Well I'm not really kaput but I am finished (in three months to be exact). So my blog posts keep coming later and later. Sorry you guys who read my blog, I just have trouble mustering up the energy to write. Everything here is about the same though. I'm fine, actually just getting ready to go to my close of service (COS) conference at the Sheraton hotel!

Every Peace Corps volunteer has their COS conference about three months before they are finished with their service. Its just a time to wrap things up, fill us in on any last minute stuff and specifically to talk about resumes, finding jobs, interviewing, grad school, government jobs, etc. Basically COS conference is there to prepare us for life after Peace Corps.

So lately I've been doing some of these things on my own, working on my resume and looking at jobs. I've enjoyed my time working abroad with the Peace Corps so I figured I'd try to find somethng along those lines again. One job that really caught my eye was teaching english in S. Korea. The contracts are usually for just a year, there are a lot of benifits, free housing/airfare, good wage, etc. so I'm really considering doing this in the spring of 2010.

I wont start applying until January of February so we'll see what happens with that. My plans might change from now until then.

Well thats it, short but sweet. Thanks again for everyone who's sent me letters and packages! It's all been greatly appreciated! :)

Oh, well hello there! I haven't posted in so long I'm having trouble getting going here. Right off the bat I'd like to say that I'm fine and doing well (I know I always say that, but really it's the truth). Everything in The Gambia has been groovy, nothing to big has been going on, just keeping up my work and trying to do a little good.

Recently though I was on a three week trip to Mali. My friends, Ted, Tim and I left Basse, The Gambia on Jan. 7th and traveled all over Mali until the 27th. It was really a terrific trip all around. The first obstacle was getting there. That was accomplished by driving overland for three days to Bamako (Mali's capital and biggest city). Despite what you might be thinking, especially if you read the blog about my guinea trip, the drive to Bamako was flawless, relaxing, and really quite enjoyable.

Somehow the moon, sun, planets and everything else aligned in out favor and we were able to get car after car without any problems, long waits or break-downs. It is really unheard of to have the kind of luck we did with transport. So finally we made it to Bamako after three days and are planning to take the bus up to Mopti the next morning. Ted was originally a Mali volunteer so we all went out for drinks with some of his buddies who were in town. It was really nice meeting them but the best part was when they told us there was a Peace Corps transport going up to Mopti the next morning! This was unreal, I couldn't believe our luck. So we quickly rushed back to the bus station, refunded our tickets and got our seats secured in the Peace Corps car. Jackpot!

We reached Mopti just fine and on the following day went down to see the mud Mosque in Djenne. It was actually really cool to see because its all made out of mud and wooden palm beams. It's one of a kind , which is probably why its a world heritage site. To see pictures of the mosque and the rest of my trip just click on the link labeled pictures on the right of the page.

From there we went to a wedding in Hombori. It was actually two Mali volunteers that were getting married. Ted was invited to the wedding since he knew the bride and groom so naturally Tim and I came also! The great thing about Hombori is that there are rock formations everywhere. Just think of the American southwest and you'll get a good idea of what this part of Mali looked like. Really dry and dusty with lots of red rock, tall buttes, and big spires of rock. It was here at a place called "The Hand Of Fatimata" that we did a bunch of rock climbing. For those of you who didn't know I did a little bit of rock climbing back home in Washington so I was especially excited to get a chance to climb in Mali. To say the least, it was amazing, by far the biggest highlight of my trip.

After the wedding and the rock climbing we traveled further north to a town called Gosi. Here we went and saw elephants in the wild. Apparently they migrate north from Burkina Faso (another African country) up into Mali. This was so unexpected because before we left for Mali we had no idea we would be seeing elephants. Then after talking to the Mali volunteers we found out about the elephants and decided we couldn't pass it up. So we went! There were four males in the group that we saw. It was really nice, we walked out to the area where they were feeding. I felt like this was less intrusive than bringing a four wheel drive vehicle out which would have stressed out the animals even more because they got this weird metal thing buzzing around them.

Immediately after seeing the elephants we walked to this village and paid to ride camels. I wasn't sure if I wanted to fork over the money because I'd already ridden a camel in Egypt but in the end I caved and decided to go for it again. I'm so glad I did too because it was incredibly fun. We didn't ride them for that long but it was really neat because it was only us giving the camel commands, there wasn't anyone leading you around like they do in a lot of places. Oh and FYI, camel breath is probably the most foul, raunchiest, dreadful smell that you will ever encounter. I had the pleasure of standing in front of the camel when the owner decided to open its mouth for some reason or another. That smell is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Next stop Dogon country. Dogon is a region near Mopti that is known for its cliff side villages and in some cases cliff dwellings. There are many villages in Dogon, so we hired a guide, Samba, and hiked with him for four days inbetween some of the more picturesque villages. We also got to try some of the local foods like home made millet beer and then this food that they call Toh. Toh is interesting because it tastes disgusting but the Dogon people eat it for almost every meal. It is the staple food in Dogon and much of Mali so I suppose if that's all you know you probably think its pretty good.

