six months

So now that I have finally posted a few pictures, I can talk a little about some experiences and feelings that I have had in the past few weeks at site and here in Kombo. Life in Fatoto has, overall, been pretty nice. The weather is changing now, finally. The humidity has completely vanished from the air, and it literally happened over night. One day, the bills in my wallet were a crumpeled soggy mess, the next day, they were crispy. Some of my fabrics have stiffened up too. And all of my papers and envelopes. By the way, incase anyone has recieved a letter from me lately, you may have noticed that the envelope is taped shut, and the stamps are taped on too... I forgot to put my envelopes inside of a plastic bag, and the humidity sealed them all shut, so I've had to tear them all open and tape them closed. And the stamps just won't stick any more... most likely from the humidity as well. The temperature is cooler now too. It's been in the 80's in the day (sometimes in the 90's too, but mostly the 80's), and the nights are downright chilly sometimes. Of course, my body has adjusted to the heat at this point, but there have been a few instances where the temperature actually reached below 70 F! It's funny to watch my family on these evenings or early in the morning when they are just waking up. They wear multiple layers and walk around shivering. I shouldn't laugh. That may be in two years! I am going to be such a wimp when I head back to Colorado.
So here are a few highlights from the past month. I've been making pretty regular trips to Basse, partially for work, and partially just to be able to communicate and colaborate with other Peace Corps Volunteers. And because Basse has a transit house there and it's a good place to buy goods that you cannot find in the villages, there are often other Peace Corps Volunteers there when I visit. So I'm really getting to know some of the other URD PCV's (sorry for all the acronyms... URD is Upper River Division). They are a good crew. We've gotten together a few times and cooked American style food. You can buy things like carrots and cucumber in the market here (fresh vegetables... yeah!), as well as canned chick peas, so we've made hummus a few times now and dipped veggies in it. I've also learned how to make tortillas, which are good buy themselves or with hummus.
And here's another fun food-related adventure (you'll notice that many of my fond memories have to do with food! I can't help it... with so little variety to chose from, it's always a big event to try something new) Liza and Danielle (another Basse PCV) came to Fatoto and spent the weekend with me a few weeks ago. Ever since I carved that pumpkin for Holloween, I've been wanting to try cooking pumpkin pie, so we tried it. I talked to the bread baker in Kolikunda (the small village next to Fototo), and he said I could use his brick bread-baking oven, so we set up a time for me to come on a Saturday to bake my pies. So incase you're ever wondering how to bake a pumpkin pie from scratch when you live in a hut with no electicity... here's what we did. We chopped the pumpkin into peices and began to boil them over my gas stove, but then I ran out of gas (and the closest places to re-fill gas tanks are in Senegal or Basse), so we ended up cooking them over a fire instead (this worked just fine). This makes the pumpkin nice and soft, and it's easy to cut off the outer rind (we orignally tried to cut this when the pumpkin was still raw, but it was taking a very long time, which is why we decided to boil them first). Then it was easy to smash them and add ingredients. I had been saving a box of soy milk that I bought in Kombo in August. Also, Liza brought cinnamon and I actually found nutmeg in Basse (It was an accidental find... I have no idea what Gambians would use nutmeg for, but I was thrilled to find it)... so we just added these ingredients together until it tasted good. Then we made the pie crust. First we sifted the flour to remove the bugs and worms in it. (I'm finally getting over finding insects in my food. It just happens somtimes. In the states, I would have thrown it out... here, I pick out the bug and just keep on eating, unless it's one of the smelly bugs that Fulas call "Yuka Herande," which means "spoil dinner," because they spoil your dinner if they get into your food). The directions on my pie crust recipe call for a food processor and refrigerator (ha!), and ice water (ha ha!). Obviously, those things were not an option, so I just ended up throwing together flour, sugar, and butter. It tasted more like a sugar cookie than a pie crust, but it was still good. I've discovered that a nalgeen bottle works as a pretty decent rolling pin, so I rolled the crust and lined the pie trays (small, rectangular pans I found in Basse). We showed up at the baker's compound four mintues early, but he said he thought we had "postponed" it... I'm still wondering why. We said no, in fact, we were ready to go... so he brought us to the oven and fired it up (The oven is a huge mud/cement oven that is heated with fire