I just finished posting all of our pictures from China on our photo page. I tried my best to cut out as much as possible, but there are still loads of pictures.

See the post below for random highlights.

It's been over two months since we've posted to this blog, and I doubt anyone's checking it any more. But we went to China last week and took a few pictures. I'll post a very random assortment of the ones we like. I've yet to post all the pictures on our Picasa page because we've received some complaints about our previous failure to weed out repeat photos. When I get that done, I'll make another post.

We're just back from 9 days in Phnom Penh, Khao Yai National Park, and Bangkok. Everything went really smoothly and we had a great time. Lots to see in that part of the world. In Bangkok, we met up with Kevin and Dawn. It was great to hang out with them, plus we had free tour guides.

We took far too many pictures, and I'm just going to upload them all at this point, and hopefully I'll weed through them later. At times there are 10-15 pictures of the same thing. Sorry about that. Photo Page.

Phnom Penh, Grand Palace

Khao Yai National Park

Thai pop music bar in Bangkok

It's been about a month, so it's time for some more pictures. Not too many this time, but you can see them at our photo page. Make sure to check back in about 10 days for pictures of our trip to Thailand and Cambodia.

Kids performing "Singing In The Rain" at the Talent Show.

Sledding at Everland.

For a talent show, our homeroom teamed up with another class to perform this little number. This is a recent practice session. Don't feel obligated to watch the whole thing, but it's good for a laugh. Broke it up into a few parts to make it easier for me to upload. Harder for you, though. Sorry. Enjoy.

Some pictures of Ryan's homeroom class, posted on the photo site.

We have about 50 new pictures up on our photo page. It's been over a month since we've posted photos. November was boring.

A man spinning tops in Insadong, Seoul.

Yesterday we got together with Marilyn, a fellow Udall Scholar (along with Leslie, not Ryan) who was in town. It gave us an excuse to see some touristy stuff in Seoul, including Changdeokgung Palace. It was freezing, and the hour-long tour was almost too much. Our toes are still defrosting.

Changdeokgung Palace, Seoul.

The kids are back to full capacity at our school, so no more office work! Teaching full-time as of today. We work on Christmas and New Years (Day and Eve), but we'll have a nice potluck dinner with the other teachers on the 26th.

Leslie is starting to hear back from some law schools (all good news so far), although most school won't get back to her until the new year.

There's not much else to report. Stay warm, and enjoy the holidays!

Changdeokgung Palace, Seoul.

Yes, we are aware of how long it's been since our last post. Frankly, there hasn't been much to document. The weather has turned cold and we've stayed at home for the most part. But we recently attended the company Christmas Party, where we witnessed absurdity of all sorts. The party was essentially a variety show starring the employees of our company.

The Guests of Honor were invited to the front where they worked together to cut a wedding cake.

We spent about 20 minutes giving each other massages in a circle.

The next activities featured a "hot potato"-type game in which the people who held the balloon when the music stopped had to get up on stage and do all sorts of humiliating rituals. For example, we all had to vote for the most attractive man on stage (no video of this, unfortunately).

In another game, the person holding the balloon had to down a glass of beer mixed with soju (liquid chemical death) and dance. I don't think this guy minded too much.

This past weekend we trekked out to Danyang, a couple of hours south, to do some hiking in Sobaeksan National Park. We had heard that the leaves were going to be really colorful in that part of the country, and we weren't let down. Lots of yellows, oranges, reds, and purples. We hiked for most of the day, and our legs are still feeling it three days later.

As always, our photo skills don't do justice to the scenery, but we've posted them anyway, so take a look.

Leslie while hiking in Sobaeksan N.P.

Near the entrance of Sobaeksan N.P.

Inside Gosu Cave.

We haven't done anything too exciting lately, but we thought we'd keep this blog fresh with a few new pictures.

Korea plays Senegal at World Cup Stadium in Seoul.

A company lunch outing.

"Rail biking."

After coming back from the south coast (see below post), we spent a couple days in Seoul. We took a river cruise at night and explored some different Seoul neighborhoods. Pictures are here.

Water display on the river.

Bike path on the river.

This week, our school closed for Chuseok, an annual harvest festival in Korea. Leslie and I used the time off to take a little trip around the country. We started in the northeast, in Sokcho. Then we moved all the way to the south coast to see Yeosu, Mokpo, and Boseong. The weather didn't cooperate at all, forcing us to cancel our hiking plans. It was disappointing, but we still had a good time and saw a lot of Korea.

We've posted some pictures on the photo page. I apologize in advance because we took a TON of pictures (especially of Boseong Tea Plantation) and haven't gotten around to deleting any of them.

Mokpo

Boseong Tea Plantation

Boseong Tea Plantation

Last weekend, we took a 2-day trip to Gyeongju, about 4 hours southeast of Seoul. Stolen from wikipedia:

Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD) which ruled most of the Korean Peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries. A vast number of archaeological sites and cultural properties from this period remain in the city. Gyeongju is often referred to as "the museum without walls".

We posted some pictures, of varying quality, so check it out.

A few more pictures on the photo page.

This is a sloppy little video from the baseball game. Nothing too exciting.

Check out the photo page for a few new pictures.

Last night I saw down to write a reflection on my Peace Corps experience, only to realize I had no idea how to sift through and make sense of 21 months of experiences and memories, let alone condense it into a readable entry. We´ve heard from former volunteers that you don´t really appreciate the impact that Peace Corps has had on you until you´ve been back home for awhile, and I have no doubt that´s true. For all the complaining I´ve done, I know this experience has changed me, in many ways, for the better. I´ve become more confident in myself. I´ve learned that I can adapt to challenging physical and cultural circumstances. I´ve also come to a fuller understanding of my weaknesses, and I´ve formed strong bonds with our host family. I´ve become a lot tougher: the pre-PC me never would have stomped around in cow poop or survived a 56-hour journey in a cramped cockroach-infested ¨car¨ on the potholed mountain ¨roads¨ of Guinea. Peace Corps as an institution has always had a penchant for platitudes, but the truest one is that you get more than you give.

Only in The Gambia...

--Does the ferry stop operating for 45 minutes so the captain can eat breakfast.

--Do two men holding hands scream ¨Hey baby, lookin good...you wanna come to my compound?¨ as you walk down the street.

--Are you the center of a attention at a wedding that isn´t your own.

--Can you see a veiled woman sporting a t-shirt that reads ¨I like it on top.¨

--Can you attend workshops, trainings and even regular meetings where participants refuse to come unless they are paid 15 times the average daily wage, even though it´s during their normal working hours

--Can you watch GRTS, the national TV station where the first news story must always be about the president (on one particularly dull day, the anchor read a happy birthday letter he had received from the Guinean president). It also features a full half hour of birthday tributes and runs commercials that all include the same actor, an obese Wolof lady.

What I´ll Miss

--The simple lifestyle and non-consumerist society

--Chatting with our host family each night

--The ¨recycling¨ culture: making new things out of old, and being able to take anything that´s broken to the capenters, welders and general handymen lining every street instead of instantly throwing it away like Americans do

--Our cat, Alsamadeh

--Gambian delicacies: chakry (sour milk with millet), tangana (kind of like a Frappuccino, but with instant coffee), niebe (bean sandwich), saato (rice and peanut porridge), mangoes plucked right from the tree

What I´ll Remember

--Our current events club. The discussions were at times heatbreaking, like when the girls told us they have no choice if their teacher wants to sleep with them, or that they don´t believe that democracy can work in Africa. But they were also hopeful, such as when they described their dreams of improving their country by pursuing careers in journalism.

--Camping in the bush on trek for the parks department, being woken up by hyenas and seeing my counterpart take charge of the ecological survey project.

--Discovering the quirks of Gambian culture during our nightly English Club. Our siblings taught us so many things, including their belief in ¨mommy waters,¨ or mermaids. We also taught them that Babylon is actually in Iraq, not in Europe; now anytime they hear young men talking about wanting to move to Babylon, they laugh at them. Sadly, this might turn out to be our longest-lasting impact here.

