Oh! I forgot to add one thing. So you know how I was all worried about missing the drumming? Well I was convinced to have the drummers come on my last night in village (Tuesday). In Gambia, a new mom is not allowed out of the house for the first week after she gives birth. The belief behind it is that if the mother goes out of the house spirits can attach to her and harm the baby. Kumba gave birth on Sunday. So, the plan was to have the drumming in her compound because she could at least watch from the house.

BUT! On Tuesday, new came that someone related to several families in my village had died. And we're not allowed to do drumming on the day of a death, out of respect for the family. So we had to move location to the school down the street, which wasn't a problem, except that it meant Kumba could no longer take part. Everyone, Kumba included, had spent the day getting ready, putting on make-up, doing her hair, etc. (you can even see how dolled up they are in the pictures). I found out about the death in the evening and when I got to their compound and we got ready to go to the school, Kumba just broke down sobbing. I immediately remembered times growing up when I was so excited for some party or event and then I was told I couldn't go. It's such an awful feeling. All day she was looking forward to it. But the one-week rule was really serious, abided by throughout the country by women of all ages.

I was fairly convinced I had no shot at getting her mom to let her go, but I decided to try anyway. I begged and pleaded. I told her mom that I love Kumba and would never allow her to do anything that might harm her or the baby. That she would just stand in the background and not dance, no one would recgonize her (because if they did, it would reflect really badly on her mom). But she wasn't buyin it. Finally I resorted to trickery, promising that since I was white, I could protect Kumba from the spirits. And when that didn't work, I just sat down and said if she doesn't go, I don't go. I think that in my head, I knew Kumba's mom was going to say no and at some point I was going to get up and have to go to the drumming without Kumba. But it worked!!! They let her go! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! I was able to convince them to break a super serious cultural tradition. I couldn't have been more proud of myself as Kumba and I walked hand in hand to the schol.

Baby Mahana!

Kumba and baby Mahana at the hospital Right after bringing the baby home. (There are three sisters: Kumba, Fanta and Hamina, the boy checking out the baby is Hamina's son Asi)

Me, Kumba and the baby later that night (see the sweatshirt? it's actually getting cold here)

The family and me. From left to right: Hamina (the other sister and mother of Asi), Baby Mahana, Me, Sarjo (their mom), Fanta and Kumba Mahana (me) and Mahana (baby)

The sisters and me. Aren't they so beautiful?? From left to right: Kumba, Hamina, Me (like it was hard to pick me out), Fanta

My two namesakes! Fanta (not related to Kumba's sister Fanta) and her baby Mahana, next to Kumba and her newborn baby Mahana

My other namesake, baby Mahana (she was actually the first Mahana of the three)

I watched a live birth and now feel like a parent.

You may remember my friend Fanta’s sister, Kumba. I spoke about her in one of my previous blogs, the 15-year-old girl that had been married off and was fighting tooth and nail to get out of it. Yeah, she got pregnant. At first it was really upsetting for me to see her pregnant. But then she moved from her husband's village back to my village, and the more I saw her and the longer I was here in Gambia, the more I got used to the idea that having kids or being pregnant does not equal maturity or adultness. It's just something that happens.

On Saturday, I had to go to the bank in a town a few hours away. On the way to the road, I stopped at Kumba and Fanta’s compound to greet and see about the drumming program that night (Fanta and her friends all chipped in to hire drummers to come so everyone could dance. The drummers came Friday night and were coming again that night). Their mom stopped me and told me Kumba’s stomach hurt. I didn’t hear her at first, and thought she said Mba’s stomach hurts (which is a male name here). So I said, What’s wrong, diarrhea? Because 9 times out of 10 that’s what it is. But she explained again and then I realized she was saying Kumba and meant the baby. So I freaked out and ran over.

Kumba was laying on her bed with the TBA (Traditional Birth Attendant, the woman in my village that delivers all the babies). The TBA informed me that Kumba’s water broke (I had no idea she was even at 9 months yet. She made it seem like it was only 7, but people here never know how long they’ve been pregnant. No ultrasounds or anything). My first thought was to get her to the hospital, but it was clear that was not a priority for anyone there. So I did my best to convey in Mandinka how the first births are always the most dangerous (which I’m sure the TBA knows herself) and that Kumba needed to get to the hospital now before she would become unable to be transported. The TBA was definitely offended that I was implying that she couldn’t cut it. But I didn’t care. I called someone in the next town to go to the car garage and send a cab here. I couldn’t wait for the taxi to come as the car to the bank town had stopped to pick me up, so I gave her mom money for the cab and told them I’d meet them at the hospital when I returned.

On the way to the bank, I was feeling really guilty because during the drumming the night before, I had forced Kumba to get up and dance with me. Honestly, I had no idea she was 9 months pregnant. I kept thinking over and over again, what if I caused her to go into early labor? What if the baby dies because of me? But then, I thought about how I would watch our 9-month pregnant cook in my training village chopping wood with a super heavy ax. AND THEN, I remembered seeing Kumba all last week pounding with a huge, heavy pestle (or mortar? I can never remember which is which) and realized that there’s no way the dancing was harmful. And I felt much better.

I got back around 4pm, fully intending to go straight to the hospital, thinking that the drumming had been cancelled. But Fanta (my friend/Kumba’s sister), who had just visited Kumba at the hospital, said she was going to attend the drumming program (which would start after 10pm) and then return to the hospital after, around midnight, because it didn’t look like Kumba was going to deliver anytime soon. Fanta’s plan sounded perfect, but what if she was wrong, and Kumba suddenly delievered?

While I definitely wanted to be there to support Kumba (if Fanta had not assured me that their mother’s co-wife would be with Kumba until discharge, I would have skipped the drumming for sure), the biggest reason for wanting to go was purely selfish: I thought it would be really cool to see and maybe my only chance to do so. I ultimately decided that seeing the birth was more important that going to the drumming. Even though I really, really wanted to go to the program (it would be my last drumming session ever), I DID NOT want to miss the birth. And I have seen many drumming sessions, but would probably never have the chance to see a birth ever again.

I was considering just skipping the program and going to the hospital then, but I didn’t want to show up at the hospital at 5pm only to have Kumba not give birth until 9am the next morning and have missed the drumming for nothing. So I called one of the guards I know at the hospital to get the number of one of the maternity ward nurses so I could check in and see how far along Kumba was. He wasn’t working, but gave me the number of another guard who was. I called him, and he went to the ward and gave the cell phone to one of the nurses so I could talk to her. She told me that Kumba was probably not going to deliver anytime soon because she was refusing to walk around.

Still, I was not completely convinced that I could get away with going to the drumming and still see the birth. So I got her number and decided that I would keep calling and checking in and if at any point she told me Kumba was about to deliver, I would drop whatever I was doing and go. Luckily, Kumba’s mom came home from the hospital right then and said Kumba will deliver before morning, but not before the drumming. She’s had maybe 6 kids, so her saying that was like my ticket to go to the drumming without worrying about missing the birth.

After the drumming, Fanta (my friend/Kumba’s sister), Fern (my friend in PC that lives nearby) and I walked the 2 miles to the hospital, arriving around 1am. Luckily, their mom was right, Kumba had not given birth yet; her contractions were several minutes apart. The nurse was asleep when we arrived: very comforting. And the mom’s co-wife was nowhere to be found. When I reached Kumba she was asking me to help her because the contractions really hurt. I was stunned when the nurse told me they don’t give the patients any medicine until after the birth. I asked the nurse how often they check in on her and he said every 3 hours. I checked her chart and the last check-up was 3 hours earlier, so I was like, Yo guy, I think it’s time to check. So he grudgingly did. These night shift nurses are so lazy, you have no idea.

After he checked her, Fern and I went back to Kumba. I held her hand, rubbed her back, just tried to comfort her however I could, but I could never tell if she wanted me to be there or not. Meanwhile Fanta and mom’s co-wife are just sitting on the far side of the room. Fanta, who is around 7 years older than Kumba, has been pregnant twice and lost both babies. She looked really red-eyed and possibly teary. I figured she must be feeling a lot of concern for her younger sister and also sadness over her previous birth experiences. So, I understood her wanting to sit away for a bit. Mom’s co-wife, Lindo, however, really should have been with Kumba.

After awhile of Fern and I being next to Kumba without either Lindo or Fanta coming over, and feeling more and more unsure if I was breaking some protocol and if Kumba even wanted us around, I decided to ask Fanta what the hell was going on. Fanta informed me that “It’s not good to be over there before she gives birth.” She wouldn’t explain why, so I just figured it was some cultural thing—no matter how long I stay here there are so many practices I’ll never understand—but, if you ask me, it sounds like the most counter-intuitive thing in the world. Kumba is only 16 and this is her first baby. While 16 is by no means outrageously young to be giving birth here, it is considered pretty young, nonetheless. I asked Fanta if it made her upset that Fern and I were there and she said, No, but I’m not going. So I returned to Kumba, where I stayed until the end of the birth. And I left Fanta sitting, where she stayed until the end of the birth.

When we first arrived, during Kumba’s first contraction, I immediately felt like coming to the hospital had been a big mistake. Earlier, I had been determined to stay for the entire birth and spend the night until she had been discharged, but seeing her wince and whine and then watching the nurses (a second one came, in plain clothes) examine her vagina, I didn’t know if I could take it. I also couldn’t tell if Kumba was embarrassed that we were watching the nurses’ examination or if she just didn’t want us there or what. So at first, it was pretty awkward and scary. But once her contractions sped up and the nurses were ordering her to push, Fern and I began to have more of a defined job. When the contractions would come, we would help her keep her legs bent while she pushed.

At one point she called the nurse over and said she had to use the toilet. I started helping her off the bed but then he said she couldn’t go anywhere and to wait for him to bring a bed pan over. At that, Kumba said she was ok. I asked her, are you really ok or do you just not want to go in the bed pan? And she said she didn’t want to go in the bed pan. And I said, what if I send everyone else away? But she said no. After a few more contractions and pushing, it became clear that Kumba had had a bowel movement. In other words, it smelled like shit. I asked Fern if she smelled it and she agreed (Kumba doesn’t speak any English, so we could talk without her knowing what we were saying). Kumba seemed coherent enough that she would get embarrassed if I tried to clean it up and I wasn’t sure if she had noticed yet, so I left it alone. But then it became clear she had realized what happened and was trying to fix it. So Fern got out some toilet paper and I cleaned up the bed and her. With every push, more came out, so I was literally wiping her ass. Although it was pretty gross, I was surprisingly not that bothered by the task. I think I was just happy to be needed and helpful.

Then the contractions got much faster and bigger and Kumba would sort of thrash around and scream and shake. And then she started saying, Mahana, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. (Mahana is my Gambian name.) And I kept saying, No you’re not, I promise. You’re not going to die, I won’t let you die. But I could tell she was really scared. She was crying and yelling for Lindo, her mom’s co-wife, to come. So Lindo came and checked in momentarily and then went back. Kumba grabbed her shirt to stop her from walking away and was crying out, Mom! Mom! But Lindo just shook Kumba’s hand off and went back to her spot.

Eventually the nurses decided it was time for them to actually do something. So they came over and gloved up and got ready to deliver. And then, get this, the power went out. It’s not like it just randomly shorted. There is only power from 7pm-2am and 9am-3pm. It was after 2am and the power shut off and it was dark. They got some flash lights and came back. Fern was holding one flashlight and they set up another one on the end of the table. It was seriously like being in a movie about Africa. I couldn’t believe it.

At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to watch the actual delivery, like watch the baby come out of her vagina, but then I realized I could do it, and not only grudgingly, I actually was much less grossed out than I thought I’d be. After a lot of pushing, I could finally see just the top of the baby’s head and the hair. And I yelled to Kumba, I can see its head. It’s coming, PUSH! And so she pushed and pushed and I was holding her hand and yelling and she was sort of screaming and the baby’s head was coming out and then she gave a big push and its head came out. It was sideways, eyes shut. It looked dead and I was terrified that it was. Immediately after the head came, the rest of the baby’s body just slipped out, umbilical cord and all.

I was really surprised that the rest of the body came out so quickly. I was still terrified that it was dead, but a couple seconds after that, it started to move and a wave of relief and amazement washed over me. I couldn’t believe that just seconds ago, there had only been 5 of us, and now there were 6. It was the craziest, most amazing thing in the world. I looked up at Kumba and said, The baby’s here! And she said, What? She didn’t even realize the baby had come out. So I said, Look! And see looked, saw the baby, smiled faintly with relief and lay back down.

They cut the umbilical cord and carried the baby over to a little basket-like thing. Normally they put the babies on this table which has a ton of lights to keep it warm, but seeing as though there was no electricity, they couldn’t do that. I totally forgot to ask about the sex, so I did and they told me it was a girl. I went back to Kumba and told her it was a girl, and she looked at me and said, I’m going to name her Mahana. I started tearing up, but managed to keep it together.

Then the nurses came back and started to take out the after birth and all that shit. It was disgusting. At one point I made a face like I was going to vomit while watching (not on purpose, of course), and then I looked up and Kumba was watching me and just laughed nervously. I felt bad, she was clearly embarrassed by all of us looking at her vagina and my being grossed out didn’t help.

I can’t remember if there was a lot of bleeding right after the birth or not until the after birth, but at some point, she started losing a lot of blood. It was spilling onto the bed and then onto the floor. Some of it was making it into the basin under the bed, but a lot was not. It was really gross, like a horror movie. And more than that, it was really troubling. I don’t know much, well, anything, about births, but it seemed like she was losing wayyyy too much blood. I started freaking out. It didn’t help that there was a big poster in the room about a study done on the causes of mother morbidity (not sure if that’s the right word, aka mothers that die giving birth) and the main cause had to do with blood. Either that there was no blood available for a transfusion or the loss of blood wasn’t diagnosed early enough, etc.; obviously I had read that poster several times throughout the night so I was really scared. But the nurses assured me it was ok, that there were just some small tears. He found them and sutured them up.

At this point, it was after 3am and we were all exhausted. I should add that as soon as the baby was born, Fanta and Lindo came over and Fanta cried. I should also add that I later asked Kumba about them not coming over during the delivery and she said it was because if they stood there they would cry and crying is not good. (Don’t think they are really cold for not being there for Kumba when she was delivering. Gambians are really weird about crying, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t want to be there for her and support her.) So all of us found some empty beds and went to sleep for a couple hours. When I woke up around 6am, I went back to Kumba and found her sleeping, with fresh blood on the floor and on her bed—confirming my worst fears that she was going to die (clearly I have no concept of the fact that women bleed a lot after birth).

I freaked out and immediately went to get the nurse who, surprise surprise, had not checked on her. So he came back, checked out the situation, rolled up a ball of gauze and shoved it inside her (they were fairly rough throughout the entire experience). He said he would monitor how much blood was being loss by how bloody the gauze was. She cried a lot and kept begging him to stop. I was like, Uh, don’t you think you should probably figure out why she’s bleeding. But he didn’t seem too concerned. Then I said, Don’t you think she should breastfeed now? Maybe that will help stop the bleeding (for those of you that don’t know, breastfeeding somehow alerts the mother’s body to stop bleeding). He said sure.

So I brought over baby Mahana, as I like to call her. Kumba said she wasn’t going to know how to breastfeed and I said, yes she will. Just try. (Lindo and Fanta were still sleeping at this point.) Without even a second of hesitation, Kumba brought the baby up to her breast and expertly used her hand to manually extract some milk onto the baby’s lips (something I’ve always heard was not naturally easy for women to do and in fact took some time to learn). Once it sensed the milk, with its eyes shut, the baby began to open and close its little mouth. It was the most amazing thing in the world. I cannot even explain it. The way in which Kumba, this little 16 year old girl, just knew what to do and the baby just automatically knew to start sucking. It was so beautiful. I was very impressed by the whole thing. Then the two of them fell asleep together on the bed. And I took a picture. But her breasts are showing, which ain’t no thang to me, but is slightly pornographic to people living outside the continent of Africa, so probably I will not post it here. But believe me, it’s a beautiful picture.

Kumba was discharged around 10am. Her bleeding tapered off significantly and completed stopped the next day. (Despite cleaning staff coming at 7am, I don’t think the blood was actually cleaned up until around 9am. It was just sitting there on the floor under the bed.) I spent the rest of the afternoon with another baby Mahana, she's about 5 months old (I now have three namesakes, or tomas as they’re called here--babies that are named Mahana after me), and the whole time I felt a physical ache being apart from Kumba and her baby. I felt like it was my baby too, almost like I was the father or something. I know that sounds weird. I can’t really explain it, but they were all I could think about. All I wanted to do was be close to them. The experience definitely bonded the two, well, three, of us in a way I can’t begin to describe. It was just unbelievable and I feel really lucky I was able to experience it and that they are both healthy.

Ok, that’s all (hahah, a 6-page blog post). I left my village for the last time today. It was pretty rough, Kumba sobbed last night and this morning. Maybe I will write about that later this week. But for those of you that are wondering, I will be home by December 20th.

Non-pornographic pictures coming soon.

That's right. The impossible has happened. My 9-year-old sister, Kadyjatu, has started first grade. (I know that starting school at 9 seems really old by American standards, but it's not very old here. Most first graders are 7.) For my ENTIRE service here, I have been trying to get my mom to agree to send KJ to school, but she has refused every single time.

