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!!

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.

Burkina Faso Adventure

House and Cacti in Burkina Faso 

What have I been up too? Well, I completed my volunteer response form, which is this form that all volunteers need to do every six months, and although the software for the program is horrible, and with the internet crashing every few minutes and the power going in and out sporadically, intermingled with the turning off and on of the generator and power surges that come as a result, it was an interesting time but finished. Not much to report because I've been in three month challenge concentrating on culture and language study, and PC doesn't really want us to start large projects because time has shown that projects started too early usually fail. And well, I've been reading lots of books, but you knew that from before.

This past week, my passe of life changed dramatically. I went to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, with 3 other volunteers from Gambia and attended an agriculture conference held by an organization based in Florida. Overall, I'd give it a B+, some really interesting stuff, research, and tools that blew me away, pretty excited about it. Some of the sessions were like infomercials, so there was free wifi in the hotel and I took advantage of that during those times. I was really impressed by Ouagadougou, there are paved streets with sidewalks and for the most part people follow traffic patterns. There were also buildings higher than 3 stories, with incredible architecture. There were bridges that went over roads, never mind bridges that went over water ( the gambian river does not have a bridge that crosses it). The markets were organized in stalls with lots of walking room around them, there were leather products and nice mali mud fabric. In general, people weren't pushy and would bargain with 'toubabs' on prices. I got lots of fabric, one with corn all over them that I'm going to have made into a pair of overalls, I'm going to look pretty silly, and I'm going to love it.  There were restaurants that served really great food, I had my first chicken Cesar salad in over six months and it was a beautiful, beautiful moment. Also, because it was colonized by the French, there are french themes remaining, like they speak french and french patisserie shops. There were some really great volunteers there from other countries, and a good time was had by everyone. Bottom line, Ouagadougou was pretty cool.  I now know that I need to speak some french, but for the moment I'll put that towards the bottom of my to-do list. There were interesting moments in travel, we flew, thank you PC, and one would think that international flights would be on-par standard with what people typically think of as international flights. But no, Africa won't let you forget that your in Africa. A flight from Burkina to Dakar was delayed an hour because a flight from Azerbaijan hadn't landed yet and there were passengers on that flight that were heading to Dakar with us, so we waited for them.  Security personnel, in one of the countries we flew through gave us a hard time about our carry on luggage, suggesting that we check some and carry on each-others luggage, which I reminded him was also against international law, but well it worked out eventually. Flights in general left about 30 minutes late, but in -air meals are now something I consider excellent. We were served meat on the way there and the single portion of meat was larger and more tasty/more tender than anything I have yet to see in my families food bowl. But flying the 25 minute flight from Dakar to Gambia brought a sense of coming home that I haven't felt in a while. It's great to be home.

Family Album

Just a little meet the family moment (while I have internet and time on my hands)...

Mariama

Farfala

Comfatty

Aramita

Ba/Tia

Bamusa

Korite meal, Korite is the 2 day celebration following the end of Ramadan. Its chicken with potatoes, onions, macaroni, and oil, eaten with bread. Absolutely delicious. Looking forward to this meal again next year. 

Isatou, my namesake

For korite, the kids get new outfits and walk around village visiting everyone. 

Pabi is a growing soccer star, my village won the tournament that they played against 6 other villages, home town pride!

Neighborhood best friends 

Bees

Beekeeping in style

Cheers

A fellow volunteer did a summary of his time in numbers, and because I liked it..I’m going to be not creative and borrow the idea.

Time living in Africa: 6 months. Holy mackerel, I really can’t believe it.

Time living at site: 3.5 months.  

Longest period of time staying at site: 30 days…It was a rollercoaster as always but well worth it.

Books read: 21 (will publish list later)

                Longest book: Anna Karenina  by Leo Tolstoy

                Shortest book: The Secret life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Times crossing the ferry (not on PC transport): 3 times

                Longest ferry: 1:28 hour

                Shortest ferry: 30 minutes. (this is not the norm- I get extremely lucky)

Birthday Parties thrown with Family: 4

Number of times I cooked popcorn for my family: 3

Number of letters written: 26

Dance Parties: probably around 50

Rain Dance parties: 1 (a perfect day) everyone needs to let themselves go, at least once, and dance, uninhibited in the rain. Please please.

Ramadan days fasted: 24 of 30

Times I wanted to die in frustration on a gelle gelle: a lot, but in the positive there have been some gelle trips that did go smoothly.

In America..