--WAIST, the softball tournament in Dakar, where I realized how close I had gotten to the other volunteers. Plus, I got photos of Ryan in a softball uniform that will effectively disqualify him from ever running for public office, at least in downstate Illinois.

--Cooking pancakes with our host siblings (their favorite American food)

After an uneventful series of flights, I got home on Friday night. Right now I'm eating a bowl of ice cream with a brownie and watching PGA Tour golf on television, so yeah, I'm doing OK. Last night I went to Joliet to see my little brother's baseball team play in the High School State Championship. They won, 8-1. Down south, the girls softball team was busy doing the same thing, 9-1.

Here's a picture of my mom, Reid, and I after the win. Matt, in case you were wondering, I think my lucky shirt gave the Spartans the extra boost they needed.

This is a mass e-mail that we sent to friends and family last week. If you're reading this, you probably recieved the message, but we thought it was a good idea to post it here too.

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Hi everyone,

We wanted to write and let you know that we're going to be coming home from The Gambia a bit early. Last summer, I started having some trouble with my left shoulder. Certain arm movements caused the ball of the joint to slide out of the socket. It's never been more than a momentary dislocation, but it's really painful and it's been happening more and more frequently. Although the medical officer here is pretty certain about the cause, it can't be confirmed in The Gambia (this country has no MRI machine). So they've decided to medically separate me and send me to the land of MRI machines. I'll be leaving The Gambia on the evening of June 4th. I may need surgery and I may not, but in any case, I'll just be glad to feel like something is finally being done about it. In the meantime, Leslie will stick around for a few weeks and wrap up her work with the Parks Department. She plans to be home by the end of June.

I have mixed emotions about returning home. On the one hand, I'm really excited to spend time with friends and family. And in a way, I feel that my experience here has plateaued -- I'm not sure I can teach or learn much more than I already have. On the other hand, I'll really miss the people here. Saying goodbye to our host-family is going to be really hard, and I count the other PCVs here among my closest friends. But I was going to have to deal with leaving at some point, and it makes most sense to do that now.

My PC experience has definitely been a roller coaster. At times I've been truly miserable, and at others I've felt like this is the most rewarding job in the world. Ultimately, it's an experience that I'm really grateful to have had, and I'm sure we'll have occasion to talk more about it when I get home.

As for what comes next, we're not entirely sure, but we've got some ideas. In the meantime, we're looking forward to being home and spending time with all of you. Thanks for all your support -- care packages, letters, e-mails, etc. It has really done a lot for us.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

The Idea

My friends Matt and Andy and I have been playing around with something called pyrolysis, or the direct thermal decomposition of biomass in the absence of oxygen. That’s fancy talk for “makin’ charcoal.” We started reading about an MIT professor who was working in Haiti to convert sugarcane waste into charcoal briquettes. As sugarcane (or any plant) grows, it absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere. Then when they die, decomposition releases that CO2 back into the atmosphere in a carbon neutral process. But through biochar, we can harness the carbon for something useful (like charcoal briquettes) or sequester the carbon in a carbon negative process (like using the biochar as a soil amendment). We don’t have sugarcane here in The Gambia, but we’ve got lots of agricultural waste that is just burnt up each year after the harvest, so we went to work designing a biochar system that might work here.

Just about any biomass can be converted to biochar by heating it to extreme temperatures (lightin’ it on fire) and allowing the volatiles to burn off. Then, when the volatiles are gone and the carbon starts to burn, we cut off the oxygen, carbonizing the remaining biomass. The trick is to design a system (made of locally available materials) that will allow us to properly regulate the airflow to the biomass. We also wanted our system to be fueled only by waste; the biomass that we’re converting to biochar also provides the heat and gases necessary to fire the process.

For our burning chamber, we chose a 55 gallon oil drum, because they’re available locally for the equivalent of about $10USD – a sizable investment, but worth it for someone who’s serious about making biochar. We sliced off one end of the barrel – this is where we’ll load the biomass. On the underside, we punched seven holes, each about 1.5” in diameter. These holes allow air to move up through the chamber.

After we made our kiln, we had to select a biomass to convert to biochar. We tried leaf litter, peanut shells, and coconut shells with varying degrees of success. Ultimately, we were most successful with millet stalks. Millet is grown throughout The Gambia, and the stalks are typically burned as waste.

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The Process

I. Preparation

Prop the barrel up on 3 bricks to allow air into the chamber. Place a small amount of your biomass under the barrel, then fill the barrel with biomass. Use a large stick to form an internal chimney. Remove the stick after the barrel is full.

Have the following ready nearby:

One bucket of sandShovelLid to the barrelHeavy rock (cinder block size)One bucket of malleable mud

II. Lighting

Ignite the biomass below the barrel. This will then light the biomass within the barrel. A billowy white smoke will begin escaping from the top of the barrel. This should continue for 5-10 minutes.

III. Restricting Air Flow

If the biomass ignites into a huge flame, reduce air flow by placing the lid partially over the top (covering 75% of the opening). It may take a few minutes, but this should eliminate the flame.

Alternatively, if the white smoke may reduce in volume, at which point the barrel should be partially covered as described above.

IV. Sealing The Kiln

Once air flow is restricted, the billowy smoke should continue to flow for 5-15 minutes. Then you will notice a change in the color of the smoke. It will be a thin bluish green. This is a sign that the carbon is being burned off. We don’t want this, so it’s time to deprive the kiln of oxygen and carbonize the remaining biomass.

Move the lid to cover the entire top of the barrel and place your heavy rock on top to press it down. Take your bucket of malleable mud and seal the cracks around the lid. Remove the bricks from beneath the barrel. (You’ll want to use a shovel and a partner to be sure not to burn yourself or knock over the barrel.) Now take your sand and seal the edge of the bottom of the barrel. It is crucial to seal the barrel entirely, allowing no air inside.

V. Let It Cook

After your barrel is sealed, pyrolysis will take over and char the remaining biomass. Go have a few beers and come back in 5 hours. The result should be charred biomass: small, jet black pieces of really lightweight, low density charcoal.

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The ApplicationAnd that’s biochar. You just took agricultural waste – crop residues that would normally be burnt up just to get rid of it – and converted it to charcoal that can be used in two distinct ways: Soil Amendment and Charcoal Briquettes.

1. Soil Amendment (terra preta)

As mentioned earlier, biochar has the potential to be a carbon negative process. In other words, we can actually remove carbon from the atmosphere and lock it in the soil. Because of this, biochar has started to generate interest as a potential tool to combat global warming.

Obviously, converting agricultural waste to biochar in my village in West Africa is not going to make a dent in global GHG emissions – we would have to scale up the operation quite substantially before biochar could be considered a significant player in the world of carbon sequestration. But in the meantime, biochar is just plain good for the soil. It helps the soil retain water and nutrients, reducing irrigation and fertilizer needs and increasing agricultural productivity.

You can apply biochar to your soil in two different ways: Direct application or through compost. If you want to apply it directly, you first need to pulverize the biochar. You can do this very easily by filling a rice bag with completed biochar and then jumping on it for a minute until the contents have been reduced to fine particles. Now you can simply spread it over the soil and till it.

Alternatively, you can add the biochar to a batch of compost. The compost process will cause the biochar to break down, so there is no need to pulverize it beforehand. Just make the compost using your normal methods and add it to your nursery or garden beds.

2. Charcoal Briquettes

In West Africa, charcoal is used everyday for cooling tea and, in some cases, meals. Traditionally, Gambians make charcoal by chopping down [old growth] trees, heaping them together, lighting the heap on fire, and then throwing tons of dirt on top to block to the oxygen. The downsides of this are obvious. An entrepreneur could potentially start a small business by converting agricultural waste to biochar and using it to make briquettes.