wood). Now usually, you would want to let the oven heat for several hours, but we did not want to wait that long, so we only heated it for about a half an hour. Because of this, our pies never really baked... they just became really warm and soft. But they were still very good. We gave some to the baker and his wife, some to my family, then ate the rest ourselves. My family really liked it. They have been amazed at what I've shown them about pumpkins lately. Not only can you carve faces in them, but you can also eat the seads and make sweet food from it too! They cook pumpkin all the time, but they cook it like they cook everything else. They put it in lots of oil and spice and serve it over rice. It's really good as well. I hope pumpkins are pretty good for me, because I've probably been eating them every day for the past 3 weeks straight!
I told Dan, who is one of the URD PCV's I see in Basse sometimes, about our Pumpkin pie experience, so he asked for help making pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving at the Embassador's house. So on Thanksgiving, I helped make over 30 pumpkin pies from scratch for all of the Peace Corps Volunteers and other invited guests. All of my clothes from that day are still covered in pumpkin. It took hours, but it was fun! (And the pies were really good too). Thanksgiving was fun. We ate chicken (no turkey's here in the Gambia), and mashed potatoes and stuffing... we even had cranberry sauce (mailed from the states, of course). And of course, pumpkin pie.
Ok, that's enough talk of food... The thought occurred to me the other day that when I get together with other PCV's, we always seem focused on cooking and eating. Sorry, it's what we do for fun, I guess.
The past week here in Kombo has been good but busy, as usual. Yesterday was the Peace Corps' 40th anniversary celebration. It was a very formal event at a very nice 5 star hotel in the area of the Kombo called Senegambia. It's strange to go from village to a place like that. I start to forget that places like that actually exist here. In the evening, Julebrew, the Gambia's brewery, threw the volunteers a party with free beer. It's one of the few times all of the volunteers in the country will see each other at once, so, without going into details... the evening last night was very fun and very, very late. This morning was an all-volunteer meeting (we all showed up but were very tired), which I found to be incredibly informative and extremely helpful. Each sector (Education, Health, and Environment) met seperately... then we met together as one large group. We were able to discuss and exchage ideas and frustrations, learn about who's projects were working or not working, get our hands on a few teaching resources (like paper for a 3-ring binder! Yeah!), and meet several guests from different NGO's and Gambian development organizations. I hear they used to do these meetings twice a year, but they may be switching them to once a year. If they are all as helpful as this one, I hope they keep it to twice a year! It's also been really nice just to meet all of the other volunteers and some of the PC staff members that I've met only once or twice because they stay here in Kombo. Our administrative officer, Tim, saw me in the Peace Corps office the other day and stopped to talk to me because he didn't recognize me. Then a look of realization came across his face and he said "Oh yeah! You're the one at the very end of the map"... you see, there's a large map of The Gambia in the office, and they put a picture of every PCV in the country on the map with a peice of string leading to their posted village or town. My picture is waaaay off to the right of the map. It's kind of my claim to fame here. And not only am I the farthest, but I'm also the only one in my disctrict, the Kantora district. But as far as Fatoto seems, it's not unaccesable... I just won't be doing this trip to Kombo very often. It's quite tiring.
Tomorrow morning, I head back up-country. I'm leaving at about 6 am, and I'm really hoping to make it all the way back to Fatoto by the evening so that I can teach on Monday. We'll see... I think I can do it if I run into favorable traveling conditions. It's really just the role of the dice though. Between the poor roads, vehicles that break down constantly (we had to push the vehicle we rode in on our way to Kombo at least 3 times to get it running again), and ferry crossings (you would think that a country split in half by a large river would use bridges instead of old ferries that only take a few vehicles at a time and often break down themselves... but oh well). Time can be either for or against me. So until next time!

picture update

I have made through my three month challenge, and I am back in Kombo, once again, for several events. We will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, Friday is the 40th anniversary of Peace Corps in The Gambia, and Saturday is an all volunteer meeting... so I took the week from school and made my way down country. Now that I have faster internet, I can acutally post some pictures...