Number of weddings missed in America: 1 (Congratulations Sierra and Peter)

Number of births missed: 1

Number of engagements: 1

Number of times I missed the SAC loves: countless

In Gambia:

Number of weddings I attended: 2

Number of births/ naming ceremonies: 4

IST (in-service training) has just finished.  The most valuable part was the counterpart workshop where my counterpart from site, Musa, traveled to Kombo and trained along-side the volunteers for two days. For one of those days, the environment volunteers went to BeeCause. A beekeeping organization that is very active and effective here in The Gambia. It was inspiring to see the combined excitement of volunteers and counterparts as we learned the techniques behind beekeeping together.  We put on head to toe suits with mesh faces, rubber gloves, and boots, and headed to the hives to get some hands on work with African bees. As it is rainy season, the bees are pretty docile and no one was stung but my hear t was racing a little bit as the first hive was opened and swarms of bees started bouncing off of everyone’s mesh covered faces. My suit was orange and white stripped and I looked like an escaped convict, the pictures are fantastic but not on my camera, so they will come later. Later we learned how to process wax and honey.  I am looking forward to heading back to site to begin an apiary with the men of my village; they are interested in making hives out of bamboo, because it’s natural and plentiful to the area. I’m excited that they are excited, and that it will be tapping into an income generating venture that has not yet been explored. Good Things are happening here in The Gambia.

I am so happy to see everyone from my group again. Africa has been good to everyone, it has challenged us, pushed us, lifted us up, taught us, and spit us back out together in Kombo (the land of food and drink) where we can feel how much each of us has changed. But I also miss the bush. The people grow on you, they have become my people, they aren’t just my host family anymore, and they feel like family. We laugh and argue like family, they tease me for my oddities and I do the same back to them.  I don’t know when this happened but it did and that’s the beauty behind these people, they give to you unconditionally. 

Hangry, Lion King, and Malaria

Ramadan has ended, all 30 days of it were a roller coaster of emotions, frustrations, and discoveries. I drank water the whole time but fasted 24 days out of 30. I learned some and appreciated food at the end of the day much more. Now that its over and we are back to the rice bowls, I miss the break fast meals very much. I also have never been that excited to see a moon before, as the fasting ends with the sight of the moon on the 30th or 29th day. The two days following the sighting of the moon are days of great celebration, called Korite, where we eat and drink all day long. Boys and girls receive presents from their parents such as shoes or new clothing. Women braid their hair in special ways and henna their feet. Men put on their best kaftans and head to the mosques for a special day of prayer. Everyone walks around village in their best clothes and shoes, greeting neighbors and celebrating the end to Ramadan. All in all, it was here only, and now that its over, I'm glad there won't be another Ramadan till next year. (People, including myself, get a little (h)angry, but hey who doesn't when they are hungry.)

Gambia has gone green. Its like the place exploded. That scene in the 'Lion King' where the rains come and turn the land from depressing dryness and death to a place of happiness where all the lions are roaring and prancing around in playfulness. Well, that's pretty accurate as to what has happened. Rains have come, heavily, the fields are growing tall and the paths are being encroached by weeds. Animals that once roamed around wild in search of any food they could find are now being staked and left to eat the weeds that they can reach. The people have become much more active, going out into the fields to weed or playing with their children more. Bugs...are more frequent. Also, infections are highly likely as there are pools of water sitting around everywhere. I wash my feet with anti-bacterial soap every chance I get. Mosquitoes have taken up residence in the pools of water and after twilight its like a battle field, human v. mosquitoes. 

Which brings me to the topic of Malaria. We, PCVs, have malaria prophylaxis that we are given by the US government, although there is some contention behind the different drugs. If you care to know about this argument, send me a message. We also have on hand anti-malaria drugs and malaria rapid test that if taken during the onset of symptoms can greatly reduce the disease. We have mosquito nets and I sleep under mine nightly, tucked in tight to prevent both malaria and those stupid cockroaches living in my backyard from joining me in my bed. We also have DEET bug spray and although I use 100% DEET concentration I still get bitten. These little suckers don't mess around. The malaria mosquitoes come out during dusk and hang around till dawn, so I've taken to going into my room earlier in the evening. Part of a PCV work is to bring attention to the methods of prevention, such as bed nets which are given to each mother when she brings her child to the clinic for their check-ups. Progress takes awhile, however, and bed-nets are commonly used as screens over garden nurseries to protect against bugs or sold. 

Update on my neighbor, the boy who wasn't doing well, was after a spike in his fever, taken by horse cart at 4am to the nearest health center, 6K away and I've been told that he is coming home today. His father has been walking the 12k round trip every morning and evening to see his son and wife. 

These are my cucumber plants in my backyard. They are doing extremely well and have grown over the fence in such a short amount of time. Compared to the cucumbers we had at Brown Farm, these are incredible. I didn't know if I could grow vegetables in Africa, but you can!