The biochar created by carbonizing agricultural waste is low in density, brittle, and awkward to handle. It’s not suitable for use as charcoal until it is converted to briquettes. To do this, start by pulverizing the biochar in a rice bag, as described previously. Now you need a binder to hold the particles together. Starch is the best, as it burns smoke-free. You might also try fresh cow dung, although this will produce smoke during the first few minutes of cooking. We were quite successful using a paste of flour and water.

Use as little binder as possible to maximize the calorific value of the briquettes. Experiment to find the appropriate ratio of binder to biochar, but generally, it should not exceed 1:20. Now that you’ve added the binder and created a mixture of uniform consistency, it’s time to form briquettes. On a small scale, it is possible to form the briquettes by hand, without a press. This is a bit more time consuming and produces a lower-density briquette, but it requires no investment and is likely the best option for first-time briquette-making operations. Simply grab handfuls of the mixture and squeeze them into balls. Then dry the briquettes for 5-10 days and they’re ready to use!

For larger scale operations, a press is necessary. Designs can be found online and make by a local welder. However, a simple system can be developed using a long hollow pipe about 3” in diameter and a solid push-rod, slightly smaller in diameter. After makin the mixture, repeatedly push the hollow pipe down onto the mix, forcing it up into the pipe. When the pipe is full, use the push-rod to compress the mix inside the pipe. Now, laying the pipe down at an angle, use the push-rod to extrude the mixture onto a rice sack. Using a knife, the resulting sausage-like tube of mixture can then be sliced into charcoal patties about 1” thick and allowed to dry. Give them a week and you’re read to cook! ---------------

And that’s all there is to it. It’s a really simple technology made of affordable, locally available materials, and it makes use of agricultural residues normally discarded as waste. In The Gambia, after the millet harvest, farmers often do nothing until the next rainy season. They sit idle for over 6 months! In my ideal world, one motivated farmer from each village would learn how to make biochar. Then, after the harvest, he would spend his dry season rolling his barrel from field to field, converting all the millet stalks into biochar. The other farmers wouldn’t care because they don’t use the stalks anyway. The biochar farmer could use his new skill to improve the soil in his fields or start a business making charcoal briquettes.

In any case, experimenting with biochar was a lot of fun and really rewarding. We built off what people have done elsewhere, and you’ll likely have to do the same; what worked here might need tweaking in your neck of the woods. But give it a try and have patience. Happy biocharring!

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that we haven't forgotten about this blog, despite appearances. Big update to come soon, we promise.

A few weeks ago my fellow volunteers Amber, Andy and I went to Kiang West National Park on our very first survey trek for DPWM’s newest research project, “Ecological Assessment and Monitoring in Protected Areas” (it sounds fancier than it is). Amber and I dreamed up this project in August while sitting in a sweltering restaurant, and I have subsequently wondered if the heat of that day had gotten the best of our brains. But actually, the trek went reasonably well. The first few days were kind of rough as we tried to work out the kinks, but I’m confident that the next surveys will go smoothly. For your reading enjoyment, here’s a day-by-day account of the trek’s events.

DAY 1

We headed out to the bush and set up camp, teaching our Gambian counterparts how to erect a tent. We dug ten holes in the ground (which is not easy because it hasn’t rained since October), sank buckets into them, and put a tarp along the buckets. The purpose of this setup is to trap amphibians that hop around at night. We divided the area into four transects and counted every bird we heard or saw, then laid out our small mammal traps for the evening.

DAY 2

We woke up before the crack of dawn and headed out to our transects, looking for birds. We conducted a brief vegetation survey, then checked our amphibian and reptile traps, but found them empty. As we departed for our next site, we noticed a group of small boys cutting the bark off a tree. Poaching is very common in all the parks, and because the rangers are not armed and have virtually no authority, all we could do was tell them to leave with the knowledge that they would probably return as soon as we left.

Later, at our next site, we were attacked by bees (of the African “killer” variety), which would occur on every remaining day of the trek. It turns out that it’s not a good idea to bring several 20-liter containers of water to a parched area, because the bees will smell it from miles away. Once they flew back to their hives after sundown, I hid behind an enormous termite mound and attempted to “shower” using eight baby wipes and a half liter of water. I fell asleep to the sounds of hyenas laughing in the distance and pornography emanating from one of the Gambians’ fake iPhones.

DAY 3

I checked my mammal traps early in the morning to discover that I had caught the first animal of the survey. It was a red bush mouse, and it was extremely frightened. We also found the scat of a jackal (“That’s a big shit,” observed one of my counterparts) and the tracks of the rare African clawless otter.

At night it was time for the crocodile survey. There was limited space in the boat, so I didn’t get to go, but Andy gave me the full rundown. Gambians tend to be terrified of water and most of them can’t swim, so he was not at all surprised when they refused to board the boat until they knelt down and prayed to God for protection. I guess it didn’t work very well, because Boss (yes, that’s his name) fell out of the boat, fully submerging one of the $45 spotlights that my parents brought from the U.S. He was cold and the rest of the team was scared, so they returned to camp after seeing only seven crocodiles.

DAY 4

We went back to the headquarters for a day of rest, since everyone was still tired from the overnight crocodile survey. The warden of the park presented us with a baby Callithrix monkey, which he had confiscated from a group of small boys who had eaten its mother. The warden hadn’t slept the night before because the monkey wouldn’t stop crying, so we volunteered to babysit it for awhile. We brought it back to Amber’s house and fed it tinned milk from an eyedropper. It howled incessantly, presumably trying to locate its mother, before falling asleep on a pile of dirty laundry. If you think that being a toubab in The Gambia attracts attention, try being three toubabs with a baby monkey. I think the whole village was trying to peep into her house.

DAY 5

We returned to the bush to finish the rest of the surveys, camping at one of the most beautiful places I have seen in The Gambia. Our site stood at the top of an escarpment overlooking the River Gambia. This was by far the most biologically productive area we went to, and we saw or noticed evidence of porcupines, bushbuck, baboons, snakes, hyenas, warthogs, and even a gigantic hornbill that looked sort of like a dinosaur. Amber somehow managed to catch a bloody mouse head in her trap; we think a civet (type of small cat) followed it inside, ate half of it, and then escaped. Then again, maybe it was the resident dragon that our counterparts had so seriously warned us about the night before.

DAY 6

We finished surveying our last site and dropped off the rangers at headquarters. What followed was the only really awful part of the trek. We had just enough gas to get back home, but one of my counterparts was demanding that we buy an additional twenty liters. Knowing that he would use that fuel to drive the truck around for his own personal use, I refused. Gambian fights are pretty intense, and it was quite the blowout. At one point I remember hearing someone scream “YOU’RE FIRED!” and “THAT’S OK, I QUIT!” There was even a physical fight over the car keys, and had we been out in the middle of nowhere, I would have felt seriously threatened. In the end, one of the other rangers took me, Amber and Andy aside and tried to be the mediator. As soon as I heard him say, “There is no black and white, we are all one blood,” I knew we were in trouble. Because I insisted on following the budget and not allowing theft, I was being portrayed as racist. We were about to take a gele-gele home by ourselves when a compromise was finally reached.

I got home that night unsure about the state of the project, but a meeting the next day with my supervisor at DPWM did a lot to ease my nerves. He assured me that this particular man is known to have a major anger management problem and that it would never happen again. He also openly stated that no Gambian, even himself, could be trusted with project money, which I am starting to believe. I now have final say over the finances, but I wonder what will happen next year when I’m not here. Unfortunately, this situation is not unique to DPWM.

But anyway, I don’t want to end this entry on such a downer. Overall, I think the trek went well. I was really amazed at the knowledge of the rangers. One of them had never been to school and the other had only completed grade 8, but they knew the names of every single plant and animal and could talk at length on the ecology of the park. They were also very good sports about sleeping in the bush for six nights in a row, because I know they were scared (almost all Gambians sincerely believe the bush is inhabited by devils and genies). Next week we’ll be going to Tanji Bird Reserve, a coastal park, which should be interesting because the ecology will be a lot different. Mercifully, it will also be a lot cooler—up-country is starting to heat up like an oven.

