Saturday, October 20, 2012

Birthdays, Ballots, and Bees


Birthday's are not celebrated here in the Gambia, but in an effort to bring some awareness of nurse cards and children's ages/when they should be starting school, I throw each child in my family a small birthday party. The party is mostly my ipod and speakers dancing party all morning and evening, and some great food including popcorn which they love. Ba turned 3. He was so exhausted with the mornings dancing that he fell asleep before dinner, but don't worry, we saved him some popcorn. 


For Ba's birthday, I helped my mom make an american style spaghetti sauce with eggplant, potatoes, and onions. Yes, we cooked it on top of a three stone wood fire. It was pretty delicious!



It's that time every 4 years!! But this time I voted via absentee ballot!! It was brought to my house via peace corps every other month mail run, then i filled it out and brought it to the office in Kombo, which took me 8 hours and almost some tears because of the frustrations of gelle transport. The ballot will return to the US by embassy pouch, which ensures that it gets to the town hall before the 6th of November. A different voting experience to be sure.






What the heck am I working on? Well, right now the bad-ass bamboo furniture makers in my community are learning how to make bee hives so that we can start an apiary. Its very hard work because they have to walk miles to cut and gather the bamboo and then walk miles back carrying it. (My father as he comes back from the forest) The men had the dimensions and put this hive together all by themselves. With a little alterations it'll be perfect!  I'm so impressed and extremely pleased with how dedicated they are to start beekeeping. Can't wait to start eating and selling lots of honey!!


Monday, October 15, 2012

kicking my butt...


Baby time...



And there are those hard, frustrating, confusing days where..I might go to the market and have every single person call me a toubab, ask me for money, ask for my shirt, my pants, my sandals, my bike, my hair, have a mentally handicapped individual stalking me because they just like to look at white people...It might be so hot that I have heat rash in places you don't ever want heat rash, am sweating from every pore in my body, can't go on a run because the heat rash is too bad, take a bucket bath and start sweating again, hide in my hut from the swarms of mosquito's that like to bit in the same places as the heat rash... Can't keep my phone charged...but then feel so first-world because I'm complaining about the heat, the mosquito's, and the lack of convenient electricity, when I will only be here for 19 more moons and will have so many luxuries where ever I live next, but the people who live here for their entire lives are smiling and laughing at the smallest things. So I come home from the market and the annoyances of this life to see smiling babies and women working harder than I've ever worked, complaining about so little and I am in complete awe of their strength. On days like these Africa kicks my butt..... but there is always tomorrow...maybe tomorrow the heat rash will be better.