New photos are up on: www.webshots.com/user/skibumrobby
Sorry for the lack of a post, but I've been thwarted by a couple VERY inconvenient power outages. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!!
December 10, 2006
November 15, 2006
Partway Thru Training in Bambuko - letter dated Oct. 24, 2006
Happy Koriteh!! Today our village, Bambako, celebrated the end of Ramadan, which means the end of fasting. This is a good thing. For the month of Raamdan, Muslins are forbidden to eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset. As you can imagine, this makes for some pretty tired folks come 4:00 o'clock!. It's also weird walking around with a water bottle when no one else can drink. It makes one pretty self-conscious. That all ended today, with a village-wide celebrations- music, dancing, eating and praying. My host father gave me some of his choicest clothes to wear to the prayer service this morning. I'll put a picture up to show you on the internet, but these threads were sweet! Gambians know how to dress!! The get-up is basically matching pants and an ankle-length robe. The fabric is a very intricately detailed dark maroon, with pink and orange emblems and stitching on the trim. To top it all off, it's dotted with thousands of sequins, that catch the sun and make the robe seem to dance. I'm definitey going to get myself something like this!!
So, after the prayer, everyone walked around and drank ataya while sitting under the trees listening to music. Ataya is this ridiculously strong green tea that is brewed in a small pot (6oz.) and this 6 oz. of tea contains at LEAST 1 cup of sugar. To say that it is ridiculously sweet would be an understatement. You can almost feel your teeth rotting as you sip it. Anyway, it was a very fun, relaxing day and everyone was in great spirits, dancing and eating. Before sunset, all the children in the villag e run around and collect "Saliboo", which is very similar to our trick or treat. The children are given either candy or money, and if you have neither, you say a quick prayer: "Alla in na maa be hor jaare la>" Surprisingly, the kids seemed to prefer the candy or money.
Let's see, it's been over 2 1/2 weeks since I wrote you last, so there is much to tell. After that initial, "Oh my God what the hell am I doing here" shock wore off, things started to go pretty well in the village. My language started improving such that I could function around my family. I also made a couple friends in the village. Between their broken English and my poor Mandinka, we generally manage just fine. They've been a huge resource, telling me the Mandinka words for anything I want to know, gong out into the bush and talking about the numerous trees and a number of tree and plant species, showing me the finer points of the Gambian culture, being my tourgides around the area, and even offering to get me a Bambian wife if I'll get them a white wife. It's all been a lot of fun, very diffenent and always interesting. Unfortunately, things in the health department have not been quite as rosy. Luckily the "rear-end ailment I wrote about last time only lasted about 4 or 5 days. I was healthy and feeling good for about 2 days. when my right ear started to throb. The pain got much worse over the course of a day, and it became very painful just to chew. I biked 5 km. to Kwinell (where there is a small PC office) and procured some ear drops to cure my ear infection. The ear drops were great fun as I had to contract my neck sideways during language classes to keep them from dripping out of my ear.
Now, let me try to paint a picture of how awesome it was conversing with the locals; Mandinkas are NOTORIOUS mumblers, and I'm pretty sure everyone in Bambako has spent years in front of the mirror practicing speaking as quickly and quietly as they can with the least lip movement humanly possible, just to make their lanuage all the more difficult. Throw into the mix an American white guy whose idea of hard to understand is a Jewish woman from Long Island, and then take one ear out of commission due to the ear infection and you begin to get an idea of how hard tht first week was. Amazingly enough, either despite the bad ear, or perhaps because of it, I picked up and retained a good bit of lanuage during those 10 days in the village, and started to understand some of the mumbles. While the focus of village time is obviously language learning, we spent a couple evenings walking around with our instructer learning tree and crop identification, complete with the Mandinka names for all. We also prepared, weeded and dug our garden beds, but the PC was late with our seed delivery so they sat unused for a week.
We also took our fist "gele-gele" trip in the Gambia to to the market in Soma on Thursday. A gele-gele is basically a completely run-down, stripped, and often badly damaged van that has been jerry-rigged to uncomfortably fit between 24 - 26 unsuspecting people. These vehicles then careen down the pothole-holed road, often times tipped over at 30 degree angles (the first time it happened I swore we would tip over) but the drivers know their vehicles and the road VERY well and somehow managed to get us there and back without any mishaps.
Come Sunday, my ear was starting to feel better and I began to hear in stereo again, a huge relief. On Monday, we set out on our bikes for Tendabu Camp - about 10 km. from Bambako. Tendaba Camp is a tourist "safari camp" located on the River Gambia, complete with running water, electricity, and ... a SWIMMING POOL. I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited to have all those amentities; there is just no respite from the heat here, and a swiming pool during the day and fans at night sounded like a dream come true. Our bike ride from Bambako was fun, but, being in the middle of the day, also ridiculously hot.
Ben, Nick and I were the first to arrive, and followed the signs to the reception area, which also turned out to be the bar. It took our combined mental prowess about .2 seconds to realize that, "yes, that WAS a refrigerator behind the bar, and YES. those were beers in that fridge. We immediately ordered 3 of the long-necked green beauties, and savored all 12 ounces of refridgerated goodness. After our beers, we located our rooms, put on swimsuits and headed straight for the pool. It was like heaven on earth!! The cool waters took all my cares away. It felt lilke I was back in Florida, just getting home from a ride to the Forest and back.
