Twin Sisters Peaks Hike 10/16

Sunrise from the top of the parking garage

Fall ColorsOriginally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Have you ever lain in a field of glacier lilies? Delicious to eat in its entirety as well! The leaves are fresh the flowers sweet. Yum.

Gotta do the picture at the sign, Dharma our friend from the Peace Corps came to visit.

Flower on top of a mountain, things can grow anywhere!

Looking down at surrounding mountains from the top of Rising Wolf.Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Tour De Fat Stage, good fun

Cool Bike

The crowd building before the parade started, it stretched so far back, but we were at the front. Notice the pink gorilla!

Me in my fairy, hippie, something er rather getup.

Two friends meeting at my house before the parade. I thoght they looked like a strange album cover pic.Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

OK, so I have been back in Fort Collins since the 8th, but I have been going nonstop with work since then. First prepping the classroom, then trying to look prepared for the first days of school last week. I will post pictures of my classroom, before and after the disaster. Since I was in Glacier National Park for a whole month and went on a lot of hikes I, of course, have a lot of pictures. I will have to just post a few at a time.

Hoary marmot!

Some snow crossings on the Dawson Pass-Pitamakin Loop GNP

Dawson Pass photo op. I hike with a ranger and some other visitors. It was the day after I arrived in Glacier and a really awesome hike.

Sinopah Mountain in Two Medicine on an early morning boat ride.Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

A nice hike to Hewlett Gulch with my brother here from out of town.

A spiky but pretty thistle

A good wide view, David is tiny in the bottom right corner.

Lots of water crossings!

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

A lazy day relaxing in the shade of a huge tree. Ate lunch, watched a ladybug and read a book. Summer is sooo nice.

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Hike to Lake Agnes. Glacial lake surrounded by the Never Summer Range, Nokhu Crags and Mount Richthofen. 10, 663 ft. elevation

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Arthur's Rock Hike-Lory State Park Fort Collins, CO

Good view of Longs Peak from high point on the trail.

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Taste of Fort Collins-Lead singer from the band Live

This is happening this weekend and it is a block from my house! I can run home and use the bathroom, grab a snack and go back for the next music act. Crazy. Merica.

It is a little rainy but no one seems to mind. If you look in the background of this picture there is a train going through!

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

The Poudre River is running high. Some of the bike paths along it are blocked off from flooding. There has already been someone that has lost their life going in the fast moving water. Flood warnings are on for the surrounding area because we are expecting a weekend of rain.

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

"Noontime Notes" in Oak Street Plaza. This is where the water fountain sculptures are. They will have a different kind of band each Tuesday in the afternoon. People bring their kids, have picnics, dance, have their lunch break etc. in this unique atmosphere.Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

National Trails Day! Repairing the middle section of Grey Rock Trail, in the Poudre CanyonOriginally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Zen Master Keba, in his favorite position.

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

White pelicans at the park lake.

Keba at his favorite window, enjoying the sun and bird watching!Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

On my way to the store I met a train. It had rear engine that said Sante Fe on it. It is just so cool to have a train running through the town.

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

5/21/10

Today was the 25th anniversary of Old Town Square. Since it was the 80's they had an 80's theme going on. Break dancing, Rubrix cubes, air guitar contests to all the great 80's rock bands, etc.

5/20/10

A very tasty place to eat and some good bluegrass music too! I just happened to walk by! Mandolin, bass, and a banjo. The woman had a great singing voice too.

5/7/10

The water fountain sculptures by Lawrence Argent are on for the season! Yay! The water shoots from one sculpture to another in a snake movement sort of pattern. Just be aware when your walking through, because water comes up from other places too!

Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

Yesterday, I came out of the front door of my apartment, locked the door, turned around and saw a squirrel staring at me on the stairs about 3 feet away. I hesitated and thought he looked like a squirrel that had gotten too friendly with human feeding like the ones I knew in Yosemite. But when he started to come towards me I panicked, thought "rabid squirrel!" unlocked the door and hopped back inside. I peaked through the screen door, and he was slowly making his way down the stairs and towards my apartment! I banged on the screen door to scare him away, then immediately thought how happy my neighbors would be about that at 7 a.m. I grabbed my cat to show him what was outside thinking maybe the squirrel would be scared by him. The squirrel and the cat showed little reaction.

I looked around for something to throw.... Something that wouldn't really hurt him though. I grabbed a cork, opened the screen door a crack and whisked it past him....No movement whatsoever.

Meanwhile I have about 8 minutes to walk down to the bus stop and catch my bus.

I had to charge it. I grabbed my bags and ran down the stairs chasing the squirrel. (Now the neighbors are thinking through their mj haze "mmmaaann that lady is crraaaazzy next door")

He ran down the stairs and into the parking lot, but then stopped and turned back again.

From squirrels to bears...Soon, (I hope) I will be joining Andy in the land of grizzlies, mountain lions, etc. I don't think throwing a cork will work with them either!Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

This weekend Andy and I decided to take a trip up to the mountains to car camp then ski the next day. As we drive along the hour and a half drive up to the camp spot in the canyon we have time to chat and entertain ourselves. Andy decided that he would wave to every car he met along the way. I guess the small town back country friendly feeling got to him. As we went along he waved to each and every car. Soon we discovered that almost every person driving a car did not wave and people driving trucks waved! We wondered why we thought that would be: People in trucks are generally more easy going? People in cars have places to be and aren't as friendly? Perhaps the people in cars are less sure of themselves on twisty mountain roads and therefore keeping their grips firmly on the steering wheel? Who knows?

About half-way up the mountain it started to snow. Blowing large flakes swirled around as we continued up the twisty roads of the canyon. We were listening to some good old hopping zydeco music in the car and the flakes seemed to be dancing along with the music. Soon the sky was white with flakes but we could still see a little ways in front of us.

When we got to our campsite the snow was still falling. We prepped the site to set up our tent and as we were about finished setting it up the snow stopped (which I thought was a bummer!). Blue sky started to show through the clouds. But, like they say about Colorado weather, "If you don't like the weather just wait ten minutes" . Because about 10 minutes later the sky darkened again and it once again started snowing. This pattern continued the rest of the evening and through the night.

That evening we took the opportunity to be near a completely frozen river to test our guts on walking on ice. It is a very strange and unique view-point to sit in the middle of a river that is completely covered with dense ice as the wind blows loose snow around on its surface like a isolated desert.

That night we made a thoroughly warming dinner of "mountain man breakfast" in the dutch oven. It filled our bellies and we still had enough for the next day. After dinner we decided instead of warming up with some hot chocolate we thought we would have some toasty Saki. Andy put the bottle in the outskirts of the fire and we turned it slowly to warm. Into warmed cups we poured a small portion of Saki and drank up. Because the bottle was large we put it back in the fire ring to have again. A little while later we reached to fill our cups but as Andy turned the cap steam started to burst from around the cap. We decided maybe we should wait a second before trying to open it all the way.

Well, it was cold and we were in need of some warming liquid so we probably didn't wait long enough. Andy got the lid off and went to pour it out of the cup and as the not-as-hot liquid passed through the very hot neck of the bottle an explosion of Saki shot off. Andy held out the bottle as it exploded from the top like a bottle rocket. Our astonished faces met and we just laughed. Of course, as Andy laughed some of the contents of the bottle spilled into the fire and flames shot up. As I am asking him if he is OK, he looks down in the bottle and realizes with a forlorn face that all of the saki is gone.

It would be an awesome science experiment to try again, or perhaps a really awesome James Bond trick. In a predicament Bond would say to his current sexy vixen, "Here honey drink this" She would argue that now is not the time to drink, but he would insist. Then he would toss the half empty bottle into a fire, (landing perfectly aimed at the villain) and it would explode out and Bond (+vixen) would make their awesome escape. The only problem with that is that people would not believe it could happen. But Andy and I, through experience, can tell you it can... yes it can.Originally published at http://lydia-travels.blogspot.com/

I came on the site in all earnestness to write a blog about the snow days we have had here lately. When I got to the sign in page, I remember all the memories of Gambia that are here, and my heart speeds up a little. I get signed in, and go to view the blog and scroll down just a bit. I can't help myself and start reading the blogs. And when I reach the end of the scroll bar on the page, I realize one thing. That soon, if I keep writing new blogs, those memories will slowly shift to further in the past. I know in all reality I cannot stop the time passing of that period of our lives, but right now.. I can't push those memories down. A snow blog or whatever it may be will have to come when I am stronger and able to look at my pictures from that experience without crying and when I can go back and read all of my paper journals that I wrote while there. Right now, it feels too close to look back.

It happens several times a day in this town. A pause in time for all people present. You first hear it, then, more indicators emerge. Lights flashing, red and white striped gates coming down, long draws on the horn and the signal dinging. And it doesn't matter if this train will make you late for your job, the bus, etc. you are (forced or willingly) thrust into a moment of time that feels like you have gone back into the future. People try to avoid it, racing through the last chance light, riding the side street to get ahead of it or around it. In most cases it is so long you just can't reasonably avoid it. The cars stop, just feet from the enormous machinery clanking along. You stand on the sidewalk thinking how insane it is that you can get this close to something so large, potentially dangerous and awesomely powerful. As you watch the cars go by you, like all of the people stopped, you read the sides. Some say things like, "Molten Sulfur", "Edible or Inedible Tallow", etc. For a moment it crosses your mind what it would be like if the molten sulfur were spread all over the road in front of you and what exactly your escape plan would be for that. The ding dinging of the train warning signal reverberates through the downtown parking garage and the early morning silence contribute to the feeling that the train pushed its way through a time portal, freezing modernity, stopping time, for all to see. About 80 cars, ten minutes and the train completes its pass through that part of town. The last car passes, the dinging stops, and the lights start working again. The cars are off, people are rushing across the road and back to reality. But now your late.

Let me tell you about Bob and Sue. They are my new neighbors. Bob lives directly above my apartment and Sue. Sue lives just beside Bob. (These names have not been fabricated) I don't know why, but Bob coughs a lot and loudly. But Bob and Sue each have a quirkiness that seems to compliment them to each other. In the morning I've heard Sue come out of her apartment and yell to Bob, "Good morning Bob!"

I guess the other day they were having lunch together, Sue was riding her bike down to the nearby local grocer and calls out to Bob, "Do you want anything else? Chips?" Later on that day, "Ok Bob, I'm going, I'll be back around 5." Bob answers back "Ok Sue" I was sitting reading on the outside hallway of my apartment today and heard Sue go from Bob's apartment to hers saying she was going to get something. Bob calls out after her, "You need help?" Sue declines, and as she comes back to Bob's expresses her wishes that her potato salad is good.

The other day, my brother and I were walking around town, kind of wandering and taking turns whenever we felt like it. We turned a corner onto the campus here and saw bicyclists racing around the oval in front of a campus building. We walked further in to investigate and came upon a full fledged bike race. As some of the racers went by, I thought out loud, "It doesn't look like they are taking it too seriously, look, they are wearing long skinny jean shorts" We walked to a side and sat down in the grass amongst families watching the racers. I soon noticed that many of the spectators were also in biking gear of some sort. After a serious looking set of bikers, (all in spandex get ups, clip ons, etc.) there was a cruiser bike race. Everyone laughed good naturedly at them. There were children that were so small they wouldn't come up to my hips, riding in the grass on the tiniest bicycles I've ever seen. It's like if you grown up here you are born with bicycles in your blood. Only in Fort Collins could you wander around on a Sunday and happen upon a bike race.

Being new here I notice the amount of bikers around town. I notice the type of bikers, everyone from moms with tiny children following, to old people on tricycles, to teenagers wearing neon checked vans.

The other night we walked two blocks from our street to a park and listened to a blues band in the company of families with children of all ages, their pets, and every generation in between. The local ice cream shop had a stand, (of course I had to get some) and the kids were dancing in front of the stage.