Over the past year and a half I have learned that Gambians recognize all sorts of holidays that I once considered to be the exclusive domain of toubabs (Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, etc.), but I was a bit taken aback when my host sister greeted me with an enthusiastic "Happy April Fools Day!" yesterday morning. Later that evening, during English Club, my siblings informed me of all the tricks that had been played that day. Arokee told us that she pranked her teacher by telling her that the school principal wanted her to come to his office. Our neighbor down the road received a phone call from her sister informing her that her mother had died; in tears, she traveled to her mother's home only to find her sitting outside, fully alive. Meanwhile, my next door neighbor was alerted of a "mommy water" (Gambians' word for "mermaid") sighting at his workplace. He told my host dad, and they drove there together on his motorcyle. Not surprisingly, the mommy water was nowhere to be found. And finally, the local fire department aired a warning over the weekend that anyone who called in a phony fire on April 1st would be sent to jail. Apparently, there were several fake fire calls last year. All of these tricks have led me to believe that whoever imported April Fools Day to this country didn't really impart its intended purpose very well.

In other news, Ryan and I were the butt of an excellent prank played by our friend Brian. Everyone here knows that Brian has a bit of an anger management problem while traveling anywhere in West Africa (on our Guinea trip, we had to bribe him not to insult police and military officers with cigarettes), so we believed him when we received a call from his friend saying that he was being held at a police station for overturning a seller's bowl of chicken after she grabbed his sleeve at a bus stop, trying to get him to buy her food. Ryan tried phoning him, only to have the call answered by a saucy "police officer." We were on the verge of calling Peace Corps when they called us back and informed us of their trick. They swore us to secrecy and proceeded to play the same prank on a number of other unsuspecting volunteers. Now that is a good April Fools joke.

Hi everyone. When Leslie's family got home from their trip, Mary sent out an e-mail to some friends and family to tell them about their week here. I figured we should post it here. Life in The Gambia, through a new set of eyes:

Just a note to let you know our Africa trip went very well. The only unpleasant part was the long journey over and back (20 hours), but even that was tolerable. I just wouldn't want to fly that far again anytime soon.

The experience of a culture far different from ours was fascinating. We spent 5 days in the urban area near the coast and 2 nights at Leslie and Ryan's village. In the urban area, traffic was heavy and we had the memorable experience of being transported via either taxi or "gele". A gele is a substandard large van that lacks seat belts, comfort, and personal space. Many geles look like they had been driven right out of the junk yard. None would pass safety standards. They will cram as many people as possible into a gele and won't proceed on the journey until the van is full. We often found ourselves shoulder to shoulder with 12-15 passengers. The most important piece of equipment on either a taxi or a gele is the horn. It is beeped constantly to warn pedestrians, goats, or dogs to get out of the way. The rides were often punctuated by frequent swerves and sudden braking to avoid other vehicles, obstacles, or potholes in the road. Why there aren't more accidents is nothing short of a miracle.

While in the urban area, Leslie and Ryan took us to see the Arch, a tribute to the Gambian leader who has been in control for over 40 years, the crocodile pool, the street markets which sell everything from imported goods to fresh produce and fish, the craft markets which sell regionally produced items, a fishing pier, the beach cliffs, the Peace Corps office, and other various sites along the way. We enjoyed the open markets and purchased fabrics which were made into clothing by Leslie's favorite seamstress before we left. Prices at all the markets are negotiable and Leslie and Ryan are masters at the process. Without them, we would have overpaid for everything we purchased. We also visited the nature reserve where Leslie works for one of her projects. And Bob even got to play blackjack in the hotel's one room casino (he was a winner). Restaurant food in the urban area ranged from traditional Gambian to more "American." We ate hamburgers and chicken with fries, but also sampled Gambian fare and enjoyed a tasty soft drink "Cocktail de Fruits." Had great pizza one night and good Italian another. There was a delicious breakfast buffet each morning at the hotel. Bottled water and careful avoidance of raw fruits and vegetables kept us healthy.

We also enjoyed the time we spent in Mandinari where Leslie and Ryan live. The pace of life is quieter and calmer in their village. We took a walking tour of the village and Bob enjoyed a bean sandwich, one of Leslie and Ryan's favorites, from the local market. We also went on a boat tour of the mangroves that line a tributary near the village. Leslie and Ryan's gracious host family prepared two meals for us. We were given our own food bowl to share. Gambians eat out of a common bowl with their right hand but we used forks to eat out of our bowl. No one sits at a table to eat. There is no running water or electricity in the village, so water is bucketed from a well in the back yard of the compound. Bathroom needs were satisfied with a latrine behind the house and bathing was completed by dipping a cup into a bucket of water to wet the body and then rinsing off lathered soap. When the sun went down, candles provided light inside and headlamps guided us outside to the latrine. We slept under mosquito netting and woke to loudspeakers calling the men to 5 AM prayer in the mosque. Oh, and the roosters made sure we awoke if we happened to sleep through the call to prayer. I also woke one night to the braying of a donkey, which in turn encouraged other donkeys in the village to join the noisy chorus!

The colorful sights and varied sounds of the Gambia will be with us forever. There were so many good experiences during our visit and Leslie and Ryan were wonderful "tour guides." It was a week of special memories and good family time.

Mary

Bob, Mary, and Shelby left The Gambia on Sunday evening to return home. Since then I've made a quick trip up-country for St. Patrick's Day, managed to step on a rusty nail (don't worry, Mom), and traveled back down to the capital in a vehicle with a phallus painted on the side (pictures -- click on the link at the left).

The family's trip was great. We did some touristy things, ate some delicious food (probably more of a treat for Leslie and me than for them), and saw a lot of things that typical tourists don't get the chance to see. They had a really good time bartering at the craft market and shopping for fabric in Banjul. They got some skirts/purses/shirts made by a local tailor. We also went on a boat trip in the river near our house; the boat was less-than-stable, and a large eel made an appearance inside the boat, but all emerged unscathed. We saw crocodiles in a sacred pool and large spiders in our house. They ate the local food, complete with fish bones and rocks. All in all, we had a blast. There were no disasters, no one got sick.

Leslie is going to write a longer entry about their visit, but she's on trek right now with the Parks Department. Wish her luck, and we'll talk to you soon.

NOTE: Congratulations to Matt & Liz, and Jon & Jill on their recent engagements! We miss you guys...

In two days, Leslie's parents and sister will arrive for a week-long visit. We're really looking forward to it. We don't have anything too exciting planned, but it will be great for them to get a better idea of the things we do here everyday. They'll get to eat some local food, relax in the heat, and use our pit latrine. It'll be fun. We'll make sure to take lots of pictures and get those online ASAP.

Take care, everyone.

Hi everyone. Leslie is on a week-long trek with the Parks Department to lay the groundwork for a series of wildlife surveys in the National Parks. It's a really ambitious project that has the potential for a lot of frustration, but she's hoping that it will pay off. Regardless, it's bound to be a great learning experience (I suppose you can say that about the PC experience in general). I'm a bachelor for the next week. But I live in a mud hut in an African village, so the potential for craziness is limited. I'll be eating out of the family's foodbowl because Leslie does most of our cooking, so dried fish is on the menu this week.

I managed to steal some decent WAIST pictures from some friends' cameras, and those are posted on our photo page (link to the left).

Here are two quick pictures from the softball tournament. They don't fully capture the ridiculous uniforms. I'll try to post one later that shows all our bumster accessories. More to come, I'm just strapped for time.

For the last four days, we've been in Dakar for the annual West African Invitational Softball Tournament. Peace Corps Volunteers from Senegal, The Gambia, Mali, Guinea, and Mauritania, as well as other NGOs from around West Africa all send teams. This is the 36th year for the tournament, and it's clear that the tournament organizers really know what they're doing. They put together an amazing weekend. During the day we play softball and lounge by the pool, and at night they have catered events and parties at different locations around Dakar. It's been a great chance to hang out with our PC friends outside of the usual setting, and I'm grateful for that because it reminded me of how much I love a lot of the people I work with. We've become remarkably close over the past year and a half, and we all had a blast this weekend. We also spent some time with our friends Jess and Marisa, who are serving as PCVs in Senegal. Jess is a hell of a pitcher, but I think she's still reeling from the homerun I hit off of her yesterday. She made up for it by looking much less foolish in her softball uniform than me (pictures to come). Hopefully they'll both make it down to see The Gambia before we leave.