I just wrote an article about it for the PC newsletter, which my friend Kasey and I edit. In the article, I talk about Behavioral Change Communication (BCC). It was a technique we were taught during our 10 weeks of training when we first arrived. It basically says that so many of the unhealthy habits here are deeply ingrained behaviors that have existed for many generations and are ridiculously hard to break. Some behaviors include child and domestic abuse, giving the most nutritious food to the old men, FGC ((Female Genital Cutting) something I have discussed here informally on several occasions, but make no large-scale effort to change. You have to pick and choose your battles here, and I do not choose that.), or in my case, shunning Western education.

The central argument behind BCC is that it takes a lot of time to change these behaviors because they are so ingrained. It's basically the broken record theory: If you tell people to wash with soap and sleep under a mosquito net enough times, they might actually do it. But the thing to remember is that if one approach doesn't work, try another, and on and on, until you find the one that does work.

So with that information under your belts, read away:

Believe it or not, Behavioral Change Communication actually works.

When I first learned about Behavioral Change Communication (known as BCC to its close friends), I thought to myself, “Wow. This is so great. This is why I joined the Peace Corps and not an NGO. NGOs can’t affect real, sustainable changes like this, it requires someone who really knows the culture and the people. And they don’t.”

A year later, this is what I thought about BCC: “It’s a crock of shit. Gambians will never change.”

To those of you who have put all the memories of Pre-Service Training far out of your mind, BCC is the idea that it is possible to change ingrained unhealthy behaviors, like not using soap, not using a mosquito net, etc., but it requires a lot of time. And a lot of repetition.

During our BCC training on Janjangbureh, Ellie and our then Training Manager, Gisele, used a skit to show us an example of BCC. In the skit, Gisele was a smoker and Ellie was a PCV trying to get her to quit smoking.

They had a series of three or four conversations. Ellie gave basically the same information in each conversation, but presented it in different ways. By the second conversation, Gisele became more open to hearing about the health risks of smoking and by the last one, she was ready to try quitting.

Now in the real world, we know it takes wayyyy more than 4 conversations to convince anyone, let alone a Gambian, to quit smoking. But you get the idea, right? You consistently talk to people about changing their unhealthy behavior until you eventually break them down and they actually begin to do it.

I’ve given up on trying to get Gambians to use soap, because, to be honest, I probably use soap as often, if not less, than they do. I’ve also stopped scolding my family when they give attaya (super strong tea with TONS of sugar) to my 18 month old sister because it's obvious that no matter what I say, they're going to keep doing. It seems to me that those who exhibit positive behavior (ie. Always using soap) will continue doing so, and those that don’t, will continue not doing so. I just accepted that and gave up trying.

Like my family's reluctance to use soap, my sister Kadyjatu’s non-existant education is sort of a dead issue to me. I’ve talked to my mom about it more times than I can count. She says no every time. Kadyjatu’s dead father (may he rest in peace with Allah, but not so peacefully since he is the reason that my other sister Mamatida never went to school and is now married at 15) was against Western education and my mom refuses to go against his dead spirit.

So when I found out that one of my neighbors was going to start first grade, I thought, “Ooh! Maybe if KJ has someone to walk to school with, my mom will let her go.” But I wasn’t getting my hopes up. I asked my brother Yankuba what he thought. “She will refuse,” he answered. My brother Kemeseng (the head of my compound) added, “Yes, she will say no.”

I ALMOST gave up right then and there, convinced that it was a lost cause. But, instead, I started arguing with them about how important education is. I made a lot of points in favor of it. Eventually, the conversation shifted to my brother talking about money and Spain (surprise, surprise) and how all our problems would be solved if he could get to Spain, but he just doesn’t have money, yada yada yada.

I explained that if these boys trying to get to Spain (they’re almost entirely uneducated) had just enrolled in school, instead of spending all this time trying to go to Spain, they’d be done with grade 12 by now, probably working, and would have spent a lot less money on their school fees than they will getting to Spain.

I’m not sure if that was what made the difference or if it was something I said earlier, but soon after, my oldest brother Kemeseng, who had been listening to our conversation the whole time, asked, “If she goes to school, you will pay up to grade 12?” And I said yes. And he said, “Ok, we will talk to my mom tonight.” It was the most positive reaction I had ever seen in my entire service, but again, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I knew we still had to convince my mom, and that, I thought, would be much harder.

I brought up the issue with my mom that night. In past education ‘discussions,’ Kemeseng had functioned solely as my translator. He never interjected with his own opinions, or argued in favor of education.

This time, however, after I said my usual schpiel, Kemeseng went on for 10 to 15 minutes about how important school is and how everyone is just sitting here doing nothing. All the while my other brother, Yankuba, was also standing there, agreeing with him. And that was all it took.

My mom barely argued. She made a couple feeble attempts to say no after he finished talking, but it was clear the decision had been made. My brother took a stand as the head of the compound and my mom was unable to refuse. I couldn’t believe it.

I suddenly realized that the whole time I had been trying to convince my mom, I should have been trying to convince my brother. He was the key, the turning point of the issue. (In my defense, he’s usually a pansy and mama’s boy, so there was no reason to think that my mom would ever listen to him, nor, more importantly, that he would ever argue with my mom.)

I never dared to hope that I would see Kadyjatu in school before I COS’d. But, lo and behold, the next day I registered her in school. And the day after that, Liz and I walked her to her first day. And now she practices English with my brother every afternoon.

Getting Kadyjatu enrolled in school is by far my greatest accomplishment here, even though I have no idea what exactly I said that made the difference. It just goes to show that persistence pays off. No issue is closed if you can find the turning point.

And if monkeys can compose Shakespeare given an infinite amount of time, there’s hope that given 27 months, we can find that turning point and maybe even change some behaviors.

I’m being dramatic, I know I am. But that doesn’t make me feel less helpless and frustrated. Mamatida, my 15 year old sister leaves for Kombo (the capital, 8 hours away) tomorrow with her husband Amadou, and is not coming back. She no longer lives in my compound anymore—instead of seeing her everyday, I will now see her one day a month, if that. And Kumba (the girl I wrote about before who was married off and hates her husband) is pregnant. Kumba, who is just a child, an immature, headstrong girl, who was married off at 15 is now “having big stomach.”

What is wrong with this place? How can Amadou look at Mamatida and feel anything but shame? How does he convince himself that she likes him when he knows she wouldn’t have chosen him as her husband. She was essentially sold to him by her uncaring mother. I asked her if she wants to go tomorrow. Her response: “He says to go, my mom says to go, my dad says to go. So…” AHHHH! Her obedience kills me. And I know I should be used to the cultural differences by now, but this is something I can never get used to. Amadou told her they will wait three years to have a child, or at least that’s what she told me he said in response to her telling him she’s just a girl and not ready for a baby. Three years, my ass—to him that probably means they’ll start having sex and Allah will decide if she’s still a child or ready to have one. And looking at Kumba, I think I know which one is more likely.

At least she’s on birth control—I got her the Depo injection, but that only lasts 3 months. Then what? It physically hurts me to imagine her pregnant. I can get a glimpse of it for a second and then it’s like my mind changes the channel. And I know I’m bring dramatic, but it feels like shit. I could have stayed until tomorrow morning to see her off (I came to Basse today for a meeting tomorrow), but I didn’t want to deal with crying and all that. Actually, truth be told, I think I didn’t stay because I was scared that there wouldn’t be any emotions, that she wouldn’t cry. And that would force me to stop imagining her hating this situation. Which, I couldn’t handle, because to think of her wanting to be married at 15 to this guy in his 30s not only makes me angrier at the system, but it also makes me feel judgmental and knocks me off my moral pedestal.

Ok, enough. There’s really nothing else I can say about it. It’s a shitty, shitty situation, but it’s life here. I just can’t believe I’m not going to see her face everyday. Ah, ok, I’m moving on. So, it’s insane how strong the women are here. Three hours ago found me shin deep in mud, surrounded by grass up to my waist, sunburned and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. I arrived in Dobong Kunda today (my garden village) to set up a meeting with the village chief about putting a PC volunteer in the village next year. But I found a fairly empty compound. Aside from Sarjo, who was cooking lunch, all the women had left for the rice field (it’s the rainy season now, so all the women are in the rice fields everyday, weeding, planting, outplanting, etc.).

Despite everyone being gone, I was completely taken care of, as is always the case when I go there. Upon arrival, Sarjo immediately brought me a chair and cup of water. An hour or so later, she summoned me for lunch. I had been smelling the peanut sauce and was really excited for rice for the first time in awhile (I always prefer coos, aka millet). But then Sarjo yelled to me, “Futoo” or coos, as I walked over, knowing it’s my all-time favorite and I would be really happy. But actually I was slightly disappointed to not get the rice and peanut sauce. She brought me inside and set up a stool in front of my chair with two bowls (one with coos, one with sauce), a spoon for the sauce, a fan and a cup of water. Amazing. Despite my craving for rice, the coos was delicious. I definitely ate a few more handfuls than I needed to, and as soon as I finished, Sarjo came in with another bowl, this one with rice and peanut sauce. I couldn’t have been happier. “Eat until you are very full,” she told me. And I did.

She was headed to the rice field to bring the women lunch (two HUGE bowls—one coos, one sauce—which she carried on her head) and work there for the rest of the afternoon. After all my royal treatment, I decided it’d be a nice gesture to accompany her and bring a cooler of juice—aka cold water in a cooler with a juice packet and sugar mixed in—to the women who have been out there in the sun working all day. I went to the bitik (corner store, ha) to buy the ingredients, but found it closed. So we tried another one—also closed (it was during afternoon prayer). All the while Sarjo has these huge bowls on her head and never even sets them down once when we stop at the stores. Finally we find a store, also closed, but supposedly the owner is near by. We spend about 10 minutes trying to purchase juice packets and sugar, which included a man saying to me, “My wife, buy me some tea.” And not once did Sarjo take the bowls off her head.

After we get the necessary items, we finally head for the field. It is HOT out, I am sweating sooo much. Sarjo assures me that the fields are not far. Well over a mile later, with my shirt drenched, we arrive at the field. Exhausted from my work in the rice fields yesterday, I hadn’t planned to actually go in the fields today. My village’s fields have paths in between to get to distant plots, so I just thought I would stand on the path and give them the juice, staying clean and dry. But there was no path in these rice fields and the women were about 100 yard in.

*A word about my ‘exhausting’ work in the rice fields yesterday: I went with my brother’s wife, Meeta, and worked for about 2 hours (during which time every single passerby said the exact same thing: ‘Meeta, Mahana has come to the rice fields today? Is she able to do the work?’) and then spent the next three hours napping under a tree while Meeta continued to work (during which time every single passerby said the exact same thing again, but this time it was: ‘Meeta, Mahana is here laying. She is tired.’). I finally got so sunburned that I just went home, leaving her to finish the work alone.

So, Sarjo and I took off our shoes and set out through the shin-deep mud and knee-high water, which was really warm and fetid and made my sunburned legs itch and sting. Soon we go to the waist-high grasses. Starting to think about the possibility of snakes, I thought to myself, this must be what ‘Nam was like, without the rain and all the Vietnamese people, of course. On several occasions Sarjo fell on one knee in the mud and I had to stand next to her so she could push off me in order to get her leg out of the muck and stand up again. There were also numerous occasions when my leg sunk through the mud up to my thigh and I thought I was finished (ie. Stuck in the mud video).

Amazingly enough, we made it to the women. They had gathered under a tree on a patch of dry land and were preparing for lunch. When they saw me they began singing, clapping and dancing in thanks for my coming and for the juice. I was really flattered, but mostly ashamed. I couldn’t even will myself to dance because I was so exhausted and uncomfortable just from the walk in the sun. But these women, after working all morning with no food were dancing it up for me. (I cringed to think that next week they will all be doing the same work, just not eating or drinking anything from sunrise to sunset… Ramadan). They’re so incredibly strong, it just blows my mind. And Sarjo, after carrying those food bowls the whole way was now about to begin working for 3 or 4 hours. And then here I am, so tired I couldn’t even consider working for two minutes.

The best part is instead of complaining, they immediately start worrying about me. Did I eat? Am I full? One woman takes a cup of their drinking water to wash off my feet, which was funny because moments later I was just going to get dirty again; I tried to stop her. As I started to head back, they told me to wait for them to eat so one of them could accompany me back to the other side of the field. I graciously turned down their offer, taking care not to fall on my way out, which would force the entire group of women to run over and come rescue me. I rode home in awe of their strength and their ability to work themselves to the bone and then laugh and dance, never once complaining. They truly are an amazing group of women and I feel so grateful to have them here taking care of me. Whatever person gets put in this village next year is very lucky.

*All this was written in the gele-gele on my way here. Sorry to have started off on such an angry note. I’m feeling a lot less angry now, haha.

I’ve been in the capital for almost two weeks and am now nervous to go home to my village tomorrow. It’s weird how intense the culture shock can be just going from my village to the capital. It happens every time I come here (which is usually once a month), but this current trip was much worse. Gambia has a ton of NGOs, which means a large ex-pat population, and a few of my friends stay with ex-pats or government workers while in the capital. I’ve been able to visit them there and it’s like walking into America. Sure, our Peace Corps House/Hostel has electricity and a fridge and a television and that alone makes transitiong from here to my grass hut difficult. But it’s disgusting. It’s like a huge frat house. There’s mice, roaches, ants, soooo many mosquitos—I actually find it to be much dirtier than my mud hut.

These ex-pat houses, however, are as nice as any expensive house in America. Tiled floors, granite kitchen counters, AIR CONDITIONING!!, pools, etc. It’s like this little oasis. No one bothers you, there are no Gambians that you have to greet in local language, there’s 24 hour electricity, it’s incredible. But more than anything, it’s the company. Sometimes at the Peace Corps house, I get overwhelmed by the number of volunteers and the sheer ‘fratiness’ of it, ie. Excessive beer drinking, dirty dishes, people everywhere. At these houses, it’s just me and a couple friends, enjoying each other’s company like we used to in America. And so the thought of going back to my village and suddenly being there by myself, the only non-gambian for several miles, having to greet everyone and 'be on' all the time is slightly scary. I know as soon as I get there it will be fine—the anticipation’s always worse than the real thing. So I just try not to think about it. But actually, I’m pretty excited to be home. It’s exhausting to live out of a suitcase, well, in my case, backpack, for 2 weeks. I miss my bed, my routines, my privacy, my family, my namesake, my friends. It’ll be good to be back.

I’m not usually out of site for more than a week, but this time I had a lot of administrative work to do. I co-edit the Health and Community Development Newsletter with my friend Kasey, so that had to be written, layed-out, edited and approved. Then there was a Volunteer Support Network [VSN] Training with one of Peace Corps’ psychologists visiting from Washington, DC(VSN is a group of about 12 people who’s purpose is to support volunteers through any mental or emotional problems they may deal with, be it a death in the family in America, a failure at work, a break-up, missing home, etc.). It was unbelievably fascinating and made me want to be a therapist.

We learned about active listening, emphasis on listening, ha. I learned that when other volunteers come to me with a problem, I should never actually give that person advice. I should just listen, ask leading questions to get the person thinking about solutions and let the person know that his/her concerns are totally valid. We did several practice sessions with our fellow VSNers and it was extremely helpful. As soon as I stopped worrying about figuring out a solution for the person’s problems, I started really listening, and as soon as I started really listening, I realized, ‘Wait, I have NO idea how this person is actually feeling or what he/she is dealing with. How on earth did I expect to give this person advice that he/she hasn't thought of? How incredibly arrogant of me.’ It was an incredibly freeing feeling to listen to someone's issue and not stress about giving advice, in fact, I think each and every person should have this training. I’ve been trying to use my newfound skills in daily life, but I often slip and hear myself giving advice, “you should…” “Don’t you think you ought to…” And then I kick myself.

I’ve also been doing a lot of LGBT work with VSN and Peace Corps Admin in general. I found a Safe Zone Staff Training Script on a Peace Corps website that had been used in Guatemala. I approached our country director and asked him if it might be possible to run the session here. I didn’t even dream that it could be mandatory, as Guatemala’s was, because LGBT-things are illegal in this country (I won’t even write it out the real words on this blog, just in case) and the majority of our staff is Gambian and Muslim. But, much to my surprise, our country director really supported the idea and wants to make it mandatory for all staff. So, I adapted Guatemala’s script for The Gambia. Then I did a run-through of it with VSN and it was really well received. They gave me some great suggestions for fixing up the lesson plan, so I spent a few days editing it and made A LOT of changes and now I think it’s really wonderful. I’m planning to have another meeting with the country director next month, in which I expect we’ll pick a date and iron out all the details to make the staff training happen. I can’t wait!

Another reason for my long stay was to help lead a couple Pre-Service Training [PST] sessions. A new group of education volunteers arrived a month ago, so myself and a couple other VSN members were chosen to do two sessions on healthy sexuality and volunteer resilience. This is the third PST I’ve been involved with (and will be my last…. Weird) and I think it was my favorite. The sessions were really successful and the new trainees seem great. I had been hoping to work with the next group of trainees, but unfortunately their arrival date was pushed back from November to January, and I’m hoping to be home for Christmas. Some people will extend here a few months to help with training, but not me, ha.

