Every day from after lunch until about 4-5 in the evening everybody I worked with in my village took a nap. I don't nap. I can't nap. So I read, and this is it. Two years of sweaty afternoon reading as a Peace corps volunteer.

Rating scale...

Five stars is life-changing-good.

Four stars is great.

Three stars is good.

Two stars is worth reading.

One star is not worth reading. Ever. At all.

Ok. Here goes. In semi-chronological order.

1. The Sex Lives of Cannibals- J. Maarten Troost- Four stars

2. Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess- One star

3. Dracula- Bram Stoker- Three and a half stars

4. How We are Hungry- Dave Eggers- Three stars

5. High Fidelity- Nick Hornby- Three stars

6. Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Zafon- Three stars

7. Red Dragon- Thomas Harris- Two and a half stars

8. 1,000 Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini- Two stars

9. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury- Three stars

10. White Teeth- Zadie Smith- Two stars

11. The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway- Five stars

12. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius- Dave Eggers- Four stars

13. The Magician's Nephew- C. S. Lewis- Four stars

14. A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving- Four stars

15. 3 Cups of Tea- Gregg Mortinson and David Oliver Relin- Two stars

16. The Old Man and the Sea- Ernest Hemingway- Three stars

17. The Brothers Karamazov- Fydor Dostoevsky- Three and a half stars

18. East of Eden- John Steinbeck- Five stars

19. Burmese Days- George Orwell- Two stars

20. Jayber Crow- Wendell Berry- Four stars

21. The Highest Tide- Jim Lynch- One star

22. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime- Mark Haddon- Three stars

23. The Cider House Rules- John Irving- Four stars

24. Travels with Charlie- John Steinbeck- One Star

25. The Power and the Glory- Graham Greene- Three stars

26. This is Your Brain on Music- Daniel J. Levitz- Two stars

27. All Creatures Great and Small- James Herriot- Three stars

28. Welcome to Havana, Senor Hemingway- Alfredo Jose Estrada- Two stars

29. Love in the Time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez- One star

30. The Sound and the Fury- William Faulkner- One Star

31. The Pearl- John Steinbeck- Two stars

32. All the King's Men- Robert Penn Warren- Three and a half stars

33. The Green Hills of Africa- Ernest Hemingway- Three stars

34. The Golden Compass- Philip Pullman- Two stars

35. The Subtle Knife- Philip Pullman- One star

36. The Amber Spyglass- Philip Pullman- One star

37. Dark Star Safari- Paul Theroux- Four stars

38. A Movable Feast- Ernest Hemingway- Two stars

39. The Pre-history of the Far Side- Gary Larson- Two stars

40. That Hideous Strength- C. S. Lewis- One star

41. Getting Stoned With Savages- J. Maarten Troost- Two stars

42. The Great Railway Bizarre- Paul Theroux- Two stars

43. L. A. Confidential- James Ellory- Three stars

44. The Village of Waiting- George Packard- Two stars

45. The Bride of Fu Manchu- Sax Rohmer- Two stars

46. For Whom the Bell Tolls- Ernest Hemingway- Three stars

47. The Omnivore's Dilemma- Michael Pollan- Three stars

48. The Shadow of the Sun- Ryszard Kapuscinski- Four stars

49. The Best American Non-Required Reading- Edited by Dave Eggers- Two stars

50. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway- Ernest Hemingway- Three stars

51. Gestalt Therapy Verbatim- Fredrick S. Perls MD, PhD- Two stars

52. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle- Barbara Kingslover- Two stars

53. Mountains Beyond Mountains- Tracy Kidder- Two stars

54. Fidelity- Wendell Berry- Two stars

55. Captain's Courageous- Rudyard Kipling- One Star

56. The Kingdom by the Sea- Paul Theroux- One star

57. The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck- Four stars

58. Reading Lolita in Tehran- Azar Nafisi- Two stars

59. The Assistant- Bernard Malmud- Two stars

60. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek- Annie Dillard- Two stars

61. Politika- Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg- One star

62. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- Robert M. Pirsig- Three stars

63. The Memory of Old Jack- Wendell Berry- Two stars

64. The Elegance of the Hedgehog- Muriel Barberry- Two stars

65. Leaving Home- Garrison Keillor- Two stars

66. The Heat of the Day- Elizabeth Bowen- One star

67. Into the Heart of Borneo- Redmond O'Hanlon- Three stars

68. The Castle- Franz Kafka- Two stars

69. All the Pretty Horses- Cormac McCarthy- Three stars

70. A Sand County Almanac- Aldo Leopold- Three stars

71. Homegrown Democrat- Garrison Keillor- One star

72. The Red Pony- John Steinbeck- One star

73. Dubliners- James Joyce- Three stars

74. Invasion of the Body Snatchers- Jack Finney- Two stars

75. The Snow Leopard- Peter Mattieson- Two stars

76. Sarah's Key- Tatiana de Rosnay- Two stars

77. Notes from the Underground (and other stories)- Fydor Dostoevsky- Three stars

78. Where there is no Doctor- David Werner, Carol Thuman, Jane Maxwell- Two stars

79. Dreams from my Father- Barack Obama- Two stars

80. A River Runs Through It- Norman Mclean- Five stars (I'd give it more, but that's perfection).

And the list goes on. This is what it was when I left site and moved to the "big" city. You can ask me for further reviews of any of them when I see you in less than two months.

Keep in touch.

bjorn

Brian and I on the countrywide adventure known as mail run.

Hello everybody,There is finally some exciting news from the gambian front, and even more importantly I now have the time to blog about it.  Yesterday Peace Corps came and picked me and all my gear up from my site in the bush, and moved me down to the peace corps house in Fajara so that I can help work on the training stuff on a day to day basis.  I'm back near the coast, with daily access to phone charging and the internet, so I'm feeling one step closer to you at home. Technically I should mention that I'm one step farther away from my loyal blog readers in asia, but I'll come back your way inshalla...

So I'm out of Ker Katim.  I'll miss it; the long pointless walks looking for a tree to climb, the sunsets in senegal, the food that was good enough to eat but not always safe, trading cultural wisdom with the moustapha my alkalo, listening to talks at the bantaba (sun patio-thing/meeting place)... I could go on, in fact I could probably write a blog about each of those, and I may.  Later.  I know looking back that I had a wonderful village, and a community that I built a relationship with based on mutual respect from the very beginning. 

My last week there was especially great.  The alkalo (village chief, for those of you who don't deg the wolof- interesting side note: the american phrase "dig it" is wolof in origin, from the word "deg" which is to hear or understand) made sure that his wives made me my favorite food.  The only person in the village who tried to ask me for something said "what are you leaving behind in the village?" The alkalo said "He leaves behind knowledge."  It was a great moment. I got my brother's package with a slingshot and flowery shirt. The slingshot made my walks in the bush more interesting, the flowery shirt was a big hit on my walks in town. I had two friends visit who both got terrible dysentery, with blood in the stool and fevers of 103 and higher, but I was the same as always and I felt pretty invincible... I also feel really bad that's what they got from my village.  That and knowledge?

Moustapha and I also did this traditional Wolof goodbye walk-through of every compound in the village on my last night there.  round the village with the Alkalo to do the very official goodbye.  We'd walk into a compound, he'd explain that I was leaving, and people would usually say a sentence or two before we left on to the next compound.  It was fast, but it really erased any feelings I had left that I'd not been a good volunteer.  People prayed for me and wished me health and money and luck, as usual, but they also said things like: : "You didn't bring any trouble to the village at all, thank you" and "Take some peanuts to your family" and "Don't forget to greet your father for me" and my favorite, "If we get another volunteer, god willing, they will be like you."  It was a lot more uplifting than I thought it would be.  So... After a year as an up-country volunteer I return to finish my service here in Kombo.  I have a few months left so again, no need for letters and packages anymore, but there is a need for emails, and I'll get back to you!  Really!

Thanks for checking my blog, and I'll be putting up more soon.

See you in December,

bjorn

Thanks for coming by. I apologize for not blogging more often, but things are busy when I have internet access and things aren't really all that exciting when I'm at site. Things are going well as I enter the "end of my service" stage. And honestly, if you're bored enough to be checking my blog you've got more than enough time to write me an email! Get on it!

betbjo@gmail.com

Check out the recent Gambian news at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8272774.stm

It'll blow your mind. This place is less than safe, and I'm not going to talk about it much until I leave. Fun stories though.

See you all before Christmas, inshalla.

bjorn

Snake in the house! It's not poisonous... Well, not deadly. I put him in a pillowcase and carried him outside. It really worked.

Gettin a new roof. It works, mostly.

Peace Corps contest of might!

My dog. The idiot.

A little bush fire smoke in the sunset.

Ryan, as I'll always remember him. He is missed. And know, he's not dead. He's in heaven. He has made it back home to America.

Dear blog readers,

I have to admit that since I’ve been up country I’ve gotten lousy at keeping up with my blog. Since it has been a while this blog will simply cover some basics of how I’m staying “busy”. Nothing too wild or crazy or adventuresome. But I try.

These days what Peace Corps would call my “primary project” is my little nursery garden over in Senegal. I’ve got ten beds of sweet potatoes and a couple beds of vegetables and trees for transplanting when the rains come. After the initial digging and planting most of the work is done, with just a few hours of watering a weeding every day until the rains come. Since the weather is still so dry it actually takes a lot of watering, with between 500 and 1000 liters of water every single day. I put my nursery in Senegal because the village has a tap, so I can just turn a knob and wait for the buckets to fill, instead of trying to draw it from the well like in my village. I’ve also got a few men in other nearby villages planting cashew seedlings, and I bike a round a couple of days each week to make sure that’s all still going well. It’s not a ton of work, but it’s enough going on that I keep sane. I’ve got some big plans for the rains, and big hopes I’ll be able to get some Gambian friends on board with me to do them. We've got to transplant all the stuff we're watering now, enough to fill 3 hectares, plus we're going to compost and re-fence the whole field. Wish me luck.

Sadly, a lot of my time these days is spent reading. Not thrilling, I know, but I bet some of you are jealous anyways. At the hottest part of the day, every single afternoon my entire village (including everybody I work with) takes a nap. I am unable to sleep in the afternoon, so I get some solid reading time in. I know I could be a more culturally integrated volunteer if I was to join the men sleeping under the bantaba (shade-place), but I’ll pass. So far in my service I’ve read something like 55 books.

Next on the time occupier list comes talking. I walk around the village, find people who are sitting and not sleeping, and I try to talk to them. For example last week a Gambian guy asked me:

“So what is it with you toubabs…? Have you seen Allah? Where is he?”

That was awesome. I’d say that 99% of the time I have the same conversations over and over again, but the new ones are a blast, and my Wolof still is improving. I’ve still got a lot of work left to do on it.

I spend at lot of time listening to my ipod. Any time I’m in my hut it is on, and it recharges by the power of the sun. It’s the best. Songs remind me of good times, or home, or people, and the NPR broadcasts are amazing.

Also, every day I try to take a hike around the bush, just to find some new trees or animals or something I haven’t seen before. It’s a great relaxer from the pressures of life in the village, more of an escape from dealing with the differences in culture, and I’ve found some pretty cool trees to climb.

Three meals a day are spent with my Gambian host and his little kids. Meals are a enjoyable experience of culture and I realize that I have some of the best food of any Peace Corps volunteers in the country. That said, meals are a frustrating experience, because you never really get full from eating rice or millet, but it’s more than that. Really the cultural aspects of eating with a Gambian father and his kids are frustrating, my host will eat 3 out of the four little fish in the bowl and then me and two kids share the last one. It’s just odd that a Father would so literally take food from his kid’s mouth. On the other hand, his kid is evil, and maybe he doesn’t really deserve that much food anyways.

Every other day I do my “workout”. It’s a plan from a website called hundredpushups.com and it’s amazing. You should check it out. I’m hoping to get to 100 push ups by the end of this week. No, I’m not joking. The contest is taking the Peace Corps The Gambia world by storm.

Another daily part of life here is text messaging. Here in PCTG we have found a local service provider that has given us unlimited texting for about 2 bucks a month. We text so often that I can now text without taking my phone out of my pocket. This isn’t something I thought I would learn while I was in Africa, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy.

When I’m not at site my life is totally different. Here in town I’m either at the office working or planning or trying to stay in some sort of touch with people back home or I’m hanging out with friends and catching up on time spent with Americans. Despite the huge draw of Kombo’s food and friends and cold beer I don’t love it here, and I prefer my life at site. But, since I like to do some extra work I find I’m in Kombo a little more that average. I’ve been helping with trainings for the other Environmental volunteers, some stuff for the health volunteers, and even a little help with trainings that went to Peace Corps Washington. It’s been fun.