Tomorrow morning we're leaving early to head back home. WAIST was a great time, and it's disappointing to know that we won't get to do it again. But in a couple of weeks Leslie's family is coming to visit, so we have that to look forward to. Wish them luck...

This month has brought a couple of exciting new projects. Things are finally starting to pick up at the Department of Parks and Wildlife Management, and I'm now involved in a fairly large project sponsored by WWF (you know, the organization with the panda bear). Together with my fellow PCV Amber, the research head at DPWM, and several park rangers, we'll be going to four parks over the course of the next seven months to conduct ecological surveys. I'm really excited to have the opportunity to learn some new things and to be out in the field, and I have a lot better confidence in the success of this project than I've had with my others...knock on wood.

The other new project is the English club Ryan and I recently started with our host siblings Musa (13), Amie (16), Arokey (18) and Masiri (20). Three nights a week, we gather in our house and speak English for a half hour. We both had doubts whether it would be very successful, but they speak English a lot better than we previously thought, and we've learned a lot of interesting things from them. I definitely feel like we've gotten to know them a lot better since we started "night chat," as they call it. And I know they're enjoying it, too; whenever we have to postpone it, they seem very disappointed. Here are some highlights from the past month of English club:

--Sometimes we look at magazine pictures and discuss what's happening in them. We showed them a picture of a pizza and asked them if they knew what it was. After a long silence, Musa bravely ventured, "Head of human being." His sisters lauged mercilessly. Poor guy!

--They told us a story about a thief in Nigeria who, while running from his pursuers, jumped over a fence and turned into a sheep. They captured the sheep, who now resides in prison. When we asked them if they believed this story, all but Amie replied that they did. "Nigerians are very tricky," Masiri told us.

--We always knew that our lovable old host grandmother has senile dementia, as diagnosed by our nurse friend, but we finally learned what she talks to herself about. The list is too long to write here, but her favorite topics include accusing her granddaughters of not properly washing her clothes and stealing her favorite shoes from her.

--We heard the legend of "Mariama Croquette," the devil who haunts the school that Musa and Amie attend. They call her Croquette after the sound her shoes make on the floor. This devil is said to cause the death of at least one student each year; the most recent was a young girl hit by a car outside the school. I would have blamed reckless gele-gele drivers, but maybe it was actually the notorious Mariama...

Hi everyone. Hope you're all well. It's cold here -- in the sixties in the morning before the sun comes up. Delightful. That'll last about another month and then we'll heat up again. We hear it's pretty chilly back home, so try to stay warm.

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Not much to report from here. Work is moving along, but at a frustratingly slow pace, as is typical. PCVs from The Gambia will tell you that it's hard to do your job and not have a monthly existential crisis of sorts. This month's seemed to hit a little harder than most, but we've got a great group of friends here who are all going through similar issues. So we took a break from tearing our hair out and did some fun things -- camping with Andy and Lydia; a field trip to the reptile farm with some great high schoolers; dinner with Bjorn, Sharon, and Steph. The [geographic] smallness of The Gambia makes for a pretty close-knit group of volunteers, and we're really grateful for that..On another note, I just read East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. Read this book..We added some new pictures to the photo page (Dec & Jan), and I'll post a few here, too. Take care, everyone.

I found a guy in the market who sells real coffee beans, so we bought some and learned to roast and grind them. Now we have a fresh cup every morning. Delicious.. Camping with Andy and Lydia. Camping, morning.

Binta and Steph at the Reptile Farm.

The Gambia is about 90% Muslim and 10% Christian, and President Jammeh always declares holy days of both religions to be public holidays. You could call this fairness, or you could call it something else. Having experienced December 2007 in country, I pretty much gave up all hope of getting any work done in December 2008. A list of the public holidays in the past 30 days:

December 9: Tobaski, the most important Islamic feast day of the year

December 10: day after Tobaski

December 11: day after the day after Tobaski

December 25: Christmas

December 26: day after Christmas

January 1: New Year's Day

January 2: day after New Year's

January 7: day before Islamic new year

January 8: Islamic new year

January 9: day after Islamic new year

Combine these dates with weekends, and you've got just about a solid month of sitting on your butt. When I called the printing press to inquire whether the ecotouism brochures my counterpart and I ordered in November had been printed, the clerk replied, "But the holidays..." And when we asked why the day after New Year's was declared a public holiday, our host dad replied, "Well obviously, people can't work the day after a holiday." Um, what?

FYI, notable past public holidays:

--President's son's naming ceremony

--Day after President's son's naming ceremony

--Day after the Gambian soccer team's draw with Senegal (that's right, a tie)

We made it back to the motherland about 6 days ago, and it's great to be home. We've just been eating and seeing friends and eating. God Bless America.

Coffee Hound.

"Everywhere around the world, they're coming to America!Everytime that flag's unfurled, they're coming to America!Got a dream to take them there, they're coming to America!Got a dream they've come to share, they're coming to America!".That's right, we're coming home, Neil Diamond style. Minus all the sequins and chest hair..We'll be in America from October 6th - October 27th. We'll be staying around the Bloomington-Normal area for the most part, but we'll also be in Chicago and Sterling for a short time. We can't wait to see everyone! We've already made extensive lists of foods to eat and things to do. Send us an e-mail and we'll get coffee or something!

Awhile ago Ryan wrote that I would make a “thoughts on development” blog post. Now that I’ve been here almost a year, I thought I’d make some initial observations. I’m sure my thoughts will have changed by the time I leave, and even now you should read them with some reservations. I majored in international development in college, and I’ve been “in the field” a year, but I’m certainly no expert. My ideas have been colored by my own experiences and by those of other PC Gambia volunteers, so for all I know they may be unique to development in The Gambia (although from corresponding with our friend Karen, a PCV in Peru, it seems that some things are global in nature). My various projects in my village, at the parks department, and at the school have all influenced my view of development, but I think one particular project says the most. Here’s an outline of its evolution. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

2006: A Peace Corps volunteer in a town near mine wrote a proposal for $9,000 to fund all the start-up costs for a fruit and vegetable processing project, to be implemented by her women’s group. The women would dry mangoes, okra, peppers and other vegetables and also process them into jams and sauces, with the goal of selling them and making enough profit to keep the project going years after the grant money ran out. A United Nations organization (we’ll call it UNO) decided to fund it, but due to various bureaucratic holdups did not make the funds available until after the volunteer’s service ended.

February 2008: In order to disburse the money before the deadline, UNO contacted Peace Corps to see if any of their current volunteers could use the money. I, being a new, thoroughly naïve, and inexperienced “development worker,” expressed an interest on behalf of the women’s group in my village.

A representative from UNO came to meet with my women’s group. The group were not registered with the government, had no bank account, and no history of carrying out large projects or handling money. Their organizational capacity is extremely low: no one is literate, speaks English, possesses strong leadership skills or can perform basic accounting or recordkeeping. I say this in hindsight; at the time, having worked with the group for only a few weeks, these problems were not all obvious to me, although I definitely should have made sure they were capable of handling such a large project before signing them up. The UNO rep stayed 45 minutes, asked hardly any questions, and left with a promise to transmit the funds as soon as the group registered and opened a bank account.

I went to the Community Development Office to register the group. They told me that we would need to write a constitution, obtain tax-exempt forms from the tax office, and get everything approved by the attorney general. Two months, 6 stamp duties, countless phone calls, 900 Dalasis ($45), and several stress-induced headaches later, we were finally registered. I had to do almost everything myself, since it is nearly impossible for illiterate village women to draft a constitution and navigate the Gambian bureaucracy. At every step of the way, a different government official told me a different thing, and I doubt an approved step-by-step registration process even exists. At one point a Peace Corps employee told me the bureaucrats were waiting for their customary bribe of a case of Coca Cola. Maybe I should have just paid up.