After hiking in Dogon our trip was basically over. We were homeward bound, and by home I mean The Gambia. Transport back to The Gambia wasn't as good as on the way there but all in all, decent. There were a few times when we had to wait an hour or two for the car to show/fill up but other than that I don't have much for you. Tim, Ted, and I, the three T's, made it back safe and sound. Oh and by the way, we did all of this, food, transport, lodging, and souvenirs for $500. I know its great, I was surprised too!

OK all, be sure to check out the pictures after your done reading. Oh and if you want to hear more about my Mali trip, your out of luck! You'll just have to wait until I get home! Cheers.

It was right after breakfast when I started getting ready to ride to Ndungu Kebbe (the village next to mine where I teach sometimes). I had just taken my bicycle out and closed my door when my 13 year old host brother Moussa entered our compound driving the cow cart. Mind you this is a relatively big cart with two big cows tied into the yolk pulling it.

So my brother comes lumbering in with the cow cart and since its a cow cart he's going really really slow. Due to the slowness of things all the boys in the village are jumping and climbing all over the cart. Its fun, its cool, so yah, everyone was jumping around and having a great time. Except for one kid.... who falls off and gets run over by the cow cart.

Now as this is happening I'm literally standing three feet away. I watched him fall, watched his legs get pinned under the tire, watched the cows stutter for just a split second before powering over the kid and running him over from his feet to his shoulder and then watched him lay there and begin to bawl. Oh by the way his head was spared, it kicked out at the last minute so the tire missed it.

Before I continue I'd just like to clarify that I was standing three feet away but there was nothing I could do. My bicycle was between me and the cart so really the only thing I could do was watch... and what a show it was. Ok, now back to the kid. Miraculously he was fine, a little scraped up and probably bruised but there were no broken bones and no serious injuries that I could see.

It was pretty crazy, I couldn't believe I actually got to witness something like that. Just goes to show that, "fun can be fun until someone gets hurt, and then fun isn't fun anymore!"

Greetings all, yes it’s me again. I’m back in action with another amazing blog entry for you all to devour. It really has been a long time since I’ve updated my blog and for that I apologize. Hopefully though this post will make up for all the lost time and disappointment you’ve had when getting online and not finding anything new and interesting to read.

Now that I got that out of the way I can start to tell you about my incredible adventure through the wilds of Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea. It all started when my buddy Ted asked if I wanted to go on vacation to Guinea. Naturally I said “yes” and we began organizing the trip. Other volunteers were also invited to go so in the end 7 other volunteers and myself traveled down to Guinea. Our vacation was one week long; we left on October 21st and came home on the 27th.

Monday the 21st finally rolls around, the morning is hot, not a cloud in the sky. We are sitting in the Basse (the staging point for people traveling to Guinea from the Gambia) car park trying to catch a ride down to Douke, Guinea. Yes, Douke is our final destination. There is a man in Douke named Hassan Bah and he owns a small eco-lodge. It’s a very beautiful place nestled up in the Guinean highlands with great hiking, spectacular views, and waterfalls everywhere you look.

But as I was saying, we are sitting in the hot dusty car park up in Basse on the morning of the 21st trying to negotiate for a car that can take us to Douke. Finally at 9am we strike a deal. The second this happens our driver turns into the energizer bunny, he starts running around throwing our bags on the roof rack as fast as possible, herding people to their seats in the car, and just acting like we are in a race against time. We thought maybe it wasn’t really necessary to load up and leave as fast as he wanted us too but to make him happy we humored him.

The car ride down to Douke was also a little cramped. Just think of sardines in a can and then you’ll begin to understand what we had to go through. The car itself is an old Peugeot station wagon. There are the two front seats, a middle seat and a back seat. Normally 9 passangers are crammed into these tiny cars not including the driver, 3 in the back seat, 4 in the middle, and 2 in the front passenger seat!

Since our group totaled 8 people we just bought out that 9th seat hoping that the ride might be a little more comfortable due to the extra room. Personally I really don’t think that missing that one person made much of a difference to our comfort but who knows. All I can say is that it was a tight squeeze! In addition to all this, the road down there was absolutely horrible. It was dirt the whole way, the potholes were the size of small houses (ok maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but they were big!), and we were constantly fording muddy pits of water (luckily not getting stuck in them).

Of course we had heard all the stories of past volunteers who had traveled to Hassan’s before us. So we were expecting the really cramped, long and uncomfortable car ride. I was even expecting break-downs. Guess what, the car didn’t disappoint, we broke down 3 times on our way to Douke. Twice the driver and some other mechanics removed the master cylinder because the car had no brakes and twice they replaced it only to have the breaks go out again after 15 minutes of driving. Mmmm hmmm, that’s right, we didn’t have any breaks the whole time riding down there, even going through the mountain passes. Thank god for down shifting otherwise we would have been in a world of hurt. All this and changing out the back axle at four in the morning was very entertaining. I really have to hand it to our driver, that axle swap was impressive. He had probably done it a million times though because he was carrying the spare axle with him on top with the bags.