The week at Tendaba was great, we had pretty decent, albeit oily, food, the classes were interestig and the star gazing from the dock at night was worldclass (especially being that I got to see a whole new half of the sky!!) There was only one problem...I got sick AGAIN. I felt fine the first couple of days, and was loving the pool, the bird walks and going to the garden and learning about the grafting, composting, organic fertilizers and pesticides, how to grow vegetables and fruits in the rainy vs. dry season, and so much more. However, by evening of the second or third day, I started feeling very dizzy, achy all over, and was having blurry vision. I make it through our fist language test with cold sweats and shivers from the fan, and then went straight to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night just SOAKED from head to toe and my temperature was 102.6 degress. Fun times. The fever and symptons were controlled pretty well by ibuprofen until 4:00 PM or so which meant I made it to most sessions. After 4 PM, I would usually just crash and sleep for a couple of hours before I was awakened by the sensation of being afloat in my own sweat. This would usualy prompt a quick shower, then I would crawl back to my wet bed and try to sleep again. My fever lasted all week, at one point, it made it up to 103.3 degrees. There was a nurse on hand, so I had good care, but she just kept telling me to take the vitamin I, since it was controlling the fever pretty well. My roommate, Ben, also got deathly ill towards the end of the week, on Friday and he ad I ended up staying an extra night at Tenada so we could do nothing but rest and try to get better. Ben had it much worse than I, however. He had diarrhea and was vomiting and his fever shot above 104.
On Sunday morning I was taken back to my village, while Ben was taken to the PC medical office in Svekunda. Despite the niceties of Tendaba, it was good to be back in Bambako, surrounded by the people, the culture and the language. I felt like I had lost a lot of language while at Tendaba, - probably cuz I sweated it out too - so getting back to speaking Mandinka was a good change. I still feel pretty weak, so I took it easy all day, just hanging out and chatting with my host family and friends. Lugging 80 lbs. of water back from the well was enough of a workout for me that day. I passed on dinner that night and tried to get to sleep early, but it somehow became very humid and hot in my house. I was sweating profusely just lying in bed, unabe to sleep. During this 3 hour period of sleeplessness I made up my mind on a couple of matters. The first was that air conditioning truly is a gift from God himself, never to be taken for granted, EVER. The second was that I'm going to build myself a solar power setup strong enough that I can power a fan every night while I sleep, no matter wat the cost (we just had a course on solar power at Tendaba,) and I think with a good dry-cell battery and an efficiant fan, I can make it work).
Around 10 PM I was fading in and out of sleep when I heard a very loud diesel engine on the road. I quickly realized that this noise was too loud to be on the road, it had to be right by our compound. Just then, I heard a familiar voice shouting in Mandinka at my family, and then in English, at me. It was John, the PC driver. It turned out that another volunteer had wreaked his bike pretty badly - he went over his handlebars onto his head - and they needed someone with medical training to check him out, clean his wounds and monitor him throughout the night before he went to to PC medical office in Serekenda the next day, or if merited, make the call to send him to the med office that night. So, I grabbed a few things and hopped in the back of the Land Cruiser to head back to Tendaba, of all places. There is a unmanned "medical office" there with supplies and other necessties for exactly this purpose. The injured volunteer was up front and since it was dark, I couldn't see anything. John decided that it would be best for all concerned if he drove the Land Criser like Mario Adnretti at Indy, which given the condition of the road meant that I could barely breathe between the massive jolts, bumps, and catching air - let alone hold a conversation. I kept thinking about how they stressed safe and cautious and gentle driving in the EMT course, especially when you had a patient on board. This was exactly the opposte. We arrived in Tendaba in one piece and in good time, and none of us were worse for the wear.
Upon arrival, I got my first good look at the other volunteer - he was cut up pretty badly, so we took him into the PC med office. He had a couple deep lacerations around his left eye and under his nose, multiple abrasions on his left cheek and neck, and 2 puncture wounds on his upper and lower lip. He had abrasions on his shoulders, both arms, hands and legs. All the bleeding had been controlled, I examined him for signs of a head injury, but other than lightheadedness, he checked out. I cleaned and dressind his wounds, and gave hime some Ibuprofen for th e pain. By this time it was past midnight so the patient just got ready for bed while I talked to the PC med office. I gave them a rundown of his injuries and said it would be best to get him there in the morning, since nighttime driving is a pretty sketchy affair around here. On an interesting note, the nurse told me to make sure I ordered a beer or drink if I wanted one and that medical would pay for it!!! Being that I was still feeling sick, I declined. I passed the night in fan-cooled bliss, waking up every few hours to check on my patient. All was well and in the morning, after re-dressig his wounds and eating OMELETTES!!! for breaksfast, I was driven back to my village and my patient was taken to the med office in Svekenda. So, my first use of the EMT training went very well. I felt totally confident and comfortable and even got a couple of good meals and a fan-cooled sleep to boot.
Being back in the village has been really nice. I'm starting to feel at home here, and I've made quite a few friends, especially Bakary - who works as a carpenter in Bambako. His Mandinka is excellent and his English is preety good too, so he and I get along great, talking about the differences between America and Gambia. Tomorrow, Thursday, I leave Bambako again to visit a current 2nd year volunteer at her site to see what life as a volunteer is really like. After 3 days, all the trainess meet in Bansang for some technical fieldtrips in the eastern part of the country. Should be a lot of fun.