Peace Corps The Gambia has managed to stick me in a bit of a trench, I’m stuck being the guy who talks about Food Security. Actually I’ve been reading about the topic a lot, and I get to “preach” about it fairly often. It’s important stuff though, and especially important for you guys- the Americans in America- because that’s where a lot of the changes can be made. Let’s face it; the way we eat affects the whole world. I could talk your ear off about it, but I won’t. It was just cool to hear from my sister that a lot of the family is already on the bandwagon with farmer’s markets and CSAs and eating local. Recommended readings on the topic are The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollack and Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. The first one is amazingly informational and well written, the second one covers the same information not quite as well but has the additional advantage of applying stuff to what you could actually do at home. As long as you’re getting into the “eating local” craze you probably don’t need all that processed/ packaged food that is sitting in your pantry, and since it isn’t ever going to expire you should box that up and send it to your favorite starving Peace Corps volunteer in Africa (me). The address is still the same, and somewhere nearby on this very blog page!

And if you’re thinking to yourself that "Bjorn’s been gone so long what’s the point of writing him now? Why bother with a package????"

Because I still have at least 6 months left! That’s why. You guys aren’t even thinking about the fourth of July yet, and you think it’s too late to send me a letter? I’ll be lucky if I get home for Christmas! Six months is a long time. Six months is two summer vacations. Six months is more than a complete semester of college. Six months would allow you to break a leg and heal it twice. Six months could contain (another) 90 bouts of Giardia. I think you get the point. In six months you can write me a letter, and I’ll write back, and then you can write back, and then I’ll write back again, and I’ll tell you not to bother because I’ll be back in the next month or so…

And don’t hesitate to email just because I don’t have a computer (or electricity) in my village. It can be a little bit of a downer to go to site for a month and then come back to town and see that I’ve gotten a whopping two emails, and they are both from my dad (true story). His emails are amazing though. He really gets what’s going on here, and what I miss, and development in general. Great man.

Then, after that annoyingly whiny “write to me” paragraph I have to say thanks. You haven’t forgotten about me, you still read my blog. To those of you who send letters, thanks again. You know how much it means to me, because I’ve written you back and told you, but I’d like to say thanks one more time. It means a ton. And thanks to everybody for the birthday greetings as well. I’ll try to put up some really awesome new pictures later this week.

Peace and love,

bjorn

Ok, so after I finished the boring blog I was writing I went to lunch and something fun kinda fun happened, so I thought I’d tack it on. How can I deprive you of stories of my adventures when you’re stuck in your office? I can’t.

So I was in a little taxi on my way back from lunch, driving along the Gambia’s busiest thoroughfare, Kairaba Avenue. We were at a place where the traffic gets pretty bad when I noticed a couple of bikes lying in the road. And then, since we were crawling along slowly I noticed a taxi oddly stopped in the middle of the street. And there was a guy, punching the driver through the window. I hypothesize that he is one of the owners of a bicycle. So the driver tries to get out so that he can hit back, but the biker dude slams the door on him. So the driver climbs across and out the passenger’s door, and the two guys start kicking and punching like a combination of fake-movie-karate and two-year-old style wrestling.

Steph, who I had gone to lunch with, asks “Is somebody going to call the police or anything?” Whish is an odd question, since there is no number for the police and you’d have to know the number of the closest police station. But anyways, nobody was calling the cops. Everybody was gathering to watch the show. Lucky us, the taxi we were in stopped right next to the fight. Perfect.

So we watch the fight for a while, nobody is really getting hurt, it’s a lot like actors fighting for a movie scene, with awkward pauses and lots of yelling and lots of weak punches/kicks. And a guy walks up to the window of our cab, as long as we’re stopped, to see if he can jump in and get dropped off down the line. The best part is that the guy who is at the window of our car is a police man, in uniform, watching a fight and not feeling like maybe part of his job would include stepping in. We tell him no, he can’t ride with us because our car isn’t going where he wants to go. And we drive off.

The thing is this kind of story happens all the time, I’m just not usually thinking about blogging, or about stories to tell home, and unless you catch me right in the middle of it I’m liable to forget it completely. Look forward to more and better blogs later this month.

It’s been a while since the last blog entry. I know. I apologize. I’ve been having a wonderful spring. The bad news is that this is a lame blog entry. It’s not a fun story or a huge lesson that I learned. It’s just an update on my life. And I’ve got better blogs written in my notebook, but since I left my notebook at the taj-mud-hal you’ll have to settle with this one.

Like I said, it’s been a really good spring. First off was the visit from a great friend of mine from high school. Then my brother and sister-in-law came. I don’t mean to brush over these visits, or how much the meant to me, but I have written another entire blog that does a better job at explaining the visits, and I don’t want to spoil that one. Suffice it to say that this difficult time of my service would have been even more difficult if I hadn’t had the visitors. They were a reminder to me of all of the rest of you guys who still care about me, even though you couldn’t come visit, or don’t have time to write, you still haven’t forgotten about me. And I needed a real reminder of that.

Also, I just got back from Spain, visiting with Linnea and continuing on from Colin and Emily’s trip here in the Gambia. Spain is an amazing contrast to the Gambia, and it was the vacation I needed. I’ll put up pictures later this month along with my blog about my visitors. You can expect to see me grinning like an idiot while staring at a large plate of pork. My sister and brother said that they’d never seen me so happy.

The Gambia is moving slowly this time of year. Actually, that isn’t really news. It is always moving slowly. But now is even slower than usual. There isn’t much going on. The bakery next door is making bread every three days or so, since the money from the harvest ran out and people can’t afford bread anymore. This year was a great harvest year, and people where I live still blew through all the money so that they could struggle and barely scrape through another hungry season. Next year’s crops won’t come in for another 6 months, and most compounds are already only feeding themselves the minimum. It’s a different sort of a budget, in which the family lives half the year as a wealthy family, and then at a certain point they only have enough money to survive, and they spend the other half of the year as dirt poor. It’s what people do here.

There isn’t a lot going on. No farming, and no gardening in my village because there is no water (the well is 37 meters deep, so there is still water to drink but nobody is willing to haul water up that distance just to throw it on a garden). Last years crops have all been harvested, ending with the beans and the sweet potatoes just a month or so ago. And now people in my village are just chilling, killing time, complaining about the heat and already complaining about the work that is to come in the rainy season. This starts in late June. So for the people of my village life is pretty good.

The heat has arrived; most Peace Corps volunteers say that April, May and October are the worst months of the year. The last time I saw the temperature at my hut it was 112, and it should top off at about 130 in the next few weeks, and then stick in the 120s until the rains come in late June. I’m not recommending this as a time for any more visitors.

Luckily, I’ll be spending a lot of time at the relatively cool coast. I’m getting ready to train the newer group of Ag-fos at their In Service Training. I get to lead the sessions on agriculture and food security. It’ll be fun but it’s a lot of work as well.

So that’s what’s going on in my life now. Really, sorry about the lack of fun in the blog but at least it’s something, right? Look for better ones later this month.

Love,

bjorn

Continuing on the theme of animals I’ve semi-adopted a horse in my village. It’s one of those parts of my life that you really have to be here and see to understand, but I’m going to try to explain it anyways. Brian says that the horse is one of the funniest characters of my Gambian story, so I guess the horse should get a nod on my blog.

I’ve named him Tiger, because he’s like a small shy school kid who wears glasses. I feel like they are likely to be called tiger out of pity, out of the fact that they are the opposite of anything that is tiger-like. Maybe I call him Tiger to encourage him a little bit. He’s malnourished with legs like toothpicks. He’s about 5-6 Months old and still very wobbly on his feet. He also has big, brown eyes that really let you see deep inside to what he’s thinking and feeling. And from the first moment you look into my horse’s eyes you’ll know he’s one of the dumbest creatures on this earth.

So. How do you go about adopting a village horse? It’s surprisingly easy. I was bored (it was the cold dry season, I was really bored) and I walked past the horse one day on my way to town. And I thought to myself “Self, haven’t you heard somewhere that horses like to eat sugar? Maybe you should buy some sugar and give it to this poor little starving beast of burden.” And I did. I bought a whole bag of sugar, and fed him handfuls, his big stupid head snapping and starting at any quick movements. Eventually I taught him to follow me around.

The next day he was following me past the little sun-shade where the old men sit. One of the guys asked me if I had a stranger with me. I was like

“Yup, I’ve got a new friend.”

“Your new friend is very ugly” the man said, laughing so hard he tipped over. The joke has stuck.

Eventually in our little meanderings Tiger the horse learned where I live, and more importantly where the sugar is stored. He started loitering around my house like a high school student at a gas station in his half-conscious trance. I’d walk by, and I could see the gears in his head start to turn as he processed the difference in the tone of my skin. Then he’d start. “Doh! Sugar!” His eyes would say, and he’d slowly stumble in my direction. Unfortunately he’s been starting to get a little brave, and addicted. He occasionally tries to hit me with his nose if I don’t give him enough sugar. And worse yet, some mornings he’s waiting outside of my door just standing there. Nothing is scarier than walking out of your house in the morning, half asleep, in a slight hurry to make in to breakfast on time, and unexpectedly running into a giant brown animal with eyes as flat as the plains. “Sugar! Now! Ugh!”

Stupid horse. It’s kind of getting annoying.

Hey Guys, 

I like to look at the following tale as a story of second chances.  A form of redemption that is very specific to Africa and completely limitless and free for as long as I am here.  It is, in actuality, an endless supply of free dogs. These are necessary to replace the ones that die.  This story can also be seen as a testament to how much more painfully heartless one becomes while living in Africa.  

Chance #1: Cindy.Some of you are probably thinking that it is innappropriate of me to have named my first puppy after my mother, and I'd agree.  It wasn't my fault. Mbaay, my old host in Yundum comes home from the office one day."Look, I've brought you a puppy!" he says. "Quick, tell me what is your mom's name?""Um. My mom's name is Cindy.""Hey Kids! Malick has a new dog, and its name is Cindy!"So there it is.  I have to admit that Cindy was never a good dog.  She was chosen by my host to be a watchdog, so he wanted the largest puppy he could find.  So she was a brute.  She drew blood on me, on all of the kids, and even on the white lady who was living in the compound at the time.  She also whined a lot. The day before she died her sharp knives of puppy teeth really sliced me open.  Then the next day she was sickly and hardly walking, then she was foaming at the mouth and then dead.  We think it was some sort of poison.   That's the first dog I had in the Gambia.  No tears were shed.  Further, the family I stayed with in Yundum really has an odd habit of naming their animals.  Shortly after I left them, my favorite goat (Stella) had kids.  They named one of them after me, and the bjorn-goat promptly jumped in the well and died.  

Chance #2: Lady (Lady only had one eye from the first time she had been shot. She was so ugly I never even took a single picture.)Upon arriving in my current village a dog that had previously been owned by the peace corps there adopted me on sight.  She was pretty great.  Instantly loyal to any white person she followed me about my work and kept the kids away.  She was pretty stupid, untrainable and dirty, but she barked at night when the Hyenas got too close.  She was a good dog, great for security and so loyal. Then I traveled to town to pick my parents up from the Airport.   We were sitting having a late dinner when the call came in. My alkalo calls from town just to say hi, and to greet my parents.  Then he calls back. I ask 

"How is everything?""Peace only" he says, then the very next words out of his mouth were "Your dog has passed away.""What? How did that happen?""I shot it.  And it's child."I laughed. My first reaction to hearing that my pregnant dog (and it's innocent year old puppy) were the target of my best Gambian friend's shotgun was laughter.  In American I got seriously angry at an old friend for not understanding why I'd be so worried about my American dog being sick.  Now I hear that my good friend shot my dog and I laugh? What's happening to me?"It ate a chicken, and the owner of the chicken got mad, and the rule here is that I had to shoot it.""Ok, if that's the rules. Thanks for calling (click)."

Third time's the charm: ErnestI think in America if you are the owner of 2 (3 if you count the child of my second dog) dogs that die within a few months I don't think the pound is going to let you have another dog.  But here is different.  One day after lunch I mentioned to a kid in the village that I would like another dog.  He ran off into the bush outside of the village, and five minutes later he returned.  I was bored. It's the cold season so there isn't much to do.  Why not? It's a free dog.  I'll give it one more chance. Thus now I have Ernest.  

Cute, huh? Wish him luck.

Love, bjorn 

Walking out to harvest sweet potatoes.

1-7-09 It’s been a bit of a downer of a first week in 2009. Maybe it has something to do with listening to the constant koranic chorusing of the young girls who’ve just had their sexual organs mutilated last week, but it also could equally be caused by the book I just read, Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux (great book by the way, read it). I’m not that down though, surprisingly. My new puppy Ernest is contentedly biting my sleeve while I write, and the cold season is amazing. I’ve see 52 on my thermometer. Also, the endless enjoyment of an ipod combined with a solar panel truly means I have a very high quality of life right now for somebody living in the African bush. As my friend Ted says, “Don’t cry for me.”