Today I walked to one of the many nearby parks and saw little boys on the lakeside fishing. A small girl and her two brothers came on their bikes to feed the ducks.

I went out to the grocery store today (fixed my new pannier on my bike, strapped on my helmet and set off)...Three blocks down and there is lighting crashing and thunder. As soon as I spot a building I head towards it. As I set my bike against the wall a mother (pushing a stroller) and her two little girls (who were on bikes) came to the door asking, "Are you hoping its open like us?" We walked in and I instantly realized it was the local performing arts center. They had a gallery of painted fabric from a Coloradoan artist. Impromptu gallery viewing.

There are fountains in the old town area near my apartment. There are blocks of some sort of rock with swirls carved in the tops of them and water comes shooting out and goes from one block to another, sending the water over several feet in an arch to the next block. Children put on their bathing suits and head down to them with their parents. But I think the dogs get the most enjoyment out of them. Trying to bite the water mid-air.

Dogs. Dogs seem to be everywhere. They are their owners companions when sitting in the outside cafe. They are the passengers in front bike baskets with their ears flapping in the wind. They are everywhere, it seems, that people are. This is definitely a dog friendly community.

My point in all of these observations which are especially poignant just coming back from The Gambia is that these people in this town seem to be a different type. It is like the Truman show town, but real. The only thing about it is that I don't think these people realize that not everyone grows up in this sweet, quant, hip, environment. An environment that seems genuinely and wholly focused on raising families and enjoying nature (with their endless bike paths bordering the Cache La Poudre and beyond). These things seem to make everyone nice and happy. And I’m glad for that.

Meet MaBintou,

Better known as Adja.

Ok,... she gets a little camera shy if she is not "ready"

Adja, 16 years old. An entrepreneur. Sells ebbe (Andy's favorite fish type stew) on the road. Likes to wear Western clothing makes great efforts to speak English (when Fatou Matta corrects her English, she says "Well, at least I'm trying!") Has a good way of easily seeing other peoples points-of-view. She is now the "curator" of the family library (its the girls room). She is one of the main cooks for the family, she asked us this weekend to show her how to make cornbread, so Andy and I showed her the Dutch oven style, it went very well.

Me and Adja waiting for the cornbread to cook.

She looks so proud! (Mama our grandma was very excited too!)

Last night, Andy and I once again embarked on what has become a seasonal tradition. Strolling around the market at night. The scene always fascinates me and last night there was added magic because the moon was so full casting a bright white glow on everything. We usually start off going through one of the dark neighborhood streets before popping up on the main drag. The air is still cool at night and even last night Andy said he wished he had brought his long sleeve shirt. Our feet pushed and propelled us through various depths of sand. "It's like being at the beach everywhere you go!" While walking we cross paths with people out and about and they don't notice the color of our skin. Ahhhh. We are somewhat incognito.

We approach the first street to turn into the dense area of the market. Most shops are closed. Empty wooden skeletons where goods are usually dripping from it line the sidewalks. Goods are carefully placed at the days beginning and removed at night, each and every day. Painted metal doors secured with heavy chains and padlocks. Cats, dogs and some people scour underneath the empty vegetable stands.

As we walk along this section my primary focus is to avoid stepping in the rubbish piles in the gutters. Everything from bits of cloth, rotten vegetables, and sheep horns can be found in the mystery piles.

I glance up as I hop on the curb and see the largest fabric shop in the market still lit. The doors are half closed but through one door I see the piles and piles of every kind and color of fabric. A man behind the counter flips up a long piece of golden fabric making it snap before letting it float back down.

We keep walking.

We round the first bend in the market. This is always the best place to see and hear Brikama’s bats. Mangoes are on the trees so they are in happily making noise, sweeping between the towering mango trees.

The clouds cross over the moon casting shadows on the sheep sleeping on the sidewalk. Their white coats contrast with their chosen sleeping place, the charcoal vendors’ area. During the day about 10 vendors sit spaced out along this sidewalk are with piles of charcoal displayed in front of them. Their children are always the most pitiful looking just because of the charcoal smudges they get all over their bodies as they play near their mothers. Now the sheep will surely have these smudges too.

We approach one stall that has a crowd gathering outside it. They are all staring at a small TV set mounted on the shelves amongst the wares.

We keep walking.

A lone donkey is pushing his nose through a pile of trash in the gutter. Every time I see a donkey I always think the exact situation it is in at that moment makes it seem so melancholy. Eeyore.

We approach the next corner and turn left. There are two tailor shops open. The men busy, bent over their work, their machines zipping along. They often work through the night, especially if there are approaching special occasions. Right next to the tailor shops is a sort of "tailor supply store" with lengths of colorful ribbons hanging from the walls and spools of thread in every color lining its shelves. Turning once again we approach a small taxi car park area, which, like most carparks here, is actually just a stretch of dirt road where all the taxis park and wait for customers. Even at night it is still bustling.

We keep walking.

We approach a friend’s stall to say hello and I grab a small boiled potato and egg from a lady nearby. Vendors along the sidewalk sell things like sandwiches (tapalapa), bananas, peanuts (groundnuts), and right now...cashews! They light their stands using make-shift lanterns made from various things like old plastic bottles with a candle inside keeping it in place with sand. To protect it from the wind they add a little scavenged clear plastic packaging. The glow is cast across their wares sometimes disguising the flaws in their bananas or the bruises on their apples.

Grilled meat vendors are also present. Subsidized chicken, grilled, then topped with a heavy dousing of mustard, mayo, and raw onions, all wrapped up in a foil package, to go.

We stop and buy some of the best and biggest cashews we have had so far this season. We are almost home when Andy contemplates out loud whether or not he should splurge on some fire grilled goat meat. He says, nah, and we pass the vendor. A few meters pass by and he slows down, stops and turns back around, no doubt thinking about his constant pursuit of more protein.

The vendor cuts up a piece of meat on a square of cement bag paper and asks Andy what accoutrement he wants. Jumbo (msg bouillon) ? Canno (hot pepper)? Pobaro (black pepper)? To which Andy says yes to all. The vendor wraps up the package in another piece of brown paper because the grease has made it translucent, twists them both up tight and hands it to a grinning Andy.

One last stop at the bitiki that sells a slightly varied type of bread and we are home.

The compound is quiet and we go inside the house to feast on our fresh market snacks.

Aka:

Mo Lamin

Age: 6

Baby of the family (and knows it!) Classic rough and tumble boy but also likes affection, has a great grin and likes to be tickled and swung as high as Ansumana (Andy) can throw him and flown like an airplane. When he thinks I’m doing something weird or silly, he has a great way of making a “disapproving” face angling his head down and saying, “Borry, Borry Borry”. (my Gambian name). He really likes food and is adventurous enough to try what things I give him from our own kitchen. (Really likes tortillas). When we are studying he is all about the “high fives” which he says in his language, (translated, says, “Borry, hit my hand!”). Started playing alphabet bingo with the older kids ever since we started playing more than a year ago and he wins often!

Meet Fatou Bintou (Aka: Fa Bin)

7 years old

Introvert, but you can tell what she is thinking because it is written on her face, she scrunches up her face when disapproving. She can also be dramatic when hurt and stubborn. She likes to come over for quiet, alone time and sometimes falls asleep on our floor. It would take a bulldozer to get her up. I have even picked her up to a standing position and she still doesn’t wake up! She likes to come and help me do things like cook, prep materials for teaching or just watch whatever I’m doing.

Alieu11 years old.

Has good male role models, like his father Sanusi and Ansumana (Andy). Looks up to Ansumana greatly and likes to help him and tries to work-out like him. Likes to compare Andy and I to each other (“Ansumana can do 20 pushups how many can you do Borry?”) Is very dedicated to studying and learning to read and tries incredibly hard. Has a great huge grin and likes to kid around.

We just got back into the city from Dakar today, we had a great time and just wanted to let everyone know we were back in Gambia. It will be nice to sleep in our lumpy bed, wake to the sounds of our compound, and take bucket baths once again! Tomorrow is the Gambia's Independence day,.. I will ask our host family if there is anything they know of that is going on, but right now I don't know of anything. By the end of the week I will post Alieu's bio and maybe if I'm feeling it, a little about our Dakar trip.

Jalika 14 years old. Pretty much like me. Pretty tom-boyish, likes to pull up her fano (wrap skirt) and run. Strong minded and willed-with attitude to spare. She likes to joke around with Ansumana (Andy). Her nickname for him is “Bread” (because he likes to eat bread all the time). Her nickname for me is “Groundnut” (because I’m always eating peanuts called groundnuts here). We call her “chocolate” (because she likes to eat chocolate on her bread). Her favorite book is The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. She has been running the library night for a few weeks, she is very good at being in charge and checking for damage in the books.

**Her outfit in these pictures was bought especially for her schools "InterHouse" sports competition. Girls don't normally wear Western style dress, but for some occasions they choose to.

***Next Post: Meet Alieu!

Millet is a staple crop grown here. Here, it is called coos.After it is taken from the field and the first husk is removed it looks like this.

This is the form I found it in when I bought it in the market. I decided I would try to make pancakes with the flour from it. We had them at the place we stayed in when we were in Mali and I really liked them. Even though I don't have a recipe to go by I am just going to wing it. So, Friday I got this home and asked Jalika, what do I do with it now? And in Mandinka and some English I got to where I had a little more than a clue on what to do. We washed it a couple of times and then she told me to let it sit and then we will pound it in the mortar and pestle. I was thinking, I want make these pancakes on Saturday morning....How long is this going to take? How long to I let it soak? Won’t pounding it when its wet not be effective? Ndea (our host mom) came over to explain it again.....ok, I think I understand but I still don’t think I will be able to make pancakes in the morning....But to be more clear I went to ask the better English speaker FatouMata to explain it to me in again!I let a portion of the millet in the bowl over night to soak after washing it a few times. And high on uncertainty I went to bed. In the morning, I woke up and got started on it right away. I poured off the water and tried to start pounding it in the mortar....And soon enough everyone in the compound had their ears pricking up, thinking, what is that? Is that Borry pounding?! And I had a whole slew of Gambian women in the house. Needless to say, I wasn’t doing it right and they just kept asking why I hadn’t taken it to the mill?

Come to find out I needed to let it dry before I pounded it. So I had to put it in the sun for a while and then later in the early evening I started pounding it. After my arm was aching I put it through a sifter (locally made from bamboo and window screen).

After moving it around the surface of the sifter I got it to where only larger pieces of the millet were on the top of the screen. I looked underneath in my bowl and I have only a few dustings of coos powder (or flour).

The portion that was left on the top I put back into the mortar and wailed on it again. I went through this routine about ten more times. I looked in my bowl and I now have about a….. cup of coos powder....

I was just thinking Geesh, this is a lot of work for pancakes! But I also couldn't help feeling very proud and excited that I did the process. And I went out to find Andy to show him proudly our bounty.

Maybe tomorrow I will get to make pancakes...

Maybe tomorrow I will send Alhagie to get the rest of my millet ground in the machine!

This guy is really nice, he owns the "Barack Obama Stationary and Bookshop" it is on our way to the college.

Above, here he is, making an "O" with his fingers for Obama

Yelling to his friend across the street, "hold on a minute I'm taking a picture!"

Yesterday a group of PC volunteers gathered at a place in Brikama that has satellite tv and watched the inauguration, it was great. Every time I see something like that on television now, (which isn’t that often, but the other week Andy downloaded the college championship football game to watch) I find myself hardly paying attention to whats on the screen, but focusing my attention on the amazing orchestration of organization that America represents. I just think of it in relation to, if that many Gambians were assembled in one place it would be sheer anarchy and chaos. Considering that grown men elbow and push pregnant women, grandmothers, children, to get a place in a gelley, I would not even consider attending such an event in those contexts. hehe.