Now for the really good news: While we were at Tendaba, they told us all of us where our volunteer sites are going to be! This is the first time that they've told voluteers so early in the training, usually we would't find out until week 8 or so. I will be in JALI for the next two years!! Here is what I think I know about Jali. It's a small village (500 people I think) on the South Bank, in the western third of the country. Geographically speaking, I'm not too far from the bigger cities on the coast, about 60km as the bird flies. Logistically, however, I'm the second most isolated volunteer. The most isolated volunteer, incidentally, will be closest neighbor and he is about 15km up the trail. When we talk about most isolated volunteer, it means distance from the road. In Gambia, there are essentially 2 roads, the North Bank road and the much sketchier South Bank road. As it stands, Jali is 25km. from the South Bank road - which means lots of biking for me! All this isolation is for a very good reason: Jali basically abutts Kiang West National Park, which is one of the largest protected areas in the country and has the biggest and most diverse animal population of all Gambia's parks. Some of the animals in Kiang are: baboons, colobus monkeys, bushbucks, roans, sitatungas (sp?), leopards, hyenas, manakes, dolphins, crocodiles, and over 300 species of birds!! The rest of the area around Jali is forested and supposedly there are great trails for wildlife viewing and biking. It sounds like there is an endless variety of projects I can tackle in Jali and the surrounding villages, from beekeeping to agroforestry -----? to solar power workshops. And, to top everythinkg off, the top medical research facility in the country, the MRC, is only 8 km. away!! It's run by 2 doctors from the UK and a doc from Bangldesh. I've been told they are really nice, and since I'll be working there - I'll have internet access! I also know that the docs like to invite PCVs over for homecooked meals, and sometimes it's possible to score a place in one of the guest houses for a night (these have A/C, runing water, etc.) I'm also only a 6 hour gele-gele ride from the ocean, so I'll be hitting that up from time to time.
Basiclly the site sounds absolutely perfect for me: medical and environment job opportunities, close to Nat'l Park, lots of biking and a good sized village, relatively close to the beach, and possible access to internet and running water. I am very excited. Now, if only I could become fluent in Mandinka in the next 6 weeks........
So, after the prayer, everyone walked around and drank ataya while sitting under the trees listening to music. Ataya is this ridiculously strong green tea that is brewed in a small pot (6oz.) and this 6 oz. of tea contains at LEAST 1 cup of sugar. To say that it is ridiculously sweet would be an understatement. You can almost feel your teeth rotting as you sip it. Anyway, it was a very fun, relaxing day and everyone was in great spirits, dancing and eating. Before sunset, all the children in the villag e run around and collect "Saliboo", which is very similar to our trick or treat. The children are given either candy or money, and if you have neither, you say a quick prayer: "Alla in na maa be hor jaare la>" Surprisingly, the kids seemed to prefer the candy or money.
Let's see, it's been over 2 1/2 weeks since I wrote you last, so there is much to tell. After that initial, "Oh my God what the hell am I doing here" shock wore off, things started to go pretty well in the village. My language started improving such that I could function around my family. I also made a couple friends in the village. Between their broken English and my poor Mandinka, we generally manage just fine. They've been a huge resource, telling me the Mandinka words for anything I want to know, gong out into the bush and talking about the numerous trees and a number of tree and plant species, showing me the finer points of the Gambian culture, being my tourgides around the area, and even offering to get me a Bambian wife if I'll get them a white wife. It's all been a lot of fun, very diffenent and always interesting. Unfortunately, things in the health department have not been quite as rosy. Luckily the "rear-end ailment I wrote about last time only lasted about 4 or 5 days. I was healthy and feeling good for about 2 days. when my right ear started to throb. The pain got much worse over the course of a day, and it became very painful just to chew. I biked 5 km. to Kwinell (where there is a small PC office) and procured some ear drops to cure my ear infection. The ear drops were great fun as I had to contract my neck sideways during language classes to keep them from dripping out of my ear.
Now, let me try to paint a picture of how awesome it was conversing with the locals; Mandinkas are NOTORIOUS mumblers, and I'm pretty sure everyone in Bambako has spent years in front of the mirror practicing speaking as quickly and quietly as they can with the least lip movement humanly possible, just to make their lanuage all the more difficult. Throw into the mix an American white guy whose idea of hard to understand is a Jewish woman from Long Island, and then take one ear out of commission due to the ear infection and you begin to get an idea of how hard tht first week was. Amazingly enough, either despite the bad ear, or perhaps because of it, I picked up and retained a good bit of lanuage during those 10 days in the village, and started to understand some of the mumbles. While the focus of village time is obviously language learning, we spent a couple evenings walking around with our instructer learning tree and crop identification, complete with the Mandinka names for all. We also prepared, weeded and dug our garden beds, but the PC was late with our seed delivery so they sat unused for a week.
We also took our fist "gele-gele" trip in the Gambia to to the market in Soma on Thursday. A gele-gele is basically a completely run-down, stripped, and often badly damaged van that has been jerry-rigged to uncomfortably fit between 24 - 26 unsuspecting people. These vehicles then careen down the pothole-holed road, often times tipped over at 30 degree angles (the first time it happened I swore we would tip over) but the drivers know their vehicles and the road VERY well and somehow managed to get us there and back without any mishaps.
Come Sunday, my ear was starting to feel better and I began to hear in stereo again, a huge relief. On Monday, we set out on our bikes for Tendabu Camp - about 10 km. from Bambako. Tendaba Camp is a tourist "safari camp" located on the River Gambia, complete with running water, electricity, and ... a SWIMMING POOL. I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited to have all those amentities; there is just no respite from the heat here, and a swiming pool during the day and fans at night sounded like a dream come true. Our bike ride from Bambako was fun, but, being in the middle of the day, also ridiculously hot.