Dark Star Safari is a book about all of the parts of Africa- except West Africa. Theroux cuts from Cairo to Cape Town without using air transport, and he’s a great writer so it’s a fun book to read. What an adventure. Even though he doesn’t make it to my neck-o-the-bush he still hits close to home. He knows about Africa. He writes the things that we PCVs say to each other all the time. But the problem is he doesn’t have an investment in trying to say there is hope, so he tends to come to more negative conclusions. If it wasn’t for the pleasant weather I would have packed my bags and quit this whole racket on page 267. I almost did. Not really, but dang… Anyways, the reason that the book hits so hard is that the author is somebody I see as an authority on the subject (the subject being Africa). He’s a returned peace corps volunteer from Malawi in the 60s, but he’s also lived in other parts of Africa for years. He speaks local languages. He knows what’s up. And he can introduce a perspective I’ve never seen before. He has 40 years of history here, he’s been watching this continent over time, and he makes some astute observations. I’m going to use a lot of quotes here out of appreciation for Theroux's brilliance but also because if I’m just quoting somebody else’s thoughts I can say more than I would feel comfortable saying. I don’t think Theroux is anything like a racist, but if I were to say some of these things you may accuse me of being one. He’s a Nobel Laureate. Nobody’s going to accuse him. Without further excuses: What does he find? “After a spell of being familiar and promising, Africa had slipped into a stereotype of itself: starving people in a blighted land governed by tyrants, rumors of unspeakable atrocities, despair and darkness (p. 17).” “Wonderful people. Terrible Government. The African story (p. 38).”“The apiaries in Tabora, started by some Peace Corps volunteers, that had produced some high quality honey. Then the volunteers had gone home.

‘What happened to the hives after that?’

‘They just failed.’ (p. 267)”“‘The soap business is so simple.’ Shiva (a non-African businessman) said. ‘Anyone with a little common sense could do my job. Anyone. It is so simple I am ashamed. But no one in Africa can do it. Who can we hire?’ (288).”

“They don’t think about tomorrow. They don’t have to. Food is cheap. Life is cheap. They don’t think ahead. Next year is what? Next year is nothing to them.” (288) There are more, but you get the gist of it. It seems like as good of a place as any to let my friends in the village weigh in. (Ironically took the book out to the traditional meeting area where the men in the village while away the hours talking about nothing and sitting on their butts while the women slave. It’s a symbol of the cultural lack of doing work.) So I take the book out and practice some translating. I want to give these guys an equal chance. Let them have their say. Let them stick up for their fellow Africans. So I explained to them what I was reading, and I read them the worst generalizations I could find.

“So what he’s saying in this book is that you have not planned anything for if there is a bad harvest next year. What if the crops fail? What will happen?” I ask.

Are you ready for the wisdom? I don’t know if you’re ready. Here it is, from a respected village elder…

“We could have a time where people go hungry.” Brilliance.

“Yes, this could happen.”I continue “Come on, I’ve been reading this book. The guy says in the times of your grandfathers you used to store enough food for two years. Did your grandfathers prepare for a year with bad rain?”

“Hey! That author is really wise. He’s right, even my dad used to store grain and seeds. We all did. The storage was right there behind your house!” This is the village chief. By this point I can’t even believe it. I was really looking for these guys to tell me that there is a secret backup plan B somewhere in town I don’t know about. I wanted them to tell me that Theroux was exaggerating. I wanted some little glimmer of hope. No luck. “What happened? Why do you not still store millet?” I ask, obviously I'm getting angry. The alkalo answers

“Well, you know the building in the village that smells strongly of guano? NGOs came and built that and they buy our grain from us and store it for us there, then they sell it back to us.”

“That building is filled with bat crap. It hasn’t been used in ten years!” I point out.

“Well, yes. Because they did not pay us on time.”

“So you stopped doing anything at all?”

--- At this point the village chief, the biggest big shot, the wisest elder, the knower of all looks at the ground. I kid you not, this man who’s life is centered on the pride and respect of his position mumbles “Well, maybe.”-------

I just say it. “I’m angry. I am not happy. You think that if you have a bad year the toubab (white people) aid organizations are going to save you. It’s true, isn’t it?”

The alkalo lies down and laughs.

“Yes. It’s true.”

Wolof has this phrase that translates to ‘tell me I’ll hear it.’ People use it like ‘Amen’, when somebody is making a good point everybody says this phrase. That is actually what the alkalo said. I go on. “You are all just sitting, when the trouble comes you’re expecting peace corps (synonymous with aid organizations here) to bail you out, so you actually do less than you used to because we are here!” “Tell me I’ll here it. Amen.” They know I want them to disagree, but they like what they are hearing too much. “You see Malik, we Africans don’t have the ability to work. It’s the boys. They just sit.” Theroux quotes another Gambian… Oops, its a Malawian, but dang. It all seems to be so much more the same than I would have believed: “It’s worse, worse, worse. And not getting better. Getting much worse!” I say, I mean… Theroux continues, “Honestly I’m really depressed here. Nothing works, the schools are awful… I think the government wants to have bad schools, because ignorant people are easier to govern.” And the Africans are asking; “The foreign charities are doing our work for us --- so many of them! What progress are they making? Will we have them forever? There were not so many before. Why do we still need them after so long?” Needless to say, reading this book a little past my half way point was not the boost of motivation I was looking for. My projects really need to be hit hard at this point, and all of a sudden I find that my motivational sails are hanging slack. It was not a fun read.“But it is so much worse for Africans. The most driven of them end up driving the white land rovers of the useless aid organizations. The wickedest believe themselves to be anointed leaders for life, and won’t let go of their delusion. The worst of them steal from foreign donors and their own people. And the best Africans are simply those who haven’t changed.”

A journal entry from November 24th, 2008

Dad said I should write more about things and he’s usually right. I think he should write more, but that isn’t the point. This morning I have the feeling that my life is a stream of Saturdays in the summer. I’ve got a list of things to do, but there isn’t a sense of urgency since there is always next week. Or in my case tomorrow.

I get up early, the sun comes through my window in a way that hits me in the face and makes going back to sleep impossible. I put on my work clothes and head into town for a big Saturday style breakfast, maybe some millet and fish sauce (from dinner last night) or if I’m lucky porridge and sour milk. After breakfast I may head right to the field to work, or I may come back to my hut to read or listen to the BBC, or music, or “This American Life” podcasts. Then I get to work. Still though, there is no hurry. As long as I can check off at least one box on my “to do” list the day is a success. I guess it is this pace of things that reminds me of Saturdays back home more than anything else. On Saturday a cup of hot chocolate and a good breakfast is an acceptable first item on a “to do” list.

I do work though, don’t get me wrong. A day without getting something done is a waste. In my American opinion I think that the work itself is relaxing. Getting things done puts off depression. Seeing the results of my labor here makes me try harder.

This morning Mustapha (my village chief) and I got to talking about how his kids like to work, even though nobody else in the village really seems to at all. We decided that this is because their father (Mustapha) likes to work. And he knows that is because his father liked to work. I’ve always known that my father and my grandfathers were the deciders of my work ethic. Even the last time I was at Knife River before I came here both my Grandpa’s were “puttering around” getting chores done. Cleaning the cracks in the deck isn’t easy work, but if you take your time it gets done. I’ve been accused of liking work too much, both here and in America. I guess with our upbringing how could I not like work? I think it is a great part of American culture.

____At this point I went to the field______

Later that day:

So I was thinking I should record some of the conversations I have with some of the locals in my village. In order to improve my language I try to have a new conversation every day. It is really easy to get in a rut where you just have the same conversations over and over again, but breaking out of that pattern can lead to unexpected and uncomfortable disclosure.

Here is today’s:

(I have to admit, I have talked with this person about this topic a little bit before. But it counts as a new conversation because of the details. And the details were made much worse by huge, exaggerated hand gestures. We’ll call the man I’m talking to Thomas for the sake of protecting his identity.)

Thomas and I are in a new stretch of wild land I haven’t been to before. I spend most of my time on the other side of the village or in the alkali’s fields. Today I’m gathering the fenceposts for my tree nursery and Thomas is showing me the primo spot to find them.

We’re walking through the bush, single file through tall grasses and short bushes and everything is as dry as tinder. As he’s leading me along he’s talking about his health and how it’s been bothering him recently. Then he decides to get more specific.

“My hemorrhoids have been really paining my recently.” He says.

(I want you to take a minute and imagine the conversation and actions and descriptions it took for me to learn the Wolof word for hemorrhoid.) He continues;

“When hemorrhoids get bad enough a man can’t even be with his wives.”

“Hey, what kind of tree is that?” I say as I try to change the subject.

“I don’t know. You know, I can’t be with my wives (slight pause). It’s to (pause) dirty.”

At this point I’m glad he’s walking in front of me. I’m trying not to react and failing miserably. His normal shame he would feel about talking about this sort of thing with another Gambian is gone. I mumble some sort of sympathy.

“I hear there is new American medicine from Saudi Arabia that can cure it. I heard on the radio that they don’t recommend surgery anymore.”

“Well, I say, surgery can be dangerous. This one time they cut open my Grandpa’s chest, took out his heart, worked on it, and then put it back. (Lots of hand motions).”

“Well now, that surgeon is a sassy fellow, isn’t he? (It’s a bad translation, but that’s what he said)

“Yup.” I say, thinking I got him off on a new topic.

“But this new medicine, I want it. All you can buy here is the old medicine that goes under here (at this point he takes two fingers and demonstrates applying hemorrhoid cream). Remember, He’s walking three steps ahead, directly in front of me. I’m laughing silently. I pull myself together and say

“Did you try that?”

“Yes, but it is expensive. I want the new pill I heard about on the radio. The pill would take care of the hemorrhoids inside. You know. The ones inside are the worst. They bleed, and itch, oh God.” I’ve had enough.

“After my Grandpa had the surgery it was like he had a new heart.”

“You mean your grandpa is still around?”

“Oh yes, he’s great.”

“He’s a strong man.”

“Yes he is.”

And that was the end of the hemorrhoid talks for that day. Thank goodness. Sorry if that dragged on, I hope you could feel the awkwardness.

More to come, Peace,

bjorn

Well, another thanksgiving has come and gone, and I'm still here. I miss you guys, and thanks again for checking my blog. I'd officially like to welcome you to the semi-cheesy thanksgiving edtion.

This year there is a lot to be thankful for...

Peanuts in the Gambia are not for export. In fact they are ruled unfit for human consumption due to the high probablities that they are infected with a certain kind of mold that has a byproduct that is one of the worlds most powerful human carcinogens. And we're talking peanuts. They aren't worth much from the start. Hence the phrase "They aren't worth peanuts." So you can guess what cancer causing peanuts are worth.

All of that aside, somebody, somewhere is buying these things. And for my village that is really something to be thankful for. At 17 d a kilo (almost a penny for three pounds) people here honestly can say that they've had a good year. The rains were enough, and the subsistance crops (coos and corn) came in. Even the "cash crop" of peanuts did well, and people have some cash in their hands.

I think that it would be awesome for a PCV to talk to their counterpart about saving those pennies and hiding it away until another year when we may not be so lucky. Farmers who save nothing are one year away from a catastrophe, and no farmer here saves money. I think it could be part of my work here to encourage saving money. I even give it a shot sometimes. But then the donkey carts full of speakers and tvs and generators roll into town and I'm not going to be the one who tells a father not to let his kids go to the video night.

And to be even more honest, I'm at least as guilty as most. With the new money around rolling mini-theaters aren't the only form of buisness that seems to have sprung from the weeds. There's a bean sandwich lady in town, and the meat and eggs guy is open again. I'm there almost daily. The bakery can't keep up with the demand. I think there is a lot to be thankful for. Even little cancer causing peanuts.

In an year when international aid organizations are in serious trouble I heard on the BBC that this is the first year on record that not a single country or area of Africa is in drought. That is something to be thankful for. (Not to hit you up for money or anything, I know if you have investments they're hurting badly, but the WFP is a great organiztion if you're looking for somewhere to donate before the year's end. Here in the Gambia the Christian Children's fund is also pretty great (if you want more information email me at betbjo@gmail.com)). It's been a tough year for Americans as well, but our years of prosperity and infastructure and savings and culture of hard work are all somethings to be thankful for.

And that's all I've got time to write today, I'm heading back to site in a few minutes and I'm ready to go. I like it there. As me or my parents to send you the like of their trip, it's got some great photos of my life here, as well as their vacation.

I love you and miss you guys bunches. Except for the strangers who occasionally comment on my blog. I don't love or miss you.

Oh, and one less thing... I've got about one year left, and next year by this time there are pretty good odds I'll be home.

That, for me, is something to be thankful for.

Love,

bjorn

Hey guys,

Today is my first day back in the Gambia after a week in Turkey. I’d like to start off by saying thanks to the Spencer clan to inviting me on their family vacation, and semi-adopting me to the mass confusion of Turkish street vendors.

“Why don’t you buy this for your mommy?” Or “Why don’t you carry the bags for your mommy?”

“She’s not my mom.”

“…”

It may be the best escape from a street vendor ever. But thanks to the Spencer’s for much more than that on the trip. I learned so much about your clan. The best secrets will go to the highest bidders.

Ok, now on to the good stuff.

Seth and I had no plans. We said “I’ll see you at the airport, we’ll just meet up at the type of bar/restaurant we’d both like to go to. Oh, and if we don’t meet up by 5:15 we’ll just head to the hotel on our own.”