The first picture is a picture of my home. It is a one-room, round, mud-hut with a thatched roof. The thatched hut keeps my home much cooler than homes with a corrogated tin roof, like what I had in training village. On the left, you may notice an old tire (It looks to be below that large Mango tree)... that is the open well in my compound. I am going to plant a garden there soon, so it will be nice to have a well right next to my garden for watering purposes. I also use that water for bathing and cooking. The drinking water I use though, comes from another well.




And here's what the Gambia River looks like when you get up-country. It's much narrower here, and the river is freshwater. Down-country, the river is much larger and saltwater.

I am also posting some pictures of my family. One of the pictures is from Koriteh, or the "Day of Prayer." This is the 30th day of the Muslim holiday, Ramadan. The Muslims fast for 29 days (no food or water from sunrise to sunset), and then feast on the Day of Prayer. Everyone gets dressed up in new clothes with new hairstyles and everything. As you can see from the picture, even I have on an African dress and I let my "siter-in-law," Susana, plait my hair. It was definitely fun to see the whole village celbrating. The children in the picture are Mariama, Bobo, an Ousman.

The next picture was also during Ramadan. Since the Muslims fast all day, they feast every night. On this night, they were just about to break fast, so we had a ton of delicious food to eat (they go all-out for the breaking fast meals), and we were hit with a tremedous thunderstorm. Since we usually eat outside (we do everything outside except for sleeping, really), we moved our meal into my familie's hut... all eight of us. After eating, we were just hanging out because the rain was really strong. For some reason, I found the whole situation hilarious (I often find humor in situations that are perfectly normal to the Gambians), and decided to take a bunch of pictures. I wish I had time to post all of them... they ended up getting pretty silly. This one shows Amin (my sister), Ousman ( Samba's son), and Bobo Kole (Amin's daughter).

And here are some pictures of my school and my students.

This is a picture of the outside of my classroom. The school consists of a number of different buildings, or "blocks" instead of one building with many rooms, like in the states. I'm sure that air circulation has much to do with this. Without windows, it would be impossible to teach or learn in these rooms. It's hard enough as it is. Notice the goat hanging out outside of the classroom. The school has over 40 goats right now.

My grade 12 students. They are a great crew of kids.

Here are my grade 11 students... and this is what the inside of my classroom looks like... it's really much nicer than I expected to have. In fact, I never expected to have my own classroom at all, so this has been a wonderful surprise.

And yes, I did celebrate Holloween... here is the pumpkin to prove it! From left to right... Mariama and Umo (although we call her Bobo Kole... Gambians aften have multiple names, which gets confusing when you're trying to learn a bunch of new names). Mariama and Bobo are Amin's daughers (Amin is my sister here, so by American standards, they would be considered my neices, but in the Gambia, your mother's sisters are also your mothers, so here they are my daughters, I guess... it gets confusing). The the woman on the right is Susana (her other name is Fanta, just like the drink). Susana is Samba's wife (my brother).

Well... that's it for now, I hope you like the pictures!