Having secured the necessary forms, I started to collect invoices for the materials we’d need. I submitted them to UNO, only to have them promptly lose them. They would not accept my copies and told me that they would instead give me funds based on another PC volunteer’s invoices (the original $9,000 was being shared between myself and two other volunteers in different villages). After more than a month, they decided this was actually against UNO rules, and told me I’d have to go back to all the shops and get new invoices.

In the meantime, my women’s group had abandoned their practice of collecting 50 Dalasis per member each week, citing the hungry season and the members’ general unwillingness to contribute toward a project that seemed increasingly unlikely to happen. I began to realize what a horrible idea it was to suggest the UNO project to them and became more and more convinced that it was doomed to fail. After everything I had been through with the government and with UNO, I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with them even if the money ever came through. Even though telling the women would be difficult after they had gotten their hopes up, I finally made the decision to back out.

The UNO project was just plain bad for several reasons. I do think that a well-organized women’s group with a history of carrying out complex grants could make it succeed, but certainly not my group or the majority of women’s groups in the country. Because I was a new volunteer and had almost no idea of what my group was capable of, I should have never accepted UNO’s offer. And UNO certainly should have asked us more critical questions to determine whether the project had a reasonable chance of success. I worked for a small foundation one summer, and we were taught to really analyze organizations before giving them money; you’d think a UN organization would do the same. But mostly, the project has all the markings of any bad development initiative in The Gambia. It’s completely unsustainable and relies on a foreign development worker (me) to carry out most of the work. UNO won’t pay for any kind of training, which means that they would simply dump the equipment on the women, who not only have no idea how to use it but also have no understanding of food sanitation, marketing, equipment maintenance or basic business principles. Furthermore, there is almost no market for processed fruits and vegetables in the country, and even UNO admitted that the group would never turn a profit. Maybe it’s just me, but I think $3,000 is far too much money to provide 20 women with some dried mangoes and chili sauce, and could be better spent a hundred different ways.

I’m just happy I withdrew in time to prevent yet another ill-conceived, unsustainable development project in The Gambia. And I guess I’m lucky that it did not involve any high-level corruption or embezzlement of funds, as happened to one of my friends. Still, the UNO project is typical of many development initiatives here. I cannot point to instances of egregious wrong-doing, but rather to poor judgment on the part of all parties. The sad thing is that such projects add up to millions of dollars per year and contribute to the general sense that development in The Gambia is ineffective.

Leslie and I are in town for a couple of days, as some Volunteers have put together a Labor Day softball game. My toe is still ugly, but it feels relatively normal, so I should be in top form today. I hadn't left my village in about two weeks and was starting to get restless.

We put up a few more pictures:

Normal ones - hanging out in village.

Gele Drivers for Obama - Todd sent us Obama bumper stickers to give to gele-gele drivers.

Portraits - a few more headshots.

Leslie left this morning to go to Kiang, a few hours inland on the South Bank. She's helping with a training for the Parks Department. And I'm in town for a toe checkup. We haven't written anything in a while, but you should check out this story by our friend Brian. It's an interesting look at deforestation here and how it's seen through the eyes of Gambians.

I was making the short walk home from the garden, and my body ached. Leslie, Kat, and I were given a small plot in our training village’s community garden to cultivate carrots, peppers, and cucumbers, and we had spent the last two evenings turning the soil and forming the beds. The ground in our plot was impossibly hard despite the torrential downpours it received on a regular basis for the past 3 months. I would learn later that the strength of the sub-Saharan sun left the already uncooperative soil completely desiccated after only a few hours of exposure. This fact explained why, on mornings following a rain, villagers moved en masse to the fields to work the ground, and fights would break out over rights to the coveted plow and donkey. The Peace Corps did not issue us a plow nor donkey. Only a machete and hand-ho. And so, having successfully chipped away at the brick-like dirt to form our beds, we were filled with not a little sense of triumph as we returned to my host-family’s compound.

My host-father, Ansumana, was sitting on a prayer mat with Baakari, the only other man in the village whose name I had managed to learn in my five days there so far. Seizing this unprecedented opportunity, I called upon my arsenal of Mandinka greetings.

“Ansumana! Baakari! Where are the home people?”

They replied in unison: “They are here only.”

“Hope there is no trouble.”

“No, no trouble.”

Having successfully exhausted my arsenal, Leslie and Kat each took their turn, and then we stepped around them to get to my door. As I was removing the lock, Ansumana said something that we did not understand, but it was clearly directed at us. I looked to Baakari, who I knew spoke a little English.

“Do you understand what he said?” He asked.

“No.”

“A girl died.”

“A girl in this compound?”

“Yes."

“When?”

“Fifteen minutes back.”

For our first 10 days in the country, PC kept us in the relatively wealthy area near the coast, where we were cosseted to some degree. And somehow, throughout the first few days in our training village, despite the stifling heat and questionable food, this sense of insularity had managed to linger. Baakari’s news, and the matter-of-fact way in which he delivered it, completely shattered the remnants of that feeling, and the look exchanged by the three of us conveyed this. I could not help thinking that this was the reality to which I knew I would be exposed during my service, and back in the US it carried with it a certain humanizing quality. An arrogant and cold feeling that somehow, through osmosis or association, this type of suffering would be edifying in a way. That it was part of the adventure and enlightenment I had sought in choosing to come here in the first place. But now that this reality had arrived so abruptly, I only wanted for it to go away, and shame welled up inside of me for ever having felt that way to begin with.

Baakari told us that the funeral would happen soon, so the girls went to put on clean clothes. I sat down on the cement porch to ask some questions. Baakari didn’t know the girl’s name, because she wasn’t from the village. She was Ansumana’s niece and came to live here a year ago when she became ill; her mother had died recently and her father was too sick himself to care for her. She was maybe 10 years old.

“I think I’ve met this girl. Did she always sit on that prayer mat?” I asked, pointing to an empty, tattered mat lying jumbled on the porch of a house across the compound.

“Yes, everyday.”

On our second day in the village, just three days ago, Leslie and I had been practicing our greetings with people in my compound. A teenage girl was sitting on the mat, and next to her was another girl who I thought could not be more than 7 years old. We sat down next to them and quickly said all we knew how to say to the teenager. She spoke a very small amount of English, so we humored her as she had humored us. My gaze kept shifting to the other girl who had not said anything, her eyes doing that dance they do when your mind is committed to staying awake but your body has other ideas. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. She was sitting with her legs under her, back resting against the wall of the house. She was draped in meters of patterned fabric, but the outline betrayed her body’s frailty, bones forming rigid corners where there should have been soft curves. I do not remember exactly what was said, but one of us must have felt bad and tried to greet her. Rather than return the greeting, she said something we did not understand, her voice quiet and raspy, her eyes now focused on the ground between us.

“She said she is sick,” the teenager told us.

That much was apparent from her appearance. I remember thinking, she wouldn’t have said that if I were a Gambian, and then dismissing it, welcome to the next two years of your life, genius.

I had not thought about it again until this conversation with Baakari. She had malaria. There was no medicine. No money for medicine. I asked three more people that night, but no one knew her name.

Leslie and Kat came back just in time for the start of the funeral. It was held in the compound, which consisted of a few houses arranged in a C-formation. All the houses had porches on which 50 or 60 people had silently gathered. The village imam abruptly broke the silence with a prayer that lasted about 5 minutes, the crowd periodically passing their hands over their faces in a cleansing motion. When he had finished, all of the women went into one of the houses for more prayer, and Leslie and Kat were told to join them.