After traveling for a day and a half I find myself standing in line to get a visa watching the clock. My plane was late, but I still had time. At 4:30 I was confident. At 5:00 I was standing in the same place, and at 5:15 I was imagining a solo version of my Turkish vacation. I hadn’t brought the hotel info, and I think I knew the name of the place, but I wasn’t that sure. But then 5:20 rolls around and I see Seth laughing as he waits on the other side, watching everybody in my line (two guys in a row) get hauled off for fake passports.

So we make it. For a while I’m struggling to accelerate to the European speed of Istanbul, but by the time the first Doner kebab rolls around I’m starting to feel up for the challenge (picture below). David and Sue came a few hours later, and Seth and I had already gotten lost for a few hours while we waited. Then we had another kebab.

In fact, the Turkish food was my third favorite thing about Turkey. I managed to put on something like 8 pounds in our first three days in Istanbul. It was marvelous. Also In the first three days in Istanbul I went to Asia for the first time (this picture is from the top of a Asian mountain castle looking across the Bosphorous at European side of Turkey),

and I participated in a Spencer manly tradition of getting a shave and a haircut in every country they visit (I needed it).

This blog may seem scattered, and it is, but I’ve still got to tell you about my second favorite part of turkey. My second favorite part of Turkey was the history.

We went to Ephasis, as in the Ephasis that was already there before the bible, and my mind spent a few days unable to wrap itself around the Turkish idea of old. I remember as a kid having the feeling of wonder while walking ancient American Indian ruins in the southwest with my family. I think remember my dad always just smiling and talking about how old it is. Even when we were camping we’d try to find places in the deepest woods where maybe the last person who walked there was a Native American hundreds of years before… But that is the American version of ancient. Ephasis is different. Ephasis started as a port city, but over the 2000 plus years since it was founded the silt in the valley has built up the ground level so that now the sea isn’t even visible. It’s unbelievably old. It was amazing just to be there. Turkey has an odd way of taking care of their history, but it was amazing none-the-less. This is a picture of the Tomb of St. John, as in the guy who hung out with Jesus, and this is where his church was. All 2000 years ago. And then in the in the background you can see the comparatively modern archetecture of a castle.

My favorite part about turkey was the people that were there; both the locals and the Spencers. It was an unbelievable hiatus from the daily grind of life in the Gambia. And I still love it here, I’m happy to be back to work. I think that’s how vacations are supposed to feel.

Hello everybody,

Thanks for still checking the blog, I know it’s been a while. So I’m sure you’re wondering exactly what I’ve been up to?

Well, not that much honestly. I guess you could say that I’m adjusting to life up country.

Most days I get up around sunrise, and then I go all the way across town to the alkalo’s (village chief’s) for breakfast. Breakfasts are usually millet, with some oil sauce and fish and recently squash. It’s pretty good stuff, most volunteers don’t have it as good as I do, and occasionally I get the millet porridge with sour milk. Millet porridge is something I probably would have avoided in America, but now it’s something to look forward to. And when it has sour milk on it? It’s one of my favorite foods. And yes, sour milk is exactly what you find hiding in the back of your fridge, but they add sugar so it is extra tasty.

After my breakfast feast I have started to take a morning walk, since I don’t have much to do and I really need to take the time to know where I’m living. I try to find different varieties of trees so that I can get the seeds from them later and I just enjoy being out in the plain of the north bank before the sun gets to hot. It’s the best part of my day. The end of my walk brings me to the alkalo’s peanut fields just to make the time go by. We’re harvesting peanuts, it’s not hard and it’s not exciting but it kills time and I don’t mind. There usually is a group of about 5 other people who live in the alkalo’s compound and we talk and joke and pick a few peanuts. I do this until about 11 or noon and then I head back to my house and shower up. My “work day” is done at this point.

Later, when harvesting season is over and villagers have more time on their hands I’m looking forward to starting my tree planting project but as of today I’m just killing time, practicing Wolof and getting the village used to my presence.

My village is awesome. It is about 10 compounds or so, something around 140 people, but nobody knows the figures so I’m just guessing. The luckiest part about my village is that even though it is small it serves as a business center for the surrounding villages, especially those in Senegal. There are three large shops run by Mauritanians, and there is a restaurant that is occasionally open serving egg and meat sandwiches and there are people on the street selling fresh produce. The people in the village are relatively wealthy due to the “business center” status and so the children seem to be healthy and the adults have time to take care of them. The biggest employer in the village is my host, and he employs a bunch of men to work in his bakery (which serves me fresh bread nearly every day) and he also employs local women to work in his fields. He does well and so the whole village profits. It’s a micro-economy of trickle down economics that really seems to work.

So after my shower I go to lunch with the alkalo at 2ish. He’s wealthy enough that we eat rice for lunch, and even though I prefer the millet on mostly idealistic terms I’m not complaining about the little sliver of variety that rice brings. The lunch food comes with a variety of three sauces this time of year, and they all are centered around the main ingredient of peanuts. There is the red peanut sauce, which sometimes has a texture almost like peanut butter, but not really. Then there is the green peanut sauce, which is raw peanuts pounded to bits then mixed with steamed leaves. Then there is the peanut-oil sauce with is pretty much oil, with some peanuts mixed in. These are the only options.

I feel like I may need to pause at this point to remind you that I enjoy my food, and I’m lucky. Compared to most PCVs (not to mention locals) here in The Gambia I’ve got it very good. I suppose this may explain why I’ve lost 30 pounds, but I want to assure you that I’m happy and healthy.

After lunch there isn’t much to do. I’ve read a dozen books in my first two months at site. Soon the length of Seth’s booklist will no longer be intimidating (see the list in his blog, link to the right). I chat with people, on Wednesday I bike something like 20 k to the nearest Lumo. I’m pretty close to the road so I’ve got a great site for people to visit, and that really helps the time fly by. Time flies by regardless and it’s surprising to say I’ve been here for more than a year. October 31st marks my half way point, and December 9th is technically the official “one year left.”

Eventually the sun sets, usually I’m out walking in Senegal at this point (for some reasons Senegalese sunsets seem to be more beautiful). Then I’m back to my house for another shower (really these aren’t showers, they’re just buckets full of water dumped over my head with a cup) and I’ll wander into town for dinner. Dinner is the same as breakfast, exactly. In fact, dinner will be served again, the next day, as breakfast.

Dinner is so late that I usually just head home afterwards. I listen to my ipod, maybe some music or maybe a podcast of This American Life. Then I do it all again, exactly, the next day.

So that’s my life. It’s so simple it takes less than two pages to describe it in boring amounts of detail. I enjoy it immensely.

Since my blog seems to be getting some new readers, or at least new people who comment, I feel like I should post the little article I wrote for the Duluth News Tribune. A while ago I was asked by my friend Will (who was at the time a journalist at the DNT) for an article about something going on in my life here. He put together a collection of his expatriate friend’s perspectives from their various spots around the globe, and I decided to write mine based on the world food crisis, since it is a part of daily life here in West Africa. Without further ado, here’s the article for those of you outside the extensive readership area of the Duluth News Tribune (this is the original version, uncut)…

____________________________________________________

The current global food crisis is a big part of my life. I see it as what will become the defining issue of my Peace Corps service. In September of 2007 I moved to The Gambia, West Africa as a Peace Corps Agro-forestry volunteer. This article does not in any way express the opinions of The United States Peace Corps. These are my personal views, based on the place that I live.

In my limited communication with people back home and around the world, and I’m surprised to learn that most people see the global food shortage as nothing different than what has always existed. In no way should the current food crisis misunderstood as “the usual starving people in Africa.” This is a crisis. This is a specific series of events that is coming together in a perfect way to create a never before seen mixture of poverty and starvation. I’m not going to explain all the factors going into the crisis. If you care, the information is easy to find (starting with the Washington Post). I’ll suffice it to say that between 2005 and 2008 grain prices rose at a record breaking 80%. For the world’s poorest people this statistic means malnutrition and death.

Here in Peace Corps the Gambia we live with host families, and I set my rent be a bag of rice each month. Six months ago the bag of rice I purchased was 580 Dalasis, or about 29 dollars. Today the price is about 900 Dalsis (45 dollars). According to The Economist, the price of rice shot up 141% between January and April. The poorest people in the world are already spending 50-80% of their incomes on food. The math is uncomplicated enough.

But I don’t want this to be simply another picture of starving children. This is a global crisis that will result in the deaths of millions of the poorest people on earth by this time next year. The obvious question is what can we (Americans) do? There are no easy answers.

First of all, we need to make this an important issue. The leading presidential candidate supports subsidies for corn based ethanol, and even though this is not a major player in the big picture of the crisis it is a player none the less, and it needs to be stopped. Over a fifth of America’s corn will be sent to ethanol plants this year. I’d be very surprised and disappointed if Mr. Obama continued to act as though these subsidies are a good idea through the election. Every little bit counts, but just because the use of corn for ethanol is not the largest contributor to the food crisis doesn’t mean it isn’t important. It needs to be stopped.

Secondly, we need to use less fossil fuels. This is also the answer to the war on climate change, and the struggle for energy independence. Go stimulate the economy by buying a shiny new bike.

Thirdly, in the spirit of every little bit helping we need to eat less meat, or none at all. Every time you skip eating a kilo of meat you’re putting up to 8 kilos of grain back on the global market. This is a sacrifice, and an optional one, but you wanted to know what you can do to help. Eat fish, eat meat that comes from an overpopulated free ranging species (deer) and know what you’re eating and where it comes from.

In the words of a friend back home “Most Americans worry about how [the food crisis] affects their gas prices, that’s as far as the concern goes.” Most Americans right now have a choice; do we ignore the crisis and pay 15 cents more for the cheerios? Or do we choose to have an impact, and choose to affect our lives in a few small ways to try and help people most of us will never ever see?

I already know who will respond to this article. We’ll hear from people standing up for the use of ethanol as a fuel. We’ll here from people talking about how gas and meat are important drivers of the economy. I’m not saying all these points aren’t true. What I am saying is thank you for missing the boat. People are dying, it isn’t your fault, but how can we all choose to do nothing? Hold on to your comments for 15 months. That will be enough time to go through the first year of crisis and into the next hungry season in West Africa. I’m here now, watching the crisis unfold. It is easy to see where we are going.

Further Reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602041_3.html?sid=ST2008042602333

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1&ei=5070&oref=slogin

_______________________________________________

Now you should go and read the comments I received to the article (they are responses to my post below called “red white and blue blood”, the only thing that really gets me is that they responeded to my post about the death of my grandmother.). I’d love to respond to the people who wrote me, but it seems that they forgot to leave a way for me to contact them. The only message I have for them is thank you. Thank you for making my day, I hope my parents have printed the comments and added them to the other correspondence that they are saving for when I come home. I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get any response in the form of letters to the editor, but when I read these I can see why the editor wouldn't have printed any letters he got. Oh, and I’d like to quote my cousin Erik, who’s quest for a law degree is sure to be aided by his ability to make complex ideas easy to understand: “You’re an idiot.”

(We destroyed a termite mound at Alex's site)

Hello again,

Here in Peace Corps the Gambia there are two distinctly different experiences to be had. The first option is the Kombo volunteer. This type of volunteer lives in town, sees other volunteers all the time and often times complains about not getting paid enough. These “kombo volunteers” live a life full of taxi’s, NGOs, and happy hours. Some have electricity; some have daily access to the internet, and some even occasionally have running water. In Peace Corps the Gambia this is looked at as the easy route by the majority of people. I disagree, I spent just shy of my first year living the Kombo life, and it was difficult. Always broke, always trying to work with people who care less than you, and always pushing to get things done.

The second type of volunteer is the “up-country club”. These guys have the “traditional peace corps experience.” They live in mud huts, they fetch water, they plant trees and they speak local languages. This is what most of us were thinking when we signed up for the Peace Corps. These volunteers also spend a lot of time alone. Even though not many up-country volunteers have running water or electricity, they do have some luxuries. Such as fresh air, space to live, traditional Peace Corps experience and the freedom to vacation in Kombo, not to be stuck working.

I guess I’m lucky; it’s rare that a volunteer gets to experience both sides. I’ve just spent my first 10 days as an “up-country” volunteer and I’m loving it. I have not yet been admitted to the up-country club, people seem to look down on me because I’m knew to it. It’s true I’ve only been there ten days. When volunteers who have spent most of their service up country hear that I like my new site more than my old one they look like they don’t believe me. I really do like it though, honestly.

And I really am lucky. My new site is great. My Alkalo (village chief) is the hardest working Gambian I’ve seen yet (except for maybe those who work for peace corps) and I actually got tired from following him around the village a few days. His work is good for me too, since I’m his guest and he’s a baker I get free fresh bread for the rest of my service (sure the Gambian version of bread isn’t great, but it’s good). Another great part of my new site is that I’m living in the North Bank region of the Gambia. I don’ have any other volunteers very close to me and I’ve got plenty of work to do. And when I say “I have work to do” I really mean “I have trees to plant”. The Alkalo is starting to work on live fencing, he’s set aside land for a cashew and mango orchard, he’s willing to supply land for a timber project. That’s going to be a lot of work, especially since the water is from an open well that is more than 30 meters deep. There is a fire-wood shortage as well, so Peace Corps has a few ideas about that too. Plenty of work to do.