2 months now

It is the end of October now, which means that the wet season is coming to an end and the dry season is just beginning. Regardless of how the Gambians tell me that we are entering a new season, my body cannot help but feel confused. I'm used to a Fall... the temperatures drop, (in some places snow is already falling in the U.S., or so I have been informed by my Colorado friends), the leaves change, the air gets dryer, etc... Right now, the humidity is better (except for a few days here and there), but it's still as hot as ever. It just feels as if summer is going to keep going indefinitely... my jacket hangs neatly and completely unused in my hut. I can count on one hand the number of times I've covered myself with a sheet while sleeping. I still take at least two baths a day just to cool my body....
But from what I hear, it really will be cold here in about a month or two. Maybe even as low as 55F on a few evenings... that would be wonderful. Now that I have a thermometer (thanks mom and dad!), I know for sure that I am getting adjusted to the heat. It was quite pleasant in my hut the other night, so I ventured to look at the temperature. It was a chilly 86 degrees F! I almost had to use the sheet that night.
I am also beginning to adjust to other things as well. After two months, my language skills are beginning to develop a little bit more. I can pretty much accomplish almost any day-to-day task in Pulaar. I can buy things from the market, get anywhere I need to on public transport, make small talk about the day, borrow or lend things to/from others, talk about what's paining me or ask other's what's wrong if they are sick or hurt... and all in Pulaar. (with some roadblocks, of course). I feel as though I definitely have a long way to go before I can really form close friendships with anyone who cannot speak any English though. Friendships can only go so far when all you can talk about is what you did that day. I want to be able to communicate feelings, emotions and abstract ideas as well... well as the Fulas say, "Seda, Seda!" (slowly, slowly).
School is going well so far. I am teaching three classes right now. It was supposed to be five classes, but due to a teacher shortage, they have combined the two grade 11 classes into one class, and the same goes for grade 10. My smallest class has about 40 students, and my largest class has 55. In the beginning, teaching was easier, because the class sizes were smaller. Not all of the students had shown up yet. As the sizes began to grow, I realized that I would have to figure out ways of adjusting my teaching methods. I can completely understand why most Gambian teachers simply write their notes up on a blackboard for the students to copy, memorize, and then take a test on later. Between the class size and the lack of English comprehension (and literacy in general, for that matter), it's difficult to engage the students in meaningful learning activities. Even giving tests and quizzes, for example. The other day, I wanted to give my grade 10 students a quiz on measurements and measuring tools. I really wanted to have them read the measurements themselves from different instruments, but I didn't have enough of each instrument for all fifty students to use (or even half that amount), and since we have no computer or photocopier, I had to write the questions and diagrams on the blackboard with questions for the students to answer and turn in... but with 50 students, not everyone can see the blackboard well... especially when it comes to paying attention to details (like what I was asking for). I finally asked for advice from some of my fellow Gambian teachers and they helped me come up with a solution. I had half of the class take the test, while the other half of the class waited in another building. Then the second group took the test. So it's been a lot of improvisation. I'm learning more and more every day. I really enjoy my students though. Many of them come to visit me in their free time for extra help or just to chat. One of my students has even started running with me in the mornings. A few others have expressed interest in joining us too. The next thing I know, I'll have a little running club!
I've also begun riding my bike more often as well. It's nice to know that if I cannot find public transportation, I can always ride my bike to Base. It takes about 3 hours (42 km). I am also planning on making some trips into the surrounding villages and hopefully into Senegal after my three month challenge is over. I hear that there are some Senegalese Peace Corps Volunteers who live just over the border. They may be closer to me than even my fellow Gambian PCV's... we'll see.
I'm hoping to be able to post some pictures at some point. This internet connection is not very good, so posting pictures is completely out of the question right now, but I'm working on sending a CD with pictures back to the states for my family for me to post for me instead. That may take a while, but I am heading to Kombo in about a month (for Thanksgiving), and I know that I can at least put a few pictures up using the internet there... so expect at least a few before Christmas, I hope!