It’s very strange to think that I’m leaving in less than 5 months. I feel pretty ‘checked out,' especially since my work in my village is extremely minimal at this point. I'm completely done with the women's garden now that we outplanted the sisal. For those of you who don’t know what that means (I had no idea before I came here), let me explain. There’s something called a live fence. Basically it’s trees or thorny bushes that are planted in a perimeter around a garden or orchard that eventually grow enough to serve as a fence, a ‘live fence.’ These live fences are extremely useful here because barbed wire and chain link fences are very expensive and can break easily. When we initially made the plans for the garden, I made the women's group agree to do a live fence of sisal (a plant similar to aloe). We planned for the garden to have barbed wire fence (which it now has), but that will surely break within the next 3 to 5 years and I wanted to make sure the garden would be truly sustainable. So the women nursed the sisal during the dry/hot season, meaning they planted them all in a bed close together to make the watering and weeding of them easier in the early stages when it’s most important (you see, it'd be pretty hard to walk the entire perimter of the fence [over 100m] EVERYDAY to water the sisal, that's why nursery beds are great). Then, once they’re bigger (and during the rainy season when constant watering is no longer necessary), they’re outplanted, meaning dug up and re-planted along the fence or wherever you eventually want them.

For maybe 3 months now, the garden has been finished except for the outplanting of the sisal. But, while the sisal was still being nursed, I couldn’t feel that sense of accomplishment. The garden still wasn't finished in my mind. But, just about a week before I came into the capital, myself and 15 or 20 other women spent a whole morning outplanting all the sisal. There was a group of women digging up the plants, another bringing them to the fence, another weeding the ground outside the fence, another digging holes and another still to actually plan the sisal in those holes. It was extremely inspiring to be a part of the whole process and after it was finally finished, I felt such a sense of pride and accomplishment. It was wonderful. Also my shirt was literally soaking wet with sweat, I was able to ring it out.

So, that project is finished. I still visit that village and hang out a few times a week, but my work is over now. I also still do poetry and journalism lessons with the Press Club at the high school, but they are pretty self-sufficient as well, by this point (which is my goal as a Peace Corps Volunteer--to not be needed). Most of my work is now in Kombo, with the bike machine and with admin. As for the bike machine, there is another NGO, HopeFirst, working on its own bike machine. They are coming to Gambia Sept 7th and we are planning to meet and work together to manufacture and distribute the machine. I'll keep you posted.

Like I said earlier, as a result of not having any work, I’m pretty checked out in village. I have ZERO plans for when I get back, except to read and just hang out with my people. And I’m totally ok with that and actually really looking forward to it—aside from being a bit nervous to leave civilization.

I couldn't start a project now even if I wanted to, because I'm leaving so soon. It’s weird being on the way out here. I never EVER thought I would make it to this point. I’m basically just coasting. My work in village is minimal. Life is easy. Plus, I’m feeling really satisfied by the VSN and LGBT work I’m doing in the capital. AND! I have something to be excited for every month. August- My friend Josh is visiting, wooo hooo!!! September- VSN event with the new trainees and mail run. October- Close of Service (COS) Conference, My birthday, Halloween. November- Thanksgiving, possibly my friend Tawny visiting. December- OUT! I just get to sit back and enjoy life until COS. It’s pretty wonderful.

Thanks for listening. Sorry this post is so ramble-y and awkward. Just writing from my heart (ie. In one long uninterrupted stream).

I just sent an email to a friend doing PC in El Salvador, which sort of explained PC The Gambia in a nutshell, so I thought I'd post an excerpt of it here. Please excuse any grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization errors, this is a direct copy/paste.

this country is super small, maybe the size of delaware, the smallest country in continental africa. but it's long and divided in the middle by a river. it takes about.... 10-12ish hours (barring no car or immigration checkpoint trouble), to get from one end of the country to the other because the roads are so shitty and there are no bridges across the river. i'm about 8 hours upriver/inland from the capital (which is located on the atlantic ocean coast) and there's maybe 80 volunteers here, which means that at any point you're prob within 30k from another volunteer. i live right outside a biggish town, and have 3 other volunteers within 10k of my site, so thats really nice. and i see my closest friend here at least once a week.

probably about 10-15 volunteers live in the capital (banjul) and they all have their own 'apartment' or house. the rest of us live in family compounds and have our own room or grass hut, in my case. i would guess that none of the upcountry (in this case meaning not-in-Banjul) volunteers has running water in his/her compound, a few maybe have taps (communal faucets) in the village, and few have sporadic electricity (only the capital has 24 hr electricity, the other 4 towns with current, as they call it here, have it from 9am-2pm, and 7pm-2am). my village has pumps and no electricity, but my family has a generator which they use to watch football or movies maybe once a week.

the food here is mainly rice with a peanut or leaf sauce and oil and msg, hahah. theres also millet, which i greatly prefer to rice, mostly because there is less oil in its sauces. but i cook all my meals for myself (i'm one of the few volunteers living in a family that does that), bec my family's cooking is awful and they put this disgusting dried fish in everything. a typical day of eating for me is bread for breakfast, maybe toasted with cin and sugar, rice with a can of kidney beans for lunch, and maybe some more bread or a protein bar for dinner, and maybe some oatmeal during the day. the vegetables available year round are potato, onion, hot peppers.... and then seasonally-- carrots, cabbage, eggplant, peppers..... and mangos, bananas, oranges, watermelon (also seasonally). there's very little chicken or meat consumed here, only in wealthier families.

ummm.... our 3 sectors are: ag/forestry, health/comm dev, and edu. most of our adminstrative staff is gambian. and its a muslim country in that everyone is muslim, but its not an islamic state, ie. no islamic courts, judges, etc. but my family prays everyday 5x's/day, everyone fasts for ramadan. many men have 1-4 wives. women are definitely given less rights than men and in general considered less important, less strong, less intelligent, and just less respected. but they are so amazing and smart and wonderful. they work all day while the men basically sit around and brew tea. my brother might go to the fields (peanut) for a couple hours in the am, and then will spend the rest of the day in the compound reading the koran and chanting arabic. yes it gets annoying.

and there are a ton of local languages spoken here, but there are 3 main ones (mandinka, wolof and fula) that are spoken and taught to us here. english is that national language, but it is mainly spoken in the capital and in bigger towns, not in the village, unless there is a school nearby. i speak/was taught mandinka. but my friend that lives very close to me speaks wolof, so i can i sorta get by in wolof, and can very minimally greet in fula.

I’m back from New York! I had the best time ever and saw so many of my friends and family. It was absolutely perfect. A lot of people asked if it was scary or overwhelming to be back in ‘civilization’ and especially in NYC— no, it wasn’t. Well, actually it was a bit overwhelming to be in one car with my entire family and it was strange that everyone—even the shabbiest looking guy on the subway, begging for change—has a blackberry, iphone, etc. But I can tell you with complete certainty and honesty that it was NOT AT ALL overwhelming to choose a beer in a bar with 20 different beers on tap. I also thoroughly enjoyed riding the subway, paying for cabs with credit card, never carrying around change, wearing a jacket, and eating hamburgers, sushi or pizza everyday.

But now that I’m back I actually have a lot going on here. My main project now is a bike-powered grinding machine. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I’ve been working on it for several months now. The women here spend several hours a day pounding rice, millet and peanuts in a huge mortar and pestal. It's extremely labor intensive and time cosuming. This machine, a bike pedal-powered grinder, would make pounding obsolete, revolutionizing the day-to-day life of women here. Also, because men and boys are the one who ride bikes in this country, it could possibly transform the job of pounding/grinding grains from strictly women's resposibility to both men and women's work.

The machine was originally designed and built by the engineering department at Rowan University in New Jersey. Travis, a previous volunteer that has since finished his service here, was originally in charge of the project. Through his contacts with that university's chapter of Engineers Without Borders, he heard about the machine and somehow arranged to have the machine brought here so we could attempt to build and distribute it locally. The grinding mechanism built at the university, however, was very complicated, and local welders were unable to replicate it. So, Travis took the machine to the Gambian Technical Institute (GTTI), which has the most advanced welding technology in the country, to see if they could produce a second one with their equipment. The problem I had with that plan, however, was that even IF the people at GTTI were able to reproduce the grinding mechanism, how can a machine be sustainable and usable throughout the country if its most vital element can only be manufactured in one place?

It can't. Here's why: Let’s first imagine that somehow, everyone in the country finds out about this milling machine and wants to buy it. The only place to purchase one is GTTI. The people living in the capital can go and place an order, but the people ‘upcountry,’ living a 2 to 12 hour car ride from the capital, have to somehow get in contact with GTTI. But I can say with almost complete certainty that there are no Gambians outside of the capital with the ability to reach GTTI (ie. Don’t have the phone number and have no way to get it and there's no real postal service in this country). So they’d have to go through their nearest Peace Corps volunteer to place the order. Then, somehow, these upcountry Gambians would have to get their money to GTTI and then GTTI would have to find a way to get the machine back to them. THEN if the machine has a problem, the only people who can fix it are at GTTI, anywhere from 2 hours to 12 hours away. Now these local villagers have to find a way to get the machine back to GTTI, pay for repairs and get it back. Let me add that most upcountry Gambians have never been to the capital.

You see how impossible this would be, right? Moreover, several months had passed and the GTTI people still couldn't build it. So, a few days before Travis finshished his service, he and I decided to forget about trying to reproduce Rowan U's original grinding device and chose instead, to see if we could make the machine work using the less strong, but widely available, local peanut grinders. After I purchased one at the market, Kris (another volunteer--my current partner on the project) and I took the grinder and the machine to a local welder to see if he could somehow attach it to the bike machine so it would be powered by the pedaling motion... ANDDDD he did! We picked up the finished product this morning-- it’s awesome and grinds so quickly. And, best of all, it's built entirely from local materials so that any welder ANYWHERE in the country can build and fix it, aka totally sustainable!

The plan now is to show it to a few NGOs and see if they would pay to have them mass produced or give us funding to do a trek around the country in which we teach the local welders how to build it for their own communities! Wish me luck, pictures to come soon!!!

***I updated, Don!

Below is a picture of the original machine. The one we picked up today is WAAYYY DIFFERENT. It has handle bars, cross bars to keep it steady, and a different grinding device.

In 48 hours I will be in New York City!! Should be amazing. Hopefully I don't have a nervous breakdown. I'll give a sweet update about it in a couple days!

WISH ME LUCK!!!!!!!!!

My best friend in my village’s younger sister, Kumba, just got married, or engaged, if you want to think of it in American terms. The way marriage works here is that a man will find a woman, usually a girl between the ages of 15 and 17, who he wants to marry. He will go to the family and bring kola nuts. Then they will start talking, setting prices (ie. 2000 dalasis, two cows, two goats and a new house) for the dowry—at no point is the girl asked whether or not she wants to marry this man, unless the family doesn’t do arranged marriages in the first place. Then, once the dowry has been paid, the woman officially has a husband and the man can send for the woman to come live with him at any point. Sometimes they do trial periods in the beginning, the woman will go live in her husbands compound for a couple weeks at a time before she officially moves in. Then, she will move in permanently and once enough money is acquired the wedding is held (could be months or years later—my brother’s wedding is this May and they were married 2 years ago).

So, back to Kumba. She is 15 years old and absolutely beautiful, one of my favorite girls in my village. I had no idea Kumba was also engaged until I brought up Mamatida, how mad I am that my mom doesn’t care at all about her feelings, when I had lunch with Fanta (Kumba’s older sister) a few weeks ago. She informed me that Kumba was also engaged and did not like the guy (who lives two villages away). But, she said, her father told the man, Karamba, he would have to wait a few years to marry her. Fanta (already married to a man of her choice only a couple years older and living in the capital) was applying for jobs at some banks, in hopes that if she were employed, her family would send Kumba to live with her and do the house work. That way, she could avoid the marriage. (Side note: My absolute favorite person in village, Mamatida, who is my 15 year old host sister is also recently engaged, to some guy in his thirties that lives in the capital and supposedly the dowry has already been paid, which means it’s a done deal—she has told me she doesn’t like the guy and is scared.)

So, I was in Kumba’s and Fanta’s compound in my village last week. I didn’t see Kumba and asked where she was. Amie, her sister, told me that Kumba went to Karamba’s place and wasn’t coming back. No way, I told her. Amie has told me this before when Kumba merely went to the garden, so I was hesitant to believe her. But then, Kumba’s mom confirmed that Kumba was at her husband’s but was coming back in a week or so. On my way to Adrian’s village the next day I decided to stop in the village, find the compound and surprise Kumba. I found the compound and met her husband—a nice, very tall many, probably in his late 20’s. I walked into her hut, expecting her to be ecstatic to see me, but instead I found her laying face down on her bed, crying. I was shocked. It took awhile for her to even sit up and once she did she refused to make eye contact with me and her eyes were clearly wet.

For awhile the guy who brought me to her house (probably Karamba’s brother), was sitting with us, so I couldn’t start talking to her, at least not about anything serious. The guy kept asking her questions, are you sick, what’s wrong, etc. Nothing. Kumba wouldn’t even look at him. Normally Kumba is either happy and sassy, or pissed off and sassy, so watching her just sit there lifelessly was like looking at a ghost. I was racking my brain with what could have happened. I immediately thought of typical, bad things—he raped her or beat her. But then I started thinking, maybe she’s being dramatic, trying to make the place seem terrible so I would go home and tell her mom about it. Finally I got the guy to leave and, thank god, she started talking to me. I asked if Karamba hurt her and she said yes. I asked if they had sex and she said no, which was a huge relief for me. Then I asked if he beat her and she said, yes, last night with a stick on her back. F**K.

Like 90% of the girls/women/mothers I hang out with in my village, Kumba is younger than me, but still acts like my older sister. So when it came to dealing with, I had no idea what to do. I wanted to run out the compound and grab Karamba and thrown him against the ground and kick him (how I would manage to throw down a 6 ft man, I’m not sure). Ultimately, and probably for the best, I decided to call Fanta—she would know what to do. Kumba told her what happened and then Fanta asked to talk to Karamba. When I got the phone back, Fanta told me Karamba said he never beat her. I didn’t know who to believe. Did Kumba just not want to be living there anymore or did Karamba really beat her? And if he did beat her, what can I even do about it?

After I called Fanta, an older woman whom I imagine is Karamba’s mother came in to greet me. Kumba said nothing to her and didn’t even acknowledge her presence, which… how can I compare this to something in America. It’s like going to meet your in-laws for the first time and outright refusing to shake their hands our eat any food they prepared for you. Even if Karamba hit her, which, there’s no way I could ever know that for sure, I was appalled that Kumba was acting like that. I was thinking to myself, maybe she’s doing this on purpose, maybe she thinks if she keeps this up the family will be so offended by her that they’ll call off the wedding and send her home. But if that happens, her dad will beat the shit out of her. C’mon Kumba, is that really what you want? The idea of how much trouble she would be in just pained me to think about.

After the woman left, Kumba just lay down and started crying. It was literally torture to watch her cry. Before I left, I just lay in bed with her, holding her as she cried. I felt so helpless, just like I do when I hear a child getting beat by his mother, or a wife getting beat by her husband, and can’t do a thing about it. It would be easier for me to not have to know about it, not have to see how sad she was. Like Mamatida, who never opposes any decision her mom makes, never shows anger or dissatisfaction. I normally hate the fact that Mamatida just gives in so quickly, but watching Kumba suffer like that just made me want her to do the same thing, to stop fighting and accept her fate so she didn’t keep getting hurt (physically) and beat down (emotionally).

Why would she want to be rude to Karamba’s family like that bring that type of pain upon herself? But then I realized women’s rights in The Gambia will never improve if every woman just keeps silently accepting all the shitty social norms she is asked to put up with. It takes strong women (or girls like Kumba) who acknowledge that they way they are treated is not fair and that they are entitled to certain rights, and who are willing to then demand those rights for themselves, despite whatever punishment maybe come. I wish I could suffer the consequences of it for her, but then that would be totally anathema to my goals and philosophy here that Gambians are the only people who can change their country. If I can't do that, the least I can do is be brave for her, stop being selfish about having to watch her in pain and support her in her fight.

I'm going through Peace Corps' version of a mid-life crisis, what we call a mid-service crisis. It basically means that I'm about half way (over half-way, if you want to get technical about it--in two weeks I'll have been here 15 months!) through my 27-month service and am freaking out about what I'm supposed to do for the next year.

My garden is basically done and looks fabulous. The fence and wells are finished and all the beds have been marked. So great! I have pictures that I'll post here soon soon. And while I'm extremely proud of myself and the women for successfully building this garden, I'm also worried. The garden was my main project, the way I spent the majority of my time here and now it's finished. Granted, I'm still doing work with the Press Club at the high school in my town, which I love, but that's only two days a week at most, what the hell am I supposed to do for the next year?

For the past couple months, my last year of service seemed like nothing. I had decided that I'd rather be here than in America, that time was going to fly and it'd be January 2011 before I knew it. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that positive thinking was almost entirely due to the fact that the weather had greatly improved around November. It was cold at night and mild during the day. But now that the weather is slowly warming, I'm not only dreading the hot season (And by dread, I mean I'm downright terrified of March), but also starting to think about how much I don't want to be here and how long a year.

It doesn't help that I just had three friends come visit, one from home and two from college. Don't get me wrong, I had an amazing time with all of them and couldn't be happier that they actually flew to Africa to visit me, but saying bye to them was extremely difficult. It made me want to go home for the first time in months. I also kepy trying to imagine how everything looked to them, which sort of made me to revert to how I saw things when I first got here. After laughing at how crazy everything here is with my friends, the level of normalcy I had reached sort of disappeared, and life again became extremely foreign and difficult.

For about a week, I could think of nothing else but leaving. I had always told myself that I would only leave early if I was really happy but ready to go. I never wanted to leave because it was too difficult. And although I wouldn't admit it to myself that's exactly why I wanted to go home--I was homesick and with every roach, mouse, gross meal, pool of sweat, I felt more and more inclined to leave. But it's amazing how I was able to trick myself by finding all these ways to rationalize going home, without admitting why I really wanted to leave: I'm wasting time here. I thought I wanted to do development work and I now I know I want to write. So why stay? There's nothing else for me to do here and if I were home with internet, I could focus on my writing and submit work to magazines and papers.