So if you aren’t already sick of riding in this car, hold on, because the ride from Basse to Douke took us 33 hours of straight driving! Yup, you heard me right, 33 hours….

Everyone was more than tired when we finally did arrive at Hassan’s lodge but we were so happy to be out of that car it didn’t matter. The next day after sleeping like logs we woke up, ate a light breakfast of tea, honey and bread, and then went hiking. Oh the hiking in the Guinean highlands is amazing, so much different that being in The Gambia where there are only a few small hills. Douke’s elevation is at around 4,000 ft. so we really were in the mountains.

We stayed with Hassan for four full days and during that time were able to complete all the hikes he had to offer. Every day we would go on two hikes, one in the morning after breakfast and the other in the afternoon after lunch. Depending on who you ask they might say these hikes were really strenuous but for me personally they didn’t pose many difficulties. Know what I mean?

As I said before the landscape in Guinea is gorgeous, there are valleys, mountains, waterfalls, and really interesting rock formations all over the place. I had a great time there and am so glad I decided to go. Car ride and all, it was worth it.

One of the hikes we went on was the “Indiana Jones.” The reason for this was quite obvious when we got to see what we were hiking through. It was really like a jungle, there were vines everywhere, huge rock chasms over 100 feet deep that we hiked through, moss covering everything, and crystal clear streams cutting their way through the limestone formations. The scenery was like nothing I’ve ever seen before; I was almost expecting ferries to come zipping out of the nooks and crannies. Enchanting is the only way to describe this place. The Indiana Jones hike was by far my favorite hike.

Besides the phenomenal hiking there wasn’t too much excitement to be had at Hassan’s. That was exactly what I wanted though. All of our down time consisted of everyone picking a hammock and reading the books they brought. I brought a Star Wars book, The Crystal Star. No I’m not a nerd and yes it was a pretty good book. To quote Yoda, “Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things.”

In a nutshell, Guinea was really fun and I’d recommend it to anyone. The car ride back was actually really fast comparatively, 27 hours, and very uneventful. We were all exhausted by the time we arrived in Basse. Sleep came quickly to each and every one of us…. We probably all had really sweet dreams too!

Well it's that time of the year again, yes, I'm talking about Ramadan. I hope no one is dropping dead from fasting. You can all be assured that I'm doing just fine, I sneak bread and Nutella during the middle of the day. My family doesn't cook during the day so I'm left to fend for myself.

It's interesting because most families will break fast in the evening and then will get up very early in the morning and have breakfast before sunrise. And just for those of you who aren't sure what Ramadan is, it's a Muslim holiday that lasts for about 30 days. You aren't allowed to eat during the day and you can only break fast after the sun sets or before it rises.

In other news, village life is going well. There's always those days where you feel crappy or lose all motivation to do any work but those are few and far between, at least for me. Lately I've been staying busy building beehives, bike trekking around The Gambia visiting volunteers, and organizing a beekeeping workshop for the villages in my area. We are going to be hosting around 40 people for this training, so I hope everything goes well.

Some of you regulars might have noticed that my posting has become less frequent as time passes by. So your probably asking yourself "why is this happening"? Well the truth is, I'm a lazy bum. Writing has never been my thing. So for now I'm going to try and do these little installments whenever it suits me. :)

It's 10:58 AM, the clock is counting down. In 13 hours I will be boarding a plane to Morocco. This might possibly be one of the best days I've had so far in Peace Corps. Well maybe not the best day but pretty damn good. I'm not going to lie, this is a much needed vacation that I've needed for a long time now. Village life plus some of the Gambian people can just wear you down to nothing. I haven't blown up at anyone yet but with any luck this trip will help me rejuvenate my will and stamina so that I can continue to deal with the frustrations and problems that bombard me every day of my Peace Corps service.

There's not a whole lot more to say now but you can be sure I'll post once I return to The Gambia...

And I'm back! Sorry for the long wait. It has been about two weeks since the original post but if your reading this for the first time then it probably appears to be seamless. In any event though I had an excellent time in Morocco and Spain. The trip didn't go off without a hitch unfortunately. There were some mishaps along the way which happened actually from the very start. Barcelona is where the problem occurred.

Alex (my buddy who traveled with me) and I didn't feel the affects of this problem until we actually arrived in Marrakech, Morocco which is were our first four nights were spent. You see the problem was our baggage. It never made it from our plane in Barcelona to our connecting flight. As you can imagine this isn't how we wanted to start our trip off but nevertheless its what ultimately happened. What ensued thereafter was us calling Spanair (the carrier who lost our luggage) on multiple occasions, making trips to the Marrakech airport, and probably worst of all, living for four days in stinky smelly clothes that we of course had to keep wearing day in and day out because that's all we had.