So, last weekend, some friends of ours invited us down to go camping near their village. We woke up Saturday morning and just before lunch hopped on our trusty PC issue bikes and rode about an hour to our friends house. They had prepped a set of delicious snacks for us, employing the use of their own solar cooker, and we rode out about ten minutes from their house to the camp site.

The camp site is actually just a spot their host father has of empty land, near the river. It is close but you can't get too close because of the mangroves. There was a slight elevation and you could see across the water to the Barra Ferry in Banjul. Andy brought his binochulars and we got to check out some monkeys near the mangroves and look across the water.

Our sleeping accomodations were simple, but nice. Because it is chilly, sometimes verging on cold, to us here, (70 degrees!) we brought a heavy blanket to keep warm. We put a plastic woven mat, (used here for everything, praying, sitting, sleeping, etc.) and strung up a large mosquito net underneath a cashew tree.

When it started to get dark, we started a fire and did the thing that people do when they sit around fires.......

Stare into them, and sometimes talk. hehe.

Sometimes villagers would walk by on their way home from watering and tending their gardens nearby and they would greet us and question us, "Your going to sleep out here? why?! " It is funny, because even though they live in a place that most westerners would consider "a little scary" all the time, they think it is crazy to sleep out in the bush and that a bad elf, or something will come get you at night if you sleep outside. This is why often times, even on the most sweltering nights, people don't just don't do it.

Well, the only thing that bothered us over night was the full moon shining in our eyes and the blowing winds. I pulled my bandana over my eyes and Andy used my headwrap to cover his. The winds woke up our fire that wasn't quite out and Andy and I got up in the middle of the night to put it out and went back to sleep again. When we finally woke up it was a beautiful morning near the river.

We rode back to our friends house, and they treated us to homemade pancakes, and some fresh roasted and ground coffee.

The coffee was a myth come true. Because as people who have been here, or anywhere in W. Africa, know, typically the only option for coffee is the dreaded, Nescafe! So, a volunteer discovered that there were actually coffee beans in the unroasted form sometimes found in the market, but you had to really search it down and ask around. Our friends that had us over did just that, and after going all over our local Brikama market, found them when a little boy took them to a particular stand. They bought a kilo or so and roasted and ground it.

Overall it was a nice time. Still to come later family pics and bio....

I hope you all enjoyed reading Andy's great blog about our trip to Guinea, I won't even try to top that... so moving on.

We have been busy doing the same activities with work, except now that the second term in school has started it is getting a little bit scary thinking about how short our time is here. Between being stressed about finding a job and leaving our family and friends here we do find times to be really excited and visualize our future plans back in the states.

This weekend, I am really happy to be going camping out by the river with another PC couple. It will be a nice chance to relax. We miss camping a lot!

I am planning on doing a sort of picture and bio of some of the people in our compound. This may help you connect the stories and blogs with the people in our daily life here.

Have a good weekend

The weather has been changing. The humidity is still high, but now there is no relief from the heat sent in the form of rain storms..yesterday I asked Fatou M. if rainy season was over, and the sad thing is, she said yes! :( But I try to console myself by remembering all the good things I am going to cook in the solar cooker in the dry season. But I guess the real reason I am more sad about the change this year is that the end of the rainy season means end of mangoes, and if we are lucky we will get some more before we move back to the states, but you never know next years rainy season might be late, and this years could possibly be our last. We are also at the turning point in our service where we can say, "this is our last _____(insert month) in the Gambia" And that is just sad. Andy says he keeps having dreams that he leaves without saying goodbye to MoLamin.

We are beginning the moving process already. It is always on my mind now. It is going to be a difficult year, it will be like living two seperate lives, and towards the end of our stay here, it will be like I will already have a foot in America and one foot all the way across the ocean in Gambia. I will start making lists of things to do before we leave here, job/accomodation deadlines in America, things to sell, give away here, etc. It will kind of be like the "Gambian me" is writing her will, "I want my radio to go to Jalika, my jewlery to Fatou B....."

Fasting has been a whirlwind of emptying our stomachs, stuffing ourselves, sleeping at random intervals. When fasting stops we will have to remember to listen to our bodies signals again, because right now we are getting pretty used to ignoring them.. eating when we are so full already, not eating when our stomachs are shrinking during the day, etc. This is going to be one of my accomplishments here do to it the whole time, when last year I only did it for a week. I think that on the first day when I can eat during the day, I might forget. When I remember I will be so excited, "Hey! I can eat now if I want to! Isn't that great!?" We will both being working back into our routines our respective workout routines, and that will be nice, because vacationing (eating pretty good food) and then fasting all without exercising has made my body feel so... so yucky!

The primary, secondary, schools have started but the college still has not,.. we are looking at possibly the 6/7 th of next month,.. making for the shortest term ever. But I am trying to look into other options rather than teaching a class again. We shall see I can convince the people that matter.

The library at home is going great! Thanks for those who have sent books, we are building real book culture here! :)

Well, signing off for now...

“Blue sky is all the more beautiful with a few clouds”

We got back from our three week trip to Mali on Monday, September 1. Because of the sheer amount of things we saw and experienced it is going to be quite a task to write a comprehensible blog about it. But, of course, I will try. And though what I describe may sound like we sought out torture, I assure you we knew what it would be like ahead of time, it was how we spent a majority of out “vacation” time, and actually we enjoyed it. It wasn’t a sit on our butts and sit strawberry daiquiris by the pool type of vacation. No way, it was a sit in a people frying hot bus, as it bounces along a pot holed road, eating street food, dodging rain storms and herds of cattle, kind of vacation. Also be warned that all of the statements written below are just maybe a little less than the average ignorant observations of an American tourist-traveling in an African country they don’t live in-so would have absolutely no idea what really goes down.

Route:

Our trip route went from Brikama (our home base), across to the north bank of the Gambia by ferry, and all the way to Bassee, in the far east end of Gambia. From Bassee we went up through some points in Senegal, staying for a night, before crossing into Mali, where we visited places like, in no exact order now, Bamako, Kayes, Sevari, Sedou, Bandiagara, Dogon Country, Mopti, etc… On the way back we pretty much retraced our steps. I believe this is a common route.

Transportation:

Because this is Africa, transportation is of course… a little more interesting to get from place to place. Even when we thought we were getting on a decent vehicle, circumstances always reminded us where we were. In Gambia, transport was typical, get the car, wait forever for it to fill up with people, cram yourself in the back seat with absolutely foot room-the sun blaring on you, diesel fumes tainting the only air you are getting, that is if the person in front of you so considerately closes the window because they are getting “too much air”, and then of course go through a million check points (I think it was affirmed as 15 just along the north bank). Once getting to Bassee, we had to get a car to another car park, in order to get a car to Senegal, and the description of the car park in the guide book was along the lines of,… this car park has the most decrepit cars you’ll ever see, it is amazing that they still run…is this a junk yard or a car park? etc. If you saw it, you might think it was one of those pictures where junky broken down cars from the old days are tossed in an empty grass lot under a nice tree. We checked with this particular car park the night before coming to leave from it as to what time we should be there, they first said 7 am, then changed that and insisted we should come at 6. After we got there, got our tickets, we of course waited the mandatory 3-4 hours, during this time, we amused ourselves with the car park “attendants” doing their morning car checks. You know, like before you go on a road trip, AAA, recommends you do some odd number check on your car. Here, these checks may include: 1) checking if there is water behind your door panels, (and when you do the panel falls off, so you have to figure out how to finagle it back on) 2) somehow pushing all the rain water out of the back where all your luggage will get put 3) fishing out the string that hooks onto the door lock so you can open the door 4) finding the string that enables you to lower the window, then rehooking the string through something else so it will stay put 5) taking a metal bar, opening the hood and banging relentlessly on some part of the engine, and so on..and when you finally get through all those mandatory checks, you have to load all your passengers luggage in the back, tell them to wait while you have your attendants push your car until it starts, take off down the road, while your passengers look on, wondering if they made it too easy for someone to take off with their baggage,.. until the driver turns the car around without braking and heads back towards the car park where you are all waiting, and without turning off the engine you all pile in and off you go! On a wonderfully pot holed dirt road with giant lakes, mud holes, etc.

Entering Senegal and Mali, transport changed somewhat, in that instead of fighting your way for a seat on a seriously decrepit car, you waited civilly until you bought a ticket, where they even gave you a seat number, (you will be in seat 8, you know that comfy corner spot in the back..) The roads were considerable better, and there weren’t nearly as many checkpoints. We discussed that Gambia may have a “small country complex” in thinking it may be so important to warrant so many checkpoints on a road that goes east and west, and of which there are basically only two of in the whole country, one on the north and one on the south sides of the river. In Mali there were also bus companies that ran somewhat more organized operations, but we inevitably got the bus that had gigantic windows, that, did not open, and as the only sources of air the emergency exit on the roof propped open a little with plastic bottles, and the entrance door open the entire journey. One such bus we caught, luckily (we thought) when our taxi driver taking us to the bus station spotted a bus in route and flagged it down for us. Not long after getting settled, headed for Bamako at an alarmingly high rate of speed, the driver approached an intersection, I guess found it a little confusing as to which side of the road to be on, and braked hard, veering to the extreme right of the road, where they shoulder was very soft from rain all the previous night, and skillfully slid our charter bus into a grassy, muddy, ditch. I only realized the angle at which the bus was leaning, until I approached the door to exit. Everyone filed off, and the genius men of the passengers and bus workers, put their minds together to formulate the plan to all stand on the tilting side of the bus, “hold” it up, while the drive first goes forward into the mud more, then backwards into the ditch and mud more, all the while we are standing their thinking, man, what is going to happen when the bus makes that final tip and falls on all these men? Eventually, thank goodness, someone came by with a industrial size tow strap, and a little while later a truck that could pull us did so. Everyone got back on the bus, and we were blasting our way down the road again. Sometimes I think I may feel safer on the old decrepit vehicles, because they can’t go fast enough really to get into any real trouble, but with newer vehicles, and no roaming police force enforcing speed laws, and country roads with lots of cattle and donkey carts, it definitely is a dangerous mix.

Food:

On to a very important topic (especially now that fasting has started). We delighted at the wonderful array of food you could buy at all the stopping points our transport route. And because these stopping points were numerous, I sometimes felt like we were eating our way through the country. Having vendors shove any and everything in your face while on transport is nothing new to us here, because it happens in the Gambia too, but the new array of choices got us excited. We would inexplicably stop for a little while, people would start to get hot, and we’d all get up and go outside where there would be tons of people selling. We would all Becca, Andy and I would pile back on the bus each with a new food item for everyone to try. Food choices included things like, shea fruits (shea butter is made from it, it is a nice and creamy fruit), peanuts, many shapes and sizes of breads, cold drinks (that’s right I said cold! Amazing!) already brewed attaya, yogurt packets, ginger juice, and lots of meat being grilled up. This is a noticeable departure from the Gambia, where we tend to eat 99% fish. Meat was everywhere it seemed, and so was dairy. They seemed to have a lot more cows, goats, etc. (hence more meat and more dairy).

A noticeable difference in the food taste from Gambia is that it lacked the usual salt content that we are used to here. (not as much magi (msg) cube prevalence) The peanuts needed salt, the sauces with the rice needed salt. Though this was probably more pronounced to us because of our “need for dehydration” while traveling in the above described conditions, it was apparent that I may have a salt addiction from living here. And the abundance of meat caused uncomfortable but not serious gastrointestinal issues for me. My body is just not used to digesting meat as protein anymore (just peanuts and fish) and it would just get stuck right below what felt like my ribcage and stay there for days, during which my stomach would bloat and cause me to look several months pregnant. I stopped eating meat and it went down after a few days, and thank goodness for me that was the only issue with health that I had.

One more note on food, several times I found myself thanking the influence of the French on the food here, patisseries were such a treat, and the French bread was great.