Ben, Nick and I were the first to arrive, and followed the signs to the reception area, which also turned out to be the bar. It took our combined mental prowess about .2 seconds to realize that, "yes, that WAS a refrigerator behind the bar, and YES. those were beers in that fridge. We immediately ordered 3 of the long-necked green beauties, and savored all 12 ounces of refridgerated goodness. After our beers, we located our rooms, put on swimsuits and headed straight for the pool. It was like heaven on earth!! The cool waters took all my cares away. It felt lilke I was back in Florida, just getting home from a ride to the Forest and back.
The week at Tendaba was great, we had pretty decent, albeit oily, food, the classes were interestig and the star gazing from the dock at night was worldclass (especially being that I got to see a whole new half of the sky!!) There was only one problem...I got sick AGAIN. I felt fine the first couple of days, and was loving the pool, the bird walks and going to the garden and learning about the grafting, composting, organic fertilizers and pesticides, how to grow vegetables and fruits in the rainy vs. dry season, and so much more. However, by evening of the second or third day, I started feeling very dizzy, achy all over, and was having blurry vision. I make it through our fist language test with cold sweats and shivers from the fan, and then went straight to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night just SOAKED from head to toe and my temperature was 102.6 degress. Fun times. The fever and symptons were controlled pretty well by ibuprofen until 4:00 PM or so which meant I made it to most sessions. After 4 PM, I would usually just crash and sleep for a couple of hours before I was awakened by the sensation of being afloat in my own sweat. This would usualy prompt a quick shower, then I would crawl back to my wet bed and try to sleep again. My fever lasted all week, at one point, it made it up to 103.3 degrees. There was a nurse on hand, so I had good care, but she just kept telling me to take the vitamin I, since it was controlling the fever pretty well. My roommate, Ben, also got deathly ill towards the end of the week, on Friday and he ad I ended up staying an extra night at Tenada so we could do nothing but rest and try to get better. Ben had it much worse than I, however. He had diarrhea and was vomiting and his fever shot above 104.
On Sunday morning I was taken back to my village, while Ben was taken to the PC medical office in Svekunda. Despite the niceties of Tendaba, it was good to be back in Bambako, surrounded by the people, the culture and the language. I felt like I had lost a lot of language while at Tendaba, - probably cuz I sweated it out too - so getting back to speaking Mandinka was a good change. I still feel pretty weak, so I took it easy all day, just hanging out and chatting with my host family and friends. Lugging 80 lbs. of water back from the well was enough of a workout for me that day. I passed on dinner that night and tried to get to sleep early, but it somehow became very humid and hot in my house. I was sweating profusely just lying in bed, unabe to sleep. During this 3 hour period of sleeplessness I made up my mind on a couple of matters. The first was that air conditioning truly is a gift from God himself, never to be taken for granted, EVER. The second was that I'm going to build myself a solar power setup strong enough that I can power a fan every night while I sleep, no matter wat the cost (we just had a course on solar power at Tendaba,) and I think with a good dry-cell battery and an efficiant fan, I can make it work).
Around 10 PM I was fading in and out of sleep when I heard a very loud diesel engine on the road. I quickly realized that this noise was too loud to be on the road, it had to be right by our compound. Just then, I heard a familiar voice shouting in Mandinka at my family, and then in English, at me. It was John, the PC driver. It turned out that another volunteer had wreaked his bike pretty badly - he went over his handlebars onto his head - and they needed someone with medical training to check him out, clean his wounds and monitor him throughout the night before he went to to PC medical office in Serekenda the next day, or if merited, make the call to send him to the med office that night. So, I grabbed a few things and hopped in the back of the Land Cruiser to head back to Tendaba, of all places. There is a unmanned "medical office" there with supplies and other necessties for exactly this purpose. The injured volunteer was up front and since it was dark, I couldn't see anything. John decided that it would be best for all concerned if he drove the Land Criser like Mario Adnretti at Indy, which given the condition of the road meant that I could barely breathe between the massive jolts, bumps, and catching air - let alone hold a conversation. I kept thinking about how they stressed safe and cautious and gentle driving in the EMT course, especially when you had a patient on board. This was exactly the opposte. We arrived in Tendaba in one piece and in good time, and none of us were worse for the wear.
Upon arrival, I got my first good look at the other volunteer - he was cut up pretty badly, so we took him into the PC med office. He had a couple deep lacerations around his left eye and under his nose, multiple abrasions on his left cheek and neck, and 2 puncture wounds on his upper and lower lip. He had abrasions on his shoulders, both arms, hands and legs. All the bleeding had been controlled, I examined him for signs of a head injury, but other than lightheadedness, he checked out. I cleaned and dressind his wounds, and gave hime some Ibuprofen for th e pain. By this time it was past midnight so the patient just got ready for bed while I talked to the PC med office. I gave them a rundown of his injuries and said it would be best to get him there in the morning, since nighttime driving is a pretty sketchy affair around here. On an interesting note, the nurse told me to make sure I ordered a beer or drink if I wanted one and that medical would pay for it!!! Being that I was still feeling sick, I declined. I passed the night in fan-cooled bliss, waking up every few hours to check on my patient. All was well and in the morning, after re-dressig his wounds and eating OMELETTES!!! for breaksfast, I was driven back to my village and my patient was taken to the med office in Svekenda. So, my first use of the EMT training went very well. I felt totally confident and comfortable and even got a couple of good meals and a fan-cooled sleep to boot.