What are the anticipated difficulties?

I’m going to be more lonely. At my old site I saw almost everybody once a month. Now I won’t. Nobody will be swinging into my area to get to the bank anymore. Also, the cell phone service is pretty good as far as texting goes, but not always good enough to receive calls. This means I’ll hear less from you all back home (it’s worth trying though, if I’m in my hut/near it the reception is better than it was in Old Yundum). Also, I’ll be obviously away from the internet. Expect more letters? Send more letters? Thanks…

I’m not going to be able to just go grab a shwarma and a beer a couple times a week. I’m going to be missing out on the dietary advantages of Kombo.

I don’t get to go to the beach.

I have to take the ferry.

I’m sure there are more I’m missing, but really, I’m so happy to move out of the city it’s tough for me to find things wrong with my site.

So there you go. I need to surrender my computer because I’m in town for the swearing in of the newest group of education volunteers, and tons of people are here to celebrate with them. It’s a pretty awesome group that includes my two closest neighbors. In other big news, the group of Agfos that are a year ahead of me are starting plan to go home. That means in a year I’ll be starting to plan to go home. I’ve even got my mid-term medical check up scheduled. It’s a big deal. My group hits our one year mark on September 27th, then our half way point is October 30, and sometime in December we’ll only have one year left. Things are cruising here, and life is good.

But I miss you, keep in touch.

Love,

bjorn

Hey again,

Thanks for still reading my blog. My mom say’s I need to put a more positive spin on things, so I’ll try. Just for the record I’d like to note that I live in the poorest part of the world. I am putting a positive spin on things.

I hope you all are enjoying the state fair, eat twice as much for me…

But anyways, I’m pretty pumped today. It’s my last day of living the life of a Kombo volunteer, and as of tomorrow an entirely new phase of my adventure begins. Tomorrow I move to a “up country” site and leave my family in Yundum behind. Admittedly, leaving the family behind has its downsides, in the past they were known as one of the best peace corps families in the country. The kids are amazing, and I’ll miss them and they’ll miss me. I know this is hard for a lot of you to believe, but I don’t hate the kids in my compound. We’re buds, and I’m going to miss them. And I’ll also miss the food.

But I’m outta there, and I’m not all that down because as of tomorrow I’m going to be doing what I envisioned when I heard that I was coming to peace corps the Gambia. Planting trees. I’m excited to move into the middle of nowhere, even pretty far away from other volunteers, and start planting some trees. Also, I’m excited not to be able to speak English anymore. It’s all Wolof from here on out and I’m ready.

It may sound like I'm oversimplifiying, and I know that it’s going to be really tough too, but I’m excited anyways. Wish me luck. When I come back to town for our all-volunteer conference in a couple weeks I’ll give you the low-down on my new place.

And, as a part of moving out of my house I finally took my 11 month long shopping list off my wall and brought it in. If you’ve wanted to know what to send me in a package this is the master list, it's been hanging on my wall and updated every week or so.

The package list:

1. Duct tape (handy for beekeeping)

2. Ready to eat/individually packaged foods. (I think that individually packaged is the way to go, because then you don’t eat all of it in one day. But either way, food is a lifesaver.)

3. Current Music (thanks to Jane and Will)

4. This American Life/ Car talk/ Lake wobegon podcasts. (To remind me of weekends with my dad, so I’ll be extra happy while planting trees)

5. Gold bond (because it’s hot here)

6. Tuna/chicken/meat packages

7. Cheese, in any form possible. (Cheese flavored crackers, cheese in between crackers, cheese spread, cheese spray, cheese…)

8. Taco bell flavor packets (or any other sort of flavor packets)

9. Refreshing powdered beverages (Gatoritas? Erik?)

10. Enough floss for next mango season (though mango’s are really their own type of floss)

11. Beef Jerky/ Meat sticks/ any meat

12. Sheets that are big enough for my bed. (I’d say about a queen)

13. Duct tape (Handy for everything)

14. Lots of sharpies, (not to sound girly, but different colors would be cool)

15. See Number 3

16. An American slingshot. (So I can show off our country’s superior firepower)

17. Snack food! (The most important thing possible)

18. Pants, size 30-30, or 28-30. (A new belt may help as well)

19. Shirts (that can be sweat in, old and beat up. Think what you would take camping)

20. Lots of toothpaste (the stuff here is weird)

21. Books (Anything, especially classics. I’ve got time. If you need ideas ask Seth)

22. A non-stick frying pan

23. Shorts. (Shorts would be awesome.)

24. More pens. (Free Bethel pens would be the best)

25. New headphones.

26. Razors/blades.

27. Tennis balls for the Peace Corps house. (Requested by Ted)

28. Which reminded me that I could use another softball mitt. (Because catch can only be played alone by Simon)

29. And your love, in the form of emails, letters, and packages…

Thanks, I love and miss you guys.

bb

Hey everybody,

Thanks for the notes and the packages! Just when I was really starting to feel neglected you guys really pulled through. Keep ‘em coming, the thank you notes are already in the mail.

Also contributing to my mental health was my first West African vacation. My buddy Brian was going to Dakar to fly home to America for his sister’s wedding, so Steph and Mark were going to go with him to Dakar to see him off. I thought that since I speak Wolof it would be good to have me along, but unfortunately Mark had to back out last minute. So Steph, Brian and I were off, for about 5 days of a real city.

The trip was pretty lucky on the way there. Despite the bad omen of riding across the ferry with a bunch of caskets (see steph or brian’s blog for photos) we actually were lucky enough to snag a ride in a private car all the way to Dakar. Sure, the car broke down a handful of times, and we did a high-speed 180 in the mud (for which our driver said “ew, sorry”). The third time the engine died in Senegal we had some helpful locals hot-wire the thing and it was smooth sailing for the rest of the trip.

Once arriving in Dakar we had reached a different world. We had air conditioning (almost all of the time) because they have electricity (almost all of the time). We ordered fresh salads and fresh seafood that wasn’t over-cooked Gambian style and nothing was served over rice. We waited for things in lines (this was a highlight, Gambians don’t do lines). We walked into the nicest hotel in West Africa and brown-nosed the concierge into giving Brian a free ride to the airport on their shuttle. We visited two islands that looked both tropical and European at the same time. We climbed a hill (there was a lighthouse on top). We could choose from three different types of beer. We ate cheese, and French bread. Also it was fun to be in a country where everybody spoke Wolof. I'm sure Brian (pulaar) and Steph (mandinka) didn't have as much fun as I did, but I could talk to almost everybody. It was a ball.

Unfortunately there were still some things that were familiar to us. One night we were looking for a restaurant in the downtown area of Dakar. We managed to walk through a whole huge market without getting hassled at all, which was amazing, and then we met a guy who tried to sell us hats. We politely declined, then declined a few more times, then since we still hadn’t bought hats he started to yell. I was accused of being an extraterrestrial (that was a first) but outside of that it was a pretty common occurrence for us if we were in the Gambia. The guy unsurprisingly wanted to fight Brian and me, and we really didn’t have trouble brushing him off, but it made an impression. We had our tourist colored glasses on, and I could see just how scary a moment like that would be for an outsider to West Africa. No wonder tourism is declining here.

Also, another low point of the trip was how sudden the shift is once you are leaving Dakar. Senegal outside of Dakar is pretty comparable to the Gambia, so once we got to the car park on our way out the fun was over. (Side note to Brian: fly directly to Banjul). So Steph and I get to the car park, and we ask for a set plas, and we get grabbed and pushed past the lines of set plases. We are brought to a little van, and we barter for a while, eventually ending up being able to save about 5 bucks. So we get our tickets and get in the van. Then we sit. We got to the car park at about 9:30, and we were in the car by 9:45, all ready to go. There car was about half full, I thought we were on our way. But then next thing you know its 1:00 and nobody else is in the car. The guy who had brought us over was taking a nap nearby, and the clock was ticking down. Everybody in the car is freaking out, because we aren’t the only ones that need to get to Banjul. Even in a private car it took 10 hours, and the ferry closes at 11:00pm so it was cutting it close. No chance at getting the money back though, so we were stuck.

I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry in my life. Further explanation is needed; in this style of car park there are usually 3 people involved with filling a car.

1. There is the driver, who sometimes is very helpful and active but sometimes just sits and smokes.

2. There is an aperante, who does the stuff the driver is to proud to do, like load luggage.

3. Lastly there is a guy who, as Gambians (and Senegalese) often say, “He sits and eats the money.” This last guy’s only job is to walk around and bring people to the car, and he gets paid more than the drivers get paid.

Number 3 in this case was unbelievable. I would go over to talk to him, as him how it was going, and he would say that he was out "on it" getting passengers. I said to a guy nearby “Yep, look at this guy, sitting and getting passengers.” The guy now was as angry with me as I was with him, but he actually moved and tried to work for a while. He was gone five minutes, then he brought back two more people, then he went back to his chair to nap. This guy (my nemesis) was supposed to be getting passengers would sit for an hour, and then when somebody would yell at him he’d spend five minutes bringing a new person in to the car, and then he would go sit for another hour. Finally there was enough anger in the van (me and all other passengers) that he put together a solid half hour of work and filled the thing. It was after 2. Then we only had to go get gas, and after another half hour we were on our way.

Things weren’t looking good, but now that we were moving there was hope. It turns out that we even made it to the border in time, then we caught a taxi to Barra (where you catch the ferry to Banjul from) and we made it at about 9:30. Since the ferry closes at 11 we thought we were in the clear. But nay, tonight the ferry closed two hours early for no real reason. We were stuck in Barra, a terrible city of drunken men at night, and we sat in the police station until a PCV posted nearby was able to get a friend to drive down and come to bring us back to her site. That was amazing; it would have been terrible to spend the night in a Gambian jail/police station, so thanks.

All in all, after delicious food for a few days and about as much hassle as we could fit in our last day we’re back in the Gambia. Life here is good, I’m more positive about everything after the vacation. I’m really ready to get to my new site, which will be ready when the house gets fixed. I’m ready to really get to work again, and I’m already looking forward to the next vacation, in which I will be leaving West Africa, inshallah.

I’m also really missing people back home. It’s been like 11 months, and even though I’m happy here I still miss you guys. Peace corps says the year mark is hard on PCVs since we’ve been gone so long but we’re not even half way there yet. Keep in touch; I’ll be home in 18 months or so.

Love,

bb

Sorry about the sound on the movie. It seems to be having issues. Don't worry about it.

Hey everybody,

I've been on an upcountry tour for a couple of weeks. My tour coincided at times with the Peace Corps mail delivery, and this is a video of Mark opening a package. I think the smile on his face speaks volumes as to the importance of receiving stuff from people back home. There is a large amount of joy in the fact that we haven't been forgotten, plus a large amount of joy in having a bag of dried salty meat.

Ok, I guess I should write a bit about the trip in general. Ryan, Ted and I left kombo early in the morning and even before we got to the ferry we had to leave Ryan behind. It is only a matter of time before somebody will get robbed in the gambia, and Ryan had some lousy timing. So Ted and I continued on.

We decided to catch a set plas (the fastest form of local transport) on the far side of the ferry in the usual place, and we had some bad luck. We caught a car pretty quickly, but we were stuck in the back seat (like those little ones in the back of old station wagons). Ted is over 6 feet tall, and we were doing a straight shot to Basse (about as far as we could go and still be in the gambia). It was scrunched, but that was the least of this particular set-plas's problems. The other problems were that it was the slowest set plas ever, and our driver forgot his papers. There are police checkpoints every few miles on the main roads here, so at each checkpoint the driver would get out and argue with the police for about 45 minutes. Once this was completed he would get back in and drive away, nobody is going to get arrested for not having papers, but the police feel like it is their job to waste our time. We were passed by other set plases, then geles, and even the Gambia's up country bus before we even made it half way. That was a pain in the butt, but fairly standard. It's a different problem every time, but every trip up country has it's problems.

So once we got up to Basse we were pretty tired, but Basse is awesome. Meat skewers for a dalasi, pork is 5 D for all you can eat, there is palm wine (terrible) and ice cold Senegalese beers (also terrible). But the variety was what we needed, and it was nice to be in a village where white people aren't seen as free walking money machines. Basse is great. You should come check it out.

The next morning- and for the next few days- we were working on the garden at the peace corps house. Nothing to exciting, but it was a great time. Composting, tree planting, the whole nine yards. We did good work, Ryan caught up after only half a day, and Brian and Alicia also stopped by to visit. Throughout the work we were read Nora Roberts quotations for motivation, and good times were had by all.