Accommodations:

Our first night of our trip we spent in the Peace Corps transit house in Bassee. And for all of us this was a torturous night. No mosquito nets could be found, so we got so many mosquito bites that our skin felt on fire, not to mention the vast array of other unidentifiable bugs berating us all night long. Though covering up with a sheet could have helped alleviate the problem, the sheer amount of heat and sweat this caused made it impossible. The night was sleepless for all, and when a rainstorm came we couldn’t bring ourselves to close off our only air flow, so rain kept being blasted in. That morning we had to wake up to be at the car park at 6,.. so we were off to a good start.

Other memorable nights included our first arrival in Bamako, it was late at night, we got a taxi to the mission we were going to stay at, and were surprised to find that they were full, so we were taken by a boy to another “hotel”. While walking there through unknown streets, we nearly got taken out by being in the vicinity of men fighting, throwing fists and chairs, and then we see that it is just outside the gate of the place we are supposed to stay. We go to talk to the person there, and he proceeds to ask us if we have a reservation (what!? This is Africa!, reservation!?), we say no, then he says he doesn’t have any spaces left, as we go to leave through translation we figure out that he suggests we could sleep on the terrace of one of the rooms, so, giving little other choice, we take it. There was just room for three people across on mattresses we laid down, and rigged a mosquito net, and hoped it didn’t rain (it didn’t).

The time we spent in Dogon country we stayed at camps, that were actually just another building among the tightly arranged village buildings-where tourists stayed. The first night we stayed on the rooftop of a mud roofed house. To get to the roof you had to carefully climb a log with notches cut in it and was laid against the side of the building at an angle. Getting up and down this “ladder” with your pack is a little tricky, and forget about going down to pee in the middle of the night. Our guide thankfully told us before sending us up to bed, “you see those spouts for the rain water coming off the side of the roof, well, just pee into those” Which we did, and it was pretty funny, to get up in the middle of the night, glance up at the moon and stars, and pee into the spout, and listen as you hear it fall from the spout to the ground. Ahh… Africa. Waking up from this first night (of course at the crack of dawn, because we were fully exposed on the roof top) I realized it was my birthday!

While staying in Sevari, we stayed at a wonderful bed and breakfast place, Mac’s Refuge. Mac’s turned out to be a great staging point for many of our excursions, and the fact that he served great course dinners if you wanted and an amazing breakfast was included in the price we didn’t have a hard time deciding if we wanted to stay there more than a night. Comfortable beds, relaxing atmosphere, and good prices made it a perfect choice.

Communication:

When we crossed into Senegal we immediately had to start trying other forms of communication. French was the majority and we had little to no practice. This always made things interesting, and we usually just ended up negotiating to the best of our ability in a mixture of French, Mandinka, and English. Mandinka helped us considerably throughout our travels because Bambara is spoken widely in Mali, and it is close to Mandinka. These negotiations usually started out like this,.. “Bonjour, Ca va? Uh….paso mu jelu? Uh… how much is the bus ticket?” until we hit one that worked. Each time we eventually got the right bus ticket, and actually made it on the right bus, we were immensely proud of ourselves! Hehe, lots of fun.

The People:

In Mali, traveling through I found that people all together bothered us less about giving them free stuff (money, empty bottles, minty etc.). When people did approach us it was with something to sell a majority of the time. And it wasn’t some cheap plastic good that was imported from China, a majority of the time it was something that they had made, and even though it may have been specifically geared towards selling to tourists, locals are abundant users of the local products as well. We were discussing why that may be the situation, and thought that perhaps, just because of the shear sizes of the comparing countries (Mali vs. Gambia) people just don’t have the first hand experiences of getting so many hand outs, and dealing directly with so many NGO’s that they wouldn’t think that every white person is there to give them something. What they would think is that that white person is a tourist, and tourists like to buy souvenirs, so I’m gonna make something for them to buy, and because tourists may be discriminating when buying, I will have to make a good product, something people will want to buy, and because it will be good, locals will find it useful and good too, therefore creating a market… and all that good stuff….

The general health of people that we saw was better, more toothpaste, toothbrushes, healthier constitutions from meat and dairy consumption, fatter babies. But we also did see people peeing, pooping, washing (clothes then body), then drinking the river water, all at the same edge. I would just love to gather a sample of this water and send it to my environmental engineer brother-in-law, he’d have a heart attack! We saw people enjoying a hearty breakfast of a cup of river water, a hunk of French bread (thank goodness for the French influence of food!) and then proceed to dip the bread in the river water till it was dripping and slightly soggy, then wash it all down with the rest of the water…yum.

So, I hope through those topics you can get an idea of our trip, and of course, through the pictures we will post. Now a short bit on coming home…

We turned to walk down our street and right away saw everyone was out selling their usual (ebbe- a fish type stew), out in front of the compound gate, as we were walking up closer, Adama saw me, and with a sort of reprimanding look on her face, didn’t say anything, just raised up her arms in hug-position until I picked her up, everyone was happy to see us and we immediately had a brood of kids following us in the door. Ndea came over to chat with us for a minute, so did Sanusse, then we had to close the doors, because we had to get to cleaning. Several things were covered in mold, and the musty smell of the house was strong. Andy went around knocking down all the termite trails and spider webs. After we finished cleaning we were ready to relax outside on the porch, it was so nice to be back!

The day after we got back, (Tuesday) started fasting, so we had to get up early (5am) to eat as much breakfast as we could. After that we got back to bed around 6 (30 minutes making then eating breakfast, then 30 reading while sitting up) until 8: 15. Then no food again till fast is broken at around 7:30 or 8. Last year we were learning how this all works, now I feel a lot more comfortable because I know what to expect. I know now that the first dish they bring is not the only thing we are having to eat, so I can take my time, and not get beyond full before they bring the next thing. I also more fully understand that Andy and I in the morning, rushing around trying to make and eat breakfast as fast as we can so we can get back to sleep often has some mishaps along the way, this due to our state of confusion, our anxiety to eat as much as we can, and the fact that we didn’t even clear any sleepiness from our eyes before trying to operate open flames, and fragile things like eggs. Case in point: the first morning of fasting, making eggs for breakfast, we each had two eggs, Andy set his on the edge of the stove and of course, one fell off the edge and exploded open on the cement floor, I swear he almost cried. This being because we can’t buy breakfast items in the morning (we buy it the night before), for one the bitik is not open, but also we are usually minimally clothed, and I wouldn’t want to waste any eating time running around looking for an open bitik at 5 in the morning, that would cause me to be a little too awake, and ruin my going back to bed chances even more than my extremely full stomach. All in all though, we had a good first day of fasting, the weather wasn’t too harsh, therefore making you sweat out precious fluids, we had a chance to go to the market to buy a flat of eggs and other supplies to prep us for the mornings to come, I took a nice afternoon bath to cool off after the market, and then had a good long nap, after which we only had a couple more hours to go before breaking fast, which was a delectable dish of spaghetti noodles, onion mustard sauce, fried fish, fried potatoes, and slabs of mayonnaise.. delicious!

The first day of fasting, was Tuesday, and Tuesday of course is library night, as Alhagie so readily reminded me of. I was happy that after we broke fast and were sitting on the porch sipping our break fast tea, waiting for the next dish, two of the kids came up with books in hand, ready to get a new ones. After they showed up, everyone else showed up all at once, all eager, and I just sat there directing the chaos, sweating, but with a smile on my face. Library night is back!

The second day of fasting we resumed work. I went to the nursery school for a little while, but was very happy to see they were/had been working on prepping the classrooms, making number lines, rules posters, they had cloth set aside for cloth pocket calendars, Tolu had a book out I lent them, making items from it, Mary had proof read the curriculum, and had done some work on the schedule. They definitely did the work I outlined for them before I left, and I was really proud of them. Most importantly they seemed to have a clear idea of what they were doing, where they were going with what they were doing, and all this while I was gone! Meaning, on their own terms, through their own initiative. Yaay!

So, this week is pretty busy putting "finishing" touches on things at work before we go away a little while. We are also trying to run around and gather supplies for our trip from the city before we leave. I've been packing and repacking in my head at night and probably will until we leave and it's too late to do anything about it anyways. We are trying to be really conservative on the packing, but it's hard when you have to take practically a whole medical kit. It's not like we can be like... ah, well, I will buy it there,.. or I will just go to the atm when I get there.... nope. We will probably want some things to bring back from Mali, so we need to leave space and don't to lug around a huge pack for three weeks.

I am nervous about leaving our house for so long, several things can happen, floods, rodents, termite trails will be everywhere, bugs and dust, mold and mildew etc. I also don't know what to do about the library while I'm gone. I think it is probably best that I don't let them come and get new books every week, but I also hate to shut it down for three weeks. I thought about loaning more than one so they could keep them for the time we are gone, but I think that is too much for them to handle... but one thing we have going here, is the general lack of keeping track of time. Time here, well, it just passes with little to no notation. I'm sure they won't even notice that we're gone. Well, I just wanted to make sure to drop a line in before we go.. though I may get another chance at the end of the week. Have a great week!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Have been really busy running back and forth between home and the nursery school. We are finished doing the preliminary stuff on the new curriculum, I'm typing it up, and then we will go back over it for proof reading, etc. It is a lot of work. Next weekend is when we leave to go to Mali! We are very excited. Birthday for me in Mali!

Tonight we are supposed to meet up with some friends at a "pork bar" in a neighborhing village.. supposidly they serve pork there, but I'm not sure if it is pork like Porky the Pig, or like Pumba from Lion King... if you know what I mean. We shall see. We have seen/eaten those before here, they are large, smelly, hairy creatures! Anyhow...I'm thinking about bringing my own makeshift bar-b-que sauce.

We have been having good storms pretty much every day, it is nice, except for the part where our street turns into a river and we have to wade through it to get home everyday. Last night we had a good thunder and lightning show and shower, the thunder would just roll on and on. Random question. Does anyone know why cats aren't scared of the thunder like dogs? Just wondering. I thought this was a cool picture of the clothesline during a good rain.

Perks of working at the nursery school is that they have big mango trees and unloaded about 12 or so mangoes on me yesterday, that were literally as big as my face! They were so heavy, I put all I could in my backpack and had to strap it to my waist, then was sweatily carrying a huge plastic bag full of them with both arms all the way home. I went straight to my family's porch and unloaded the one's in my arms... My arms were dripping with sweat from the contact with the plastic bag, dropped them on the mat, and said to my host mom... "Ndea,.. dutoo a fele" (Ndea, mango is here) and they all laughed at me (of course! hehe). I am going to attempt at making mango "sorbee" icees again with them maybe next week.

I haven't been too up to date on saying:

Congradulations to Mark and Jen! Yeah your married!

And Most Recently to Nick and Amanda on the recent Gerkin addition! Lucky baby!

Let the dotting Aunt and Uncle type stuff begin!

Ok, it only took me about a month and a half, but I finished Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It is a unique read especially in this kind of society and setting that I am in now. Philosophy quotes like, "Drifters and physical laborers live and plan by the range of a day. The better the mind, the longer the range. A man whose vision extends to a shanty, might continue to build on your quicksands, to grab a fast profit and run. A man who envisions skyscrapers, will not." In relation to daily rural living.

"He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly-yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child's education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think." In relation to education

"From the first carch-phrases flung at a child to the last, it is like series of shocks to freeze his motor, to undercut the power of his consciousness. "

This in realation to things like the essential conflict between the western style education trying to be pushed here, with even the accompanyment of standardized test that are way beyond their comprehension that are taught in schools where to really know and undestand what they are supposed to know they must be good thinkers, questioners. But when the students go home they are expected never to question, to always obey anyone that is older than them, and to do things the way they have always been done, not because they are necessarily good and could be done no better, but because no one has been allowed to think of how to make it better. Even with Western education they have no hope to actually learn it fully, so they apply the same methods of "learning" as they do to things like memorizing the Koran, repeating anything the teacher, the religious leader says with no understanding of what it means. This can also explain why grown men, men that have been supposidly been practicing their religion for their entire lives since they were old enough to walk with their brothers to the mosque, have to cheat (and get caught) their way through their islamic knowledge test using crypt notes.