Being back in the village has been really nice. I'm starting to feel at home here, and I've made quite a few friends, especially Bakary - who works as a carpenter in Bambako. His Mandinka is excellent and his English is preety good too, so he and I get along great, talking about the differences between America and Gambia. Tomorrow, Thursday, I leave Bambako again to visit a current 2nd year volunteer at her site to see what life as a volunteer is really like. After 3 days, all the trainess meet in Bansang for some technical fieldtrips in the eastern part of the country. Should be a lot of fun.
Now for the really good news: While we were at Tendaba, they told us all of us where our volunteer sites are going to be! This is the first time that they've told voluteers so early in the training, usually we would't find out until week 8 or so. I will be in JALI for the next two years!! Here is what I think I know about Jali. It's a small village (500 people I think) on the South Bank, in the western third of the country. Geographically speaking, I'm not too far from the bigger cities on the coast, about 60km as the bird flies. Logistically, however, I'm the second most isolated volunteer. The most isolated volunteer, incidentally, will be closest neighbor and he is about 15km up the trail. When we talk about most isolated volunteer, it means distance from the road. In Gambia, there are essentially 2 roads, the North Bank road and the much sketchier South Bank road. As it stands, Jali is 25km. from the South Bank road - which means lots of biking for me! All this isolation is for a very good reason: Jali basically abutts Kiang West National Park, which is one of the largest protected areas in the country and has the biggest and most diverse animal population of all Gambia's parks. Some of the animals in Kiang are: baboons, colobus monkeys, bushbucks, roans, sitatungas (sp?), leopards, hyenas, manakes, dolphins, crocodiles, and over 300 species of birds!! The rest of the area around Jali is forested and supposedly there are great trails for wildlife viewing and biking. It sounds like there is an endless variety of projects I can tackle in Jali and the surrounding villages, from beekeeping to agroforestry -----? to solar power workshops. And, to top everythinkg off, the top medical research facility in the country, the MRC, is only 8 km. away!! It's run by 2 doctors from the UK and a doc from Bangldesh. I've been told they are really nice, and since I'll be working there - I'll have internet access! I also know that the docs like to invite PCVs over for homecooked meals, and sometimes it's possible to score a place in one of the guest houses for a night (these have A/C, runing water, etc.) I'm also only a 6 hour gele-gele ride from the ocean, so I'll be hitting that up from time to time.
Basiclly the site sounds absolutely perfect for me: medical and environment job opportunities, close to Nat'l Park, lots of biking and a good sized village, relatively close to the beach, and possible access to internet and running water. I am very excited. Now, if only I could become fluent in Mandinka in the next 6 weeks........
October 21, 2006
Arrival in the Training Village -- Oct. 7, 2006
So, on Friday, yesterday, 25 of us crammed into "The Coaster" (which is short for rollercoaster, as I'll explain in a minute) and headed east, "up country" towards our training villages. It was a 4 1/2hour bus ride to our villages over what was easily the worst road I've ever seen, period. Bumpy as hell, potholed like crazy and incredibly uneven - such that the driver swerved back and forth to avoid the biggest holes. Hence, the name "Coaster". Of course, I had the good fortune to contract a particularly nasty bout of diarrhea (or "ass-cough" as it's affectionately called here), the day before, so I was feeling awful before the 4 1/2 hour jarring-fest began. Luckily I procured some Immodium from the medical office before departing, so there were no emergency stops along the way, although I did get the urge to throw up every 20 minutes from the nausea. Good times. On to Part Two of the The Gambian odyssey....
We arrived at Bambako at around 2PM and the four of us that wre training here said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. Bambako is a mediun-sized village of 50 family compouds (around 500 people). My first impressions were good - the village is really clean and the houses, while meager, seemed well cared for. Most of the buildings are constructed from mud bricks or concrete, and have corrugated tim roofs, or grass roofs. Most compounds have a fence partly enclosing thm made up of reed branches.
The whole family lives together in the compund, and as Gambians like to have lots of children (children are a social welfare program in Gambia - the idea is that the more children you have, the better the chance of havig a rich child who can take care of you in your old age) the families are large - 8-10 people. So, after the bus left, we met with our LCH, Language and Culture Helper (local Gambians who are our teachers during training) whose name is Muhammoudin B__. We talked for a short time in his host family's compoud, under the mango tree. In a short time, our host family's children came to help with our bags and to show us to their compound. Laame, the oldest son living at home speaks very little English and was able to give me very basic instructions. After a short walk, we arrived at the D_______ compund, where I am spending the next 3 months. When I walked through the fence, most of the family was sitting on a large matal "bench" in the middle of the compound. I said a quick "Salaamaleekum" and put my things inside the door that Laami pointed to then came back out to formally greet my family. Greetings are VERY IMPORTANT in Gambia, not greeting someone is seen as a big insult. They are also VERY EXTENSIVE. Here's a sample of a typical greeting:
Q. Salaamaleekum. (Peace be with you)
A. Maleekum Salaam. (And also to you)
Q. I saama. (Good morning)
A. Surname, I saama. (Surname, good morning)
Q. Suumoolulee? )(How are the home people?)
A. I be jee. (They are there, in peace)
Q. Kori tana te jee? (I hope there is no trouble)
A. Tana te jee (There is no trouble)
Q. Kori I siinoota? (Ihope you slept well)
A. Haa n siinoota buake le. (Yes, I slept very well)
Q. Soomandaa be naadii? (How is the morning)
A. Soomandaa be jay doroy. (Morning is here,(in peace),only
Q. Kayira laata? (Peace in the morning?
A. Kayim dorong. (Peace only)
So this is done to every person that you pass by, every time. It is accecepted that if you are busy (which rarely happens in Gambia) that you can shorten the greeting to a few exchanges, but yo must greet nonetheless. Of course, people rattle these greetings off and I have gotten pretty efficient in doing so myself.