After the work in Basse was over (for the time being) we split up. Ryan and I headed to Mark's site, and Ted headed down the south bank road. Mark's site is a great traditional fula village, full of cattle and farming and nothing to do with the rest of the world. These guys aren't going to be effected by the global food crisis. Of course if they have a bad year of crops they are the hardest hit, but nothing here seems to change from the way it was a long time ago. Ryan dipped out early because of a fairly severely infected toe, and I moved on to the next stop.

After Mark's site I went on to Steph's village (for further information on the characters in the story there are links to their blogs on the right side of the page). Steph has a village that needs an agfo volunteer, but she's health. I usually spend my time there wishing I had here site, and stealing local ideas for fencing and sustainable agriculture development. I'm pretty jealous.

Next I moved to Alex's site, and Alex, Tyler and myself demolished a termite mound, just to prove that it could be done. One of the places that I work is the Pest Managment unit for the Department of Agriculutre. Alex had asked me how he could take care of his termite problem, and I brought the question to the best of the Gambian pest control professionals. He said "Use heavy saturated oil pesticides." Then he said "But those are illegal to import here, so I don't know where you will find them." So I asked what we could do on a level that was appropriate for gambian farmers, and he said "Just chop down the termite mound and kill the queen." It was pretty bloody. Termites can bite really hard. It was odd though, we didn't even gather a crowd. Nobody came to see what we were doing, and I liked that too. We also made mosquito repellent out of neem tree leaves, which didn't impress his family at first (it doesn't smell great) but after a night with fewer mosquitos they seemed to be happy. I didn't stick around for the honest results, that's Alex's story to tell. I left and made my way back to Kombo.

It was quite the trip though, fun times and relaxation mixed with work. I got the fresh air that I had been needing and I spent a lot of time just enjoying the feeling of being comfortable here and traveling on my own to places that I'd never been or even seen on a map. I'd just ask directions, argue about the price until I knew it was right, and then I'd go. It was great. I'm adjusted to life here, and even though I still feel like I could use a vacation I'll be in Dakar soon enough. I miss you guys, it's been somthing like 10 months since I've left home, and at least 17 months remain... So don't forget about me.

Peace and love,

bb

After the night of the first rain the world is covered with these little bugs. It looks like a small animal's brain just decided to go out for a stroll. But, they say it is harmless. Cool, huh?

The rains are coming... Finally. This year the rain in the Gambia came nearly a month late to the Kombos, and even later in the North Bank. I was talking to a guy from agriculture this afternoon and he said "The rain was late, and little." This doesn't bode well for a country where the dark clouds of the food crisis are just over the next fence. Unfortunatly, these clouds aren't brining rain.

But last night it really opened up. Great rains, good fun, smiles all around. This is Ali (closest) and Moustapha (The lion king).

My host father, and my front yard... I'll be moving soon, really soon, but until then this is where you can imagine me.

I didn't write much here, or spell check even because I'm working on other stuff. As long as I am on the computer I thought I'd upload some pics. Tomorrow I'm off to Basse (way east) so I'll be off the computers a while, god willing. Write me a letter.

Thanks,

bjorn

Hey everybody,

It sounds like it has been a difficult week in Minnesota, and believe me it has been difficult on this end simply because I can’t be home.

For those of you who aren’t family: my grandma B, one of the most wonderful women in the world, ever, passed away earlier this week. As I’m writing this you guys (who are family) are sitting in the funeral and the Gambia is a pretty far-away place to be. I wish that I could be home; I heard that Loren fired up an old projector to watch family videos, I heard that our house is packed, and even though I’m sure everybody is emotionally exhausted I’m sure you’re all telling the best stories of our childhoods, inseparably connected to times at Buhl with Grandma and Grandpa. I wish I could watch that stuff with the rest of you, I wish I could be with the family, I want to hear other people’s stories that could spark off more memories than I am able to think of now. It’s weird to be alone. I miss everybody from home, and Grandma.

In addition to that the last thing I heard from my sister is that my dad is in the hospital with a kidney stone. I pray by the time he reads this (and more importantly by the time of the funeral) it’s gone.

Thanks to all the relatives who are there. Thanks for supporting gramps, and my dad, and each other.

Grandma would always say I have red, white, and blue blood. Sometimes she’d say “Now I wonder where you got that.” I got it from her, and my other three grandparents. So I guess that makes it a lot easier to be here.

As a sidenote I just got to talk to everybody when I was typing this blog for posting. That was amazing, thanks.

Love you guys, the Betzler clan is something special.

bjorn

Hello again,

First, you should go read stripe’s (link on the right) essay/blog on the food crisis here. She does an awesome job describing all of the different aspects that are making the “perfect storm of food problems” into what will be the biggest struggle of our time in the Peace Corps. People in the Gambia are going to starve, and she’ll tell you why. Unfortunately I’m not sure anybody can tell you what to do to help. Maybe consider voting for a president who doesn’t encourage turning corn into oil?

Secondly, you should write me an email. We both know it has been a while.

And lastly, I’m doing very well, honestly.

Recently my family and a few friends that I’ve been gchatting with to seem to think that I’m depressed, and I’d like to assure you that I’m not. I’ve got great friends here, and at home, and I’m loving life as much as I ever have (which you all know is saying something). I’m living in a crazy and very un-American place where most of the people I’m trying to work with basically think I’m a tourist, but still, there is so much to be thankful for.

For example, I got stung by a jellyfish last weekend. This is a positive thing. First of all, I was swimming with Brian, Mark, Alicia and Steph. That’s a pretty fun group, and we were swimming on a sunny day in the ocean. Life is good.

We crash through the waves, and once we got past the little calm and wimpy breakers I yelled something much wittier than “Last person to Brazil is a rotten egg.”

Brian clarified “Let’s go to Rio, it’s got better beaches and probably better food.”

Mark agreed “yeah, Rio,” and we were off.

Since as always I take jokes a little too far I was pretty alone and out in the ocean when I noticed this little jellyfish on the crest of the next wave. I’m glad that I saw him first, because that gave me the element of surprise. I grabbed that little punk jellyfish by the throat and held him underwater until I could here the screams for mercy. Or, alternatively, the jellyfish had a lot longer stingers than I gave him credit for and I was too close, so his tentacles rapped around my wrist and I hollered “jellyfish, jellyfish ow!” to my friends back in the shallow end. They by this point had forgotten about the race, and thought I was joking.

I disentangled my arm from the stingers and I swam back in to play in the rollers for a while. Everybody was impressed by the perfect lines of red welts on my forearm, but they didn’t even swell up enough to make good picture material. The stinging went away after a few hours, and it totally made my day. I got stung by a jellyfish, and not many people I know can say that.

So that is why I’m not depressed. Life is good. Even the backwardness of West Africa and the pain of trying to get things done aren’t that bad, I’m still metaphorically floating in the sunny and calm ocean of a simple life. I’ve got great friends here, better friends at home and the only legitimate complaint I have is missing these people.

I get to go to soccer games for a dollar, and even though this country only has one kind of beer it isn’t terrible. I’m in the best shape of my life, I’ve got time to read, I have a growing appreciation for children (they are the best way to get work done) and I’m learning more about international development than is necessary. I have enough stories to fill letters home without repeating myself, and I’m excited that I’m only one third of the way done.

Just don’t forget about me.

Love,

bb

As many of you know I spend a lot of my time in taxis, trying to get from point A to point B. This morning I had planned ahead, I got a ride into town with a peace corps driver and I made it in about 20 minutes. Usually the trip includes two more taxis and an additional mile long walk, totaling well over an hour, sometimes up to four. It’s not that bad, you pay for what you get and each of these rides costs 5 Dalasis, or about a quarter.

The hold-up is that (like Dominoes) the drivers never carry change for more than 20 D. So I’ve got to have the right change. The banks usually only give hundreds out, so once I am given that stack of hundreds I look at it, and think to myrself, “How many hours of my life are about to be wasted trying to get this changed?”

The honest answer is most of them. Averaged out, I waste at least an hour a day getting change. Those of my college friends who still read this blog will remember that I’m not the most patient person in the world, and you’d expect me to go crazy. But I don’t go crazy, not anymore. Most of the time I have a smile on my face while I’m going from driver to driver in the car park asking for change. That’s because they all say the same ironic broken English one-liner.

“Change… That is our problem here in the Gambia.”

It couldn’t be more true. The problem is a stubborn refusal to change! Let me give you another example, again it takes place waiting for public transport.

There has been no diesel fuel (pronounced foil) in the Gambia for almost a week. Everyday we hear that the gas will come tomorrow, but everyday it doesn’t. Taxis are marooned along the sides of the road as randomly and frequently as road kill, and that leaves a shortage of drivers who have enough fuel to go on. So the crowds at the car parks get larger, and the reverse discrimination that allows me to hitchhike with ease is the only thing that keeps me getting to where I need to go. You’ll notice that I didn’t say “the lines at the car parks get longer.” That is important to note. There are no lines in the Gambia.

So I was headed home one afternoon with a friend of mine, and we were trying our luck with the gele geles (bush-taxi death trap vans) since there was an even bigger crowd trying to hitch hike. The crowd wasn’t that bad, but there weren’t very many seats either. I figured there would be room for me, my friend, and those who were literally boxing us out basketball style. That means all I had to do was box out the rest of the crowd. One guy tried to dance around me, but I saw him, and politely tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to wait. He stepped back, and nodded his head. He seemed to be an elder, a large man who was well dressed, and his nod seemed to acknowledge that he heard me.

However, I saw that when he stepped back he was really just counting the seats remaining, and this time knowing that it was down to the last few seats he elbowed (literally elbowed) my friend off to the side and he pushed his way in. I was dumbstruck, and furious, because I had counted the seats and since he got in that would mean that me and my friend would be stuck waiting for the next one. I said he was a bad person. I said he was a small child. I stuttered in frustration. I said “You you you” like an angry wollof mother. I don’t usually get angry, it’s just a waste of time, but I had to tell this guy that he was an idiot.

Fortunately the aparante (guy who takes the fares) saw that I was angry and he agreed to stand and gave me his seat. I sat and the conversation continued in the now overfilled death trap as we pulled away.

Do you know what this man’s excuse was? Why he was laughing when he got in? Why he would excuse himself even if he pushed his own mother out of the way (which I have seen as well)? He says “This isn’t Europe, this is Africa. That is how it is here.”

I said, this time switching to English “And you are the reason why your country fails to change.” I think the lady next to me understood. Most of the people here and understand English to a small level and she certainly understood my condescending “my country is better than your country” attitude. It is true though. No matter how messed up you people back home may feel America is it is the best country in the world.

We may hate our president, but I can write about it without getting killed, and that is something we should be thankful for. We make lines, every day, and don’t even think about it. We stop at traffic lights. We respect our elders, whether we know them or we simply recognize that they deserve to be respected.

People say that America is an individualistic country, but I know that my family and friends would do anything for me. They would take care of me if I was sick, they would help me out if I needed a place to stay. They will be there for me when I get home, and that is what makes it possible for me to be here. Thanks.

“Change, that is our problem here in the Gambia.” Is so true. I said earlier that the trouble is a stubborn refusal to progress, and this implies that the people here I choosing to not advance. I think that is true. Recently some of my friends have returned from visits to nearby countries. They go to Senegal, to Mali, to Sierra Leone and to Morocco. These places were in worse shape than the Gambia just a few years ago. There are deserts taking over the cropland in Senegal, Mali and Morraco. Sierra Leone just got out of a miserably bloody and systemically destructive civil war (as seen in Blood Diamond or in the news) and what do the volunteers say when they return? They say that the Gambia is by far the most backwards. Why? “Because the people of Morocco make Gambians look like the laziest people in the world.” Or because “The people of Senegal actually do the work it takes to maintain the live fencing” or simply because “The people in Sierra Leone are willing to work.”

Maybe I’m just a bit depressed this weekend because my great planning of last week hasn’t panned out yet. It’s laughably cliché, but the organization who was going to help us move the rice is literally waiting for their ship to come in, and the back-up plan says the check is in the mail. They both expect things to change tomorrow, inshallah (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world/middleeast/20inshallah.html?ex=1214625600&en=72c396af3e60fa25&ei=5070&emc=eta1).

Thanks for everything, thanks for reading, and I have to be honest I can’t wait to hear from you again. Even an email or a comment on the blog would be great.

Peace and love,

bb

Oh, and I went to a soccer game.

And this is the family's Griot, in the compound. His father was my host father's griot, and it goes back about five generations. It is a pretty big source of pride, since families had to be rich to have a griot, since a griot was really a slave to the family. Even now he seemed slave like, he didn't eat with us and he was paid about 50 dalasis for a couple of nights of playing, which probably didn't cover his travel costs from senegal. He was amazing though, I wish the video was better but the audio is cool. This is a real aspect of wollof culture.

Hey everybody,

Thanks for still reading the blog. I hope you enjoy it. I actually hope that you enjoy it enough to be like “hey, bjorn’s blog is so cool I should send him a package.” I think you should. That’s a great idea. Send food.