Sorry I didn't mean to go on and on about this kind of stuff, I guess once I get going... Though it may sound like it, I am not dissolutioned, but in fact, (with the gift of my strong stubborness) keep pounding away, the only ways I know how. And, by luck, and a mixture of others things, have had great successes so far.

Speaking of which, the library has continued being a draw for the children in our compound. They look forward to it every week. In fact I am sure that word has gotten out to the other kids in the neighborhood, because they have come up to me, and just say, "Borry,.. book!" For now I am adamant that it stay within our compound, for several reasons. I know the people here more personally than anyone (that is especially important when it comes to enforcing the rules with the parents on your side), also because there aren't that many books right now and there are a lot of kids in the neighborhood!, and most strongly, that the kids in this compound through earlier efforts have been sensitized to books before the library started. Not to say that it has all been glorious, there have been a couple of children in particular that have had their priveleges suspended because they let something happen to the book in their possession, but if something has happened to it, they all repeat the consequences for the person because they know what happens,.. "two weeks, two weeks",.. in which they can't have a book.

As soon as I finished Atlas Shrugged, I went on to a less serious, but seriously funny book, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson. Short little snippets on funny experiences when he moves back to America after having been in England for a long time. Sometimes when I'm reading them I think,... hmm.. I wonder if we will go on a crazy junk food binge like he did?.. among other things.

Well, I guess that's it for now,.. this weekend I plan to do fun stuff like, clean the water filter, redip the bednets, fill some sandbags... and oh yeah,.. laundry... whoohoo!

Copied from journal entry Sunday June 29th

Starting Friday night it was an eventful weekend. As I sit here on the front porch, after bathing, feeling nice and clean and comfortable I think about the past few days, feel the weight of my tired body and appreciate the time to relax. I see thousands of flying (termites) fill the compound from the ground up. This is wonderful for the chickens. MoLamin just came to me to say hello and then ran off to join Buba in an attempt to stomp, or catch the flying insects. He runs along in a weird stomping run that seems to take a great deal of effort to do. The sky is wonderfully blue with great white clouds around-the blue sky is always startling and refreshing after a storm. I just now spot a fluffy grey cloud that may bring more rain, but that would not be a particularly good thing for some people right now. That’s because yesterday we had our first day of rain that set off some destruction in some parts of the neighbourhood.

But first back to Friday night in a fairly unrelated story. Lately, the cats that just hang lazily around the door frames of our back latrine area have been accompanied by some kittens again. They all just sleep somewhat precariously during the sweltering heat of the day until evening, when they disappear. The mother must move the kittens back and forth between the back areas of the rows of flats. On Friday morning there was one kitten that I hadn’t seen before up on the roof looking down at me meowing. Meanwhile all of the other cats had already assumed their positions on the door frames and weren’t minding it. So I picked it up and put it on the door frame with the others. Later Friday, Andy alerted me that the kitten was now in the shower area on the ground, cowering behind a bucket. But, believing that the cats would tend to it, I left it alone. In the evening I saw the kitten in the back where we do our gardening projects. When night time came around and it was the only cat there, I was worried that it had been deserted. After some hesitation, I gave it some milk (my basic policy is not to feed the cats there, but they still come), and went to bed. In the middle of the night rain came-not too heavy-just a little-but enough to wet the back shed area with a few puddles. Of course, as always, when the rain started I had to go to the latrine. As I was doing my business I heard a strange mangled cat sound. When I was finished I went to look where the kitten was before and saw it lying in a puddle. I immediately thought it was dead and the strange noise I had heard was its last. But as I stood there it rose like a zombie and made still more strange sounds, all the while shaking throughout it’s body. Andy had gotten up when he heard me call and was standing there sharing in my horror. We then discussed that perhaps the kitten had rabies. After a moment more of watching as the kitten shook and shuttered we decided that we should just let nature take its course and went to get back in bed. I felt unable to sleep and read for a while until my mind stopped going to the place where it was thinking about this poor little creature suffering and dying a few meters from where we slept.

In the morning I got up and fully prepared myself for the fact that I would find the kitten in the place we had left it, dead. But I was astonished to find it still suffered-huddling its body near the wall. We went through our morning routine thinking it was better for it to die in peace back there, away from the small children that would most likely cause it more pain and suffering. The turn to get water fell to me and as I headed to the tap the rain started again, and after filling up only one bucket I was standing out there in the pouring rain. I stopped and waited out on the porch enjoying the first heavy daytime rain. It seems so relaxing when it comes and each family is on their respective porches. We wave to each other, sometimes try to yell though the noise of the rain on corrugate roof, but it’s kind of like we are on our own little island and can see each other but are unwilling to venture out through the compound that becomes our "moat". At one point Aleiu was sent out in the rain to gather a chicken and it’s chick and try to make it go under the porch. It was out running around the compound freakin out from the rain-chickens really don’t like rain. As the compound filled with streams and puddles of water Alieu chased the chicken. Around and around, circling the middle mango tree, getting close, losing it again, stomping through puddles, trying not to slip and fall in his slide sandals.

Meanwhile Jalika is on their “island” laughing and I’m on ours laughing at the spectacle, and at how Alieu is maintaining a straight face for the 3 minutes or so that he is chasing the chicken and it’s chick around. Finally he got it on the porch. After breakfast Andy came out and I joined him on the porch again to enjoy the rain with our cups of tea. We stood at times watching the happenings in the compound and noticed that Sanussi sent Alieu and Alhagie to the compound door-apparently water was gushing in from the street and they were attempting to place cement blocks in front of it on the compound side, essentially barring anyone from opening the door. This, we soon saw, was a good thing, because as Sanussi climbed the rubble pile of cement blocks in the corner of the compound he was able to look out over the street and neighbourhood. Andy and Ndea accompanied him and what they saw was the entire street flooded and moving like a river through it but being blocked somewhere where our street met the main road. This sort of thing had never happened last year to this extent and I was shocked to look and see only about an inch of space left on the external blocks before the water would be able to come in through the spaces in the big compound gate. But hey, I wasn’t really worried yet.

As I was walking back from the rubble pile our neighbours come out with a bucket full of water from their house and dumped it into the compound, next thing I know the people down at the end are doing the same thing, and people are running with pickaxes to the back of their house. Then Sanussi yells to Andy to check to see if water is coming in our back. I walked in the house, went to the door that goes out back in the kitchen and watched in disbelief for a second while water was coming in somehow through the spaces in our metal door and flowing through the screen door. I ran back out and said “yes! Its coming!” then ran back in and started to try to get some things out of the way. At that point I didn’t really realize the extend of the water in the back and was only trying to find a few crucial things from the back rooms into the front living room, just in case. Family members were coming in and out asking “Borry, it’s coming? Water is coming in?” Like they didn’t believe it either even though they were standing there as I am going through the rooms trying to remove things. As more water started to come in and gather in the low points of the back rooms (the bedroom and the kitchen) we all started to get buckets to fill. The entire family was in there helping, from 4 year olds to people I didn’t even know. I grabbed more pots off the shelf in the kitchen and started filling up the bigger buckets. After minutes of shovelling water in the kitchen I went back to the bedroom and realized that it was coming in more there. By that point we had started taken all the things from the front rooms that we had moved first and were putting them on the front porch. At some point it turned into a more dire situation for our possessions and everything in the house started going out front.

It is funny the things that happen in that kind of situation, things that people do or say and things you notice or remember from it. Andy was helping shovel water and then at one point started going around trying to find the camera in the messy jumble of our things but was unable to locate it in the craziness. At another point I just looked at Fatou Matta and started laughing, I guess at the craziness of the situation. We were going back and forth with giant laundry tubs of water, emptying them out into the compound and coming back. Coming back from one of the runs I came into the kitchen and the “linoleum” type floor covering the last volunteer had put down was floating; it was like trying to walk on water trying to step on it. MoLamin is walking around trying to help, seriously concerned for the safety of the toilet paper tubes and boxes he uses as blocks, Molado is in there with her little bucket trying to fill it, the entire compound was in there helping. After a morning of bucket brigade, we started to try to soak of the last of the water with towels and to pull up and roll out the “linoleum”. Ndea was a expert cleaner and whipped the bedroom into shape where Andy and I are still like,.. “How did she do that!?” When we were looking for towels or rags to soak up water MoLamin, who had two shirts on that morning because it got “cold” with the rain, first took off his long sleeve and started to clean up with that, then took off his second one and was pointing out that he looked like Andy who had in the course of things taken off his shirt because of the shear amount of sweat and heat he was producing from filling and carrying buckets.

When we were finally able to get the back doors open. Along with some random things floating there was our poor little sick kitten, “a faata le” (it died). Andy discreetly carried it out in a plastic bag while I was out on the street and put it in a currently unused garden plot nearby.

Now, stop and think a minute about how the back of our house area is situated. There is about 3 feet of space between that area and our house. In the back in one cubby-like space is the pit latrine and separated from that by a wall in another cubby area is the shower area, then under a corrugate roof there is open space where we have some small potted plants that we are working on. When the water came in from the street and the back, it filled the pit latrine, and the water that came out of there and mixed with the other water from the street. Yep…that’s right, we were sloshing through sh%* water. Gross. Luckily the concrete lid kept anything from getting out that was unable to seep out.

The amazing thing is, that this all happened in the morning and by lunch time everything was basically cleaned up, by a little after lunch we brought some things back into the house. And by an hour past lunch we had showered, and Andy and I were on our way, with Ndea, to Fatou Bintou’s end of the year sort of awards ceremony. When we sat down in the chair for the couple of hours of ceremony it was the first time I had sat down all morning, and it was hard to think of all that had just happened in our house just that morning.

The major cause of the flood (that was much worse for some people in the neighbourhood with chest high water) was the lack of good engineering in new structure build by the main street to help with the water retention situation on our street. Some of the men in the neighbourhood had taken to the street by climbing over their fences, waded through the water with pickaxes and shovels and went to the end to try to help the water flow into this idiotically built structure.

Coming back from Fatou Bintou’s ceremony in the evening, we started back on getting the house together again. The great thing about it is, a lot of the things that we had been meaning to get rid of but didn’t have a reason except we just didn’t’ want it anymore, were thrown out because they had gotten soaked with yucky water. Our floors got a good cleaning. We gave away the “linoleum” that Andy hated anyhow. Did a little rearranging and are much happier with our bare concrete floors in all the rooms now. And I pointed out how glad I am that Andy and I are the kind of couple that can clearly communicate with each other even in those kinds of situations. No one was getting frustrated at each other or biting each others head off because of the stress of the situation. We are also thankful for the lack of washers and dryers, major electrical appliances, carpet, etc. Because it made the clean up much easier and with the help of our amazing! family we were completely back to normal in a cleaner house than before on Sunday.

Not much going on here this week, no big plans for the weekend either, except an

end of the year program at school that Fatou Bintou invited us to on Saturday. I'll let you know how that goes. I was supposed to go up country with the college on trek this week, but it got canceled due to fuel shortages. So, with my scheduled cleared because up until a day before we were supposed to go I thought we were going, I haven't had much to do this week. Next week I will be playing proctor (policewoman) to the students taking end of the year exams at the college. Should be interesting. But at least this time I will have just about 45-50 students in a room instead of my class size of 75-80. I will be helping to plan the preschools "graduation" tomorrow and next week as well. Andy and I are trying to get our plan on for "vacation" later this summer with a friend. Well, hope all is well.