OK, back to the narrative.
I greeted my family and gave my host father 1/4 kg. of kola nuts to show my appreciation for living with them. Kola nuts are a very important ceremonial gift in Gambia, thay are given at many important gatherings and ceremones. My host father's name is Laame (same as his son's) ____. He is "Tay naani niy worowwla" - 47, and as far as I can tell, he has 3 wives and about 6-8 children who are living at home. The family is reserved around me and I around them, as we are getting used to each other, and slowly working around my language deficiences. The hardest part of the language learning for me, is audibly comprehending the different words, and pronouncing them from hearing only. The Gambians tend not to enunciate at all, so it's really difficult to pick up on what they are saying, expecially since the words are nothing like English or anything I've ever heard for that matter. Not only that, but my Spanish has an annoying habit of substituting itself for Mandinka words. It's funny, I'm acutally remembering MORE Spanish by learning Mandinka! Strange, Huh?
So, I found out a little about my host father, and then having run out of things to say, I just stood there awkwardly, smiling, wanting to escape inside, but not wanting to appear rude. Luckily, Laami (the son) said, "you go inside". So, I made my exit. I walked in and got my bearings. My house is concrete with a corrogated tin roof, 2 windows, 2 doors and 2 rooms. The first room has a desk and chair, and the back room has a bed. It's actually pretty nice - and very clean - the Gambians place a high value on cleanliness. My backyard" is surrounded by a reed fence and has a concrete slab which covers the pit latrine and is also used for taking bucket baths - something I've readily embraced and love. I take three a day. After getting my bearings I walked back inside and my first thoughts went something llike this: "What in the hell am I doing here?! I'm soaked with sweat, there are big lizards hanging out under my mattress, it's hotter than a fat whore in a Baptist church on a hot August day in Georgia, I can't even speak to my host family, there's not a single climbing spot in the whole of Gambia and I'm missng out on not one, but 2 ski seasons?!?!? It's going to be a very looong 2 years. Luckily, this feeling of impending doom passed quickly and I attribute most of it to the fact that I had had 9 bouts of "concentrated evil coming out of my butt" (quoting Maggie) in the past 24 hours, and was therefore almost delirious from dehydration, exhaustion and complete lack of food. Unfortunately, I had misplaced one of my water bottles earlier during the day so I was also out of water. I managed to convey to my host brothers that I needed water, and a couple of them took me down to the well, where we fetched water from the pump. It took all the self-restraint I possessed not to plunge my head into the buckets and drink heavily of the delicoious looking nectar of the gods. WE carred the buckets back to my house and waited very impatiently for my excruciatinly slow filter to do its job. Water has never tasted sweeter!! After drinking a couple liters of water with rehydration salts, I started to feel human again, and dozed off for an hour or so. I woke up feeling much stronger and ventured outside to chat with my host family and visit the other volunteers in the village. Everyone in Bambako is very friendly and very helpful with the language. All the volunteer's host families are vey nice, always curious about us. Being that it is Ramadan, I returned home and broke fast with my family at sundown by eating bread ad drinking mosquito grass tea, which is delicious and very sweet. I spent the rest of the night playing with the children, and went to bed after dinner feeling exhausted, a little overwhelmed, but definetely glad to be here.
Today was much the same, we had an informal village greeting where we took kola nuts to the Alkalo (head) of the village, and the Imam of the mosque. Afterwards, we had a few hours of language courses complete with "Snakes and Ladders" in Mandinka! After eating lunch (with my hand, of course) I returned home and spent the rest of the day studying, practicing language with my host family, sweating, reading, sweating, showing my host family the pictures I brought, and just generally being a sweaty mess, despite all the bucket baths. Luckily, this is the hottest time of the year and although I don't believe it, it supposedly gets cold enough at night in December to use a blaket!!!!! I'm anxiously awaiting December. So, all in all things are going "domamdiy, domandiy" (slowly, slowly), but I am enjoying it and learning a hell of a lot in the process. This time next week I'll hopefully be able to have meaningful conversations with my host family.
Letter written to family Saturday, Oct 7th, 2006
We arrived at Bambako at around 2PM and the four of us that wre training here said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. Bambako is a mediun-sized village of 50 family compouds (around 500 people). My first impressions were good - the village is really clean and the houses, while meager, seemed well cared for. Most of the buildings are constructed from mud bricks or concrete, and have corrugated tim roofs, or grass roofs. Most compounds have a fence partly enclosing thm made up of reed branches.