My first month

Well, here I am back in Base... this time for the weekend. Yeah! It's pay-day for Peace Corps, so I had to come to the bank. But this also means getting to visit some other Peace Corps volunteers a bit and taking a little break from Fatoto. I do like it there, but I have to admit, it's really nice to occasionally get to see another Toubab. I am constantly the center of attention wherever I go... it's kind of hard to blend in when I'm the only white person in town.
I have been in Fatoto for a month now... so I am starting to get settled-in. My family is amazing. They have really made me feel like I am part of them. And I've made a few good friends in Fatoto as well.
Officially, I just finished my second week of school, but classes didn't really begin until this week. The first week, only three teachers (including myself) showed up and some students. In some ways, it was nice to get to meet some of the students before I began teaching them. All we really did was clean up the school, and talk a little bit about classroom policies, etc. I pulled a group of students into the science lab and we spent a day cleaning as much as we could, but I keep finding more to clean. The science lab actually has quite a few useful things. I have test tubes, beakers, graduated cylinders, magnets, posters depicting various things... there's not a whole lot of chemicals or supplies to carry out many experiments, but the basics are there. I'll just have to get creative. I'm excited to even have a science lab, really. Especially since it means that I get my own classroom, which is uncommon in many Gambian schools. The students usually stay in once class and the teachers change classrooms. And it is the same for the students at my school, but since there's a science room, they come to me for science. It's quite nice.
We still don't have all of the teachers we need, so I'm not sure how this is going to work out, and the 10th graders haven't yet received all of their results from testing last year, so they haven't begun classes yet, but I have begun teaching my 11th and 12th graders a bit. It's going to be challenging on many levels. I have 45 student in my 12th grade class, potentially 50 in my 11th grade class, but only 20 at the most showed up last week, and I'm not sure about 10th grade yet, but there should be 2 classes of 10th graders when those classes are determined. English is the language that is spoken in schools. Students in some schools are punished harshly for speaking in their native languages. I don't think the staff at Fatoto SSS punishes that infraction too harshly, but they try to enforce it, still the same. It makes it interesting in many ways. Some students have better English skills than others, but I don't feel like many of them (if any) are fluent, especially when it comes to subjects like science, that use words most native English speakers find difficult to understand. Then there's the whole matter of what to teach. I have been trying to figure out what they already have learned, and what they are supposed to learn by the end of Senior Secondary School when they take their final exams. There's a pretty intimidating syllabus outlining the information required for this exam.

Looks like that's all for now, I was just typing here at the internet cafe when the power was lost... it took a while for it to come back on, and now I'm out of time... I guess that's just how it goes sometimes. I'll try to update the next time I come to Basse.

Fatoto

So I've begun settling into my life in Fatoto. School has not started yet... they told me it would start on the 11th at first, but I went to the school to meet the vice principal the other day, and he seems to think it has been pushed back a week... He's not sure though. He's also not sure when I need to show up to work, or when any of the other teachers are going to be there. So I guess I'll just have to check back again soon. I have a feeling this isn't the first time, I'll have to be patient with the Gambian school system.
In the meantime, I've been spending most of my time with my family. They are very kind. I've been learning how to cook Gambian-style... it has been fun. I was right before I came when I told everyone that I would be eating a lot of rice and peanuts. It's true... and lucky for me, I love both things. Some of my family and their friends have started calling me Maimuna Dege, because Dege is the word for peanut butter... and I put peanut butter on everything. You know the kind of peanut butter you pay more for in the states because it's organic? Well, it's really, really cheap here. I also cooked dinner for my family a few nights ago... an American dinner of spagetti and garlic bread. It took some creativity on my part because of lack of resources. But I had bought spagetti noodles and canned tomatoes in Kombo, as well as spices and olive oil, so I was able to use these. Bread and fresh onions are usually easy to find. I even found a few cloves of fresh garlic for the garlic bread! I have a double gas burner that is pretty much like the camp stoves I used to cook on in America, but it worked just fine for cooking my American dinner. My family loved it! They kept saying "Maimuna, Herande na weli!" Which means dinner is good! I was wondering if they really did enjoy it, or if they were just being nice, but everytime a visitor comes to our compound now, someone in the family brags about the American dinner they ate the other night. Now half of the village wants me to call for them the next time I cook.