It was still silent in the compound when four men emerged from the main house carrying what was obviously a casket. I recognized it as the box that sat outside the village mosque. Wood on five sides, corrugated iron on the top, it had two long posts running lengthwise, and these were much longer than the casket. The four men rested these posts on their shoulders as they walked. The ease with which they navigated the doorway and small staircase suggested they had done this before. Soon we were moving slowly down the main road, silently following the casket out of the village. By now, the sun was gone and dozens of men shared one dim flashlight as we struggled along the heavily potholed asphalt. Five minutes outside the village we turned right, off the road and down an overgrown path, the damp weeds soaking the lower half of my pants. About 200 meters of this and we were there.

My eyes followed the flashlight, which guided the men with the casket to a deep hole, perfectly rectangular. It struck me that this girl died less than two hours earlier and already they had managed such a magnificent hole. The light drifted to show a few nearby unmarked mounds of dirt, scattered weeds growing up through them – the sites of recent burials, I guessed. Recent enough that the soil was still lumpy, not yet smoothed by the wind and rain.

The casket was lowered to sit beside the hole and the corrugate top removed. More prayers came from the imam, and the men all dropped into a crouch, behinds resting on heels. I did my best to mimic the stance, but I had American joints, and soon I was kneeling, the humid ground soaking through to my knees. The prayers continued, and one man came forward to remove the girl from the casket, her body wrapped in white fabric and tied with rope. He knelt first, and then, outstretched arms effortlessly holding her steady, he moved forward until he was horizontal on his stomach. His arms and head dangled into the hole as he arranged the girl, prayers still coming fast and monotone from the imam. A layer of leaves was placed in the hole before two men with shovels began to gently fill it with soil. When it was over we retraced our path, again led by the four men with the casket. The whole ordeal took a little over an hour.

In “The Village of Waiting,” George Packer writes of his Peace Corps experience in Togo:

Time wasn't going forward, it rehearsed the same small circle. This was living closer to nature and the life cycle than most environmentalists ever get or would care to. When it didn't rain there were no crops; when night fell there was no light but the moon; when people got very sick they usually died.Dead at 5, buried by 7. As I looked out my window into the compound that evening, the normal jokes were told and the usual arguments broke out at the food bowl, and the young girl’s frayed prayer mat lay slightly askew on the porch.

If you have not read the post "Toe brings me back to town," read that first, right below this one.

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All done. I only have nine toenails. I can't imagine anything too much more painful than having a nail yanked out of the nailbed, but the pain was shortlived (I hope). If you don't have a weak stomach, I documented it with pictures. Get well packages in the form of Reese's Pieces and granola are appreciated :) Meet Mr. Jones. He specializes in a rare form of torture called "you might think you are dying, but the pain will pass."

About a week ago, it felt like my toe was really starting to get better. I was walking semi-normally, and Leslie and I even spent a day walking around Banjul. But yesterday was nothing short of miserable. The infection is back with a vengeance. Take a look. I'm in town today to have the PC nurse take a look at it. Two weeks back, when I posted a picture of my toe on the blog, I got this response from my friend Jen who's living in Taiwan:

Oh my crap, Ryan!My toe looks EXACTLY like that right now! Like scarily

similar. I got the Taiwan version of Gambia-toe-fection-itis! It's totally

gross. I've had it for a week, but haven't gone to the doctor yet. Did they give

you antibiotics? Maybe I should go... eh...

So this morning, when I got to town, I checked out her blog, and this is what I found. If that story is any indication, I have a lot to look forward to in about 25 minutes. I'll let you know how it turns out.And Jen... with regards to the missing half of your toe nail... my condolences. OH! And I promised a story about a funeral a few weeks back, and I've written it, but haven't typed it up. Give me a day or so.

My toe is gross. Check it out. I've got an appointment for amputation tomorrow. Just kidding.

I just returned from up-country, where I worked with Ted and Bjorn to design a garden at the new transit house. On the way home we stopped at Mark's, a 10km walk on a dirt road with an aching toe. From Mark's, it was onward to Brian's, where the executive decision was made to cut the trip a few days short and make a beeline to the med-office to have my toe examined. Despite the calamities, we had a blast and I can't wait to get back up there. The rains have turned everything green, and the farmers and their horses/donkeys/cows are all out planting. Here are a few pictures. There are more on the photo page. Brian's village. View from Brian's backyard.

Hanging out at Mark's. His place is really nice.

After more than six months of staying within 20 K of our village, Ryan and I finally decided to make separate trips up-country--he to work on the new garden at the PC house in Basse, me to visit some friends in their villages. I had forgotten what it was like to travel long distances in The Gambia; it took 10 hours, at least 15 police checkpoints, and fruitless searches for a latrine to reach my first destination, a mere 250 K away. After a short stay at Alicia's, I rode a donkey cart for 3 long, bumpy hours to reach Mark's village, a small settlement of thatched huts surrounded by fields of millet, corn and rice. I hadn't seen a village like that since training, and it was refreshing. No cars spewing black fumes, no kids howling for minties, and a large concentration of trees. We went for a long walk in the a hilly (well, for The Gambia) forest with monkeys and rare birds, and we didn't see another soul the entire time. Although I don't think I'd trade our village, where I can buy bread, ice pops and vegetables everyday, for Mark's, it did make me wish there was more empty, forested land nearby. After I left Mark's, I headed to Amy's village on the North Bank. Together with her sitemate Allison, we braved a fierce thunderstorm and ran around to different compounds counting how many trees they had potted for the tree nursery competition.

I arrived home on Friday and have since thought a lot about how different up-country is from our site. The biggest thing I noticed is that the food crisis will likely affect urban and peri-urban areas much more than the provinces. Up-country, everyone has land and they spend the entire rainy season cultivating it. People grow most of the staples they will consume that year. But in Kombo, even the people who own land may not plant anything because they have a regular job or simply do not want to perform "peasant work." That's a problem, because the average urban worker makes less than 2000 dalasis per month and a bag of rice is now approaching 1000 dalasis. Gambian families, with their many wives and children, eat at least two bags of rice per month. That leaves no money for school fees, vegetables, clothes and clinic visits.

When I was doing household surveys for the World Food Program, many compounds responded that they now eat only one or two meals per day, compared with three the same time last year. My next-door neighbors consume only lunch, as the husband lost his job and they are newcomers to the village and thus own no land to grow food. The pregnant wife asked me for breakfast yesterday, and her daughter cries a lot more now. I don't think their situation is uncommon. Many people from provincial villages move to Kombo each year in search of nonexistent office jobs and the pleasures of city living. The vast majority end up jobless and hungry, supported only by the extended family support system that disguises poverty so well here. But even that is starting to break down; my neighbors are renters in my compound, far away from their families, and I don't see my host family helping them out with food.

If anything good comes out of the food crisis, it will be that people put a lot more thought into their decisions: whether to move to the city, to spend their money on cigarettes and green tea, to have another baby. These decisions won't counteract the global food shortage, but maybe they will help Gambians become more resilient, independent and self-sufficient. Like everywhere else--the US with its $4/gallon gas prices, the world economy with its credit crisis--I hope that the immediate suffering can give way to a more sustainable future.

I just posted a few more pictures in the 'July 2008' album, and we've also created a new 'Portraits' album. In the next few days, I'm going to try to post a story about our first funeral. We really miss home right now, this being the 4th of July. Make something explode for us.

Our friend Kate has posted a good description of the food crisis here. It's better than we could have said it, so if you're interested, take a look.I just finished reading The Village of Waiting by George Packer, and Leslie's in the middle of it now. It's about his PC experience in Togo in the 80s, and much of it is a perfect reflection of our time here. We both would recommend it if you're looking for a summer book.

The rains have at last arrived in full force, so I thought I'd post some pictures that capture rainy season in The Gambia. I only wish I could accurately convey the sound the rain makes pounding on our corrugated tin roof. I've woken up many times at night thinking there was a hurricane or tornado (both weather impossibilities) only to look outside and see a moderate rain shower.

P.S.: Our host sister wanted to tell us that a woman who lives in our compound's father died, so she said, "Naato's father kicked the bucket yesterday." After dying of laughter, we explained to her that this was not an appropriate use of the random English phrases they learn in class.

