buy good fencing materials for my backyard, since the old materials were obviously not working anymore. So we had to put aside the garden fence, once again, to complete this task.
With two weeks left before I would be leaving for Kombo, I started to wonder if I should just wait until after I returned. But at this point, the fence was almost completely done, my compost was ready to go, and I was worried that I would return to find the wood torn down and used, once again, for something else. And I really didn’t want to keep hounding my family for help with the fence.
We finally finished the fence, and I began to prepare my garden beds. I’m new to gardening, so I spent a lot of time reading the “Gambian Gardening Manual” and texting questions to the agriculture volunteers that I know. I finished preparing the beds 3 days before I left for Kombo and decided to wait to sow my seeds the next day. That night, there was a huge rain and thunderstorm. The next day, four of my eight garden beds had been washed away. Remember the hole next to my garden I mentioned? The beds on that side of the garen eroded into the hole, creating a downward slope. Now I cannot plant anything in those four beds until I figure out a way to fix it. However, I'm working on ideas for this, and I think I will be able to repair the damage. I feel fortunate that the rains came when they did, because it has shown me exactly where the path of water will flow. Now, I can dig trenches to divert the water or find a way to block it from flowing through my garden. And I didn't loose any seeds because I had decided to wait that extra day. I did end up sowing two small nursery beds, using some Gambian seeds and some American seeds that were sent to me. I built a small shade structure above them, to protect them from the heavy rains and too much sun. My family has agreed to water them for me on days that it doesn't rain. By the time I return to Fatoto, I should be able to transplant them to new beds. This has certainly been a learning experience for me, but I'll be excited to see what will grow... and I will be thrilled to have fresh vegetables for myself and my family. It seems like most things take about twice as much work to accomplish here. For example, composting is absolutely necessary because the soil quality is very poor. But it is quite labor intensive and time-consuming. In addition, frustrating situations (like my soil eroding into a large hole that was recently dug next the garden) often occur, which can be very discouraging. A common saying in the Gambia is "It's not easy!" Despite the roadblocks, it still feels good to do the work. My muscles are sore and I'm exhausted by the end of the day, but it's a good kind of exhaustion. I think I'll like gardening once I get into it a little.

I was going to talk a little on my emotional state, but I think I will save that story for another day. My life is a progression of ups and downs when it comes to my mind and my emotions. But when I'm having a really rough day, I have two things to fall back on. First of all, I seldom ever have more than two really bad days in a row. I can usually look forward to something good happening on that second or third day to cheer me up. Also, I have Liza in Basse when I really need to talk about something or just get away for a day or two. She's been a good friend in so many ways!

So that's it for now. I'll be in Kombo for another two weeks, so I'll have more to write later.