So, just wanted to quickly update how the library thing is going. So far it is continuing well. I have since decided that I needed some sort of organized system to teach the children how to put the books in some sort of order, facing the right way, etc. At first I had the kids put them in alphabetical order by title... but that was very difficult to keep straight, even though I employed the ruler technique where they stick the ruler in where they are taking a book out and know where to put the book back because the ruler is there sticking out, they didn't quite get it, and had a hard time consistenly using it. So, last night before the enslaught of children came to return their books and get new ones, I decided to put tape on the spine of the books and numbers them. In no particular order. Andy saw this and was like... um... what good is that? But I tried to explain that it doesn't really do them much good to use the ruler system to keep them in alphabetical order if it is only helping me,.. for my minds sake that they are in a logical order. I want them to be able to use some system and to keep it in some sort of order. Last night they did well, they made sure to put the books in number order and even made sure that I wrote down the number on their library card of the book they checked out. I was really happy that it helped tremendously with them putting the books back with the spine out! Yeah :) Oh, also another pcv made this great life size "book" out of sheets that she had sewn together... it is where you can put it on a person, so they become the "book".. since she is great in Mandinka and was staying the night at our house this week I asked her to do a little presentation to the kids in our compound. It was really good, she talked to them in local language, demonstrating with the person that was wearing the book, how to treat them, where the front, back, spine, title, etc is.. they really enjoyed it. So, for now that is how things are going. Progress. Slowly slowly.

Well, it's official we have been in The Gambia now, one year, and 4 days.

I have been thinking of a sort of year in review, but it is so hard to put things into perspective and look back at what has happened over the past year, when it doesn't even seem like it's been that long. It also doesn't feel like everything that we've experienced actually happened to us.

I was going back and reading some entries in my first journal, it is so great to see the progression of things. Things that surprised me, or I found interesting are just commonplace now. (women with babies on their backs, the market craziness, gelley rides, etc.) I don't think I am to the point where I don't see those new things, but I just see them, and think, yep, that's that. In encountering new situations I find myself more able to take it in stride as they say. I guess that is what happens when you come to understand more about all the things that come together to make a particular culture.

I can't go through and analyze everything from the past year,.. my mind is not capable of it! We (you and me too) can go back and read the blogs. And one day maybe I will type up my hand written journals, but not now.

I can analyze the way I feel about myself now and my perspective on life here.

Making the decision to come here has always felt right. But I do realize that I have grown up to be the kind of person that can move to any town and feel like, yeah, this is good. Before coming here I tried not to have any ideas of what it would be like, and I think I did a pretty good job of doing that, ( I just felt anxious to find out what it was like, but did not speculate before hand)

I can't name how many times I have thought to myself in the course of our time here, this is where I am supposed to be.

I feel like I am a more confident and open person. In areas of work I have a deeper understanding of what I thought from an American perspective and from my education. This was one of the reasons I wanted to come here, (and the reasons I will travel more in the future). I wanted to be one that could genuinely understand why the things and ways I teach are important. And what can happen, and what it looks like when those aren't used or aren't happening. Not that I completely understand it all of course! But I am extremely aware and interested in those things, and want to study them more in the future. Childrens development, and the influences of culture in learning are in full view for me here to watch and experience, because I am in a sort of twilight zone of being somewhat acculturated but still an outsider. And I am thankful that I had the background that I do before coming here and think that the experiences here will be useful for me and my career in the future.

In work, I have had to become the master flexibility. Like navigating the market, I can change direction with whatever is happening at the moment, (that's how things work here if you don't already know) This is a useful skill that I think will help me in the future. And though I am still on toubab time when there is a meeting, or somewhere I have to be, I am much more casual and understanding of the people that don't follow mono chronic principles of time. It is just me, I will always be on time, but you don't have to be.

In daily life here I have hundreds of exchanges between people I don't know, and people I do know. Being able to have the social standards of greetings and the common conversations that go on, I feel free to say hello to strangers, and more comfortable in unfamiliar situations. This has carried over even when talking to other pcv's and so I feel like I am more social, (but still not spectacular).

From being here my confidence has grown. Being stripped of familiarity, having to learn what kind of things are essential to me being me, what kind of things are important to me, etc. have all contributed to this.

I feel very comfortable and at home in our living situation. Some days I come off the streets feeling a little harassed, and tell myself in my mind that I am definitely going to have some alone time today, but then I come in the compound, greet people, drop my things on the floor and immediately want to interact with our family and other people in the compound because I feel so comfortable in the space.

I think the comfort factor is also heightened because I am here with my husband. To us, it is just another part of our lives.. this is it,.. we are not waiting around for this to be over to start our real life,.. and say later,.. "yeah, I did that little stint in Africa" . /What we will say is , "we lived there for part of our lives". This is probably hard to understand, but sometimes I get the feeling from other volunteers that they are just enduring, waiting for the time to go by, trying to do things that pass the time, until they get to start really living again (when they go back to America). This is a part of my career, a part of my life with my husband, and thats that.

My pastimes here have also helped shape who I am becoming. With no television, I have taken back up reading with a vengeance, and though my eyes are the worse for it, I think my mind and perspective have benefited. Without the common American life distractions like tv, shopping centers, driving, unnecessary (but somehow "necessary") materials, the list could go on and on, I find myself more able to think clearly, and I have achieved the amazing feat (for me) to just be able to sit on my porch and think... with nothing in my hands, nothing to read, just sitting and thinking. As a result of all this thinking, I feel more sure about what kinds of things I like, what kinds of things I don't, what I personally think on many different topics, etc.

In college I got a little bit more of the "life lesson", "If you don't do it, who will? and when?" But here I realize it more and more. Even though some people find it harder to get things done here, I have had the freeing mind set that if I can't buy it, or find it, I will make it, get it made, etc. This happens daily, with school supplies, materials, things for our house, gardening, etc. I don't need that premade thing I can buy at Target, I can use a thing meant for another purpose, (find it on the ground even) reshape it, and wala! Its re-purposed! This makes me feel much less constricted and lets your mind get more inventive and creative with what you have.

The next year, (actually starting now, until we leave) seems to be shaping up to a whirlwind of activities, and I am going to be undoubtedly more busy next year, that I ever have this year. I only hope that I won't miss out on quality time with our family and the people here that we will sorely miss when we leave. I can't believe it is happening already, but some of the kids, when we are just sitting spending time together will, out of the blue, beg us not to go. Right now I feel thankful that I can say, "don't worry about that now! We still have a whole year!" But I really don't know what I will say when our time here is dwindling away.. What will I say? What will I be able to promise, to keep some sort of connection? And will I be able to do it?

I could go on and on, (and I might later) but on that note, I just want to say that being here for this portion of my life has always felt right. It feels like it is good timing to help me become more me.

Yeah Yeah Yeah! We got rain! Yesterday evening was very humid and hot, and there were storm clouds in the sky. We woke up in the middle of the night with strong blowing winds. Then the rain broke loose. At first slowly, and then letting it all out. It had all the trimmings of a good storm too, with good peals of thunder and flashing lightning. Andy and I got up out of bed to tend to our plants in the back. We didn't want them to get pummeld by the rain, but they were also in danger from getting toppled by the winds. The rain falling off our our roof was milk chocolate brown. Andy noticed when he looked at me while we were standing under the corrugate roof in the back and said, hey, your dirty! It was also cold with the rain and the temperature suddenly dipping. Today on my way to work at the nursery school I surveyed the damage from my seat on the gelley. There are major puddles (in some places more like small lakes!) everywhere. There was also a big billboard sign that was torn up. The winds must have been really bad. Our power went out for a little while, but then amazingly enough came back on.

I was a little worried about a certain kitten last night. The story goes like this. The same cat that had kittens before, had another set in our shed. There were three of them. Because we have gotten some new neighbors on either side of us now, like last time she needed to move them out of the shed before they got too big. In the corner of our compound is a pile of rumble of concrete blocks from when a portion of the concrete block fence just fell down in the middle of the night. The day before yesterday I kept hearing a very faint meow when I was walking around the compound, but just thought it was the kittens in the back. So yesterday I was hanging out in the compound, playing with the kids, when they all started screaming and running towards the concrete rumble pile. I looked, and there was this little kitten, all scraggly, frightened almost to death, shakily standing on a piece of the rumble, as all these kids came running and screaming at him/her (?) I made sure I got there first, swiped it up, before they could frighten it back down into the ruble, and took it into through our house, (with a whole group of kids following me), closed and locked the door, (so they wouldn't follow me through the house) and took the poor little kitten to the shed where it was born, and was living until recently. As I did that, it was meowing its head off, and I could hear the momma cat meowing for it. I just put the kitten down, closed the shed door, and went away. I figured that the cat would know the place, and hear the kitten, and come and get it again. I went and checked if it was still in the shed about 15 minutes later, and it was gone. The only way out is from the top of the shed in a space between the corrugate and concrete blocks. So, I think my planned worked! :)

Well, more on the "library" thing on the home front. Last Saturday I went to the carpenter and showed him my drawing for the bookshelf I wanted. He said that it would be done Monday. Now, living in Gambia, on Gambian time, I totally didn't believe him when he said that, and even though I had a chance to go check on it on Monday, I didn't. I went Tuesday, and he wasn't there. So, on Wednesday I got home from the school, and got Adja to come with me to see if it was ready and it was! So we carried it home. That night Fatou Bintou and Alieu helped me organize the books. Fatou B. wrote the alphabet out on pieces of paper the size of flashcards. We spread them out on the floor in alphabetical order, and then I went through each book, and held it up for them both to see. They looked at the first letter of each book title, and then put it under that letter in a stack on the floor. Once we had them all done, Fatou B. put them in the bookshelf. yeah! The kids have already starting checking out books. They have a colored index card which they wrote their names on and I have stored in a box (old platex wipes plastic box actually), and then the title of the book they checked out and the date. I decided that I would let them come and check out and return books one day a week. We started on Tuesday, so next Tuesday they will come to return the one they have and get a new one. The great thing is, that since Tuesday, a few of them have come over with their books to share something they have notice about them, get help with reading them, etc. MoLamin came over yesterday (he is almost four yrs. old) and Andy and I were sitting on the couch, and he came over and showed Andy a picture in his book, (it was of a dog chewing on a shoe) and he said, (in Mandinka of course) Look! This dog.. He is chewing on a shoe! Like he couldn't believe it and got such a kick out of it. And then he flipped through a few more pages, and then went back to his house. Alhagie and Dembo both came over at different times last night to sit there with their books, trying to read, while we helped. They are all very enthusiastic about it, and I hope it lasts. But right now everything is going good! We shall see what kind of shape the books come back in. Though we reiterate every time, no water, no food, etc.. with the books.

My plants have been growing slowly slowly, but hopefully they will soon get a burst of fertilizer.... Because Andy and I have been preparing to try a fertilizing technique, by making our own urea. How do you do this you ask? (do you really want to know!?) We take what is called a bidong here (big plastic container that originally holds vegetable oil) and fill it up part way with water, then pee in it (instead of our pit latrine) until it reaches a certain level...let it sit for 2 days then, apply to the soil! Wallah! Cheap home-made urea. The only thing is,..for woman it is a little bit trickier (of course). But a funnel can (and was) made out of a liter water bottle, so it all worked out fine. :) Tonight, we will get to try our first test with it. We plan to use it on the plants I have been working on in the back, and also on some of Andy's trees in the compound. To be able to demonstrate how fertilizer helps the plants, we will have ones we use it on and ones without. We figure, if they see the difference with their own eyes, it will be easier to then explain that we did the above process and we just poured watered down urine on the soil.... We'll see how that goes!

Well, this weekend I plan to get a some curtains hemmed to goes across the front of the bookshelf to help protect it from the dust. I'm running a training session at the end of next week at the nursery school so I will be preparing things for that next week, and maybe some this weekend. I want to make something in the solar cooker, but haven't decided what yet. I have also started Atlas Shrugged.. Andy got it and I started to read it,.. he said something about 13 years bad luck if I didn't finish it once I started it).. so the challenge is on! But man, the type is so tiny!

Yeah! Andy wrote a blog… finally! Haha.