I decided that I would book a flight home in May for a visit, but a refundable one. And if come May, I still felt this way, I would leave. But, I didn't know what to tell my friend, Tawny, who wants to visit in July because I didn't know if I would still be here then. Fortunately, I talked to my mom about it and she set me straight. She assured me that if I left early I would not be happier at home and I would definitely regret it--facts I knew, but refused to admit to myself. She said, "You need to stop looking at leaving early as an option. Even thinking about it is hurting you." And she's right. Before we hung up, I decided that if I go home to visit, I HAVE to come back and will NOT book a refundable ticket.

But, was it a good idea to go home at all? What if I went home and didn't want to come back? Or what if I came back and was just miserable? But, I talked to my sister today and decided that I can do it, but I will only go to New York, not California. And then, when I come back in June, I will have only 6 months left and Tawny's visit in July to look forward to. It will be a breeze.

*Note: I wrote this the day before yesterday, it's amazing what 2 days (and a change in weather--it's gotten cold again these past few days) can do to a person's psyche. In my current state, I couldn't imagine leaving early. Life here is great. And what a joke to say I should go home in order to focus on my writing--I'll never have more free time to write than I do here. So don't worry about me. I'm in it for the long haul. See you all in May, or January 2010!

To my loyal fans/the two people that read this blog (thanks Anna and Jason!), sorry it's been so long since I last posted.

But I promise something great is coming soon! Hope everyone is having a wonderful new year!

In the meantime---Check out the article I wrote:

http://www.thenextgreatgeneration.com/2010/01/20/money-plays-lesser-role-millennial-view-success

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has sent me an email, a letter, a package, called me and contributed to my grant!! ANDDD thank you for reading this blog. Your comments here and your support mean a lot to me and make this whole experience worth it. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day with your family and friends. Greet the home people for me.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!! I had no idea it was Thanksgiving today until I woke up to maybe 4 text messages this morning saying, 'Happy Thanksgiving!' Although I didn't know today was turkey day, I am WELL AWARE that the day after tomorrow is Tobaski. Tobaski is probably the biggest (and dumbest) Muslim holiday of the year, and it is impossible to escape. Wait, Marnie, you can't just call a Muslim holiday dumb. Yes I can, and I just did.

I have no idea how Tobaski is celebrated in other countries (maybe it's not dumb in Mali), but here, in one of the so-called poorest countries in the world, it is celebrated by buying a ton of crap that no one can afford. It is a four-day celebration that starts with the slaughtering of a ram. A ram can run anywhere from D1,000-D6,000. Let me put that into context for you, a host cousin of mine that drives a cab in the capital, which is a good paying job here, makes D1,500/month. And the people in this country without a salary (probably 75% of the population) don't make nearly that much. Could you imagine spending HALF of your ENTIRE yearly salary on a Thanksgiving turkey??? Well that's what happens here.

There are rams EVERYWHERE you look. At every single car park, there are at least 50 rams being bought and sold, rams being loaded on the roofs of every car, rams being dragged through the street by their horns, RAM NATION! It's crazzyyy. And then there's just sooo many people everywhere, fighting over cars, because everyone's trying to get to their birthplaces (or where their family lives) for Tobaski. It's a complete shit show. Several volunteers are stuck in various places, 4 in the capital, several at other peoples' sites, because the transportation is so crazy that they can't get home.

BUT, it doesn't stop there. No, no. Then all the women and girls need new complets (matching outfits). These run anywhere from D350-D2000/outfit, and you need a different complet for night and day, and preferably, a different one for all 4 days. AND THEN!!!! All the women and girls need new fake hair, which is probably D300. IT'S ABSURD!!!!

Families who can't afford a bag of rice, D600-D800, will blow D1,000 on totally unnecessary things because they don't want to be the only one in the village without a ram, wearing old clothes. This may very well be one of the poorest countries in the world, but it makes it pretty hard for me to feel bad for the people living here when they go and do things like this--wasting thousands and thousands of Dalasis. It's like a begger in NYC begging because he doesn't have food, but then going and spending his money on a new pair of sunglasses and an Armani shirt. He might be starving, but are you really going to feel bad for him? Probably not, because it's his fault that he can't prioritize his spending. SO! That's how I feel about a lot of people here, especially at this time of year.

I sound so negative about this. Sorry. It's just frustrating to see people who don't feed their kids healthy foods because it's too expensive blowing money on new clothes and fake hair. But it's their tradition and culture and we do the same thing. How many people do you know in serious debt in America, spending money on all kinds of things they can't afford? A whole lot.

OH! I forgot to talk about salibo. I guess upon more serious reflection, Tobaski is a combination of Thanksgiving and Halloween, because at night, the kids go around and ask for salibo, money or candy, from other people. However, unlike Halloween, which is one night, Tobaski is four, and the kids start asking for salibo well before the first night. It's super annoying. I probably won't even stay in my village for Tobaski. I'll try to get some pictures of the rams and all that.

In other news, I had a GLORIOUS day yesterday (one of my best days in this country to date), involving 20k of biking with Adrian and spending the afternoon at a pool in a tourist hotel on the near-by island. This post is already too long already, but check back for re-cap of that day and opinion on tourists here (surprise surprise, it's not a glowing review).

THANKS FOR READING!!!!!!!

So, I just talked to a friend of mine who read my last blog post and she seemed to get the idea that the women aren't that reliable and that it takes a lot of prodding from me to get them to do anything, which is absolutely not true.

So allow me clarify a few things.

A lot of volunteers, NGOs, etc. will roll into a village spend a couple days there and declare "You need a ______ (school/library/garden/clinic)!" This sort of situation is the WORST IDEA EVER and not sustainable AT ALL! For example, an NGO walks into a village and says, "You need a garden and we're going to build you one," and all the village people, if you will, are all super excited. The NGO then proceeds to build the garden using all expensive materials instead of local ones, ie. steel poles instead of wooden ones, chain-link instead of live fencing, pumps instead of wells. And the villagers love it and they start gardening. Fast-forward one year to when the pump breaks. Who's going to fix it? Well, no one has the money to fix a pump and since none of the villagers feel any ownership over the garden, it's not anyone's responsibility. So the pump never gets fixed. And the garden ceases to be used and just sits there. Fast forward 5 years, another NGO comes and says, oh, here's this garden just sitting here being unused, let us fix it for you and/or build you a better one. And on and on it goes.

The moral of the story is that if the village people don't actively want the garden or clinic or school and don't take an active role in the planning and construction, it will fail. Because they never had to make any sacrifices for it or work for it, they will not feel any ownership over it and will not feel responsible when things go wrong, which THEY WILL. Pumps break alllllll the time. And so do fences.

What happened with the garden I'm working on is this: I was approached by a guy (the fact that I did not approach the village already gives this project a much higher chance at success/sustainability) who told me there's this great women's group, would I be willing to meet with them. I said sure. I met with them, conducted a series of assessments and found them to be incredibly motivated and organized, more so than any other group I had encountered.

They had one garden and wanted another. But wait! Why should you build them a garden if they already have one? Well, the fact that they already have a really stable, working, maintained garden means that they are responsible and would likely care for another one. And not everyone was able to get plots in the first garden. I would much sooner help build a garden in a village with another, already working garden, then a village with an unused garden, because that shows me that someone came in and built a garden and the people in the village didn't care enough to maintain.

So we discussed the design, area, and features of the garden. We settled on using all local materials except for the barbed wire. The carpenter we used to assemble the barbed wire fence (which is done!!!!) is from the village, as are the well diggers, who are digging LOCAL wells.

I agreed to help them raise money for the barbed wire, the well materials (cement, rods, wires) and the labor costs for the carpenter and well diggers. In return, the women were responsible for collecting and erecting local fence posts, bringing in cart-fulls of sand and gravel for the well-diggers and clearing the land.

While I am very excited for this project to be done and be successful, they are ALL 100 times more excited than me, and that is a good thing. It means they care about this project and will care for its maintenance in the future. Not once have they asked for help or money with the activities they can perform themselves. Everyday they go out there and work on it, whether it's digging fence holes, or clearing the land, they work hard. And they complete every single task I give them. I am not just coming in and making decisions and throwing money at the land. They are the ones calling the shots--location of well, how many garden beds per woman, how many beds will be allocated to seeds, how will the fence posts be erected, who should dig the wells, etc.

By giving them control and ownership of this project, the women will see the garden as a product of their hard efforts and they will feel responsible for it in the future. AND by using all local materials and laborers, they will be able to address any future issues. The barbed wire is the only none local material. But, we will dedicate 10 garden beds to nursing sisal seedlings (sisal is like aloe and works great as a live fence, meaning that you plant them 1m apart along the perimeter of the garden and after a year or two it grows enough to act as a fence). So once those seedlings are nursed, they will be transplanted in between each fence post, so that when (and it certainly will happen) the fence breaks down and the barbed wire comes apart, there will already be a fence in place and they won't need to spend any money fixing it.

So, because of this careful planning, which was done with input from the village every step of the way, and because of the complete desire on the part of the women to make this garden work, I am 100% confident that it will be standing 5 or 10 years from now. I can't stress enough how vital it is for the group of people you work with on any project to desire the success of the project more than you. A project can never be successful if you take on more responsibility than the beneficiaries. Does that make sense? If I was to walk in and say, you need a garden, instead of them coming to me saying we want a garden and will do anything to get one, it wouldn't work.

So there you have it, the women are motivated, capable and work their asses off. I only talk about deadlines because it is a nation-wide epidemic that Gambians never do anything on time. But so far, everything is getting done. I mentioned in the last post that the fence should be finished within a day or two, and it was, and that the door should be picked up and erected, and it was. Everything is going great!

This is a before picture of the garden... wait for the 'after' in a month or so, well the 'durings' also.

So this is a few members of my women's gropu checking out the seeds I brought back from the capital, Banjul

Things I love now:

Raisins

Craisins

Dried Fruit

Tomatoes (off the plan in my backyard)

Things I will eat in other foods:

Pineapples

Carrots

Eggplant

I'm sorry I haven't posted pictures or videos recetnly, I haven't been to the capital for a month. But I have a ton of stuff to post and will be going in next week, so keep an eye out. In the meantime, for those of you interested, I'm going to go into some details about what this process of making the garden has been like. For those of you not interested, skip it.

Because no one has cars here, transportation of materials is a serious pain in the ass. If I lived 10k off the road and far from any towns, it would have been extremely expensive and annoying to get all the materials from Banjul, the capital, to my village. Fortunately for me, everything except the barbed wire was available in Bansang, a town 1k from the garden. I cannot begin to describe how much easier this made the process. Thus, my biggest concern was getting the barbed wire from Banjul to Bansang. Fortunately for me, again, the owner of a store in Bansang that I frequent (called Pa Foaud's, I'm sure I've mentioned it before), was in Banjul getting supplies and agreed to take the barbed wire back to his store. Problem solved surprisingly easily.

According to our grant timeline (a lovely formality, as nothing, and I mean nothing, happens on schedule in this country), on the day I purchased the barbed wire, the women's group was supposed to have erected all the fence poles. But, they hadn't. I told them that I couldn't get the money until all the tasks they agreed to complete in the grant application were done. This was not true, but I wanted to make sure they held up their end before they received any materials. So, I didn't tell them that the barbed wire was at Pa Foaud's until a week later when the task had been completed at which point they sent a donkey cart to retrieve it. In retrospect, this lie was probably unnecessary, because they really are so reliable. The fact that they finished their task only a week behind schedule is phenomenal.

Then I met with the women's group and the carpenter and well digger, for a second time, to verify start and finish dates (again, a formality) and pay them half their labor fee. At this meeting, my counterpart suggested we write a contract for each of the men. The men signed the contract, agreed to start work the following Saturday and were paid. And the following Saturday, they BOTH started work! I cannot explain to you how amazing this is. I bragged to EVERY SINGLE volunteer I talked to about the fact that work was actually going according to schedule with this garden. No one could believe it. Mind you, according to the contract, the fence should be finished today, but probably won't be until tomorrow or the day after. But still, by GMT (jokingly referred to here as Gambian Maybe Time), that is a great success.

Between the meeting with the carpenter and well digger and the start date, my counterpart and I went into town (Bansang) to purchase the rest of the supplies-- 92 bags of cement, 100 rods, 50 kilograms of nails and 3 kilograms of binding wire. Everything was available at one store. I paid for the goods, happy to be rid of the 60,000 Dalasis in cash I had had buried under my underwear in my house (better than under the mattress where every other Gambian keeps his money). Everything was totaled using a hand-held calculator and after the purchase was made, I was given a hand-written receipt by the store owner. And as promised by my counterpart, by the next evening, all the materials had been brought to the village by donkey cart.

They (the members of the women's group) do everything they say they're going to do and I don't even have to hound them about it. I cannot, cannot explain to you that while all this seems very normal to you readers, it is ANYTHING BUT normal for us volunteers here. Nothing ever happens on schedule, without hang-ups or serious prodding. My experience with this garden thus far has been nothing short of a miracle, and everyone here is very jealous that I am working with such good, reliable, motivated people (again, not the norm for Gambians).

That's not to say there haven't been a few hang-ups here and there, but they have all been minor and were resolved quickly. For example, the day before yesterday, I went to see the garden (I probably go three or four times a week just to check-in, and I am surprised every single time that things are still going according to schedule), and I ran into the well digger who said he hasn't been able to work because his "push-push," commonly referred to as a wheelbarow, "is having problem." Despite the 12,000 Dalasis given to him two weeks ago, he says he has no money to repair it. Well, I think, that's your problem, buddy. But my counterpart and I discussed it with him and agreed to give him an advance of 500 Dalasis to be taken out of his final labor payment. And just like that, problem solved.

Let me just add that I have never seen the well digger not wearing his shirt with a huge middle finger on the front. I'm not sure if he knows what this means. I've seen many funny clothing articles here, like the shirt worn by a 45-year old man that said, "Free Sex Toy," and then the arrow pointed down said, "Inflate Here." Tons of clothing is shipped here from America and rarely do the people buying them have any idea what they actually say. This leads to hilarious combinations, like an old woman wearing a Metallica shirt and a 14-year-old boy wearing a hat that said, "Life starts at 40."

But anyway, everything is great with the garden. Inshallah, the fence will be done today or tomorrow. The door we commissioned to be welded yesterday should be done by 5pm tonight. And once it is erected, the women can begin to start planting seeds. Note: If another PC volunteer read this paragraph, they would laugh at my naivete, convinced that the carpenter will travel or get sick and the fence won't be done for weeks. And that the door will have a problem or it will sit completed at the shop for days before the village retrieves it. But, they have not worked with these women and men and do not know them as I do. They are dedicated and want this garden much more than me (which is the only sort of project a volunteer should take on). I have total faith in them and this project. Already, we have made so much progress. The garden looks completely different than it did just a month ago. And anytime I walk around the garden, I see the fence, and the wells and the people working, and I feel so proud.

This is for those of you who have been asking me what to send in a package... and also for those of you that haven't been asking. As for those of you that already have sent me letters and packages, THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!!

This list is entirely comprehensive. You never need to send anything to me that isn’t on this list and I would like to get everything on this list all the time.

-Freeze dried meals/just add water-- pasta ones

-Freeze dried desserts/just add water-- not fruity ones, ha.

-Dried fruits-- apricots, mangos, peaches (maybe no cranberries)

-Sun-dried tomatoes

-Good nuts-- cashews, pistachios, almonds etc. (Just no peanuts!)

-Trail mix

-Fruit leather

-Salami-types that don't really need to be refrigerated

-Parmesan cheese!!!

-Crunchy peanut butter

-Teriyaki jerky

-Bacon bits, the more real the better, or even pre-cooked bacon that doesn't actually require refrigeration

-No-bake Jello pudding or cheesecake mix

-Any and all bars-- Kashi, Luna, Cliff... anything

-Drink mixes-- Crystal Light, Gatorade, etc. (Not a huge fan or raspberry or pomegranate flavors)

-Emergen-C and Airborne

-Kashi Go-Lean cereal (not crunch)

-Spaghetti sauce packets, like Knorr, or Asian sauce mixes

Entry from my journal- Oct 21, 10:30pm:

So I just smoked a clove (are they actually illegal now in the US?? I can’t believe that!). I don’t smoke often, but some nights, when the sky is particularly beautiful and I am sitting in my backyard it just feels right (don’t worry, Mom, I promise I rarely smoke). So anyway, as soon as I finished the clove, I took my fourth shit of the day. So now—worried that I might shart myself—I am starting to regret my decision to have one in the first place. Hold on, time to make it number five.

And back. Phew, it’s always bad news when I have to switch from my usual squat to the Gambian squat (feet totally flat on the ground). It means I’m in it for the long haul. Anyway, shitting aside, well actually, shitting included (I don’t shit very much here, so I welcome any and all shits), all is well now. For the first time, maybe ever, I really feel like I’d rather be living here than in America.

Let me qualify that. Do I want to be home for a week/month and see everyone and eat delicious food? Of course I do. But do I want to be living there for good, never to come back here? No.

Wanting to be here more than home is a relatively new phenomenon for me. Even a few days ago, I was still grappling with whether I could actually stay here for the entire 27 months and be happy. I don’t really know how or when this happened, because not much has changed in my life recently. Granted, the weather’s better (PRAISE ALLAH!), but nothing’s changed in my work. And it’s not like I suddenly no longer feel used by my family and fit in perfectly.