That first day we gave Spanair the address of our hotel and they said our baggage would be delivered in the next 24 to 48 hours. After the third day of no luggage we began to become a little anxious about the situation considering Spanair had told us they sent our bags to Morocco but didn't know to what city or even what carrier took them. Laying on our hotel bed Alex and I began to contemplate the possibility of going our whole vacation without any luggage. It would have been possible, luckily we had all our valuables, money and passports on us instead of in our bags so we were ready to go on if that's what it came too. Finally our bags showed up on the "radar" if you will. Turns out they hadn't even left Barcelona yet, it was day three and they were being sent on day four. So on our final attempt we went to the airport again and our good luck came through for us, the bags arrived!

-post unfinished-

Happy birthday America.

Hey all, did everyone have a good time on the 4th, hope so? I ended up having a great time. My boss through a party at his place and invited all the volunteers over. I got there a little early to help barbeque the chicken and pork, there is nothing like barbequing on the 4th. It was a potluck so everyone brought a dish. I have to say, the food was excellent. It definitely beats my average meal of rice with one of three sauces that I normally get.

Not a whole lot to say about the party though. Everyone seemed to be having fun. At about 9pm we all went home. Some of the volunteers are musically adept so they met up back at our Peace Corps house and started playing. We had 5 guitar players and 1 harmonica player. We all sat around while they played together, it was really nice. I've always like the sound of acoustic guitar.

I will leave you with a Gambian proverb to ponder; "Slowly slowly you catch the monkeys tail."

Well I hope some of you where able to read the post before this one. I was just updating you all on the condition of my big toe. It's infected. So I left off by telling everyone how I was taking antibiotics and that everything was going to be OK. Well as it turns my infection continued to get worse, my toe started to swell up along with the joint, adjoining toes and foot. My medicine was supposed to take a few days to kick in so this wasn't worrying me to much. There are a few nurses who are Peace Corps volunteers who were telling me it looked like a staff infection and that it was good I had an appointment with the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO).

Finally the day came when I got to go into see the PCMO. A happy day for me because my foot had been paining me so much I new somehow she would make it all better. Barbara is her name and she didn't heal me instantly but she did drain out the puss from the wound and bumped up my medication to amoxicillin. I think its doing the trick.

Moving on to a different subject, I was in a male auction. The health sector of Peace Corps put together this fundraiser to make money and one of the things they did was auction off many of the male volunteers. They went around and had restaurants donate a dinner for two to the fundraiser and then that was given to the auctionee and the person who bought them.

It was a big hit, they made a party out of the whole thing with food, drinking, a raffle and of course the auction itself. The bidders, mostly women but some men, were getting really into it. There was roughly 35 men who got auctioned off and my turn for the runway came somewhere in the middle. I got to admit I was a little nervous to go out there and strut my stuff. It was all in good fun though and once they started announcing me and talking about my profile there wasn't time to get worried so I just had a good time.

One of my good friends Mai ended up buying me for 525 Dalasi which I thought was a little spendy especially since we only receive 4,000 Dalasi a month for our living allowance. Most of the guys went for somewhere between 400 and 650 Dalasi. The next night we went out to dinner, everything was good and we lived happily ever after.

There is more to come... (people are waiting for the computer)

Some of you might know the game ultimate frisbee, it's played a lot on college campuses as well as here in The Gambia amongst the volunteers and other NGO employees. It's a really fun game so I like to get out there and play also. There's usually a lot of running involved and normally I wear shoes but last time I forgot my shoes back in village (we play in Kombo) so like many of the other players I just went in bare feet.

To no ones surprise me feet weren't really that tough and about half way through the game were covered in blisters. The blisters didn't hurt to bad so of course I kept playing, making them worse I'm sure. I figured a thorough washing with soap and water would be enough to stave off infection. This worked up until the time when my feet became infected.

It was nothing to serious at first, just a little tenderness, I figured my body could fight it off. Next thing I know my left big toe is starting to throb! Yeah, it didn't feel to good but still I was optimistic I could handle this annoying little infection. Up until this point I had never needed to go into our medical office here and I wanted to keep it that way. Since I had gone so long without help I was starting to pride myself on how healthy and strong my body was.

Nonetheless this infection on the bottom of my big toe started is hurt pretty badly. Its kind of weird though because the skin was relatively clear in the sensitive area under my toe which got me thinking that maybe my blister was deeper under the skin that I'd thought. This happened to be the case, unlucky for me because it was just festering the whole time. So I proceeded to do surgery on my foot with scissors from my Letterman and needles from my sowing kit. After much time and pain from probing and cutting I was able to get in there and puncture the blister/infected area. Quite a bit of puss came out which I thought was a great sign. I'd released the pressure, removed the puss, cleaned and bandaged the wound. To my dismay the healing process didn't begin like I though it would.