Anyhow, just a few things going on. I have noticed here with my real lack of work schedule, the day always seems to have a list of things that I could possibily get done, and sometimes, because I am incredibly indept now at being flexible in my work, I feel like I often get things done. Even if it is not exactly the way I had planned, or in the order of things in my mind, it seems to work out for the most part in the end.

Case in point. My “library” idea for the compound. I mentioned the books I come into last blog. For about a week my subconscious, anytime it had a free minute, was thinking of ways to utilize them. I then came up with the idea that I would loan them out, with the help of the older girls, and then eventually give them to the family when we leave. They may choose to continue loaning them out. So, even though I hadn’t done anything concrete with the project, I had mentioned the idea to any of the kids that would come over and look at the books in the house. After that, with some spare time on the computer, I typed up a list of the titles, and made simple bookplates that I printed out at the office. All this while my subconscious is still working on how I would get the kids involved. Even though in a perfect world, I would have liked to take the girls to make the bookplate design, I couldn’t bring them to the college, or the office with me, so, I will look at it like an interest generator, because now I had something concrete to show them, to get them excited about doing work. At the beginning of this week, after going to the nursery school, I was on the front porch reading and MoLamin came and was looking at a book he picked from the stack, when Adja came over and started looking at the book with him. (she is about 15 years old). Then I mentioned my idea again, and brought out the bookplates to show her. We talked about cutting them out and pasting them in the books. Then it kind of went from there where next thing I knew we were inside the house, listening to music, and cutting out the bookplates from computer paper. A girl that lives next store (Jainaba-15 years old also, a Guinean, married! And does not go to school) came over and started helping us paste the bookplates to the inside of the books. After a little while, another girl FatouMata (not our host sister, but a neighbor-she is the one with the bookplate on her forehead in the picture) came over and was looking through the books. We finished soon after and the only thing that was left was to have a dance party… then Ansumana came in! hahah. Where we all pretended to be reading the books that were conveniently in reach. So, progress is being made there. The next day, being inspired by their efforts, I got up the gusto to talk to the carpenters about getting a bookshelf made. I got an estimate, and plan to give the ok maybe tomorrow.

Another similar project that was completed a while ago, but I just forgot to mention it, is the chalkboard on the front porch wall. Adja and I painted it black, and then I got some of the kids to put color paint handprints on the border. They have it memorized who’s hands are which! It is a good thing to use while we want to hang outside on the porch because of the heat. Because I have discovered they love word finds, I will sometimes make up a simple one and put it on the chalkboard for them to do. We have also had races, where I put addition or subtraction problems on the board, divide it into two sides, and have two lines of kids, they run to the board, doing one problem and kind of relaying it between their team members. Whoever finishes all the problems first wins! They enjoy that. It is also just used when the kids want to draw, “play school”, or writing anything they know how.

Enough about “work”.. Last night we had a traditional wedding ceremony for our host mom’s sister. The wife lady gets dressed up, washed by the elders, and a white headscarf is put on her at her father’s compound. I went to her father’s compound last night. People pretty much just sit around, all dressed up and decked out, and food is served (in a large tray to a group of people to share-eating with the hands of course). People sing and serenade the wife and those people are given some money. That’s about it. Tonight, day two of the ceremony, she will be taken to the husband’s compound and her covering will be changed to black. Then there will be a “program” (that will be tonight) where there might be drummers, a dj if they can afford it, and more of the same stuff as the first day. What I don’t understand yet, (and haven’t had the chance to talk to anyone about that can explain it to me) is that the couple has already been together for a while, have two children, and a third “on the way”. The explanation that really isn’t an explanation is that this one is the “traditional” ceremony. Uh…. Yeah… I don’t know. Whether or not I will go to the program tonight, remains to be seen,… I don’t really want to just because of the attention I get focused on me being a “toubab”. The singers and dancers always pester me for more money.

On a quick note, I have a couple basil plants, parsley, and about 8 tomato plants coming up. This weekend I will hang the basil and parsley in the hanging potter I made. But I am still waiting for the tomato plants to get bigger before I transplant them to their upside down growing position.

Next week PC is having a meeting near us about the food shortage problem and how it will directly effects our families and what we can help do about it being in the “grass roots” position. That will be interesting. Fatou Bintou-Looking very stylish in the hat Cheryl sent me-Thanks!

Well, all this week they have been burning trash behind our house, and the smoke smell is literally making me sick! The smell of burning plastic and who knows what else is making my throat feel constricted and sore, especially in the morning. Ugh.

But on a happy note, I haven't really thought about it since we moved here, but I no longer have the problem of jaw-clenching in my sleep and the related pain associated with it. It was just something that Andy pointed out to me, and I was like, "hey! Yeah!" It's nice. Maybe it is because of the lack of stress from the "time-is-money" society, but who knows.

The other night, I didn't have much to do, and decided to tape a physical map of the world on our front table, (coffee table size). It is a good conversation starter especially with the kids that come over and hang out with us on the couch. One night Fatou Bintou (our 6 going on 7 year old sister) was over and I was asking her to point to Africa, (she couldn't find it), and then we found it, and then Gambia, and I said in Mandinka, "you are from Africa" and she vehemently denied it. It was funny.

Andy and I have shifted our routine again due to the weather. Because it is hotter during the day, and we are taking baths later in the evening, we were struggling to find time to fit out individual workout routines in. So, we decided to try this week to wake up in the morning and work out. It has had several advantages. One being that because it is before our front door is even open, we have complete undisturbed time to do all the things that look extremely weird to our family in the name of exercise. I have even cleared an area where I can get up and jump rope in the house, in peace, with no googling eyes staring at me. Then afterwards I get to take a nice cool shower. Though, because of water use, the morning shower takes away from my ability to take an afternoon one to cool off, I still, at this point think it's worth it. Because now at the end of the day, when I just want to chill out, I can, because I think, "well, I've already worked out!" This morning though I had a hard time getting out of bed, because I did not get sleep between the hours of 1:30 and 5 approximately, probably due in part to the malaria meds, it being hotter yesterday and night, and my throat pain, but I did get up and do a little with the intention of taking a nap after breakfast. Which I did try, but to little avail, I was too uncomfortable in the hot house, with my throat bothering me. I got up and went to the college to get online.

At this point I have cut my time at the nursery school to Tuesdays and Thursdays, even though I don't have classes at the college right now. This is because I found that when I went every day, it was harder on me because I saw little measurable progress, and was always compiling lists of things that could be improved. This routine left me feeling discontent with the work, and frustrated. Now we are making plans for the summer, which, if possible to actually achieve, will be a big project. We are going to attempt to rework the entire curriculum, and the school policies and procedures. Can you say daunting!? But it will be an accomplishment if we achieve any improvements on the current curriculum. It is difficult working within the school system, because this whole year I could see things that needed improving in it, but at the same time was working with other more pressing issues, while still getting to know the system and the way people work here. Hopefully we will be able to work out the major portions of it this summer, then be ready to start the next school year off in a better, more workable position.

Ohhh, I almost forgot, I have been struggling to find places to plant some basic herbs and tomatoes here, because we don't have any backyard space, and our compound is lacking too. So through the volunteer info. newsletters I have decided to try the "hanging upside down" tomato plant thing. Where you take a container of some sort with a handle, like a paint can, and poke a hold in the bottom, and stick a tomato plant through it to grow upside down. this way eliminates the need for staking it, and conserves space too. Andy and I went around the bush last weekend, and got some good dirt, found an old enamel pot, and some peanut shells saw some cows, had a nice walk, etc . For now, I have to wait to do the tomato plant thing until I have actual tomato plants started from seeds, which I planted last weekend in paper egg crates (they have started to come up! yeah!) But to satisfy my instant gratification need, I poked holes with a nail in the bottom of the old enamel pot I found (for drainage), and four holes near the opening on the side to string wire through to make a hanging plant holder. We are going to hang it under the eaves of our roof, (I hope it'll hold!). In that pot I planted around the edge parsley, and in the middle basil (started to come up too!). Yesterday is when Andy discovered they were coming up, and I was really glad, because I've had some failed ones before, and was going to be very disheartened if these didn't start to even grow. The funny thing is, the drain that we throw our dishwater out in behind the house is "magic" at getting seeds to grow, just toss some seeds down there and bam, there they are. So, the next progression is to help the tomato plants grow for a little bit, then transfer them to their upside down hanging place, and hope they grow... and once the herbs get a little more along, hang that pot too. Hopefully soon we will have fresh basil....but there are a few worries, one is that from the position it will hang in the back, there might not be enough sun for them, and two, when rainy season really gets going, the downpour from the edges of the roof will ruin them, so we will have to make sure that doesn't happen.

Lately the onslaught of mangoes has begun, where we are eating about 5 a day.... At night it is entertainment and excitement when the bats knock down mangoes and them come crashing to the ground, and because it is early and they may not be completely ripe and smash, whoever is around as far as the kids goes, take off in a race to get to the mango first. Ansumana (sorry used to calling Andy Ansumana) has been known to take part in this race. It is funny, because, last night I was sitting there reading a story to Fatou B., Mo Lamin, and a boy named Dembo, and then in the middle of it, the crackling of leaves and crack! they bolt and I just look at Ansumana like..."dude I'll take what I can get"...

But they really are beginning to appreciate and get the concept of "reading" for pleasure. I recently, through a round about way, came into ownership of some good childrens books. I have decided that instead of giving them to a local school library where they will likely be mistreated, abused, stolen, not used at all etc... I will directly enrich our kids lives. I have decided that I will get a bookshelf of some sort made, and with a little help maybe from the older girls loan them out to the kids in the compound (of which they are plenty). Then after our time here, I will give them and the bookshelf to the family to enhance their relationship with books in their daily lives. I see this as a more fulfilling prospect, because I know I can and already have, taught them a lot about print concepts and the importance of reading in every day life not just in books. This will help ensure that someone will benefit from the books, like I benefitted from having literature opportunities availaible to me when I was a child. But, unlike me, these children don't have a library to go to, to check out books, or a bookstore, or even people to know the importance of them and buy them for their children. I think it will be a proud thing for them to actually own these books. They already have favorites, Fatou B.'s favorite is a book called Rosie's Walk and also one by Ladybird company called, The Enormous Turnip. Mo Lamin is very good about lap "reading" with me, we talk about things in Mandinka that he sees, he repeats things in English, etc. His favorite right now, is the famous, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I notice that these books that they like are ones that most often involve nature and the things that they see in their daily lives, and we can talk about the words in Mandinka and English. In Rosie's Walk there is a hen, and a picture of a farm, and goats, all of which they are familiar with. In the turnip book, there is a man gardening, a cat, a mouse, etc, which they know as well. The funny thing is, even though I just said all the above, in The Very Hungry Caterpillar book they have never seen things like, pears, plums, orange colored oranges, and until recently strawberries. (Some people have started growing them here through ngo farming type situations, and I bought a little bit from a lady selling the other day, I was dumbstruck that there were strawberries here,... even though I'm kinda allergic we ate them. We gave some to the family too and the kids kept coming to our house all day asking which part it was ok to eat. ) Anyhow, as the book progresses, and the caterpillar goes on to eat things like cake, salami, sausage, etc. they haven't a clue. They keep saying that they sausage is a banana, because it is the only thing they are familiar with that it could possibly be. But it keeps the interest going and the discussion on. We can't find a word for caterpillar, even though they have one for butterfly. I just keep calling it a "butterfly baby". I explain the cocoon concept in my simple Mandinka by saying "and now the caterpillar is fat because he ate a lot of food, (Mo Lamin makes big cheeks like I do when this part comes) and then he goes to sleep in this house, and when he wakes up, he is a butterfly!" hehe.

Well, I figure that is a good long blog for ya, because someone (aka Ansuamana) has not had any inspiration to write lately.... Have a good weekened!