So recently I’ve been pretty busy, which is fairly surprising. I’ve been working on rice seed distribution, with the help of a few ngos in the area, a couple government organizations from a couple different countries, and a lot of other Peace Corps people. Since we are in the beginning phases of a major food crisis here (which I feel like everybody knows about, but Seth hadn’t even heard was going on) one of the big problems is that people have been forced to eat their seed. At the end of each year farmers take the best of the seed and set it aside for planting again the next year. Since last year’s rain was pretty poor in most areas in the country people had to eat their best seed just to survive. That is one of the many reasons why this is a “food crisis” and not just “starving Africans.” This is new, it’s a big deal, and if you want to know what’s the best thing to do about it ask Colin and Emily. I wrote them about it. You could also ask my dad, who after the last email he sent me seems to be truly understanding the state of development.

I’m sure you can see how, in a country where most of the farmers only grow enough crops to eat, this is only going to compound the crisis. Since they ate their seed, and there is nothing “in the bank” they are not going to be able to plant. No planting would mean no eating at all next year, which to say the least is a huge problem. So we thought if we could find some improved variety seed we could maybe find a way to get it out to a few peace corps volunteers and at least do a little bit to help stop this from getting so much worse so quickly (at least for the villages we work in). Surprisingly enough, it seems today as if this is going to work. I don’t want to jinx anything, and I’m still going to be working on this for another week before we’ll know how it went, but I’m hopeful for the first time since I’ve been here we’ll make some sort of larger scale impact.

This little program we’ve devised uses a truck from the government office where I work, plus money to move the truck from a donation, plus another donation from another NGO, plus bundles of Gambian farmers willing to trust their Peace Corps counterparts and grow something new (they actually are also agreeing to pay for the seed, and plant it on their land and use it for only seed replication. Sustainable!). The truck is going to pick up some really awesome rice seeds from a program run by the Taiwanese agricultural development program. There are two Peace Corps volunteers who are working with them on developing another program so they were keen to help us out. Once the truck picks up the rice from the agricultural project it will bring the rice back to Kombo. Here in Kombo, at least according to the current plan, we’ll drop the rice at the World Food Program’s warehouse. The WFP (whom some of you know I like from previous letters) has agreed to help us out by putting the rice on their trucks that deliver food for the schools, and when the rice gets to the school there will be a happy peace corps volunteer waiting with a local counterpart to start planting. It’s a good thing too, since the time to plant rice is within the next week.

Personally I think the craziest thing about all of this is that we’ve thrown this together in less than a week. It’s not an official peace corps program, but it wouldn’t be possible without us, that’s for sure. The end result is that a bunch of villages all throughout the country are going to be doing seed multiplication of the best rice seed in the world (we think), in a totally sustainable way, at the time when seed rice is the hardest to come and when people will need it most. Pretty cool huh? Is that cool enough for you to send me a package? I thought so. Send music.

So that is what I’ve been doing for work recently. Actually, in addition to that I’ve been building a mud stove with my host brothers. The video of it is the first step, and we finished the last step this morning. I’m kinda weirded out because I’ve got a pretty good skin irritation going all over my skin where the mixture touched, so I better go shower.

I miss you all, and in a few days I’ll be about a third done with my time here. That feels like a milestone and a mountain at the same time. Good news is you’ve still got time to send me that package. Thanks. Send more food. And finally today is father's day. Suffice it to say that I wish I was home. My dad and my two grandfather's have even more exciting stories of what they were up to at this time in their lives. That sense of adventure, among other things, is why I am here and doing what I'm doing. I miss them all, and can't wait until my dad visits.

Love,

bjorn

This is my favorite newspaper article ever. Read it. Really if I read the paper more I could probably find one of these a day, but I choose to get most of my news from the bbc.

This was the boat ride. It was awesome, nice to be out on a boat again. I really miss green lake though.

This was cooking up some bush pig and Kenyan food with a Kenyan VSO and Stripes (Kate) when I was on my upcounty trip.

On my trip up country I also got bitten by a few tsetse flies, and even if you don't get sleeping sickness or dengue fever they make you swell up like crazy. That's it for now, more info later.

Peace and love,

bjorn

Is one better than nothing?

This is me, at work. Looking happy. Sorry about the quality, it is a picture of a picture they took, then printed. The original is hilarious, but you have to come visit me to see it. More to come, keep in touch, Love, bjorn

Ok, I’ve got to admit I’ve been having trouble thinking of what to write about. I used up most of my best stuff in personal letters home, and I don’t want to blog about it until all of those letters have made it. So sorry for those of you who don’t write me, and even more sorry to those of you whom I haven’t written back to yet.

I recently looked back to the journal I kept at the beginning of my time here. There was one quote that sticks out especially now as a good benchmark for how normal things have become here.

Back in my training village my training host mother Anche was standing in a pile of peanuts in the front yard. This is what I found exciting enough to write at the time “She said “I’m going out, if a goat comes in the peanuts you should scare it away.’ There was a goat standing next to her in the peanuts!”

Get it? There was a goat there, already, with her, in the peanuts, and she told me to scare a goat away if it came into the peanuts. I think I was just excited to be able to understand that in Wolof, or maybe I was simply excited to be that close to a goat. Either way now I can’t really understand how I ever thought that was exciting.

These days it takes a little more of a goat to get me to put my pen to paper. Fortunately for all of you, in my compound I have Stella, who I often describe as just that. Stella is an above average goat. I really hope I can get a video of her up on the blog, but my camera is misbehaving (I think it got honey in the telescoping lens).

Anyways, Stella is above average because she comes when you call to her. I’ve also trained her to stand on two legs and walk around the yard with me to get a mango leaf. It’s pretty good stuff. I may have too much time on my hands.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Writer’s block. I hope you weren’t expecting something profound.

Hello family and friends,

One time while I was on the phone with my parents I told a little story about a man who lives next door, and since they don’t get to here from me very often they ask me about him thinking that he is an important guy in my life. No, he’s not, but he can be the source of my newest blog sub-heading of;

The Life of a Guy I know:

This is the story of a guy who used to life next door. We’ll change his name to be on the safe side, so let’s call him Alhagi. His big claim to fame is that he’s dug most of the wells in my village. That is quite a lifetime of accomplishment; he’s dug about 30 wells with my host father alone. Considering the work is done with shovels, digging straight down through the dirt, and then for at least a few more meters underwater, not reinforced by anything (look for pictures to come) we know that he is a good well digger because he is still alive. I know of at least two wells that collapsed on their creators within a couple kilometers from my compound, instantly making a grave instead of a source of water. It’s a dangerous job, but it pays ok.

So what else is there to this Gambian?

He’s got no teeth. My youngest “brother” in my compound often likes to laugh in his face about this, joyfully sitting in his lap shouting “Amulo boyn” or “You’ve got no teeth.” Alhagi’s response is “Yes, I have no teeth, but you have no wife. I have a wife.” Then he laughs in pretty much the same maniacal way as my little host brother and they keep going back and forth. The thing is that he didn’t always have a wife. He has a wife now, but he didn’t when I got there.

Let’s talk about his women problems for a while. Alhagi’s first wife is gone. I think she may have died, but nobody talks about death, so she may have divorced him. I don’t really know and it’s hard to tell the difference. What I do know is that she had a son before she married Alhagi, and Alhagi raised the son as his own, more or less. When I got to my site seven months ago Alhagi was single and living on his own. We talked about how currently in my life I don’t want a wife or kids and he thought I was crazy. I asked him if he wanted a wife and he said that God willing yes, he will have another one. I thought he was joking, because he is probably in his sixties, very old by Gambian standards. Turns out he wasn’t joking. He got himself another wife a couple months ago.

She’s not my favorite Gambian. She calls me toubab (derogatory white person name) when she thinks I’m not listening, or when she thinks I don’t understand. I do though; she’s a mandinka so her Wolof is lousy. She has a little kid that she hits a lot, and if that wasn’t enough she often hits the kids in our compound. She’s terrible, but she’s also about 16 so I’ve never seen Alhagi happier (reminder I think he’s at least 60). All in all it’s a bit of a tragic situation. But totally average at the same time.

The worst part of the deal is that they are temporarily living in my compound, just a couple doors down in the very same row house. Alhagi’s-wife’s-first-son recently got mad at Alhagi for taking on a new wife. He hit Alhagi a few times, the police were brought in and now for some reason it is unsafe for Alhagi and his new wife (and his two daughters from his first marriage who are a little older than his wife) to live at home. So they are in my compound. Its lame, but it shouldn’t last long, inshallah.

In conclusion to this first “A guy I know” segment this is a story of a Gambian who has done work that is respectable. He’s dug more wells than most people and he’s dug them by hand. That should be enough to make him respectable according to the American ideal that work is something that makes you respectable. On the other hand you can understand why he is not somebody I look up to here. He’s childish, and he married a sixteen year old girl because he could, because she was cheap, because she’d already had a child. I think he’s a good example of a classic Gambian because there is one thing about him that I really respect and I’d like to see in more Gambians, but at the same time it’s hard for me to be happy to see him when he’s got so many other issues. He has one redeemable quality, and the rest of him is nothing my western culture background can ever respect.

I’ve promised two of you that I would write my next blog about religion, and I’m sorry. I need to do some more research before I can make so many generalizations.

A video of the motorcade. Pretty awesome.

Hey Everybody,

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written last, I’ve actually been trying to spend less time in the Peace Corps office, and I’ve been doing a pretty good job. I’ve also been writing a few letters, so if you’ve written me recently you can now have something to look forward to.

My mother has recently been requesting an update on my daily “routine”, and I’m fairly certain that I can’t get that to you. What I can do is tell you at least a few interesting stories about how life isn’t routine at all. I apologize to those of you who are going to get these in letter form in a few weeks…

A week or so ago we finished what Peace Corps calls In Service Training, or IST. We learned all sort so fun stuff; mostly we highlighted beekeeping and tree nursery care. I can now make bee hives out of grass and cow dung (which I plan on making a lot of after the rainy season) and if I want to I can make a Sprite tree (Lemon lime) or really any bizarre mixed fruit tree that I want. Honestly I doubt that I’ll do to much with the tree grafting because usually it takes a few years for the tree to be ready to fruit, and I’m not going to be here long enough to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I think for me the most exciting part of IST was the beekeeping session. I borrowed Ryan’s shoes and I was off for another night of beekeeping fun, but as you can see in the pictures something went horribly wrong. I don’t know whether it was the fact that Ryan’s shoes were a little smaller than mine, or that they were a little thinner than mine, or perhaps I was paying for the fact that I borrowed somebody’s shoes and didn’t wear socks (sorry Ryan) but I managed to collect a few beestings every minute for the entire harvesting lesson.

At least it is good to know that I can handle quite a few bee stings. I didn’t get sick or anything, but I did learn the Wolof word for itching over the next few days…

Really I should consider myself lucky, African killer bees are only as much fun as they sound, but Brian had a Bot Fly larva (mango worm) removed from his abdomen.

I also would like to say thanks to those who sent me packages for my birthday. Olaf and Orson sent some great stuff, and granola bars are always a good choice. No every day when I’m hungry or homesick I should be able to eat some sort of American snack.

Right now I’m sitting in the second to last day of a three week long meeting on pest management here in the Gambia. It has been at times very painful, and for me nearly always very boring but the people in the group are pretty impressive. I’m impressed with their ability to do so much work with unrealistically limited resources. I am here with the National Agricultural Development Agency Extension office, and I look forward to joining them on up country “treks” during the rainy season. Since they have such limited resources Peace Corps can help them with the extension work, and we need their expertise in how to sustainably take care of pests here in the Gambia.

I’m also looking forward next week to get back to the National Beekeepers Association. It’s been about three weeks since I’ve been there. The place is changing very quickly now thanks to some gift aid, but mostly they are less than two years away from being self sufficient and its fun to be able to work there.

I think I’ve been talking enough about work. I actually work a lot. I’m not lying. Even though we PCVs are always on the job (disseminating American culture and learning about the Gambia) we do occasionally take brief holidays in order to remain sane. This is a brief account of my first vacation here in the country. This is not under any circumstances what you should expect if you come visit me.

Brain (pictured above) came down a few days before IST to get out of the 120 degree heat where he lives. Our heritage has not prepared us genetically for that kind of hellish climate and I needed some help with trees and mud stoves and the like. So after a long day packed into a van with 20 other people (in the aforementioned 120 degree heat) Brian made it to the cool coast and we were off.

Our goal wasn’t far away, about 50 cents worth of gele-gele rides and we would be in Sanyang beach, according to my guidebook it is the most picturesque beach in West Africa. Ryan was there a bit early, trying to expedite our arrival with falsified reports of attractive tourists (only Ryan ever seems to see them -I don’t think they exist.)

Actually I think I should take a minute here to explain just how terribly ugly the tourists are. The Gambia has been compared to the Tijuana of Europe, meaning that people don’t come here for nice hotels or for African wildlife, they come here for cheap beer and to be away from the European rule of law. Tourists are almost always ugly, but these ones are special.