The whole family lives together in the compund, and as Gambians like to have lots of children (children are a social welfare program in Gambia - the idea is that the more children you have, the better the chance of havig a rich child who can take care of you in your old age) the families are large - 8-10 people. So, after the bus left, we met with our LCH, Language and Culture Helper (local Gambians who are our teachers during training) whose name is Muhammoudin B__. We talked for a short time in his host family's compoud, under the mango tree. In a short time, our host family's children came to help with our bags and to show us to their compound. Laame, the oldest son living at home speaks very little English and was able to give me very basic instructions. After a short walk, we arrived at the D_______ compund, where I am spending the next 3 months. When I walked through the fence, most of the family was sitting on a large matal "bench" in the middle of the compound. I said a quick "Salaamaleekum" and put my things inside the door that Laami pointed to then came back out to formally greet my family. Greetings are VERY IMPORTANT in Gambia, not greeting someone is seen as a big insult. They are also VERY EXTENSIVE. Here's a sample of a typical greeting:
Q. Salaamaleekum. (Peace be with you)
A. Maleekum Salaam. (And also to you)
Q. I saama. (Good morning)
A. Surname, I saama. (Surname, good morning)
Q. Suumoolulee? )(How are the home people?)
A. I be jee. (They are there, in peace)
Q. Kori tana te jee? (I hope there is no trouble)
A. Tana te jee (There is no trouble)
Q. Kori I siinoota? (Ihope you slept well)
A. Haa n siinoota buake le. (Yes, I slept very well)
Q. Soomandaa be naadii? (How is the morning)
A. Soomandaa be jay doroy. (Morning is here,(in peace),only
Q. Kayira laata? (Peace in the morning?
A. Kayim dorong. (Peace only)
So this is done to every person that you pass by, every time. It is accecepted that if you are busy (which rarely happens in Gambia) that you can shorten the greeting to a few exchanges, but yo must greet nonetheless. Of course, people rattle these greetings off and I have gotten pretty efficient in doing so myself.
OK, back to the narrative.
I greeted my family and gave my host father 1/4 kg. of kola nuts to show my appreciation for living with them. Kola nuts are a very important ceremonial gift in Gambia, thay are given at many important gatherings and ceremones. My host father's name is Laame (same as his son's) ____. He is "Tay naani niy worowwla" - 47, and as far as I can tell, he has 3 wives and about 6-8 children who are living at home. The family is reserved around me and I around them, as we are getting used to each other, and slowly working around my language deficiences. The hardest part of the language learning for me, is audibly comprehending the different words, and pronouncing them from hearing only. The Gambians tend not to enunciate at all, so it's really difficult to pick up on what they are saying, expecially since the words are nothing like English or anything I've ever heard for that matter. Not only that, but my Spanish has an annoying habit of substituting itself for Mandinka words. It's funny, I'm acutally remembering MORE Spanish by learning Mandinka! Strange, Huh?
So, I found out a little about my host father, and then having run out of things to say, I just stood there awkwardly, smiling, wanting to escape inside, but not wanting to appear rude. Luckily, Laami (the son) said, "you go inside". So, I made my exit. I walked in and got my bearings. My house is concrete with a corrogated tin roof, 2 windows, 2 doors and 2 rooms. The first room has a desk and chair, and the back room has a bed. It's actually pretty nice - and very clean - the Gambians place a high value on cleanliness. My backyard" is surrounded by a reed fence and has a concrete slab which covers the pit latrine and is also used for taking bucket baths - something I've readily embraced and love. I take three a day. After getting my bearings I walked back inside and my first thoughts went something llike this: "What in the hell am I doing here?! I'm soaked with sweat, there are big lizards hanging out under my mattress, it's hotter than a fat whore in a Baptist church on a hot August day in Georgia, I can't even speak to my host family, there's not a single climbing spot in the whole of Gambia and I'm missng out on not one, but 2 ski seasons?!?!? It's going to be a very looong 2 years. Luckily, this feeling of impending doom passed quickly and I attribute most of it to the fact that I had had 9 bouts of "concentrated evil coming out of my butt" (quoting Maggie) in the past 24 hours, and was therefore almost delirious from dehydration, exhaustion and complete lack of food. Unfortunately, I had misplaced one of my water bottles earlier during the day so I was also out of water. I managed to convey to my host brothers that I needed water, and a couple of them took me down to the well, where we fetched water from the pump. It took all the self-restraint I possessed not to plunge my head into the buckets and drink heavily of the delicoious looking nectar of the gods. WE carred the buckets back to my house and waited very impatiently for my excruciatinly slow filter to do its job. Water has never tasted sweeter!! After drinking a couple liters of water with rehydration salts, I started to feel human again, and dozed off for an hour or so. I woke up feeling much stronger and ventured outside to chat with my host family and visit the other volunteers in the village. Everyone in Bambako is very friendly and very helpful with the language. All the volunteer's host families are vey nice, always curious about us. Being that it is Ramadan, I returned home and broke fast with my family at sundown by eating bread ad drinking mosquito grass tea, which is delicious and very sweet. I spent the rest of the night playing with the children, and went to bed after dinner feeling exhausted, a little overwhelmed, but definetely glad to be here.
Today was much the same, we had an informal village greeting where we took kola nuts to the Alkalo (head) of the village, and the Imam of the mosque. Afterwards, we had a few hours of language courses complete with "Snakes and Ladders" in Mandinka! After eating lunch (with my hand, of course) I returned home and spent the rest of the day studying, practicing language with my host family, sweating, reading, sweating, showing my host family the pictures I brought, and just generally being a sweaty mess, despite all the bucket baths. Luckily, this is the hottest time of the year and although I don't believe it, it supposedly gets cold enough at night in December to use a blaket!!!!! I'm anxiously awaiting December. So, all in all things are going "domamdiy, domandiy" (slowly, slowly), but I am enjoying it and learning a hell of a lot in the process. This time next week I'll hopefully be able to have meaningful conversations with my host family.