This entire ordeal was taking place in my village. Luckily I had work to do in Kombo so I traveled into town the next day after draining the wound. I'm glad I did because the infection actually got worse, go figure. Everything became sore and sensitive again and my toe started to swell up. This was the straw that broke my dreams of curing this thing on my own. That same day I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer, PCMO, and told her the situation. Now I'm taking antibiotics, eurithromyacin. The infection isn't beaten but I think the odds are with me now. I'm going into see my PCMO tomorrow also, maybe she will give me per diem or something.

So that was kind of a long story. I'd like to say that the story is finished, but I'm not going to speak to soon.

Village life; it can be filled with "sunshine" and then it can be filled with "rainclouds." I really do like my village but sometimes people can just irritate me. I have a few projects that I'm working on with my village. They always look to me when they have questions, which is fine, but I'd love it if they could take initiative and do things on their own. That's what I'm dealing with right now, it is wearing on me more I think because we'll start planting soon and that's when I'll really find out if the projects are going to be successful or not. Right now the community tells me they will be able to help plant, weed, put up fences, etc. but until the time comes I really don't know what to expect. As of now, this is the first project I've ever done with my village.

So as the title says, I'm relaxing in Kombo right now. I had to get away for two reasons, one was what I mentioned above and the second was taxes. Yes you heard me right, taxes. My host father decided not to pay the Alkali (village head) the compound tax in January and now after many attempts to get the money the Alkali is going to the police. That very day I was leaving to come into town my host brother came up to me and explained the situation and asked me if I could pay my rent early so they could pay their taxes.

I politely declined to pay early for a few reasons. The biggest one was that I pay rent to food and food alone. So if this money ended up going to taxes, who is paying for my food? Secondly, I think that after 5 months my family would of been able to save up the small amount owed to pay the Alkali. It is simple money management that they refused to do which is why I don't feel I should bail them out. I hope I'm not coming off as to cold hearted. It's just that when I see my family spending money on unnecessary things I feel no pity when they can't afford to pay off old debts.

So in the mean time I sit and relax. Cheers.

Good evening all! Sorry to keep you all waiting, I just looked at the date and it's been almost a month since I last posted. Don't blame me though, I try not to spend to much time in Kombo (the land of electricity and computers) because I already spend a lot of time away from my site and my host family.

It is time though, man, site was wearing on me for a little while there right before I came in. Once I'm away from my friends, the Internet, and good food for a long time I start counting down the days until I get to come into Kombo. I'm a happy camper now since coming into town. Our Agfo group is having our IST right now so everyone is reunited again, at least for a week and then we'll all be back at our sites. I hadn't seen one of my really good friends since training, 4 months ago. We have cell phones though so all communication isn't lost at least.

IST is good though, we are mainly focusing on beekeeping, tree grafting, planting nursery's, talking about what species are good for this and that, and lots of other details such as grant writing and acquiring funds for projects we're are doing.

So far we have gotten through the beekeeping sessions, it's been a lot of fun. We talk about the different hives used, how to harvest the honey, what tools are needed plus a lot more and then all of us are required to go out and harvest a hive with a trainer. If you are allergic to bees you don't have to go. Everyone did really well though, of course most of us got stung but you can't really expect to go beekeeping without dealing with stings and such.

Today we covered tree grafting and I got to say it's complicated. By the end I was starting to understand it better but the theory and then the actual process of grafting one variety of tree onto the other is very difficult and takes a lot of technique and skill to master. This is something I want to bring back and teach in my village. There are many advantages you get from grafting and it really doesn't cost anything except a little bit of know how and time. I don't think I will try to teach the entire village, only select individuals who show me they are motivated and really want to learn.

As far as other news goes I am in the process of planning a vacation. Morocco isn't to far away from The Gambia so with any luck I hope to go there at the end of July or early August with a couple friends. We would have to fly there, I don't have enough time to take an overland trip, although that would probably be a fun way to do it. Besides that I got nothing booked, the only thing I do know is that I want to surf in Morocco and I will be there for around 10-14 days.

My host family is doing well besides my host father who has been sick for the past few months. They keep telling me he has malaria but I want to say it's something else. He hasn't gone to the hospital and the medicine they have for him isn't labeled and I couldn't tell you what it's really for. Most Gambians think that if the medicine comes from the U.S. or Europe it is a cure all so they don't even bother to figure out what it does. They just expect to get better once they take it.

I want to thank everyone who has been sending me letters and care packages, especially Auntie Mo, Aunt Mary, Aunt Karen, and both Grandma Brooks and Grandma Ward. If I forgot anyone I'm sorry but be assured that I appreciate everything that is sent my way!

And with that, so long and farewell!

For St. Patrick's day I decided to take a little trip up country to my friends place in YBK. Quite a few volunteers from my group were posted there and since I hadn't seen them in a while I had a good excuse to go. Alicia, who lives at YBK was hosting St. Patty's day for all of us. In total there was about 15 people from our group that came and I must say it was a blast.