Today, I was thinking about (I know, I know, there I go thinking again) how being here has really put me "on the job" 24/7. Taking the teaching profession in general you become aware that you have to behave a certain way, even when your off the job, because, who knows, you may run into a student and his mother at the grocery store.... and if your the kind to wear daisy dukes, it might be a little awkward.

Here, I feel I am on the job ever waking hour, (and some I get woken up for!) But, unlike the above example scenario, I actually feel the calling to teach at any given moment. This happens because in the course of our daily travels we encounter people we may educate on American culture, the English language, etc. At work, I teach teachers, watch teachers, teach children, and so on. As soon as I get home I come in throw my bags down and there are children immediately at the door (if they haven't gotten to me walking through the compound already) And because I love my job and kids, I take the opportunity because I feel it is limited to do some form of educating.

It may get tiring, and there are times when I will make a cup of tea, sit down with my latest read and ignore them for 30 minutes, but even then in the back of my mind is the fact that we only have such limited time here in these kids lives.

Well, admitedly I am particularly attached to our host family children, especially our smallest host brother Mo Lamin. When I think about leaving him my heart sinks. And even though I try to equate it to teaching a new group of kids every year, it is apparent to me that we are a lot closer than I have gotten with any of those kids. Coming upon our year mark has propelled me into the future of when we will be done with our service here. It will undoubtly be more difficult to leave this place than it was to leave America, not because we love the place or people any more, but because we won't be the postive loving force in their lives, but mostly because we will probably never see them again. When I think of that last statement, I always start brainstorming ways to keep them in our lives, setting up scholarships for the kids to go to school, having them come visit us in America, and least of all calling them on the phone. And all of these thoughts bring me back to the present and the fact that I have to use ever opportunity to teach them something and, of course, for me to learn from them.

Well, yesterday was cloudy all day, and in some areas grey clouds covered the sky, even though there didn't seem to be much moisture in the air, it seemed like it would rain. I it made me feel happy and calm. But it did not...

About 4:45 last night I woke up because I needed to visit the pit latrine, but being as that I was sleeping so well, I didn't want to get up, and I fell asleep again till 5. That's when I heard a strange noise, and then all of the sudden there is the pitter patter of rain on the roof. Now, it never fails especially during the rainy season, that when it rains in the middle of the night, I always have to get up and pee. This is especially true if there is a downpour, of which I must go out in the middle of it. But at least our pit area is covered.

Of course, because I had to get up from my wonderful sleep, I couldn't get back to the sweet sleeping place I was before, and lay there thinking, tossing and turning.

This morning I was thinking about a blog I read that was talking about all these "crazy" things that happen here, and how they have become normal, and how I am myself somewhat complacent. And as I was later flipping through a magazine, with adventure advertisements in the back, I felt that sudden urge to move or experience something new again. And it got me thinking about how things here are normal to me now, and our existence here is very comfortable for us. But also how, even though we are living what some may consider exotic, or weird lives here, we are more restricted in our ability to travel and experience things that in America you can just get up and go do. Like camping, hiking, etc., There are many reasons why we can't do here, and in some ways I feel more restricted in that. I know this must sound confusing, but continuing on..Several factors I think contribute to this feeling; and of course the main two are time and money: because we are only here two years, and are likely to never come back again, we don't' feel we have the luxury to travel away from home as we normally did in the states., money: because of our limited income now, and no gains in the markets, and no deposits being made to our banks accounts now, we don't have the money to travel very far, and traveling within Africa is expensive if you want to fly and very difficult to find flights, though it is easier on the pocketbook to travel over land it is often difficult with the bureaucracy, police checkpoints, danger areas, long travel times, and not completely safe transportation... so this is probably the way we will go when we do! hehe.

In short, be thankful for the ability in America to travel down any road any time, and, (as long as your obeying the speed limit!) not have to be stopped or pay bribes etc. You can cross from state to state with nothing more than a welcome sign and a visitors center to stop at, if you want. And a crossing of the state boundaries can lead to experiences and sights and people that could be very different from what you normally experience in your hometown.

But, to keep my feet on the ground, and to not let myself be led down the path of many foreigners think of America as this great golden land, I have to remind myself that even though you can cross those state lines easily and experience change, there will also be the walmarts, cvs drugstore, target shopping centers where you know things will be in the exact place as they are in the store in your hometown. The monotony of it is somewhat sad, though highly convenient!

Well, that's enough of that. Not much going on this weekend, Andy was going to go on a trip upcountry this weekend, but it didn't work out. But I know there are a lot of things around here that we could do, along with our normal requirement of hanging out on our front porch like to old country bumpkins.

Happy Mothers Day! (sorry a little late!)

Ok, I guess people actually do read this thing! So, back to blogging...Though I don't have much.

Well, let's start off with a few random sightings..

Have you ever seen?:

-A large horned cow digging around in a dumpster?

-an ice cream man pushing a cart that says of the side, "ice crime"

-a young girl approach an upside down cocharoach to kill it, and it hop up and start running around the front room, meanwhile said girl just happened to have a machete in her hand, so there she is chasing a cockaroach waiving a machete..

-a frogs googly eyes peeking up at you from where the water from you bath drains

-a man trying to teach at a school for the deaf... and while being observed keeps saying to you the observer, "it's not easy teaching, these students are deaf,.. I don't know sign language very well,... "

-your little brother eating the bits of dough your pinching off from your tortillas because they have weevels or little worms.. even after you tell him they are there and you show him...

OK, enough of those-of course those are daily occurances so, more to come later...

I don't know if Andy wrote about when he planted some trees in our compound, but they have started to come up, there are pigeon peas and moringa. But this morning we wake up to a horrible goat sound baa-ing, and Andy jumps up out of bed and goes outside and there is a goat tied up right next to some of his new trees! I don't know if it ate any of them, (but yesterday some of the chickens dug up some).

Just a few hours later, that goat was in goat heaven, and a bowl of meat was brought to me on my way out the door to work. So, I had to run back inside and put the meat away. (away means in a bowl with some salt water to hang out till this evening when we have to figure out what to do with it). I think someone gave our neighbors the goat for charity. But I'm not sure.

mom and dad had sent us some kids books and one of them was a little golden book Finding Nemo, and a friend over here had the movie, so I told the older girls if one of them read the book aloud to the other kids, we would watch the movie afterwards. And Fatou M. did, she did a great job, and we went over to watch the movie, I even popped pop corn, we started the movie and...... the sound cut out about 10 minutes in...It was very sad, but a week later I got another copy of it, and we ended up watching it. They really liked it!

We just finished our education in service training week from April 28-May 2nd. It was a lot of sitting in a boardroom setting talking from 8:30-5... monday-Friday... but it did make me think about all the things we could be doing here.. which made me more anxious that I don't have the time to finish everything, or even get them started! It also makes it harder to figure out what to do this summer, because all the schools will be on break, and a majority of the major work I have it with the college or the nursery school.

After a short mid-service crisis, two of my goals for the summer are to re write the curriculum with the nursery school, and work at the college on their extension programs if possible.

There are a few parents visiting our friends here this summer, and we are happy because they are to come and stop by our place too. So we can feel a little bit of what it's like to show people around where we live and the people, and our "amazing" Mandinka skills!

Well, hope you kept up with that really scatterbrain entry. I'm sure I will have more to write later this week, till then!

Um... has anyone talked to my family? I haven't heard from them in a while... maybe something is going on with the phone where people can't get through? I don't know. Aside from that,.. I feel like boycotting blogging if I don't get emails or comments from people,.anyone out there!?

Well, it has been a little while since I've written.... and I hate that, because there are so many things that are going on, and have happened that it is hard to decide what to talk about. I've been mainly busy with work, and I did some traveling.

Well, let's see... I came back on Sunday from a trip up country with a friend. I hadn't been up that far yet, (Basse) so I really wanted to go. And I was finally able with my schedule less restricted by class times. I don't have any classes at the college this term because there are some specific special topics that other Gambian teachers are teaching this term, because we pushed them from the first and second terms. Honestly, I was really glad that happened, because if I can work out an auxillary purpose here, instead of myself having a class, the better in the long run. Anyhow, my friend and I went the south bank road all the way to Basse. Now the south bank road is notoriously bad, with more pot holes than actual asphalt, some of the times you have to go literally 5 miles an hour. But lately there has been some work going on it, they have dug up the cement on all the bad parts, and then grated down the dirt, which, even though still bumpy and very dusty, it better and more smooth riding than what was there. And at least it is on it's way to being better after so many years. I just hope it gets done before the rainy season, because you can just imagine the mess that would occur if it wasn't!

Well, our journey started at the Brikama car park, where we immediately secured a van going almost all the way to where we wanted to go, so we hopped in, and...... there we waited for about an hour and a half. hehe...at one point we actually did move... to the other side of the car park. Once I started to have to go pee, we started off on our journey, where we would continued on for about 12 hours. At one of the many police checkpoints, I ran out of the van, and found a pit that didn't offer much in the realm of privacy, but hey, when you gotta go! Because of the dusty road, we arrived in Basse after a few switches of cars, looking like we had a really bad spray on tan, because of the dust. At one point we got squished on a seat with about 5 people, and 3 kids, where my legs were so pressed together, that sweat started to drip down my legs, and I looked down, there was a brown river of sweat.. because of the dirt that had accumulted on me! Well, up in Basse, it is significantly hotter, so a lot of the time, we sat around the hut, trying to distract ourselves from thinking the only thing that seemed to register in our brains... "um... it's hot.... Its Hot!..... Ugh ITS HOT!" Needless to say I was very happy to be back in Brikama :) I love Brikama!

Let's see, what else.... we have inservice training this month, that should be..... good... maybe. It will be a week in Kombo away from work, so I don't know, I think I would rather get on with my work, but I'm sure there will be something useful. (?!)

I have been trying out themed nights in our house with our host family, and the neighbor kids. I put a sign up on the door that indicates what kind of activity they can do if they come hang out in our house. So, one night will be reading night, the next game night... I have a mat I lay out next to the trunk with supplies in it, and they just hang out look at the books, I read to them, Andy helps them work on reading some of the books, but right now, because none of them can really really read, and only have english words memorized like this " c-a-t cat, o-n-e one", even the easy books are way above their head. So, on games nights we play things like ABC memory, where they match up captial letters with lower case letters, bingo with letters or sight words, or a cube game where the cube has different consonants on each side, and they have to come up with words that start with that sound, or identify the letter name and sound. Even Mo-Lamin gets involved and he's 3, by looking at the books, he is very good at pointing out things in Mandinka that he regonizes in the books (mostly farm animal!hehe) and I have some toilet paper tubes and boxes he play with like blocks. I'm always working on new games, but the ones they have played so far they really get a kick out of. I'm going to try out a sort of verb charades soon, with the word and a picture on a card, and they act it out for the other kids to guess in english what they are doing. The reason I started these themed nights is that they often come to hang out, but, like kids do, they would just fool around, fight, etc, so I just felt we needed to do more to help them academically at home, because they don't really have the help from anyone in their lives, (parents-don't speak english, teachers-barely speak english, both can't really read.. yes,.. many of the teachers can't read... etc.) And like kids anywhere they need incentives to study, so we give them things like a sticker if they win bingo. Mom and dad sent a football and frisbee, that we just got,.. (yep, took 6 months to get) that I'm trying to think of a way to give away for a reward of some kind of academic achievement.. but haven't figured that out yet....

Well, if there are any packages that you've sent, but haven't heard that we have gotten them.. don't worry because even after 6 months there is still hope it will come! My parents shipped the packages around the middle of November, and as far as we can decipher from the many tags on the postal bag, it went from New Mexico to Johannesburg, to JFK airport, to the Gambia... so.. yeah, so the candy was a bit less chewy than it was originally meant to be, but just as tasty! and the ants or rats hadn't gotten to it. :)

Well, I think thats all I have right now.. I'm sure I will have more to talk about later! Hope to hear from you.