Letter written to family Saturday, Oct 7th, 2006
October 05, 2006
Heading Upcountry
The first week in Gambia went very well, and now it's time to say goodbye to the West Coast for about 2 months. Our group heads to our training villages for language and technical training sessions. I will be living in Bambako, a village of about 50 family compounds. There will be 4 of us living in Bambako, each living with a different host family. The idea behind living with a host family is so that we will be fully immersed into the culture and language more readily than if we were surrounded by other English-speaking Tubabs (Gambian for white person).
I'm looking forward to getting out of the Kombo area, and settling into a more traditional Gambian atmosphere. I think the language and technical training sessions will be really interesting, and we are all looking forward to receiving our Mandinka names. While we're at the training villages, internet access will be sporadic, if at all, so I won't be able to communicate for a while.
Finally, I posted some photos taken from my first week in Gambia at:
http://community.webshots.com/user/skibumrobby
October 03, 2006
Kori tanate jee
Greetings from The Gambia! I've been in the country 6 days now (although it feels like 6 months since I was in Philly last). Our training group is staying in a compound near Banjul, with dormitory style housing (with sporadic electricity and running water!!). I'm adjusting to the myriad differences between the US and Gambia pretty well, and the heat is getting slightly more tolerable. Although I'm already dreaming about the Alta snow. The training has been incredibly hectic and we have very little free time, so this post will be shorter than I would like. We have visited a suprising variety of spots in Western Gambia, considering the short amount of time we've been here. Sunday was our first day out of the compound, and we spent all morning and afternoon at the beach! It was fantastic...I think it took all of us about 10.5 seconds to rip off our clothes and sprint into the water. The ocean breeze kept the temperature and humidity at bay. We've also ventured into some of the city markets, attempting to use our very basic language skills to bargain for basic items. Speaking of language, I am learning Mandinka, which is the dominant language (and ethnic group) spoken in Gambia. On Friday, our group leaves to go to our training villages, where we will spend the next couple months, living with our host families, and learning the language and cultural traditions. Apparently, Gambians also eat with their hands out of a community food bowl that is shared by a family. We all had a good time spilling food all over ourselves while practicing this new technique. Miss you all, take care. Fo waati doo.
Life is Good.
Life is Good.
September 27, 2006
Africa Bound
Today's the big day! After 2 days of training and orientation, our group of 24 heads to the airport in a couple hours. We got our first round of immunizations today (yellow fever, MMR, Polio, and Malaria prophylaxis). Good times. Well, assuming all goes well, we'll be in Brussels tomorrow morning, and we'll arrive in The Gambia tomorrow evening. I should have internet access for about a week, so I'll post updates when I get over there. Peace.
September 25, 2006
Skiing in Africa?!?
My trip out to the East Coast has gone very well. I spent some quality time with my sister and her family, the highlight of which may have been playing 'Hullabaloo' with Hannah and Natalie at 10am Saturday morning with a particularly nasty hangover. Seriously though, it was really great seeing my nieces and nephew, and it's hard to believe that they'll be 5, 7, and 9 when I get back.
On another note, my brother and I were watching TV this morning and just happened to catch a spot about a SKI RESORT in Morocco! It turns out there is not just one, but TWO ski resorts in the Atlas Mountains. We both just looked at eachother in disbelief, and then immediately started making plans to check it out while I'm in Gambia. So, it appears that my fears of not skiing for 2 years may be unfounded...
Tomorrow I head to Philly for Staging, and will officially start Peace Corps training. We leave for Africa on Wednesday...only 3 more days!
September 18, 2006
The Torture Begins
So it's official... Alta got their first snow of the season yesterday, and here I am sweating down in Florida. Unfortunately, this is only the first in a long line of painful snowfall updates I'm bound to receive over the next couple of years, while in a country that has a geographic high point of 171 feet above sea level.
Well, for all you A-Lodgers, I hope these next 2 years are as good for you as the past 2 years were for me. Although, with the announcement that Alta is closing its Terrain Park for the 2006-07 season, I would imagine that most of you will be looking for other places to work and ski, so I wish you luck in those pursuits.
September 15, 2006
Practicing my self sufficiency...
Took a break from all the many preparations to depart and spent the day fishing with my Dad. After a VERY slow morning, we had much better luck in the afternoon on an outgoing tide. As soon as the tide shifted, we started pulling in fish. We reached our limit on Redfish pretty quickly, with me landing 2 of the 3. That night we had blackened Redfish cooked on the grill... DELICIOUS!! Pretty sure I ate about 2 lbs myself - I'm trying to fatten up a little before I have to survive on rice alone for 2 years. I still haven't quite gotten used to the heat down here in Florida, but I suppose it's a good warm-up for what's to come. On a fun note, I wrote my Will and Living Will yesterday....THAT was a little strange. And I still haven't found quality information on what to pack, so I'm going to go with my gut and bring a week's worth of loincloths, that should at least get me to Banjul.
P.S. - For all you east-coasters, I'll be in the Wilmington-DC-Philly area Sept 21st - 27th. Give me a shout if you want to meet up.
September 12, 2006
SHARK!!
Ahh yes, Faden proudly displays the Bonnethead shark that he caught on our first fishing trip with the parents. After a sweaty, exhausting, 2 minute fight, Faden managed to land the vicious creature without any serious injuries. That was pretty much the highlight of the day for Faden and I, as we watched my Dad pull in fish after fish, while we sat with our bobbers in the water wondering what we were doing wrong. Despite our poor performance, we still had fresh sea trout seviche the next night, courtesy of my Dad's skills.
September 11, 2006
Note to All
So, my initial plan is for me to mail letters home to my parents and have them post entries on this site for you all to view. We'll see how that goes....
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