Since I didn't want to leave my site for to long I only went up to YBK for 3 days. For those that are unsure, that really means I traveled two days and got to sit down and have some beer for only one. It was a short trip but definitely worth the time spent getting there.

The first evening everyone was dead tired from traveling but we hung out none the less. Later that night a dead half of a bush pig (the stomach, back and both hams) was brought to us from the Hunter Alicia had hired. The pig wasn't skinned, eviscerated, or butchered and being so tired with full darkness fast approaching we decided to wait and do the grisly job in the morning.

Sunrise came early the next morning and none of us were really in the mood to butcher a pig but it had to be done so we got started. Alicia had gone to school and taken classes on butchering animals so she was kind of our expert during the whole experience. Her, Bjorn and myself were the ones who partook in the slaughter. I was a little apprehensive at first just because I'd never done anything like it before but really I had a good time taking out the entrails, the skin and then finally the meat. For some reason I felt more manly afterwards, it was great.

Before Alicia, a volunteer named Frank lived in YBK and he had built a big stove/barbecue in the back yard so once we had that thing burning nice and hot we threw both hams on. They were huge so we couldn't fit the rest of the meat on at that time. Little did we know, the rest of the pork wasn't faring so well without ice or refrigeration to sit in while it waited to be cooked. After a few hours the hams were finished and I have to say they looked absolutely delicious but they weren't really anything to special, you could even say there was something a little fishy, if you will, tasting about them. We had paid for the pig though, so whether is tasted good or not I was going to eat it, and I did. Dad taught me well, clean your plate, even if it means the possibility of getting food poisoning. Grandma Ward would be proud I think.

Meanwhile, back at the barbecue we had the rest of the meat cooking, it was in smaller pieces than the hams so they cooked much faster. All our efforts at cooking some delicious pork went to waste though, apparently since it had sat out much longer unrefrigerated it all went bad. Just imagine eating pork that has the consistency of feta cheese with a really funky taste, it was a little disturbing. Besides just a little nibble to try out the meat none of us ate any of the remaining pork.

St. Patrick's day was a success though, everyone had a really good time and I even brought some wine that I brewed and was sipping on that. The recipe wasn't to complicated, 100% grape juice, two spoons of sugar and some yeast. After 12 days of fermenting I had my Gambian Merlot. The next day came too soon and after half a day of riding in the gelegele and an hour hike back to my village I was home again.

Where does the time go? Don't ask me, I've been in The Gambia for 6 months now and it feels like I just got here yesterday.

Hello everyone, its been a while. The last time I posted was Christmas, I wish I could of gotten on here sooner but we're in our three month challenge so were supposed to stay in our village as much as possible. Village life has been good though, I'm staying busy like i always tell everyone. So far I've built a total of 8 mud stoves and have another on the way.

Oh man Christmas was so great, thanks again to those who sent packages, Grandma Ward, Auntie Mo, Grandma Brooks, Mom and Dad, and Jackie (that book is hilarious). It was a belated Christmas but very merry, I had so many boxes and and letters from everyone. Food was the most common thing sent it was also eaten very very quickly ha ha, yeah i was living high off the hog for about a week and then it all came to a screeching halt.

OK i gotta go get some food but this is a work in progress, so stay tuned.

Well its been a few weeks but I'm finally back. Sorry about the delay for those of you who check my blog every day (I know there's a lot of you.!) it must of been quiet a suspenseful wait. Village life is still good, same old thing though. I'm glad to be into town and leave all that behind for a few days.

The biggest thing/event that went down in the past two weeks was the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). It was held in Dakar, Senegal and as you might have guessed I went along and played in the tournament. It was a blast, so much fun, I'm for sure going again next year. There were a few who didn't play in the tournament, they just came along to see Dakar which is a real awesome city. I liked Dakar so much more than Banjul and the Kombo area of The Gambia. The main reason for that is, Dakar is a real city, a booming metropolis with so much to do, i recommend it to anyone traveling West Africa.

So Peace Corps the Gambia put together two teams, one in the social league and another in the competitive league. I played on the competitive team, ha ha, oh man that was an experience. Our team was athletic, we knew how to play but hadn't really practiced much or actually at all for that matter. The first time any of us played together was at our first game in the WAIST tournament. This turned out to be our biggest downfall considering we played against well practiced, well disciplined, very very competitive, non-coed teams (our team was coed). So as you can imagine, we didn't fare to well. An especially tough game was against the high school varsity team who also play club ball year around, at least that's what their coach was telling me. Yes, we lost every one of our games, four all together.

I was happy that the mercy rule didn't apply to the competitive league because all our games would of ended well before the seven inning limit if it had. After the first game we new we were outmatched but all of us still had fun and we actually had some really good plays. One was a double play that I was a part of, that guy shouldn't of been so ambitious. Instead of winning games we won "plays." Speaking of plays, I also pulled a Bill Buckner while playing first base. Not one of my high points but at least that was the extent of my errors during the four games.