An average tourist here would be just under 60 years old, female, and European. She would speak English as a second or third language, and come with a friend or two just to see what will happen. What will happen, of course, is that they will more likely than not begin a relationship with a 20-something year old Gambian male. He’ll be full of romantic one liners that will lose their corny-ness somewhere in the translation (Wolof to English to Swedish) and she’ll be swept off of her feat into the arms of Muhammad (almost always the name of the Gambian) and truly in love/in love enough to have a rushed wedding. And if you have a wedding and stay for more than a week it isn’t paying for sex, is it? Actually yes it is. Sorry.

The average tourist here is now travelling through an Islamic country with her male escort. When I say travelling I mean she walks along the Senegambia strip or the beach at Senegambia, she never leaves a five mile circle around her hotel the entire time she is in the country. She will occasionally throw candy to screaming children so that she can feel like she is positively changing the lives of the poor Africans. She meanders around in only short shorts; arm in arm with her lover blissfully unaware that absolutely everything she is doing is a cultural insult. Public displays of affection are unheard of here. Women here are covered from the ankles up, from the wrists in, and from the top of the head down. Wearing one article of clothing, that stretches to cover less than two square feet, is not only culturally insensitive but it is also disgusting. Did I mention that the average tourist here is obese?

Disgusting. I digress (I’m not sure I know how to use that phrase correctly, but I’ve always wanted to).

Back to the story…

So Brian finally arrives from his almost ten hour long 120 degree gele-gele ride and of course he’s ready to hit the beach. Ryan is there sending text messages that would embarrass his mother if she read my blog as religiously as my mother reads his, and I’ve just picked up a bag full of our favorite meat pies that we will later call dinner.

We spend the 50 cents and we’re almost there. We could pay another quarter and avoid a three mile walk but be decide to save the money. We have no luck in hitchhiking, but the walk is nice, surrounded by little kids who yell “Toubob! Me give Minty!” Or “Toubob, Give me Bottle!” (Minty is Gambian for candy and they don’t necessarily get all the words in order.)

We offer them rocks as “toubab minties”, and tell them in Wolof and pulaar that they are tasty but they don’t believe us because they only speak Mandinka. Mandinkas are like that.

Anyways, we eventually get to the beach and sadly the adventure is pretty much over. We find reasonably priced beer from a hotel owner who appreciates the Peace Corps. There aren’t enough tourists here to attract the professional “male escorts” so we spend the rest of the day relaxing and playing in the calm, beautiful and picturesque ocean.

As we are dinning on our meat pies a man come up and introduces himself as Abraham Lincoln, “The first president!” he proudly proclaims.

Ryan responds that he is George Washington, the 14th president and we have a two hour long conversation in which he kindly offers us everything from a free place to stay (his) to weed (that he grows.) We sadly decline everything, and Brian is no longer able to hold back that Abraham is actually the 14th president. Abraham doesn’t really understand, and somewhere in this slightly awkward moment he discerns that we would rather be left alone.

Either way night has fallen and our budgeted beer money is spent, so we borrow some mats from the beachside bar and we wander a few hundred yards in the direction of Senegal (in this case southern Senegal) to find our campsite.

We find our camp and it looks great in the starlight, there is a pile of wood that easily lights to warm Brian and we line up our mats, throw on our sheets and gladly shiver the night away enveloped in ocean spray.

We wake up in the middle of a beautiful grey morning on the most picturesque beach in West Africa. We also all oddly feel like we are being watched. There is a “Bumpster” (Gambian word for male prostitute) about fifty feet away, directly between us and the ocean simply sitting and staring at us. As soon as he notices we are moving he starts doing push-ups and other odd exercises, hoping that our hairy faces mean that we are lonely French women, not American guys. We grab our filthy bed rolls and walk a few yards back to the hotel beach bar, which seemed a lot further away at night. I should also mention that we were sleeping in a garbage dump, the wood we burned was part of an old boat heavily soaked in oil, and the mats were dirty enough that we all itched on the way home (and I got a funny looking rash for the next week).

____

I feel like as an appendix to this blog post I need to clarify that this is not what you will go through if you visit me. I’ve found enough beautiful places in this country that if you come to visit I’m confident I’ll be able to convince you that I live in a tropical paradise, and once you show up it really is dirt cheap. I promise. You should come.

Dearest everybody,

In honor of my surviving another year in this world I thought that I would take a few minutes to reflect on what has changed in my life in the last year. Without further ado:

One year ago today I was happily balancing a couple jobs, school, and the social life that comes with the end of college.

Today I get stressed trying to decide if I will even go to one of my six jobs.

One year ago today I was celebrating with my best friends by hoisting grain belt premium, two hearted ale, and a few Juicy Lucy's.

Today I hoisted 5 meat pies.(I forgot my camera today, but look for an updated version of this blog with pictures). Today I live in a country that doesn't even have McDonald's.

One year ago today I was nearly finished with college.

Today I still feel like I'm on summer vacation, waiting for the next year of college to begin.

One year ago today I was living with Peeds and Dan,

Today I share a house with 6 Gambian children and my next door neighbor is Benson the horse (who tries to kill me every chance he gets).

One year ago today I was never ever near children,

Tonight I'm surrounded by them while I write, and one of them is currently crying like a wraith from the Lord of the Rings.

One year ago today I was digging out my shorts because it was the first 40 degree warm spell.

Tonight I'm in my polar fleece because it's a chilly 80 degrees.

One year ago today I cruised in a Crown Victoria,

Today I rode home in a gele gele (bush taxi) with 20 Africans who think it is a riot that I speak their language and that I'm white but I don't have enough money to pay for my own cab.I also drive a horse cart.

One Year ago today an infected wound would have sent me running to the hospital.

Today people come running to me with infected wounds.

One year ago today dining with "the vegetarian couple" would have been out of the question.

Today I look forward to dinner at Ryan and Leslie's because the food there somehow reminds me of home.

Most importantly one year ago I was living the dream, exactly where I wanted to be.

I still am.

In the last year I've been a bus driver, a hot asphalt street repairman, a garbage man, and everything under the sun as a peace corps volunteer. I've learned some wollof, and I can take care of rabbits, chickens, and bees. Its been quite the year, being 22 was better than it was supposed to be. I have to be honest, being 23 feels about the same.

Also, it's a huge bummer I didn't bring in my camera, but come back soon and I'll put up the video of our President's ridiculous motorcade. Also, thanks for still reading the blog. I come in to the peace corps office less than I used to, but I'll try to do at least a blog a week.

Peace and love,

bb

Pictures courtesy of Tyler Ward. This was the St. Paddy's Day Party. We had some beer, a lot of potatoes, and half of the biggest bush pig ever.

This one may be a bit odd, if you were looking for an update on my life skip it. If you're bored and killing time read on!

Since my blog seems to be suffering from reduced readership lately I think that the effort should be made to bring back those who have recently found better things to do with their excess free time. So tell all your friends... These next few posts should be more entertaining...

In the spirit of the sixth month anniversary of my time here in the country I've made the decision to let you all in on a bit more personal side of my life. Every Wednesday I remember to save my own life by taking a little white malaria curing pill. Fortunately for the sake of my blog it has a side effect of really entertaining dreams. Unfortunately most of these dreams were lost because I couldn't remember them in the morning. Now, I sleep with a little notebook by my bed, so without even taking my head off the pillow (and without a light) I do my best at writing down the dream before I forget it forever. What follows is word for word, nothing edited, no names have been changed to protect identities.

I proudly present to you the Lirium Dream Journal;

January 8-9

Elisabeth and Kathryn were here. It was something we heard (maybe learned, can't read that part). Talking on the phone, meeting up in a shopping mall outside of a place that was supposed to be in the Gambia but isn't.

January 29- 30

I only remember the end. I walked Bah 2 (my boss at the beekeepers) home and we talked about how he deserved to use the water to shower because he hadn't for so long. The he said that he'd meet me at the bar and everybody would be there and we'd all have the special "mint beer".

Feb/March

I dreamt that I was at some sort of fun park thing with only one ride. It just was a rope that brought you over the swamp. Somehow I got overturned in leeches. Most of the dream was removing leeches and talking to Seth (spencer) and Kate W (wilson). Amy H (Heckman) was there to, standing around, picking leeches.

As a side note I hope that nobody tries to hard to analyze these dreams... But maybe if you're really really bored.

March 18-19

It was me and Erik, and we were barefooting on a river. At first we were goofing around on a plane (?) but then we were just behind a boat. Byron and Ryan and Nate (Gilman) were there.

March 20-21

So I was coming home from my two years here, and I was making it just in time for a wedding. Ruthie Calvin was driving like a nut and she passed me. I was wearing the tux that was way to big from the last wedding (to Kiki and Erik!) It was in a huge auditorium. I was sitting by Sara R (Romsaas) who was practising a song.

And that's it. I'll keep the journal going. I think it's pretty entertaining, and at least some of you can be happy that I haven't forgotten about you. At least subconsciously you're still in my thoughts. One thing that I noticed was that in most cases people who wrote me lots of letters and emails really appear the most...

Much love,

bjorn

Hey everybody,

I've just returned from a wonderful five day working vacation up country. If you want to check out where I was on a map then look for McCarthy Island or Georgetown.

It was really nice to get out of the city and spend some time with friends I haven't seen for a while. I also have a better understanding about what makes a good site and such. For example my friend Brian has a great site. Lots of woods nearby with a huge bush-foul population, he's near the freshwater part of the river and he is only a short bike ride away from a town where he can get a cold beer. Best of everything right? Nope, he gets lousy food. Really lousy. Poor guy hasn't had to chew since he got there, and he probably shouldn't chew to hard or he'll break a tooth on the sand. It was great to see him again though, and I'll hopefully be back there really soon. You can be fairly sure if you send me food some of it will now make it to Brian.

After visiting Brian's mostly awesome site I went over to Alicia's for the real reason I was up country. I spent two days learning how to take care of rabbits, and since she's got rabbits coming out of her ears I'm brought to of them home so that I can now be the local "kombo expert" on rabbits. I am also the "kombo expert" on poultry farms and beekeeping, but I figure why stop there? Rabbits!

Being the "Kombo expert" on things really isn't that special. I think that it could also be written as "kombo" expert and maybe it should be written as kombo "expert" since I'm not really in Kombo and I only have been learning about bees, chickens, and now rabbits for a couple months. But oh well, I'm fairly certain that I can keep the rabbits alive until child bearing age.

After two days of rabbit learning another real reason for my visit up country came in the form of St. Paddy's day. Since our three months of staying at our own sites is over a bunch of people from the group that I swore in with decided to meet up and spend a few days eating potatoes and eggs. We also bought half of a bush pig and smoked it with limited success (pictures to follow). It was really nice to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen for a while.

Now that I'm back in town things are pretty busy. Today again I look forward to going to the current events club my predecessor started at the school in my village. It may be the most rewarding thing that Ryan and Leslie and I do, and thanks to my father for the economist subscription. We might as well call it the abstract thinking club, and I'm sure I'll devote an entire post to that soon.

Sorry this post is as disjointed as always, halfway through the power crashed and for some reason my computer turned off before the generator kicked on. Also now there is a line so editing and really doing a good job is limited, but I'll make it up to you next time.

Thanks for reading,

Love,

bjorn

Are you really bored? Great!

Take time to look through all 328 photos that I have taken since I've been in the Gambia.

All of them.

The link is on the right, as always.

It was great to see everybody for Kiki and Erik's wedding! Congratulations again to the happy couple, and I hope they don't read this blog for at least a week. I'm tempted to make a joke about dessert at this point, but I don't know how to phrase it in a way that would be appropriate, so feel free to leave a comment.

I'm safely back in the country. I got to visit the airport in Liberia plus my Gambian taxi broke down, but eventually I made it home to the compound.

Life here is good as always, and now being cold and full all the time is just a memory. It's hot here, and even though Gambians say that I will adjust they actually complain about the heat even more than I do. It's pretty fun, the only conversation that I overhear in any taxi anymore goes something like this...

"Greetings"

"Greetings"

"The sun is hot today"

"Oh yes, the sun is hot today"

"Yesterday was also hot"

"And tomorrow is going to be even hotter"

"But the sun is so hot today"

(repeat)

Still though, I wouldn't put the close on visiting. I kind of snuck in to a hotel beach pool the other day and it was paradise. Cool pool water and a book really helped aid in the transition to life back here in West Africa.

Everybody makes jokes about life in West Africa never changing, but mine does, and mostly that means I'll be spending less time at the beekeeper's association. They've got some new help in town, and they don't need me as much anymore so I'll still spend time there but not as much. I'm going to be working on new income generating projects that haven't been done before here and the Gambia and I'm pretty much game for anything on any scale. Ryan and Leslie are also thinking along the same lines so it appears that we will be spending even more time together.

So things here look really good.

Also, I really need some things that I didn't have time to get while I was home. Here is the really long list.

1. Music

2. Food

3. The things and letters you all promised to send!

Awesome. I'll be back around town more next week, and next time I'll fill the blog with fun Gambian adventures. Also as a side note I saw a Perigriene Falcon dive bomb a chicken ( I actually saw it, I didn't just hear it.) It was wild.