I have made a short trip to Basse, and stopped into this internet cafe to send my update... unfortunately, the internet is so slow, it's taken me 40 minutes to get this far, and I've only paid for 45 minutes... So I don't think I'll be able to upload any pictures now. I took some of my family and my hut... so eventually, I'll figure out how to get them online. So that's all for now...

Ready to Go

Well, it's finally my last day here in Kombo. Yesterday was the swearing-in ceremony at the Amassador's house, which is a beautiful house with a swimming pool and everything that has a great view of the beach. Here is a picture of me and my fellow Fulas, Josiah and Liza. The outfit I am wearing in the picture was made by my village tailor in Jiroff. I bought the fabric from a really nice lady who came and taught us how to make tie-die designs. We learned how to do this as one possibility of something we can teach women in our villages to do. Tie-die fabrics are very popular here, and may be a good way for women to generate some extra income. The ceremony was very nice and the food was unbelievable. I've never seen so much food here. I ate as much as I would at a typical thanksgiving meal. It was delicious. And then, to top off the day, a group of current volunteers gave us a cook-out in the evening... they grilled hamburgers and chicken, made guacamole (with home-made chips), salads, even cookies! I cannot even express how wonderful it was. Even after all the food we ate for lunch at the ceremony... I still managed to fill up a huge plate at the barbecue and go back for seconds too. Sorry to keep talking about all the food, but it really was amazing. Especially since it's going to be a really long time before I see anything like that again.

Tomorrow, we move back to our permanent sites and begin our "Three month challenge." The general idea behind the three month challenge is for us to all get to know our sites and communities as much as we can. The first three months are the most important for this, and volunteers may be tempted to spend most of their time with other volunteers instead of with their family and community members. So we are not supposed to spend the night away from our sites unless we have to. Luckily for me, Basse is only an hour ride by Gile Gile (public transport), so I can go for the day if I ever need something there. And one volunteer is only 10k away from me, so I can ride my bike to see her pretty easily if I need a break from village.

The trip tomorrow should be interesting. There is one vehicle transporting six of us, and all of our stuff. I have no idea how it's going to work, really. We have all done a lot of shopping here in Kombo. We have huge trunks, mattresses, and other random items like gas burning stoves. And to top it off, our vehicle is taking the south road, which is in really rough shape. We took the south road on our site visit trip and had to stop a few times because some of the things on top of the car fell off. My stop is the final stop, and we have over 445 km to cover before then. It should be fun (ha ha).

This may be the last time I have email access for a while now. I do plan on visiting Basse occasionally, but I'm not sure how often I will go there. Once I get set up at site and begin a routine, I will have a better idea. I am so tired of packing my things and moving around. It's all I've done since I've left the states (and even before then too... I made two round-trip moves in my car between Colorado and the East coast in five months before I moved to Africa). So this whole "three month challenge" really doesn't seem like much of a challenge to me right now. I can't wait to just stay put for a little while. Perhaps I'll feel differently in a month or two... but right now it just sounds wonderful to me.

Last day as a Trainee

Well, I passed my language test and tomorrow I will swear-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Today we visited a "reptile farm," which was really interesting. This French guy has a bunch of reptiles that he has collected, mostly by himself, from different areas of the Gambia. You can go to his "farm" and get a tour of them. He also has a huge pelican, a monkey, and a baboon that he rescued and brought to his farm. Some of his rescued animals will be released back into the wild, and some will not. Here is a picture of me with one of the Pythons. It was nice to get a lesson on Gambian reptiles. This guy really knows his stuff. I've seen so many different kinds of lizards here that I wish I could identify, but when I ask someone, I usually just get the word for "lizard," and they can't tell me what kind. It's times like those that I really miss Google. I haven't seen any snakes yet besides the I saw today. The Gambian's are very afraid of snakes, and usually kill any they see as quickly as they can. They think that most snakes are venomous, but really, in The Gambia, there are very few poisonous snakes.