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm back in the city for a brief time to celebrate Christmas with Peace Corps so I thought I'd better get a post written. Village life is fun but man it is nice to get away sometimes just to break up the monotony of it. I spent about two weeks in village without traveling anywhere, it didn't seem like that long but time is going by faster than I expected.My day consists of me waking up at 7am every morning. I get up wash my face, open my door and go greet the family. They are usually up before me, especially the women who are normally pounding coos in the big wooden mortar and pestle. After that I will go into my backyard and check out my garden, see how my plants and everything is doing, make sure everything is how I left it and all that good stuff. I have tomatoes, carrots, banana, papaya, pigeon pea, cucumber, onion, egg plant and cabbage growing. Currently my cabbage and tomatoes are getting eaten by birds and other insects, I've take the necessary measures and I think They should be safe for now. I'll find out once I return to site tomorrow. But anyways then I water and work in the garden doing whatever work needs to be done.Mid morning I'll take a little break to read and eat breakfast, this is around 9:30am. I get quite a bit of reading done in village, I always feel guilty because I don't study language a whole lot any more but I will be getting a tutor after x-mas so that will help a lot. At around 11am I go to the well and pump water. There is usually a line so it takes a while for me the get all the water I need. I water my garden in the morning and at night so I go through quite a bit of water.During the afternoon I eat lunch, read, and drink attaya. Maybe I'll walk around the village and visit the different compounds. I still don't really know anyways name except a few people so that's something I'm trying to work on. Then when evening rolls around I'll water again, take a bucket bath and eat dinner. More reading, hanging out with my family and drinking attaya is done.I've been visiting other volunteers, going to my fathers orchard and visiting the women's garden also, just not every day. That pretty much covers it.Peace be with, have a Merry X-mas and Happy New Year.

Some of you have asked me about the weather, food and just day to day life here so this post will concentrate mostly on that. As for weather, it is very nice here now, it still gets into the 80's during the middle of the day but usually I'm inside or under a shade tree by that time so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. Speaking of which, during the middle of the day almost all farmers and family's will come in from working the fields to eat lunch and drink attaya (the local tea).

Attaya is a big part of Gambian culture. Almost all men drink attaya at least once a day, if not 2 or 3 times, and women and children drink it too but not as much. Attaya is boiled in small tea pots over charcoal stoves, lots of sugar is put into attaya and it usually takes about half an hour to prepare one serving. The tea grounds are then used two more times to brew the attaya which makes having attaya about a two hour ordeal. This drink is high in caffeine so this is another reason farmers like it so much. I can attest, attaya is a real pick me up when you are feeling a little tired or sluggish.

The food here can be very good and also very bad. Some of the main dishes we eat are white and red benechin, maffe, mbahaal, cuwa gerte, cere, and lak. These all have either rice, fish, peanuts, coos, and or other miscellaneous things in them. At first there were some things I wasn't a big fan of like the cere (coos) but now I really do like all the foods that are prepared here. It helps that my host mother and sisters are excellent cooks, they really have cooked the best food I've eaten here in The Gambia.

Day to day life should consist of me waking up at 7am washing my face, going outside and greeting my family, going to pump water at the well and then helping my host brothers water my banana and papaya trees in my backyard. Since I'll be planting a garden I want to spend the mornings working in my backyard doing whatever needs to be done. By this time is should be about 9:30-10:00am and we will have breakfast. After this the rest of the day will consist of my walking around talking to people, drinking attaya, studying Wolof, reading, sleeping, eating lunch and doing little things here and there. My teacher is loaning me a bee hive so I'll be spending some time with that getting it ready and trying to colonize it. It's almost harvest season so I need to get it colonized as soon as possible. I have a bee suit also so don't worry, I wont get stung to much.

I'm tired so I'm ending it here, if your good I will add more later!

So this time I thought I'd tell a funny story that happened to one of my friends, I wont name names. Anyways it was just a regular night for all of us trainees, most of us were pretty tired from working and studying all day so we went to bed early. Matt, Rob (not his real name), and myself were sharing a room on this fateful night and all got to bed at a decent hour. I should mention though, that Rob was experiencing Mr. D, diarrhea for the lay person, but I didn't really know how bad he was having it.

The next thing I know it's three in the morning and all I hear is Rob telling Matt that he had pooped his pants while he was sleeping. For some reason this didn't rouse me to much considering that Rob isn't the first person to have had this problem (we all get really desensitized to this sort of thing very quickly). Rob was sleeping right next to me, on a different cot of course, so I decided to wake up fully, and find out how everything went very wrong.

Apparently Rob had not changed out of his dress pants that he wore to the 40Th anniversary party of the Peace Corps The Gambia that afternoon so inevitably when he woke up and had to go his pants got the worst of it. He had washed those and had them in his bag or something, not really sure what happened to those pants. Matt and I were laughing pretty hard by this point, Rob took the whole thing really well, we actually got him laughing about it after a while. He just flipped the mattress over and went back to sleep, not for long though, Mr. D called again, and again, and... again.