In fact, I was at Tavi’s site (another volunteer here), and her family is amazing, basically the complete opposite of mine. Totally appreciative and grateful of anything and everything Tavi and her husband, James, do. Their host sister refuses to let them fetch water and insists on doing their laundry (while my family overcharges me for mine and sometimes doesn’t thank me at all when I bring gifts). It was amazing to feel like our being here is a privilege to Gambians, that we should be appreciated, not extorted or used.

That being said, I’m starting to accept my family and my place in it, which makes it easier to not feel guilty about being gone, or reading in my house, or saying no, etc. But mostly, I think the reason I’d rather be here than America is because life here has become normal and life there now seems weird. Although some things here are still a pain in my ass—like how disgusting my house gets, having to sweep it every day, washing dishes, etc.—it’s all ok. (Well, actually, the state of my house at the moment is really stressing me out, but I realize this is not a Gambia-specific problem. I hated cleaning in America, too.)

This notion—that life here is now more normal to me than life in America—hit me when I was sitting with Adrian in Bansang, thinking back over my day, and realized that at no point did any of it seem weird to me.

The day: I left Tavi’s house at 8:15am. She lives about 1 or 2k in the bush, so we walked and got to the road around 8:30. We waited 30 minutes on the ONE north bank road (and could have waited hours), before a car showed up—a truck, that agreed to take me all the way to the Georgetown north bank ferry. The ride was pleasant enough. I only got toubab’d twice. But, surprise surprise, they didn’t take me all the way to the crossing, just to the police check point before the river.

*As I mentioned before, Georgetown is an island in the middle of the Gambia River, a river which divides the Gambia in half. So to cross from the north side of Gambia, where Tavi lives, to the south side, where I live, I have to take a ferry across the river on the north side of the island, go across the island in a car, and then take another ferry across the river on the south side of the island. (Make sense? No? Map it on Google.)

So I walked another k to the ferry crossing, sweating balls and sunburned. Even though people and cars were waiting to cross, the ferry was parked on the other side, appearing like it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. No problem, clearly the government transport system never operates in a timely fashion. So I hopped in one of the small boats and went across, pleasantly surprised that the engine started on the second try. Then I got in a gele-gele to take me across the island to the south ferry. But first, we sat in the car for several minutes while bags of rice and a goat were loaded on the top of the vehicle, totally normal. We got to the ferry crossing and because the ferry has no working engine, we had to pull ourselves across the river. There were so few people so the women pulled, too. “How great,” I thought to myself. “And look at that girl in pants!!” There were no cars on the south side going to Bansang, so I snagged a ride to the next police checkpoint, where I waited for a car. I was again pleasantly surprised when one came 15 minutes later. I arrived at Bansang around 10:30.

To sum it up: A 35k trip (about 21 miles) took over 2 hours, 3 cars, and 2 boats. That seemed fairly reasonable to me.

I met Adrian in Bansang and she wanted coffee, so we went to a restaurant near the car park (one room, a couple of bunches, tons of flies, lots of mayo and MSG). We sat outside on a bench that had one side missing the leg and so was propped up on a bidong (a 20 liter jug formerly used to carrying cooking oil, but now used to carry fuel, honey and, in my case, drinking water). Adrian drank her coffee. As we sat, we watched the town crazy walking around, harassing people. I was surprised to see him in Bansang since last time I saw him, he was in Basse (a town about 55k away) and was asking me for money to get to Bansang. No way I’m paying for you to come back to Bansang so you can yell, “It’s the German!” at me whenever I walk by, I thought. I got thirsty and we tried to figure out which boy I could send to get me a bag of water. But then Adrian noticed that the ‘shop’ behind us had a fridge. So I woke its owner up, the guy sleeping in the chair behind me, and he got me a bag. Then I busted out the salami Tavi gave me. Neither of us had a knife, so we proceeded to take a few bites straight from the salami.

At some point, I looked around and thought about my day and realized, “Oh, this is actually not normal at all.” But up to that point, I hadn’t even noticed. Had I left Tavi’s, gotten on a bus or in a taxi and gotten to Bansang in 30 minutes, THAT would have been really weird. Or, if I walked into a restaurant with no flies and A/C and ordered a cold soda and a burger, THAT would have been really weird. But pulling myself across a river on a broken ferry, sitting in a car with a goat strapped on top, eating straight from a chunk of salami and drinking water from a bag all seemed totally normal. And I’ve only been here a year. I started to understand why it’s so hard and scary for people who have been here for two years to go home: This life truly does become more normal than the one in America.

But until that point comes for me to start freaking out and wonder how on Earth I’m going to adjust back to life in America, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the fact that I’ve somewhat adjusted to life here and no longer want so badly to go home.

6:30- Sleeping outside, wake up to my cat meowing outside my mosquito net (I got a cat! Well, a kitten, and mainly for mice control. He's orange, so I named him Sake, after the Japanese word for salmon, not the alcohol). I lift up a corner of my net and let it in my bed and go back to sleep.

7:00- Wake up for real to the sound of rice being pounded, donkeys making noises and roosters crowing. My village is a farm. I get up, drink my daily cup of water with Airborne. Wash some dirty dishes, using a bucket of water and cup to rinse. Sweep the debris from my roof, mice poop and dirt from my house. Open my door and greet my family.

7:30- Talk to my friend Adrian who is currently biking from her village to our Central River Region- Regional Meeting on Georgetown Island. That means all volunteers in the CRR are convening at a bar on the island to talk about our work and drink. I would bike, but I have a bad infection on my foot so I will be taking a gele-gele there.

She will be passing my house soon and then stopping in Bansang to get some water (There is only ONE road, and since both my village and Bansang are on the road and between her and the island, she HAS to pass by them). Because I have no electricity, it’s always difficult to keep my phone charged. Luckily, there is electricity in Bansang, and Adrian agrees to drop my phone battery and charger off at a store in Bansang so it can start charging now (current is on from 9am-2pm and 7pm-2am), as I will not head to Bansang for a few more hours.

7:45- Go to the pump. Fill up my bidong (A yellow 20 liter container of water, previously used to hold oil). I leave it at the pump (I'll carry it home after I see Adrian) and head to the road. I get hungry and buy a 4 dalasis (20 cents) loaf of bread and munch on it while I wait for her.

8:00- Adrian comes, we chat for a minute, I give her my stuff. On my way back to the pump, I stop and visit my friend that is newly pregnant (this will be her 10th child, she is not yet 40). Then I carry my bidong home on my head (which is so painful because I got my hair braided, with fake hair, so sort of like a weave).

8:30-10:30- Make breakfast-- cinnamon/sugar toast. I butter the bread, toast it face down in my skillet and then put cin and sugar on it. DELISH! Then I sat around in my back yard, played with my cat and finished my book, Vinegar Hill, not amazing by any means. Pack my bag and get ready for our meeting.

10:30- I ride my bike into Bansang (where I will get a car to the island) and stop at Pa Fouad’s, the store where my battery is charging. I learn it is not fully charged yet, so I tell them I’ll get it on my way back. I leave my bike in the back of their store and walk to the car park.

11:00- The car to the island is only half way full (it will not leave until it is completely full). I set my bag down in the car to secure a window seat for myself, and then curse my luck and wonder if I should just go wait on the road for a private car that is heading in my same direction. Like I said, only one road. I am pretty far East up-country. So every single car that passes my village traveling West will definitely be passing by the island. Luckily, the start to gather people (turns out a lot of the passengers were sitting under the shade, like me, and not in the car, so the car is actually full.

11:30- We’re off! I’m wearing an over-sized mallard duck tank-top, given to me by another volunteer, no bra, some local pants, and a huge fula hat (think pointy asian man hat) that I am bringing for one of the volunteers at the meeting. And this is a TOTALLY normal outfit.

12:00- We reach the ferry crossing. No bridges. Broken engine. The ferry has to be pulled across, it takes a long time. Mind you its very small, holds only 2 cars and the distance to cross is about 100 ft, I could swim across sooooo much more quickly but the water is disgusting. I make my way to the front of the ferry because I know the car waiting on the other side to take people across the island will get full fast. I nab a seat in the car and make it to the bar.

12:30-4:30- At the bar, about 10 other volunteers there. Drinking. Eating. We talk about work. I get the owner of the bar to bring out a huge boom box and I play the Paula Abdul and BFF mix-tape (Thank you Lindsay and Lizzy) that my mom mailed me. Everyone loves it. I am rocking out. Several times while speaking, a new song starts, and I have to pause and clutch at my heart, ie. Keith Sweat- Nobody, Take My Breath Away.

4:30- The meeting adjourns. Those who have bikes proceed to bike back to the ferry, those of us who don’t head to the car back to catch another car back across the island. No cars there, we decide to walk. On our way, we see our bike friends stopping to buy things. The pass us later on and as a joke, I yell “N samba! N samba!” which translates to, “Me take!” and is yelled at us by children all the time when we’re on our bikes. Alicia stops and says she’ll take me. So I climb up on the back of her bike. I’m pretty high up and every move I make shakes the bike. I feel a little bad for the other 3 people I left to keep walking, but we’re almost to the other end, and more than likely I’m going to fall anyway.

5:00- I can see the ferry ahead as I hear a car coming. I’m holding on for dear life as Alicia almost goes off the road. It is a truck, in which the friends I left walking are sitting, waving. I no longer feel bad for them at all. It is a military car, which like the police cars, rarely ever gives PC volunteers rides. Several men in full-on military gear get out of the car and are talking to me. One starts hitting on me. I say my husband is living in Banjul, but sense that I might get a free ride from them to Bansang, so I keep chatting. But like I said, the military guys are usually pretty mean, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up.

5:20- We cross and they agree to give me a ride!! I’m sitting in the back seat in the middle. They’re listening to music and, with a secret laugh to myself, I tell them I have some American tapes, do they want to hear? Yes. So I give them the Paula Abdul tape and they put it in and blast it. And are all rocking out and I am just cracking up, wishing there was someone else there to appreciate this scene—big, bad military guys blasting Paula Abdul. They beg me to leave them with the tape, but I refuse. I promise to make a copy of it and bring it to their barracks next time I’m in Basse. When I get out, I almost forget and when I remember to ask for it, they all admit they were hoping I wouldn’t remember to ask for it back. The whole thing is hilarious and makes my day.

5:45- I pick up my bike, grab some stuff for dinner and breakfast—pasta, tin of tomato paste, bread, Adrian is sleeping over—and bike home.

6:30- I’m super sweaty and dirty when I get home, but I sit outside with my family to wait for Adrian (who is biking back), but I decide to go fetch another bidong of water, for cooking and in case Adrian uses a lot in her bucket baths (which she does). I get back and Meeta goes to bathe, so I help stir their dinner which is churro—pounded rice and peanut, boiled with sugar, usually for breakfast—my favorite. I’m sad that I already bought the stuff to make dinner with Adrian.

6:45- My mother starts to pray, which Meeta’s baby, Hawa, strapped to her back. Meeta comes back out and yells at me in Mandinka to stop stirring and, “Go take Hawa, Mom is praying.” So I stand next to my mom—not sure if you’ve ever seen Muslims pray, it’s really intense, they don’t break their concentration for anything, and don’t acknowledge anything else going on around them. My brother’s daughter could be crawling all over him while praying and he wouldn’t even react. So I’m standing there, not really sure if I’m supposed to say something, if she even heard Meeta, or what. But she does some hand movement that I think means go away, but actually means come get Hawa, so I stand behind her, careful not to stand on the prayer mat and hold Hawa while she unties the fabric in the front. Then I just sit and hold her until she’s done praying. By which point Adrian has arrived.

7:00- Adrian and I cook, eat, sit around. By that, I mean, while Adrian is bathing, I cook the pasta and start cooking the sauce. She finishes bathing and helps me stir the sauce. We eat.

7:45- Exhausted from the bike ride, Adrian goes to lie down. I go and sit out with my family. We end up discussing religion, never a favorite topic for me, because I say, in Mandinka, “I swear to God,” about not hearing my name being called earlier in the night. And so Meeta starts interrogating me about whether I know what that means, who do I think made me, etc. I say my mother and father made me, which elicits laughs. And they say again, who made me, and I say God. I tell them, I say God, you say Allah, but it’s the same. The way I can say this and not feel like I’m lying (I don’t really believe in ‘God’) is by telling myself that when I say God I just mean the energy of the everything. They ask me if I pray, and I say, Yes, but my praying is different than your’s. They question me more about that, whether I believe in prophets, in Mohammad, etc. Then Kemeseng, my brother says, It is all the same god, just a different religion, which I feel sums it up perfectly and is an extremely thoughtful statement.

8:30- My friend Amie comes to visit, which, by Gambian terms means, she sits in my house with me. After greeting, we don’t really talk. Then after about 15 minutes, she says, Ok, thank you, I am going now. And I say, Ok, thank you.

8:45- Adrian and I get into my bed outside. We chat for awhile, I read, we go to sleep.

And then it starts all over again. Hoping to post some pictures soon soon. THANKS EVERYONE! LOVE YOU ALL!

All the money has been raised! Thank you so much to each and every one of you that donated and/or spread the word. Thanks again!!

And keep an eye out for the best post ever, coming soon!

Do you ever read my blog and feel guilty about all the starving kids in Africa? Well

here's your chance to help!

CLICK HERE!!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=635-061

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been working for the past six months with a nearby women's group to write a grant for money to fence off a garden and dig wells. These women are among the most dedicated and hard-working people I have met in this country.

As a community, they will supply hours of unskilled labor and all of the local materials, but it is nearly impossible for Gambians to gather enough money to build quality fences and wells. But, you can help these women generate income and provide their family with nutritious food at a relatively cheap cost by American standards--less than $4,000.

Any amount of money you'd be willing to donate would be greatly appreciated by me and the village. You can rest assured that your money will NOT be wasted on middle men or any government bureaucracy. It goes straight to me and will be entirely spent on materials and labor for this garden. And I will be sure to post pictures and updates as the project gets underway.

I know all of you are busy, but it will only take 5 minutes. So please click the link below to read more about the project and donate using a credit or debit card. And please, whether or not you can donate at this time, forward this link to anyone you think might be interested in donating.

CLICK HERE!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=635-061

THANK YOU!!!!!!

In every way, being here has made the grey gap between black and white much larger. Growing up, I often thought solely in black and white, making pronouncements like, “If my husband ever cheated on me, it would be the end of our marriage.” I’m not saying I have ever cheated on someone. I haven’t. But now that I’m older and have been in several relationships, and more importantly, have observed the relationships of those around me, I see how easy it can be for someone to make a mistake. And I know now that there are other healthy ways to deal with such a mistake besides ending the relationship completely.

When I was younger, I also thought child and spousal abuse were unforgivable crimes and that anyone that beats his wife was a bad person, bottom line. But here I am, living in compound with a host brother that once beat his wife so badly that she took her daughter and left the village for several months. All because, after smelling the laundry he gave her to wash, she threw it back at him saying, these aren’t dirty.

And yet, I really like my brother. In fact, I think he’s a great guy. He actually works, does physical labor. He has taken only one wife and has no interest in taking a second, third or fourth. He is a great father and spends more time with his children than any other Gambian man I have observed.

But, he is still a Gambian man. If he wants a glass of water, he will wake his sleeping sister up to go fetch him one, instead of going himself. He once hit three small girls on the back, extremely hard, who were talking about a rape accusation in the village, because they were “too young to be talking about such things.” It took me about a week to even look at him after that and several more to not be disgusted every time I saw him.

When his 15-year-old sister, who is quite possibly the strongest, most capable girl I have ever met, got into a fight with a boy at the pump, I asked him who won, assuming it would be Matida. But to my surprise, he told me the boy had won. I said, “But Matida is so strong.” “Yes, Mahana,” he replied. “But boys are stronger than girls.”

Were this America, I would hate him and never be able to see any of his redeeming qualities. I do still grapple with being innately irritated by him for no actual reason, aside from the fact that he honestly believes “boys are stronger than girls,” and that girls are dumber than boys. But, because I am living here, in The Gambia, where wives and children are beaten more often than not, and men sit around doing nothing, while women work themselves sick, I see that my brother, Kemeseng, is more respectful of women and children than the majority of his male counterparts. He may do or think some terrible things, but he cares about and loves his wife and his family. In no way is he perfect, but he is a good man.

Being able to like someone that does things I hate is a totally new phenomenon for me. But because I have realized that people are not good OR bad, they are both good and bad, I am able to feel lucky to have him as a host brother. When I learn to love, or even just like, the men in my village who consistently beat the shit out of their wives—even when they’re pregnant and have done nothing wrong—then I can really feel enlightened. But until then, I am pretty content with my progress thus far.

In other news, there’s a pair of spiders having, what appears to be, sex in the corner of this room.

I walk out of my house yesterday and see the baby, Hawa, sitting upright in a bucket. She looks up at me, unsure of how exactly she got into that bucket in the first place. Not having any answer, I wonder where on earth her mother is and who the hell is watching her. And, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m exactly where I should be.

Because my house is on the road and in a central location, I often have visitors, or strangers as they are called here. For example, when people see me with another white person, they call out in Mandinka, “Mahana, you have a stranger?” or if they speak English, “Mahana, you are having a stranger?” It never fails to make me laugh. But since I came back from Turkey, it’s been crazy—at least every other night, there has been someone else staying with me at my house—all nearby Peace Corps volunteers that are passing through for one reason or another. Although it can be slightly stressful—making sure there is enough water and that the place isn’t completely disgusting—I’m not complaining at all. I love having visitors and know that many people are jealous of all the people that come stay with me.