Chameleons have emerged from wherever they went during the dry season. The strange way they walk is one of the reasons Gambians are deathly afraid of them.

Washed out road, a.k.a. the birthplace of malaria.A variety of creepy crawlies, this one with at least 500 legs, have sought shelter from the rains in our house. Interesting plant life has popped up from the newly refreshed soil. This flower is a member of the onion family.

This last picture has nothing to do with the rainy season, but I thought it was funny, in a "this is Africa" sort of way. Look closely and you'll see that Kadi is playing with a cigarette lighter and a broken shard of mirror. I guess it's just one example of how being here distorts your sense of what is normal.

After several weeks, I’m finally sitting down to write a substantial update. As you probably noticed from the pictures, we had a great time with Todd. He was our first physical connection to our life back home we have had since arriving here, and it was interesting to hear his comments on how we’ve changed. It also made us realize how “normal” everything seems to us now, even though it’s not; for example, on the car ride back to our house from the airport, Todd was alarmed when we nearly hit a donkey standing idly in the middle of the road, while we didn’t even notice it.

Our time in Dakar, Senegal was probably my favorite. Ryan and I were both in desperate need of a vacation, and we picked the right place. Dakar actually reminds me of some parts of Chicago, though Todd thought I was crazy for thinking so; I guess I have been away from cities for so long that any place with street signs, a bus system and some semblance of urban planning prompts memories of American cities. We gorged on French pastries, pad thai, paella, Ethiopian food, ice cream and enormous hamburgers, and we even spent an evening at a jazz club. Best of all, I heard the word “toubab” only twice. And despite being very urbanized, Dakar features a beautiful, deserted national park on a volcanic island (picture below) a few kilometers from the city, where we walked around among dwarf baobab trees and spent hours watching the crystal blue water crash against the cliffs. All in all, it was definitely worth the cramped, sweaty, noisy 10-hour journey, and I hope to take my parents there this winter.

Todd’s visit eventually came to an end, however, and we were forced to get back to work. Ryan is busy with his tree nursery and with his efforts to connect a local women’s microfinance institution to http://www.kiva.org/, which would be a pretty big deal for them. I’m talking to farmers in the village about helping them to intercrop beans and squash with their corn, which will give them extra food to get through the impending food crisis as well as improve their corn yields. My fruit-drying project with the women’s group also finally looks as if it is going to get off the ground, as our funding is supposed to come through soon. We also plan to host a village-wide meeting on the food crisis this weekend, since almost no one seems to realize that it’s coming. We want to convince people to sow their fields that currently lie fallow and to start consuming more millet, which is far cheaper than rice. I think it will also be a good opportunity to teach them new practices like intercropping, using improved seed varieties and planting soil-enriching trees in their fields. Not all farmers will be receptive, of course, but the idea is to work with the ones who are open to trying new things and then have them spread the word to their neighbors. We’ll also make raised beds in our garden and plant vegetables that can withstand the long, heavy rains, which started a week ago and, thankfully, have lowered the temperature a bit.

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Hey everyone, Ryan here. I won’t repeat everything Leslie already said about Todd’s visit. Suffice it to say we had a great time. Now that he’s gone, we need to get back to our jobs. Peace Corps has asked that we begin to focus heavily on the food crisis. As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, global food prices have gone through the roof, and it’s about to hit The Gambia really hard. In the coming months, the price of a bag of rice will double. I won’t explain the reasons for this because (a) it’s boring and (b) I’m not an economist. But honestly, it’s not a difficult thing to understand, and you can go here for a good rundown if you don’t already know much about it.

What I can explain is the impact all of this is having here where we live. If I go to the local store right now, I can buy a bag of rice for $40. If I’m a poor rural farmer living off $2-3/day, I can afford to buy a bag or two each month, assuming limited miscellaneous costs and a wife (or three) that makes small money on the side from gardening. What will I do when the price of rice goes up to $80/bag? I’ll buy less rice, of course. I’ll give my family 1-2 meals/day instead of 2-3. Or maybe we’ll still eat 2-3 meals, but we’ll eat half the amount. I might even take my daughter out of school; if I sold her books and school uniform, we might have enough food. And with the extra time she’ll have, she could grow some potatoes to supplement the family’s income.

We obviously don’t want to see any of this happen, but there’s only so much we can do. The price is going to go up no matter what – that’s entirely out of The Gambia’s control. The good news is that we can teach/encourage some of the things that Leslie mentioned (intercropping, using improved seed varieties, planting soil-enriching trees). Ultimately, however, people are slow to change when they’ve been farming that way for their entire lives. It will take years for farmers to make the transition to NERICA rice, for example. And even if every farmer planted Winter Thorn (nitrogen-fixing) trees in their fields today, they wouldn’t see the benefits for a decade. That being said, food prices are on the rise now, and I’m not sure there’s much that Gambians can do about it in the short term. Becoming food self-sufficient isn’t as easy as it sounds, I’m discovering, when you don’t have tractors, fertilizers, government subsidies, etc.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to go back to being a vegetarian. It takes 10 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef. When I came here, I began eating meat again because I was eating with local people, and most of the meat they eat is raised locally (not fed a feedlot diet of grain). Plus I wanted to be culturally sensitive and all that jazz. But we’re nine months into our time here and, for the most part, Leslie and I are preparing meals for ourselves. Obviously, I’m not trying to convert any Gambians to vegetarianism; only the rich ones eat much meat anyway, and they could definitely use the protein. But protein’s not a problem for me (I have peanut butter running through my veins), and it’s hard for me to work on issues related to the food crisis during the day and then go out at night for a cheeseburger. Michael Pollan recently had this quote in a magazine that we get here: “The world’s agricultural lands make up a precious and finite resource; we should be using it to grow food for people, not for cars or cattle.”

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In other random news:

-The cat might be pregnant, in which case she gets kicked out of the house or her babies get fed to the snakes at the ever-so-classy Gambia Reptile Farm.

-The Gambia ran out of fuel yesterday. Not sure how this happened, but there is literally no gas left in the country. Apparently we’re getting more on Thursday.

-Todd brought us new episodes of This American Life, and we are very grateful.

-We made the news here and here.

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Leslie and a couple of girls from Current Events Club at the Nature Reserve.

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Our buddy Brian also posted some new essays on his blog. He only comes into town once every few months, so he posts a big load all at once.

Todd (who went by "Boobah" during his visit) has returned home. He will be missed. The rest of our pictures are now posted on the photo page for your perusal. And, Todd's not lying when he tells you there was a scorpion in the house while he was here...

He's only got a few days left. We posted a few more pictures on the photo page.

Todd shows a termite mound who's boss.

Todd goes camping.

This is a 10 second clip of the ride up to Dakar. Most of the landscape is similar to this, really deforested with all the good topsoil blown off.The other is of a national park island outside Dakar where we spent a morning. The video doesn't really do it justice, but we have regular pictures too.We've also put a ton of pictures up on the photo page. There are probably a lot of duplicates because we don't have time to weed them out.

Dakar has been amazing. It's unlike anything that we've seen here so far. You almost forget where you are sometimes. It's been a great break, and it looks like we're heading back to The Gambia early tomorrow. We'll have some great pictures when we get back.

Forwarded from Todd's mom: (link)

At a time of war, we need you to work for peace. At a time of inequality,

we need you to work for opportunity. At a time of so much cynicism and so much

doubt, we need you to make us believe again.

And so, should you take

the path of service, should you choose to take up one of these causes as your

own, know that you’ll experience frustrations and failures. Even your successes

will be marked by imperfections and unintended consequences. I guarantee you,

there will certainly be times when friends or family urge you to pursue more

sensible endeavors with more tangible rewards. And there will be times when you

are tempted to take their advice.

But I hope you’ll remember, during those

times of doubt and frustration, that there is nothing naïve about your impulse

to change this world. Because all it takes is one act of service – one blow

against injustice – to send forth that tiny ripple of hope that Robert Kennedy

spoke of.