Eventually Matt and I just stayed up and Matt read Clockwork Orange to us. This book, which was very weird, the fact that we were all dead tired, and the whole thing with Rob made for a very funny morning. I'd have to say it was one of the funniest things that has happened here so far. I mostly believe this because it wasn't me who had to experience the worst of it on this particular night.

Rob is now fine and doing well. His pride and bowels were wounded but he has since made a full recovery. We still joke about it and its also still very funny. Hope you all enjoyed this edition of "Story Time," I know I did!

Hello, hello, glad to be back on the computer. Well this last week has been really fun, all of us trainees went to visit our sites and I must say, my site is off the chain. My host family is great, very big family though, my father has 10+ children. Many of them have moved out but he still has 6 living at home. Oh, and I probably have one of the best cooks in The Gambia, my host mother/sisters can cook like no body's business. Everything I've eaten has been amazing. Even Xadi (my language teacher) a native to The Gambia testified that it was some of the best domodah (a local rice dish with peanut sauce) she has ever eaten.

My house at site is a little small, even smaller than my house at Sare Samba (where I lived for training). It will work though, I've measured it out and I should have enough room for a bed, desk, chair, book shelf, and a trunk. The dimensions of the house are 12x12ft. Still, there is no running water, electricity or indoor plumbing. I have a thatched roof which I am gladly accepting, the tin roofed houses get very, very hot. The well is really close to my house so getting water isn't a problem. The water table is really high in my area so once I start pumping I get water, unlike at Sare Samba where they have a 200 ft. deep well, you can pump for 5 minutes without getting a single drop of water.

I have a lot of plans for my village but first I'll just talk about what I've done so far. My backyard is great, I wasn't expecting much but it turns out I have 5 papaya trees, 5 banana trees, some peppers and some other trees growing here and there. The boys in my compound water them every morning and I do the watering at night. The backyard had a big rut running through it caused by the rains during the rainy season, so I did some landscaping and fixed that and created some sunken beds for the plants and fruit trees back there. There was a bunch of poly pots that weren't being used as well, roughly 200, that were filled with good soil so I emptied those out and am saving the dirt for when dig my garden beds.

I have a lot of room for a garden so I plan on planting tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, pigeon pea, grapes (if I can find them), herbs and a bunch of other stuff. Eventually I'd like to extend the garden further back and plant a live fence and fruit trees. Time will tell, we will see how it goes with my first garden.

My host farther is a really hard worker and already has a Cashew orchard and I am proposing bee keeping to him which he really would like to do. His orchard is in a really good location next to a stream so I want to eventually have intensive bee keeping at his orchard and on his other lands. Hopefully other villagers will want this as well. Selling honey is very profitable so this will ring a bell for a lot of people. Another lady I talked to was interested in poultry raising. It happens that there is a lot of programs for that sort of thing in The Gambia so I definitely want to help her in acquiring funds and getting her business off the ground. She has raised poultry before and made a profit. With that money she had to build a house instead of buying more chickens, which is why she couldn't continue raising them. The North Bank region is very deforested so I want to start a wood lot of some kind. This would serve multiple purposes such as a wind block, firewood, timber, and bee fodder. They have a broken pump that I want to help fix. I might have to write a small grant to get money for parts and all that but I think it should be relatively easy to do. PC has a lot of resources and acquiring funds, especially for small projects, doesn't sound like a big ordeal. Guess I'll find all this out in a few months.

Well I think that covers most everything for now. I can't wait to get working, there is just so much to do. I won't be posting for a few months so I hope you all enjoyed the blog so far. There will be a lot to write once I get back from site, so stay tuned. All in all things are good, take care everyone.

Hey everyone, glad you made it to my blog. Sorry for the wait, it took my a while to get this thing goin. Just to put you all at ease I'm going great. Today was especially fun because we celebrating the Peace Corps 40Th anniversary of being here in The Gambia. We went to this really fancy hotel, listened to speeches for a few hours and then had a somewhat nice reception at the end. The best part of the day though was when we finally made it to the beach.

The Gambia has really nice beaches and there happens to be one very close to headquarters in Kombo which is where we're staying right now. The sun was out and the waves were big. I've never really been big into body surfing but I find it to be tremendously fun. Although is did get thrown around and hit my head and shoulder on the sea floor while trying to surf one very big wave. The beach is fun though, its just really nice to go and forget about language and all the other things on your mind.

I go to my site tomorrow, its just NE of Banjul on the North Bank. I don't know to much about my site since no one has been serving there recently. There were two volunteers that both early terminated or (ET'd) as we call it. They spent a combined time of 4 months at my site so there really has been any projects or programs started. Basically I have a clean slate and have free reign to do whatever projects or programs I feel the village needs. I guess the village is also close the the Senegal border but everyone in this country is close to the Senegalese border.

Well sorry to make this a short one but there are people waiting for the computer now. Hope you all are doing well, I will update the blog soon! Until then...