When I have ‘strangers,’ my activities for the day usually include taking them to get internet or to the market in Bansang, the neighboring town, to buy the most delicious panchettos (fried dough balls) in the country and look at all the ridiculous Obama shirts and pants (You wouldn’t believe how amazing the Obama gear is here. Some shirts say “First Afro-America President” or “First African American to Sit White House.” Another has a picture of the first family and below it “OBAMA” in sewed-on letters, and in the middle, a map of the world titled, “Climatic Zones of the World.” That one’s my favorite. I can just imagine two guys sitting at a computer, “Ok, so we’ve got the picture of the family and ‘OBAMA,’ what can we put in the middle?” says one guy. And the other one says, “Well, we’ve got that climatic zones clip art on the desktop, right?” There’s also a pair of pants with his face airbrushed on the front left leg, and on the back pocket it says, “Republicans for Obama.”). Then we go to Pa Fouad’s, a store in town, more importantly, the only one that sells cold beer, and spend anywhere from 2-6 hours just sitting in plastic chairs in the shade behind the store drinking bags of water, black Fantas and Julbrews (Gambia's national beer). Getting up now and then to buy the occasional omelet or bean sandwich.

As a result of having all these visitors, I’ve spent way more time than usual just hanging out with other volunteers at Pa Fouad’s. In fact, after having beers so often before noon, I taught Musa, Pa’s son and the one who runs the store, the American saying, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”

But, despite these seemingly wasted weeks, I’ve actually managed to get in lots of great work. In fact, during these last few weeks, I’ve had my most productive and successful work days to date. I’ve always advocated work hard, play hard. I guess things don’t change, even in Africa.

So I had promised a post about my activities, aside from the hours at Pa’s and the hours spent reading (I finished 4 books this week), so here goes:

1. I go to the hospital probably two to three times a week to check on the malnutrition ward, meet with the Nursing School principal, and occasionally check my email, update my blog and charge my phone. Right now, the malnutrition ward is a disaster. And after beating myself up about it for months, I’ve decided that it’s not my responsibility if the hospital staff doesn’t function properly. I was supposed to have the end-all meeting today about accountability and record keeping with the 2nd in charge of the hospital and the 4 head nurses in the pediatric ward, but the former informed me this morning that he’s too busy. So, it will have to wait until we both get back from Kombo (the capital) next week. Surprise, surprise. Out of all my activities, this one is by far the least enjoyable and most tedious.

2. Luckily! I have started working with a women’s group in a nearby village and it is by faaaaar the project about which I am most excited. My mentality about work here is to wait for people to approach me with ideas or ask me for help. It is not my job to motivate people and talk them into working on a project they don’t care about. So, I try to make it known to everyone that I am here and willing to help in areas such as health talks, record keeping, saving/profit management, income generation projects, etc., so that were an individual so inclined and motivated already, he/she would come to me and seek my help with a specific project. And that is just what happened with this women’s group. A man, Musa Kanuteh, approached me and said he works closely with an unbelievably organized and motivated women’s group and that they would love to meet with me. So I said I’d be happy to come.

The meeting went better than I or anyone else could have possibly imagined. Number one, it started on time. I cannot convey to you how HUGE that is and how rarely that ever happens. It started small, with myself, Musa and another man that works with the group, both of whom speak English. There are almost always a few men in every women’s group, serving as the treasure and/or secretary, because they are the only literate and English speaking members. And as a result, I’ve heard many examples of men taking control of the money and decision making. So I was a little irritated that the women weren’t being included in the meeting. But they were soon ushered in and everything was translated. I did what is called appreciative inquiry, which means I tried to find out about their strengths. I spent several minutes asking them questions about what it is they do, their activities, how they generate income, what happens to the money, who is in charge, what is the hierarchy of the group, when do they meet, etc. I found that Musa did not exaggerate; they are by far the most organized women’s group I have ever heard of, they even have a bank account and are already registered at the capital. I did a few assessment activities—I split them into three groups and had each draw a village map and then created a seasonal calendar with them.

After this, we got into the real work, ie. What they want. They have a garden, but the fence is no longer intact and they want to extend the garden. So first they need a new fence and more wells. I think that every single Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia encounters this exact same situation. People always want you to give them money for fences or wells. I didn’t necessarily want to apply for grants, but after all my assessment; I felt this group was competent and responsible enough to make good use of the money. So I am going back Wednesday, with a fellow agriculture volunteer, to see the garden and assess what exactly is needed in terms of fencing materials and wells. So I will likely be meeting with them once a week to determine the best way to acquire specific materials, start a live fence, dig the wells, etc. As things happen, I will describe them here.

3. I am heading to my friend, Ashley’s, village tomorrow to give a talk on weaning foods, which is what babies should eat after 6 months, when they are no longer exclusively breast feeding. The idea was conceived when Ashley looked at her baby brother’s clinic card, he is 9 months old, and found that he has not gained any weight in the last 3 months. So we met last week to prepare for the talk. We drew some diagrams and pictures on a rice bag to show during our talk. I got a recipe for weaning food and picked up the ingredients we will need. So I will leave tomorrow morning for her village and we will give the talk/demonstration after lunch and I’m hoping to get a good turn out!

4. There is a really great Senior Secondary School (equivalent to our high schools) across the street from me. Recently, I have just been helping them type out their end of term exams. But my friend Adrian just started an Environmental Education club there and I went to the meeting last week. I have talked to the principal about starting a Current Events club. I have heard of other volunteers having a lot of success with that and I think it’s a great way to get kids to think critically about a wide range of issues. I’ll let you know how it turns out once it gets going.

5. I also hope that if I get to know a good group of girls, I can start a girls’ club, either with the school or in my village. Recently, I have been spending most nights lying with my sisters inside their house. Because it is just the three of us—their mom and older brother are always outside—we can talk about their boyfriends (girls are never supposed to have boyfriends or tell people about it, obviously boys can have two or three) and even sex. It was so awesome to have them open up to me like that. I feel like I finally bridged the gap and now they feel comfortable talking to me, because for so long they insisted that they didn’t have boyfriends. I can tell they have a lot of questions and concerns, so I would really love to get a group of girls together to discuss health issues and also just offer support for one another.

Ok, that’s all for now. I hope that was informative for those of you wondering what activities I’m doing. LOVE YOU ALL!!

Well, I got back from a glorious trip to Turkey on Monday and being back was unbelievably hard. It wasn’t hard because I left a hotel bathroom with a heated floor and three course dinners for a hole in the ground and a communal food bowl of bland rice. It was hard because I left a family that knows the real me and a place with people that speak the same language as me and look the same as me, to go to a family that I can never fully communicate with and will never really understand who I am and to a place where I stick out like a sore thumb and am constantly hassled. And by the transition being hard, I mean I was on the verge of tears for about 48 hours and cried in several different locations during the trip, including the airplane bathroom and the backseat of a station wagon.

It all started in London, well technically on the way there. During my flight from Istanbul to London, I remembered my first time in Heathrow. I stopped there on my way to Rome for my semester abroad. I didn’t have my Alitalia boarding pass for my flight to Rome and spent hours running around being told different things by everyone, going through security three separate times and eventually missing my flight. I never found the Alitalia desk, but I did find the VIP Lounge where I burst out crying and told my story to the nice lady working there, who booked me a new ticket. After that I sat down in this seat in the waiting area silently crying to myself. Even when I arrived at my apartment in Rome, I still felt sick to my stomach. Everyone was already asleep (missing my connecting flight got me in at around 1am) and I thought, I must have missed out on so much. What if I don’t fit in or make friends? I remember thinking, I should have never come. But then Katie came out and saw me and gave me a big hug, and suddenly it was all ok.

On the plane from Istanbul, I started recalling how overwhelming that first trip to Heathrow seemed. I thought about the details of the terminal—the escalators up to the restaurants, the tons of designer shops, the huddled groups of tourists, the toy airplanes flying over my head—and I wondered if I came to the same terminal again, would I recognize it and would it seem as scary? As fate would have it, my flight from London to Lisbon landed me in the same terminal: Terminal 2.

Although I was not in any danger of missing my flight to Lisbon, I was again in that seat feeling alone and scared. I ended up having an 8 hr layover at Heathrow and before I got to Terminal 2, I met up with my friend, Brian, who is getting his masters at LSE (Thanks for the CD, Brian! I love it!). Don’t get me wrong, seeing him was really fantastic. We went to Whole Foods, obviously, and then walked through Hyde Park. It was beautiful, so beautiful, and we were having such a wonderful conversation that the whole time I kept questioning why the hell I am in Africa and not in London or NYC at school or working, where I could actually communicate with people. And more than that, seeing all those people out together with friends and family made me miss my friends and family so much that it physically hurt me. I honestly can’t explain the emotional and physical pain I felt when I got back to Heathrow, but it was like nothing I have ever experienced. Anytime I thought about them or about going back to my village, I had to fight back tears and an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Usually, I try my best to be constantly aware of my emotions, so that I can quickly let go of harmful ones. Being able to remember exactly how scared and alone I felt the first time in Heathrow and also remembering that the feeling eventually passed should have made me realize that THIS feeling of utter loneliness and desperation would soon pass, as well. And it did, but just because I realized that doesn’t mean the feelings went away

I tried telling myself that by the time I get to my village, I won’t feel like this anymore, that there was no reason to hold on to such feelings—but it didn’t work. For some reason, I just didn’t want to let go of the sadness I felt that day. I just couldn’t do it. In fact, after spending the few hours before my flight fighting back tears, I took my first opportunity once I got in the plane to find the bathroom and have a good cry.

Not until I actually talked on the phone with my host family and could hear in their voices how excited they were to have me back did I start letting go of those feelings. I slowly started feeling more OK about going back to my village. And since then, I have been feeling totally fine about everything. And I’m heading back to my village tomorrow and am really excited about it. So don’t worry about me!

Aside from all that, I wrote a lot during my transit from London to the Gambian and here are some excerpts, if you’re interested.

5/31/09, 3:50pm

Were I living in London, I would face the same issues I have now. It’s not like I would have some big group to picnic with in Hyde Park—well in NYC I would, but not in London. So clearly the point isn’t to find the place where you are happy, but to find the people/things that make you happy in the place you are now, because it’s not the city that quells loneliness and depression, but the people in it and around you.

6/1/09 10:50am

I am on my way to Barra, listening to Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” (Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You” just finished) as I stare at the slum around me. The dichotomy between this and my past week is beyond words, but already I have switched over into non-tourist mode, refusing to take a taxi because it cost D15 (about 60 cents) more than the gele. And so the scenery around me once again seems normal.

As I look at the grime under my nails and my bra I recently stuffed in my bag, I feel happy to be back. No one judges me here. But now, once again, I am the foreigner, the toubab with tons of money. Ever since Dakar, that has been bothering me to no end. This life would be a lot easier if I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, like one brightly painted neon green house in the middle of all white ones. And that’s the hardest part—how much of myself do I keep when trying to integrate? I never had a problem being called Mahana [my Gambian name] before, but now it makes me feel like I’m playing a role. I’m trying to seem as non-foreign as I can, but it’s impossible. There’s a saying here- no matter how long a log lies in a river, it will never become a crocodile.

So where’s the point where I’m still integrated but also being myself? Is that even possible? How do I know when I’m being too inflexible or when I’m losing too much of myself? I guess I have 20 months to figure it out. Then again, reading Kafka on the Shore [by Murakami, AMAZING! Read it!], I’ve been thinking a lot about time. Times in my life when I was the happiest—Rome, senior year of college, the few months at home before I left for PC—how in those instances I wanted to freeze time and live in that moment forever. So I try to re-create those places or find them in life, not wanting to accept that that period of time will never again happen in my life. So how do I get that pure happiness back? Is it possible to be happy indefinitely? Even if you hate your job, apartment, mother-in-law, etc.? Is the way to be happy to change those things—quit your job, move—or is the point to find happiness despite those things? OR is just something that is fluid and comes in and out of your life, like people you meet? Can it ever be permanent? Can someone live in a constant state of happiness? If so, I imagine it has more to do with one’s mindset than surroundings because a person in a constant state of happiness should, in theory, be happy anywhere. How do you do that?

Well loyal readers, that’s all for now. Thanks for all the encouragement. I keep hearing about more and more people reading my blog and its really really awesome. I’m planning to publish a post next week about all the projects I’m planning in my village, so keep an eye out!

Well, just a quick update. My brother's thermometer broke only three days after its first use because of the extreme heat. It is now stuck at 120. Kind of ironic, like how my spatula melted while I was cooking pancakes. I mean, it's made to work in the heat, no?

Also, it was 140 the day before yesterday.

Well it's unbelievably hot here. My brother's thermometer only goes up to 120, but it maxes out there every single day. I'm guessing the day before yesterday was over 130. And it's only getting hotter. But my body is adjusting really well, though, it's amazing! I woke up on my outside bed this morning, wrapped in my fleece blanket, and I was freezing and didn't want to get out of bed. It was 75 degrees.

But during the day it's still HOT. I've learned to just live in sweat. I take 3-4 baths a day (which is CRAZY! as I used to refuse to shower more than once a day in America). I change shirts pretty often, but not that often. I've learned that if you just leave a shirt in the sun for a couple hours its as good as new. Most days I just hang around in my compound, laying on the bantaba (shaded area in the 'yard') with my family.

It's not just me, though. ALL the Gambians constantly talk about how hot it is. In fact, the heat is mentioned in every single conversation I have, everyday, no matter who it is, no matter what is going on.

For example, when I see people while riding my bike home from the hospital, the usual dialogue goes:

Them: You are from the hospital?

Me: Yes.

Them: But, Mahana, the sun is very hot, no?

Me: Yes. Yes, it is.

Or if I meet someone new:

Them: Where are you from?

Me: I am from Bantanto

Them: AH, but Bantanto is too hot!

Me: Yes, Bantanto is hot.

In other news: I have become a HUGE advocate of child punishment. Because the vast majority of kids here are amazingly well mannered and hard working (basically the completely opposite of kids from America), the few that aren't really stand out and get on my nerves. Like my brother's daughter, Aminata. She's the kind of kid that cries just as hard if she really hurts herself as she does if someone tells her no or takes something back from her. It's really unnecessary.

So when I first got here, Kemeseng and Meeta, my brother and his wife, never hit or punished Aminata. But now they do and I love it. I'll watch Meeta tell her to give back a spoon or something, and Aminata will refuse. And Meeta will ask several more times, and still Aminata refuses (the way kids say no to something is by pulling their arms against their body and saying, "M bang!" which is really really rude). So Aminata does that and I know its over and think, "Ugh, finally," as Meeta hits her.

It's never overly hard or rough. It's always very appropriate, I think. But sometimes I remember that this sort of thing is not at all condoned in America, and it seems very weird. Why not? Well, I think a big reason it's not too bad here is that people don't drink alcohol, which contributes to a lot of excessive child abuse in America. So that helps a lot, and I can't imagine all the other problems that would arise if Gambians were drinkers. So I thank Allah, literally, that alcohol is prohibited.

Well that is all from me. I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!!

So this is a little walk-thru of my house:

This is a video of my 15-yr old sister Mamatida, who is SOOO strong carrying a FULL enormous bucket and pouring it out into a jibida:

Just a walk around town:

Bru-bru, which is the burning of stray hairs after braiding, I've had it done to my head a few times. The talking on it basically consists of me and Meeta (the one doing the burning) making fun of Dobally for being a wimp, and noting that even I put up with it better than her:

Pictures with the fam

Random things I love about living here: -Sleeping under the stars every night -Being able to pick my nose anywhere, openly -Projectile spitting toothpaste wherever I want in my backyard -Throwing trash wherever I want in my backyard (or for that matter, anywhere in the country--but I still have trouble doing that) -How easy it is to pee or poo in my latrine during my bucket baths -Eating with my hands and generally keeping a pretty low level of cleanliness -How being a toubab (white person) basically allows me to do anything I want and get rides from most private vehicles--in some ways we are given similar rights to the men -Getting a delicious meat or bean sandwich from a street cart

Things I am proud of: -Being able to speak Mandinka pretty well and greet in all three local languages: Mandinka, Wolof and Pulaar -Killing bugs in the pages of my book while reading at night by smashing the book shut, usually I kill anywhere from 5-20 each night, depending on how tired I am -Sweating profusely all day and night and feeling totally fine about it -Coming up with witty responses when people ask me to buy them stuff--such as the woman who told me to buy her son shoes and I pointed to attaya (the tea that they drink all the time and spend all their money on!) and I said how much is that, and she said 25 D (which is the same price as shoes), so I said, don't buy attaya tomorrow and buy your son some shoes

-Slightly overcoming my fear of bees and wasps -Being able to fall asleep without listening to music -Cementing my floor, by myself!! -Never killing spiders and in fact feeling safer when they are around -Killing a scorpion

Foods I now eat (and love!) that I used to hate (or never though I could eat): -Green sauces -Beans -Coos (which is millet, used as birdseed in America) -Canned tuna, well, tuna period - Chef Boyardee, even if it’s unheated -Kraft parmesan cheese -Protein bar and jerky flavors I previously refused to eat -Fish with bones in it (they’re too hard to pick out, so I just eat the bones) -Breakfast porridges -Powdered milk

Random rules, cultural norms: -ALWAYS GREET, even your family, even your closest friend -Always eat or offer things with your right hand, and use your left hand to touch anything dirty (ie. Nose picking, cleaning snot from babies, bathroom usage) -Men (even soldiers and police officers) walk around holding hands and it’s normal -Never step on a mat with shoes -Wash your face in the morning before leaving your house -Don’t make eye-contact with older men (very difficult, because I feel so rude) -Don’t show your knees, unless you are working in the garden or in the privacy of your own compound -Hitting children is ok, and often totally excusable (I came very close to hitting several children yesterday)

Things I don’t like: (Didn’t even think to include this, I guess that shows how much happier I’ve been lately- YAY!) -When I am sitting with a group of men, and another man comes and shakes everyone’s hand but mine, and just in general the way women constantly work and men constantly sit around -How lazy everyone at the in the pediatric ward is, and the fact that right before I left they were blasting both the radio and the television because the current just came on -That I almost just spelled pediatric, paediatric, because that’s how they spell it here -How terrible my grammar has become, and the fact that I have actually gotten dumber -Listening to the same 3 songs OVER AND OVER, that Gambians always play on their tape players -How hot it is -Having to greet all the time, sometimes I just need to get somewhere quickly, so when I bike to the hospital I take this out of the way path to get to the road so I can avoid going through the village-Priorities: people would rather spend money on attaya, sugar, fake hair, or new clothes before spending it on soap or nutritious food

Please send me: -Kashi Go Lean cereal--not crunch (I know you all think crunch is soooo much better, but I disagree -Any other “healthy” cereal -Beef jerky -Canned/packaged chicken and tuna -Parmesan cheese -Canned pasta (think Chef Boyardee-type stuff) -Bars (zone, kashi, luna- just no fruit flavors) -Bug spray (not to kill them, but to keep bugs off my skin, like OFF)

As for answers to everyone’s comments: Shwi: I already do rock it! Mrs. Sprague: People sell and harvest peanuts and rice. Some own shops, some work as tailors, others make goods—like bamboo beds or baskets. Most of the women also have gardens, so many sell their vegetables. (Ps. I’m almost done with Ender’s Game, it’s great!) Mich: Yes, they have twix here, but only in the capital. Rief: The scariest thing that happened is definitely all my run-ins with the kankoran or maybe the scorpion in my backyard. Or actually, maybe when this one girl in the ped ward was really sick and kept spitting up tons of blood and everything was super chaotic and I was cleaning her face and it was really scary. Sarah: The people here have amazingly soft skin, especially my host sister and the new baby. Brooke: No Anna: I duno if there’s one thing I could think of changing. I guess I would make education was more of a priority to the people here.

**ALSO, I just finished reading, Three Cups of Tea, it’s really amazing. It’s nothing like my situation here, but still a really great book.

Loyal readers (hahaha): My friend did this on her blog and I thought it was a good idea. I know that people are reading this blog, but I don't know who. So I want you ALL to comment, its easy just press the comment button RIGHT NOW!! And tell me:

1. What are you doing right now?

2. What's the last thing/meal you ate?

3. Is there anything you want to ask me or general questions you have?

LOVE YOU ALL!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

I know I have talked a lot about the kankoran, and now you can see him (actually, there's two of them) in all his glory. Pretty frightening outfit, huh?? And yes, at the end that is us running away from them.KANKORAN VIDEOS!! A slightly scarier kankoran video, note the machete, not sure if you can hear his creepy scream. Thank god circumcision season is over! So this is some dancing that went down in my village the other day. Any events like these they call, "programs." Its pretty funny, I don't really know why. But anyway, this is EXTREMELY SCANDALOUS dancing. The fact that these girls are shaking their butts inches away from this guy playing the drums and lifting up their shirts is insane because directly flirting with a man is in no way condoned, women aren't even show their knees. So anyway, I was initially appalled, but clearly as soon as I got used to it I jumped in and shook my ass. The girl in blue happens to be my host sister.**Also, its always awkward when I look down and realize that I'm white and everyone around me is black. I always forget just how much I stand out. More scandalous dancing! I tried to zoom in and adaquately capture the ass shaking, but people could see my camara screen and I thought the people around me would think it was weird.

Well... haha, I don't even know where to begin. I am here only, in Africa, living in a hut with a thatch roof. I know you all think its so crazy that I'm here, but so do I. Life here has definitely not become totally normal yet. And in fact (don't worry, I'm not going to leave, I just think about things), I wonder why I'm putting myself through this.

I am currently sitting drinking a cold soda and using internet. What is a totally normal activity for most Americans, is the most amazing treat for me! A cold beverage?! Are you kidding? It's a dream. If I were in America, I could have as many cold drinks as I want, AND eat any kind of food that I want, AND use a washing machine, etc. So I just think, what the hell am I doing here, struggling everyday, going through a rollercoaster of emotions, when I could be in America having such an easy life.

I spent my whole life always working towards the future--college, turning in my thesis, graduation, etc--never focusing on the present. And I came here thinking that I could get away from that, the only living for the next step. But, I'mhere and still doing the same thing. Only this time, its--Ok, you are suffering now, but soon everything will be great, AND THEN, think about how much more you will appreciate life when you get back home. And think how proud you will be when you finish. And it's true. But a small part of me just thinks, but is it really worth it?

And clearly the answer is yes. It is worth it. And I know that. Even though in one day I go from being ecstatic and loving life, to feeling miserable and lonely, several times over, I know that in a few months, I will have settled in a lot more, and there will be many more highs and fewer lows.

In other news, I am actually really happy and enjoying my life here. I have started working at the hospital and I really, really love it (see, my mood can change in seconds!) The people are great, so friendly and fun. On my ride home from the hospital today, I was just thinking how happy I am and how excited I am to start working full-time. It doesn't hurt either that the hospital has electricity. So during the hot season (which I'm told has already started--I think its been around 100 recently and may get as high as 130 in April and May), I can sit in the hospital and have air conditioning and cold water, which is fabulous!!

I don't have a specific job right now--I work a few days a week at the RCH clinics (reproductive and child health), where babies are screened for malnutrition and given immunization injections. I like it because I get to greet in all the languages, which, in my mind, proves to the women that I am not some random tourist, and that makes me happy. Tomorrow, I will start working at the malnutrition ward. I went through it during my hospital tour and it was really sad, so I'm not sure how well I will fare, but we'll see. So M-F, 9-2 (or basically whatever days I want to go and whatever time I want to show up) I will be at the hospital, either working at the clinic or in one of the wards. And then in the afternoons, I usually sit and chat with my family or other compounds in my village. Then around 4 or 5, I fetch water, bathe and hang out in my house until dinner, which is around 8. I've also been cooking more and more for myself, which is great.

I'm really excited to get into a routine and am pretty confident that life will be a lot easier once I do that. In fact, I am feeling much better write now than I was when I started this blog entry. I honestly cannot convey how often my emotions fly around in a day. It's crazy. Ok, well I hope everyone is loving life and doing great (CAN YOU BELIEVE ABOUT CHRIS BROWN, BTW!!) I love and miss you all!!!

So, I have been in my village for just over a week now. The first week was really tough. I was kind of numb the first few days, I think I was just so overwhelmed. But I tried to just take it one day at a time and I spent most of my day unpacking and setting up my hut or reading. But after a few days, I stopped being able to take it day to day, and started thinking about being here two years and started freaking out. But then, like magic, I woke up on Day 8 and just kind of felt fine and, for the first time, had the desire to go out around my village and explore and meet people. I even cooked spaghetti and sauce for my entire family last night. They loved it and were re-heating it for breakfast this morning. I’m never sure exactly what it is that’s so scary about living here for two years, but after thinking more about it, I’ve come up with a few contributing factors—unfamiliarity and lack of control. My friend Adrian and I went to a lumo (market that only happens once a week) on Saturday and it was insane. Just getting there was such an experience in itself, as traveling in jeles always is. And then we got there and there are sooo many people, smells (the smell of dried fish, which my family sells, is pretty awful), colors, animals, it’s a bit like sensory overload when you first arrive. At one point, we saw a donkey-cart traffic jam that included maybe 30 donkey-carts that were stuck in the middle of the road, and on the one hand, I think, wow, this is hilarious, I love it. But on the other hand, I think, holy shit, this is crazy, what am I doing here for 2 years?! And so I realized it is my being entirely surrounded by totally unfamiliar things, people, clothing, foods, and languages that is so scary and overwhelming. The other thing that makes being here for 2 years seem scary is having no control over several huge decisions and many day-to-day decisions in my life. It is always scary to move by yourself to a totally new city, but normally you get to pick out your neighborhood, apartment and choose who you want to be friends with. I did not get to pick my village, family or house. And although I love my village, family and house, as a result of living with a family, I still face all the problems that come with sharing a living space. So I have to learn my family’s routines and find a way to integrate into their way of life while simultaneously establishing my own life and routine. Eating is tough, because have no control over when I eat and what I eat and I don’t particularly like the food my family makes. I feel bad telling them I don’t like their cooking so I started cooking on my own. And at first I felt guilty not only because I was not eating their cooking but also because I was not sharing my cooking with them. But I’ve realized that it’s ok if I don’t like their food and I shouldn’t feel bad about cooking for myself. So now, I usually eat a little with them, and then when I get hungry, I cook some food for myself and it works well. But it is further complicated because I am paying rent. See normally, when you are living with your family, you aren’t paying rent. Or, if you are renting an apartment, you don’t have to feel guilty about not being friends with your roommates or never being around. So it gets really hard to do my own thing without feeling guilty and often I feel I am riding this very thin line between living detached as a renter and being a member of the family. Eg. If I know my sister is outside slaving away at the family’s laundry and I am just lying on my bed reading, I start to feel really guilty, that I should be out there helping, because even though I’m not expected to, I’m a part of the family, right? Or, when my brother asks me to borrow my bike is it rude for me to say no, even though Peace Corps tells me I’m not allowed to let anyone else use my bike? So right now, I am trying to work on finding a middle ground that works for me and feel less guilty when I want to do my own thing, because I know that it is really hard to offend Gambians. Ok, that’s all, the electricity will turn off in 10 minutes so I have to go!! LOVE YOU ALL!!

I leave tomorrow to start life as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Which means no more paninis, chinese food, ice cream bars, twix, hamburgers, movies and internet (which I've been using for almost 5 hours every other day, enough to almost make it seem like I am not in Africa). I'm actually going to be communicating through snail mail again and I'm pretty excited for it. I'm hoping to get some fun letter-writing chains started. Like I said, I vow to write back every letter I receive. So C'MON! WRITE ME A LETTER!!

Other than that, I don't have much more to say. I'm pretty excited slash secretly soooo nervous to go back. But I'm able to not think about it by not allowing myself to think about anything except the next 10 minutes. It's basically the same way I didn't allow myself to think about leaving for the Peace Corps at all before I left (maybe living life in the present is all about denial?). And that worked out pretty well, minus my nervous breakdown during the first two days. But this time I have friends to call/text and I know what to expect, so I'm not too worried.

Mostly, I'm just hoping the kankoran/male circumcision season is over by now. Because my limping around with one crutch isn't going to get me anywhere quickly if the kankoran should come while I'm, say, pumping water or washing clothes. Here's hoping he takes pity on the crippled white girl!

Here's my address again:

Marnie Florin, PCV

U.S. Peace Corps

PO Box 582

Banjul, The Gambia

West Africa

So this was just some random writing I did in my journal. I didn't intend it to be a blog post, but I got into thoughts on being here and life here and life in general and all that. I'm a little hesitant to post it here, but I think it could be interesting for some of you. So I hope it is.

So, I just broke my foot last week and am currently on medical hold. We swore-in as official PC volunteers about 4 days ago and my entire training group went back to their respective sites 2 days ago. So I am just hanging out here in the capital at the PC house until my foot heals. I’m hoping to only be here a week, but probably it will be more like two or three. It would be really fun if I could walk around, but it’s such a pain to get anywhere—ie. crutching 100 yards to the street to get a car, crutching from where I get dropped off by the car, etc. But I’m managing way better than I thought I would be. I go out, I went dancing. It’s pretty awesome. I’m really proud of myself for going around and being able to do almost all of the things everyone else can do.

Life here other than that—well, it hasn’t really started. I finished training last week and won’t be back at site to start working as an official PC volunteer for another few weeks, until my foot heals.

So I just re-read the first sentence of that paragraph—that life hasn’t really started, or won’t start until I get to site. And I don’t know why it feels that way? Right now, I am staying in Kombo (the capital area). and like I said, I don’t really feel like this is life, like I’m doing anything meaningful. But I feel fine and happy, because I know that my time here is limited and I will be leaving in a week or so for site, where my life will start. But why is it that I feel like this isn't really life? And instead of this bothering me, it actually allows me to feel happy and stressfree. It’s the thought of going back to site for the next 2 years—starting life, actually living life—that scares me to death.

I’ve tried to figure out why the idea of going to site is so scary. Until now, during training, I had a schedule for every hour of every day—learning Mandinka, doing health stuff, etc. But in one week or two weeks or whenever I actually get back to my site, I will have absolutely NO schedule AT ALL. And when I arrive and have every hour of every day totally free for the next two years and can’t segment out my life, I think I will freak out. But, I can’t actually figure out what it is that is scary—maybe it’s just having so much free time, not knowing what on earth I am going to do with myself everyday. But would being super busy in the states really be better? Is it, in fact, easier to have a crazy schedule that includes 10 hrs a day in an office than it is to have a totally open schedule all day, everyday? I don’t know… In all honestly though, I think it probably would be/ is a lot harder to be happy in the US. And I think I will have just as many highs and lows here as I would were I living in the states for two years.

So then I try to sit and figure out why I am so afraid to have so much free time—to live without schedules and endpoints. I guess it forces you to live in the present. But I just can’t pinpoint why it is so scary or, actually, so hard to just be present, to just live in the present? I don’t know… Does everyone working some 9-5 office job with no end in sight feel this impending fear? Is that life? I don’t know. I have no idea.

And I mean, really, there is an end in sight for me. I am here for only 2 years. But after that I will leave here and then what? Maybe I will go to grad school. And then what? When does life actually start? I mean, I know this is life now, but why do we always have to be working towards something, or looking forward to something to be happy and feel alive. Why can’t you live every day for that day, and not look towards the future. Why is it so hard to feel alive or fulfilled just by living in the present—being happy, forming relationships, bettering yourself?

For the first three months at site, called three-month challenge, you’re not supposed to start any big projects or anything (in fact, some PC people advise you to wait at least a year to start a big project or to not even do one at all, and instead to focus on more grassroots activities). So for the next three months, I am expected to do nothing but fully immerse myself into my family and village. Most people get really antsy during that time and feel like they need to be doing something. But I’m really looking forward to just hanging out and I don’t think that will happen to me, because, well, I’m lazy and usually content just doing nothing.

So, I hope that during these next three months, and next two years, I will learn that I can keep myself happy here even if I’m not working towards some big goal—that I can live in the present, enjoying each day, without having to constantly look towards the future. I hope to accept that I’m not going to change the world or end poverty or anything like that in two years and that’s ok. That just by learning about this culture and how to live a different way of life I am working towards something. And if I spend each day here working to be a less judgmental person, trying to gain a deeper appreciation of life and a making new friends— then, my time here and life as a whole will be a success.

These first pictures are from the swear-in ceremony today at the ambassador's house

Ida, me, Adam and Haddy (who I just call hottie). They are a few of the language teachers we had and just generally amazing people

My entire training group. The health people had matching fabric and the Ag-fos also had matching fabric.

Adrian, erin, me and jes... check the cast

Another fantastic shot of me in the cast withCass

My health group in our matching outfits

Now some more pictures from training village that forgot about:

Me with a baby goat. They're the cutest. Also, note the bandage on my arm...

...From when i fell bike riding. it has since healed nicely

In front of my house at training village

They like to write phone numbers on the walls of houses, if you look under that smear you can see my phone number

Kasey, me and Lizzy Lizzy

Me and 1/3 of the tiny man crew with... MY NALGENE

Yo, so the latest development here is that I fell Saturday night, fractured my foot and am getting a cast tomorrow. Which means I will most likely be stuck in the capital for 3 more weeks, when everyone else is going back to site on Friday. The good: I can eat delicious food, get internet, watch movies and take a shower these next few weeks. The bad: all that doesn't really matter since I am immobile and can't get anywhere. At least until I can crutch out to the street and take cabs... so yeah.

But I still swear in on Wednesday. Karaoke on crutches should be interesting, haha. Oh, and I took my final Mandinka test on Saturday and, along with one other person, got the highest score of the group- Advanced low. So I was pretty happy. That's all, I gotta run so I can get a ride home and not crutch back. LOVE YOU ALL!! Thanks for all the comments, letters, calls, everything. You guys are really making things so great for me! THANK YOU!!

After being here a few months, I've re-evaluated my package list. I JUST WANT FOOD!! Here goes:

Kashi Bars (chocolate caramel karma)

Kraft Parmesan Cheese

Chewy Chips Ahoy

Flaming Hot Cheetos

Pringles (sour cream and onion, pizza)

Baking mix (pancake mix, chocolate chip mix, anything like that)

**I vow to write letters back to everyone that writes me one. So write me a letter.

01/08/09

I had my site visit this week, which means I left training village (as training ends this week and I get sworn in as an official peace corps volunteer on Wednesday) and moved to the village that I will live in for the next 2 years- Bantanto. I really love it. It’s a few kilometers away from Bansang, which is a relatively legit city with a big hospital and internet that run on the electricity that’s there from 6pm to noon. In village, I’m replacing another volunteer, so the house is fabulous. There’s a bed outside (for the hot season) and a hammock. And it’s painted really nicely and is pretty spacious. The family also seems great. I haven’t met my host mother or a few of my brothers, but my brother that was there, Kemesen, who is basically the head of the family, and his wife Meeta, are amazing. He speaks really good English and is helping me a lot with my Mandinka. His daughter and two younger sisters are also really great. So I’m really excited to get back to site and become part of the family.

Some funny things about site visit:

1-10: My last name is Fatty. I am Mahana Fatty.

10- Infinity: It is now male circumcision season, which means the kankoran (actually there are four of them) is out and about every night wrecking havoc. The kankoran is this semi-mythical/mystical figure in Mandinka tradition, which is said to have powers to scare away devils and protect the circumcised boys. In practice though, it’s some guy, most likely on drugs, who dresses up in this insanely scary costume, carries machetes and runs around beating them on the ground and screaming. And, here’s the best part, if he sees/catches any women he can beat them. I’m still not quite sure what that entails and if it ever actually happens, but it’s enough of a threat that fully grown women will sprint into their houses if they see him approaching.

So, it’s my first day in village, and I’m getting water at the pump and I see a group of women running towards me, telling me to run. I’m not really sure if they’re serious and didn’t want to be laughed at for running/over reacting. But they were really serious, so I had to leave my bucket at the pump and run to my house. Then, the next evening, as I’m taking my bucket bath in my backyard, I hear him screaming and slamming his machete on the ground RIGHT outside my backyard fence. I’m naked, covered in soap, I can’t go anywhere, so I just try to sit there silently hoping he doesn’t hear me and start shaking the fence or something. It’s mostly just for fun, and I’ve been assured that he won’t hurt tubaabs (foreigners/white people). But still, I was pretty annoyed to learn that this goes on, not for 2 days, but for 2 months…. Ughh. Oh, and Mom, don’t worry, I’m not in any real danger, I promise.

I arrived in Kombo (the area in and around Banjul, the capital) today for my last week of training. Getting here was, not so easy. **I was going to try and make this not-so-detailed and kind of short, but I feel like a without a detailed account of the trip, its hard to really understand what traveling in the Gambia is like** Bantanto is kind of far east up-country and Kombo is right on the water, both on the south side of the river. There are two roads in Gambia: the north road and the south road. What should be a straight, easy shot on the south bank road is made complicated by the fact that the south bank road is terrible and filled with pot holes. Cars often drive with one set of tires on the road and the other off the road in the dirt, because it’s better than the road. And on certain really bad stretches, there are side dirt paths parallel to the road.

It’s so bad that the preferred way to get to Kombo from my area is to cross the river, take the north road all the way to Barra, and then cross again to Kombo. Instead of doing this all in one day, myself and two other volunteers spent the night on Georgetown island.

If you count ferries, it took 8 different vehicles and 12 hours over two days to go some 200 miles. To get to the island, we had to get a car at the Bansang car park. The car parks, ha… ok. It’s so hard to adequately describe the carparks and jelejeles (pronounced gelie gelie). Jelejeles are vans/buses, usually in awful condition that travel between big cities. In each city there is a car park, where tons of jelejeles wait to pick up people and start their route. Usually they won’t leave until the car is full (meaning 6 people shoved into an area that could comfortably fit 3 or 4 people) and it could take 10 minutes or it could take an hour. And often after the car is full, you could sit in the parking lot for another hour for no reason at all. Then, they will pick up people on the side of the road. Often they break down or get flats, so you really can’t expect to arrive anywhere on time if you take a jelejele. Oh, and they load the top of it soooo high, its insane. Sometimes there are maybe 10 goats along with 10 ft high piles of who knows what on the top of these vans. Its ridiculously unsafe, for the animals, that is.

So I flagged down a jelejele in Bantanto to get to Bansang. It stopped at the Bansang car park where I met the two other volunteers and we got in a van to go to Georgetown island. It took a really long time, and about 20 tries and lots of pushing, to get our van to start. Then once it did, our driver had to stop to get some rope to tie his door shut… fabulous. The road is pretty good though and we got to the ferry crossing in one piece. SIDE NOTE: We went to a roadside shack-thing that was making omelet sandwiches and my friends got one. I asked if they knew how to make French toast and proceeded to step into their “kitchen” and cook it for them. The ferry to the island arrived soon after, so I didn’t get to taste it, but it looked delicious and I plan to stop by on my way back for a second attempt.

The next day we take another ferry from the island to the north side of the river. There we catch a bus that will take us all the way Barra (the city opposite the river from the capital). The bus ride was relatively easy, albeit about 6 or 7 hrs. We stopped somewhere for lunch/breakfast. I got a steak and onion sandwich, which was delicious once I picked out the pieces of organ and gristle. Then when I finished, we just threw the paper it was wrapped in out the bus window because… hey, there’s no trashcans in Gambia so you just throw trash wherever you want (it’s actually still really hard for me to do that and I normally make other people do it for me).

There were several chickens on the bus, namely, the woman standing next to my seat had one that flapped on my arm. At first, I thought someone was fanning themselves and that the fan was hitting my arm. And I didn’t tell them to stop because, well, it was so damn hot on the bus that it actually felt really good. But then I realized, no, that’s a chicken flapping its wings on your arm and I kind of flipped out.

Then a few hours later there was another woman with another chicken, and I had the urge to flick its waddle (don’t ask). So I looked at the woman holding it and she wasn’t looking so I flicked it. And then I looked up at the other woman standing behind me and she was just starring at me with this face like, why did you just do that are you insane. Then I died laughing, and the other woman kind of pushed the chicken in my face as a joke. It was fun.

Our last farmlife adventure was on the ferry to Kombo, where there was a herd of cattle (with horns! my friend would like me to add that the horns were probably 2 ft long each) boarding. But for some reason, a few of them decided they wanted out and started running at full speed down the corridor I was walking up. It was really scary and I thought one of them was going to run right into me. (I wonder though: did their owner have to purchase a ticket for each of them??) After the ferry, we had to take two cars to get to the Peace Corps house. I was so exhausted when we finally arrived and couldn’t remember why I was looking forward to coming at all.

BUT!!! all was redeemed because we got Chinese food. (my other friend would like me to add that she cooked pad thai for us, actually I got my own separate veggie-free sauce, which was really nice, and it was delicious!!) It was AMAZING! I got bbq pork, sweet and sour chicken and a beer! Afterwards, I got a crunchy ice cream bar. It was glorious!!! I was immediately reminded why I love being in the capital. And going to karaoke on Wednesday will truly seal the deal- I hope Gambia is prepared to see 50 Cent performed at its finest.

LOVE YOU ALL

side note: Akon's nobody wanna see us together is now playing for the second time in about 10 minutes in the internet cafe here. THEY LOVE AKON HERE.

YO GUYS! You may have noticed the non-sounding run-on sentences random-rambling tone of the last post- thats because whitney so nicely volunteered to transcribe a blog entry while we chatted on the phone. THANKS SHWI!! Oh, but my family's last name here is DABO, not davo. That's the only correction.

So I'm getting internet now for the first time in about 6 weeks... its glorious, except no one is on aim or gchat, which is unfortunate. ANYWAY, things are really great here. Although there are definitely some scary moments (emotionally, not physically, everything here is really safe and nothing is scary-- except maybe the HUGE spiders in my room and lots of bees and grasshoppers flying at my face--but other than that, it is really safe) I am generally happy and loving life. I did get bit on the neck by a big ant last night though.

It helps that the food here is really fantastic. For breakfast I get a loaf of bread, which varies in freshness, or NICE crackers which are tasty. I had been eating the bread with parmesan cheese every day, but I ran out. SO SEND ME SOME KRAFT PARM!! Now i put peanut butter on the bread, which is quite tasty and there is a lot of it here. Dinner and lunch is usually delicious rice and sauce with potatoes and maybe chicken or fish. And after dinner I will lay outside with my sister on a mat, last night I fell asleep for awhile. It's fantastic. My family here is amazing. I got such a great greeting when I got back from our technical training week. Also I get my hair braided a lot, which i know a lot of you will find funny.

-OMG, the song playing right now is like a monotone- cell phone ring tone of sean paul- baby boy. And it was really short, so I think that's actually what it was.

Um... So I move to my permanent site in 2-3 weeks. I'm really sad to be leaving my family and the only thing that makes me happy at all is knowning that cold-ish beers are sold about 3k from my village. Ok, that's a lie, I'm happy to be starting work and everything, but I just love my family and training village so much that it makes me really sad to even imagine leaving.

I'm trying to think of some specific funny stories, but there aren't any ones i can think of right now. Life in general is pretty funny. I especially love to say things in English that I know no one can understand and then laugh to myself- ie. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE SAYING RIGHT NOW! So that's about all for now I guess. Oh, my 13-yr old brother sings the song, 'I like to move it, move it.' and my 16-yr old brother has a mandy moore shirt with the letters in hebrew-like writing, which I find really funny.

OK, thats all from me. I LOVE YOU ALLL SOOO MUCH!! and I think about you all the time!! MORE SOON!!

So Africa is a lot like some of you would imagine in. I live in a house with a corrugated tin roof, with no running water, and no electricity. I fetch water from the pump and carry it on my head. I'm getting rather good at it. I take bucket baths and shit in a hole in the ground in my backyard. But it's wonderful. I love it because I can wear the most ridiculous outfits such as Amy's Christmas pajama pants and any random t-shirt and it's considered a relatively fashionable outfit. It's also A-okay to go bra-less which I take advantage of pretty often. Everyone here is beautiful.

I have an African name: Mahana-Davo. Davo is my family's last name. In one month my last name will be Fatty. So my name will be Mahana-Fatty. So right now I'm living in Davo Compound. My father has three wives and approximately 20 kids, give or take a few. However, only 6 kids currently live in the compound. The food is outrageously good. I learned how to say "I'm so full but this food is too sweet," which comes in handy almost every night when I can't stop eating. The Gambian people are jokesters by nature. You can say the most ridiculous things and people love it. A favorite is to tell you that your father or mother is not hard working. To which you are expected to respond, "No that's not true. They are very hard working." And everyone laughs. Or if you are sitting, someone will say "You are sitting" to which you reply "Yes, I am sitting." We make fun of each other a lot, like when I wore my shirt inside out yesterday. Learning the Mandika word for "crazy" has been clutch. My family is amazing and I am really sad that I have to leave them in a month. They told me that they would miss me while I was going to be away for training for a week. And I miss them because the food when we're away is never as good as my family's cooking. I'm gonna force my sister to move with me to my next compound so that she can keep cooking for me. But I'm really excited to finally get to site and start working.

In terms of what I'm actually doing for the Peace Corps, it's not a whole lot yet. Almost every day is spent learning Mandika, which I'm getting pretty good at. (In fact my mom here has told me that I'm the best Mandika speaker in the village.) We do have technical training and we're learning ways to increase nutritional intake from local vegetation. We're also starting a large campaign to encourage breast feeding in the first 6 months. We're teaching them how to make mosquito repellant using items that are found in the village naturally. I've also been helping with wound care and how to keep cuts clean. My biggest achievement to date, however, has been the hand washing station that I set up in my compound. The people here don't use soap. They handle raw meat, then may rinse with water alone and then dig their hands into the food bowl. It's a problem. So I bought a bar of soap and this sleeve, then nailed the soap-in-a-sleeve to a post. I've been showing them how to wash their hands and encourage them to wash before they eat and after they go to the bathroom. They actually bring the soap in every night and put it out every morning which I find touching. I guess it's because they don't want someone to steal the soap. But I feel unbelievably safe in my village.

There's definitely ups and downs and times when I freak out. But for the most part, I'm very happy and I've made some great friends. And I'm very excited about the possibilities for the next two years here. Once I get to site, I should be able to get internet a few times a month so expect more posts in 2009. Happy Holidays! I love and miss you all! All the phone calls, letters and packages have been so amazing - you have no idea. Keep them coming. Love you guys!!

~ transcribed by Whitney

* Try pingo.com - it's a really easy way to get a hold of Marnie.

eating food with hands, what I will be doing AND LOVING for the next 10 weeks/2 years ENORMOUS SPIDER- that is my hand

The Tiny Man Crew (TMC as we affectionately call them) these three little boys running around pantsless in a reptile farm (ie. the most dangerous place in the world for children to be running loose)

THE GORGEOUS BEACH

11.12.08

Before I start. I got my phone- so buy a $5 calling card at a gas station or a CVS or anywhere and call me. It’s really easy.

011 220 706 0792

I should generally get reception wherever I am. And just remember it’s 7 or 8 hrs later- not sure.

And send me mail!!

Well I’ve officially been here a week. It feels so much longer though, not really in a bad way, it’s just that we’ve done so much. Actually though, it’s kind of been a vacation so far, minus the countless hours of language and cultural training everyday. It’s really beautiful here, reminds me of Costa Rica. Sundays are our day off and last Sunday we went to the beach. I got to lay in a hammock and just listen to music. Also the beer here is pretty good and I got to have a beer in the shower yesterday, a favorite activity of mine. AND I got all my laundry done today for 41 dalasis (about $2.00). I also bought 12 meters of fabric for 240 dalasis ($10) to be tailored at my village, so I will soon post pictures of me in a full Gambian outfit.

The foods not bad either--lots of rice, very few veggies, which I love, really good sauces AND sometimes ice cream. But apparently we won’t be eating such good food after Friday when we go to our training villages where we will spend the next 10 weeks. There are 4 other people staying in the same village as me, but we are all living with different families, I think. The other groups are staying in villages within 5K. I’m definitely looking forward to it. ALSO everyone LOOOOOVEEESSS Obama. They wear shirts, they shout Obama when they see you, it’s amazing. And the people are soo nice.

So far, most of the language instruction has been on greetings. You HAVE to greet everyone you pass by, everyone you talk to, everyone you meet. It’s insane. As you can probably imagine, I try and talk to everyone I pass by. You start with Salaam Maalekum and then go into a series of anywhere from 2 to, I don’t even know, maybe 20, questions. The best part is that you don’t answer anyone seriously- there are set responses for every question. My teachers always joke, even if you are dodging bullets, you say everything is ok. Even if you are dying, you say, I am doing well. Only after the greetings do you actually start to talk about what’s really going on.

A typical greeting session could be (the translations are quite funny):

Saalaam Maalekum

-Maalekum Saalaam

I Saama (Good morning)

-I Saama (Good morning)

Suumoluu lee? (Where are the home people?)

-I be jee (They are here)

Kori tana te jee? (Hope there’s no trouble?)

-Tana te jee (There’s no trouble)

Somananda be naadi? (How’s the morning?)

-Somanda be jan dorong (The morning is here only)

Kaira laata? (Did you spend the night in peace?)

-Kaira dorong (Peace only)

It’s really weird, you answer everything ‘Peacee only’ or if the question is, how’s the work going, you answer, ‘the work is here only.’ I guess it roughly translates to, “It’s going,” or “I’m working.” I’m not sure, but I find it really funny. So now when people ask me anything, like, how was the store, I just respond, the store is here only.

So I’m going to stop here. There’s a lot more I can say, but I think that’s enough for now. Basically I really love it. I don’t actually acknowledge the fact that I’m going to be here for 2 years. But thinking about it makes me more excited than scared. It’s just really great, kind of like going to school in another country (because soooo much of the day is class, like 8-5). Ok, that’s all. I love and miss you all SOO MUCH. Please write/call because I won’t have email for the next 10 weeks.

...by bringing A TON of stuff

For so long it seemed like I was never going to leave. And now all of a sudden I'm leaving in three weeks. I started packing...well not really. I've just been gathering all my 'stuff,' but there's A LOT of it. (see picture)

Did you know you can fly with knives?!? Well I'm bringing about 5--take that Bear Grylls!! I'm also pre-treating my clothes with military strength bug deterrent (not shown, haha). Then, I have 3 LED headlamps (picture of me wearing headlamp coming soon), a crank-powered shortwave radio, a solar charger, a solar-powered water purifier, and an INSANE amount of medicines (c'mon, a doctor's daughter leaving the country for 2 years--what did you expect?).

And, with the help of Clark and Jason, I made a Before-I-Go-To-Do list:

FOOD TO EAT

Sushi

In N Out

Panda Express

Korean BBQ

Golden Spoon

Sushi Wasabi

Rowland Heights Dim Sum

Melting Pot

Osteria La Buca

Roy's

THINGS TO DO

Vote

Mini Golf

Karaoke

Dinosaur Video Viewing Party

Laser Tag

Simpsons Arcade Game

Pro/College Football Game

Concert

-the ironic thing is I said I would never get pregnant because then I wouldn't be able to eat sushi for 9 months.... well, maybe not ironic, but you know what I mean.

**Because of reader feedback, I have decided to remove my huge list of books and instead create a wishlist on Amazon.com, so you can check off what you buy. Also I think Amazon is the cheapest. SEE LINK TO THE LEFT!!

So I will be leaving for the Gambia from Philadelphia in exactly one month from tomorrow. Soon this blog will be filled with funny anecdotes and pensive observations, but for now, it's just my address and a wish list. So, please write to me:

Marnie Florin, PCT

U.S. Peace Corps

PO Box 582

Banjul, The Gambia

West Africa

OR SEND ME STUFF!! It's true, I haven't left yet and already I'm telling you what to send me. But, take into consideration that it takes a month to receive packages. So if you send something tomorrow, I will get it right when I arrive and feel very happy.

Things I would love to receive:

Letters

Magazines

Kashi Bars

Teriyaki Beef Jerky or Nuggets (don't judge, they're delicious)

Dried foods

Label the green customs forms with "school supplies," "religious materials," "food," "personal health supplies" etc. DO NOT write down anything valuable (like batteries, solar radio, etc.) even if they are in the box. You can use generic terms like "electronics."

**Thanks to Leslie and Ryan