A day and a half late and after nearly three days of traveling, I am relieved to report that I made it safely to Normandy. I'm going to try to keep this from getting too long, but no promises. Here's the story:

Jan 17 - In the midst of a rumored strike in Kathmandu, I was informed by my parents' travel agent that my flight for the next morning had been canceled and I would have to get rebooked on a later flight. Since I would miss my connecting flight, that meant spending an extra night in Delhi before going on to Paris. Not seeing another option that wasn't an insanely tight connection in a foggy part of the world, we all scrambled to sort that out.

Jan 18 - Out of curiosity, I checked online just before leaving for the airport and discovered that, according to the internet at least, my original morning flight actually went after all. So that means that all the subsequent headaches could have been avoided. But that's neither here nor there. I got to Delhi without any problems, only to discover: 1) The airline had absolutely no intention of providing me with the complementary hotel room the travel agent had promised, and of course I had been unable to get any kind of documentation from her in time; 2) Even if I could locate an affordable hotel on my own at night in Delhi (clearly not advisable), the Delhi immigration officials are notoriously strict and I most likely would have issues trying to get out of the airport for the night and back in again; and 3) Apparently my flight booking and my ticket number were for different airlines, which created a world of problems, as you might expect. After much back and forth, I finally managed to get the airline to give me a boarding pass, begged them to make sure my bag made it on the correct flight, and seeing no other intelligent option, settled in for a 20-hour wait at the Delhi airport. I won't go into details on that, but you can imagine how fun that was...

Jan 19 - Thankfully, my flight to Paris was more or less on time, but it took forever to get our bags, and of course mine was literally the last bag off (I was completely convinced it was lost forever by that point). By the time I got my bag, I knew I wasn't going to make my inter-city train to Normandy I had hoped to take, so I spent the next hour or so trying to navigate the French public transportation system (in French, naturally), at a run, carrying all my stuff, in hope I would still be able to catch the second last train of the evening. I got to the inter-city station just in time, sweet-talked the closed ticket office into selling me a ticket so I wouldn't have to run all over the station trying to find the right machine to do it, found my train, grabbed a seat, and collapsed in relief. Unfortunately that relief was short-lived. 5-10 minutes later, a guy came and informed me that, oh no, even though this train says it's going to your destination, it's actually shutting down for the night. Apparently, there was a different train I was supposed to be on. I ran out to the platform, only to discover that the correct train rolled out 3 minutes before and there were no more trains until morning.

There were a few hotels nearby, so I went in and asked the price, and almost fell over when I heard the answer - 190 Euros for a single room for a night. And yes, that was the going rate for this area. Lucky for me, the guy at the front desk spoke English and took pity on me, so he told me how to get to an area with cheaper hotels using the city metro. After successfully finding an open shop that sold SIM cards, buying the SIM card, getting it to work in my Gambian phone, and talking to Jacob (who was waiting for me at the train station in Normandy), I set out to find a more reasonably priced hotel. Sidenote - I am so grateful I have to have a husband who is so level-headed, has complete faith in my ability to take care of myself, and doesn't panic about stuff like this. He always makes me feel better :-) Anyways, after a short metro ride and some searching, I located a hotel with a room available (for 47 Euros) and called it a night.

Jan 20 - After a decent night's sleep and a much-needed but very cold shower, I headed back to the inter-city train station as soon as the metro trains started running in the morning. I got there with 10 minutes to spare, caught the first train to Normandy, met up with Jacob, and then everything was happily ever after. Or something like that :-) The end.

So, as you know if you've been following my posts about my India/Nepal trip, I've spent the past two weeks with a very international group of people which included quite a few British and Australian people. I quickly realized that while all they were pretty familiar with American English from tv/movies/etc, I was light years behind on their lingo. Of course they said things like "loo," "dodgy" and "mate" that most Americans recognize and understand, but they also used other words that were completely new to me. This isn't a comprehensive list by any means, but here are a few examples for all your entertainment:

1) Woolies (winter clothes)

2) Jumper (sweater that doesn't open in the front)

3) Mozzies (mosquitoes)

4) Lappy (laptop)

5) Peckish (hungry)

6) Bathers (bathing suits)

7) Taking the piss (making a joke)

8) Gutted (disappointed)

9) Capsicum (bell pepper)

10) Bobble (pom pom, like one on a winter hat)

Jan 15 - Sticking with a common theme of the trip, we were up before dawn to drive to the top of a nearby hill to watch the sun rise over the Annapurna mountains. The sunrise was so gorgeous it almost made us forget that we were losing feeling in our fingers and toes from the cold :-) Unfortunately, the super low light was really beyond what my little point-and-shoot camera could handle, but I should be able to steal pics from people who had better cameras later. I promise I'll get pics from the trip up as soon as possible and post the link here. After defrosting a bit, we all got back in the bus to drive to our final stop on the trip - Kathmandu. Upon arriving in Kathmandu, we visited the Monkey Temple (which was pretty touristy and not particularly exciting), then we went to the hotel to enjoy much needed hot showers before our farewell dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Jan 16 - Our group started splitting up today :-( Some people are heading directly home to the places like the US, Australia, and Europe, while others are continuing traveling in Asia. It's been a great trip and our group got along really well, so it's sad to part ways. Never fear though - we made sure to all become Facebook friends, so we'll be able to stay in touch that way at least.

I opted out of this pricey optional activity, but some people who didn't have early flights tried to do an Everest flight this morning (contrary to my expectations, you cannot see Mt. Everest or any big mountains from Kathmandu). Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, so their flight never ended up taking off. They got fully refunded, but it was still quite a disappointment for them. Those of us still around later in the day wandered around and did a bit more shopping. We went out for one last dinner with our rapidly dwindling group at an awesome funky middle eastern restaurant that we stumbled on. What a great way to end an amazing two weeks!

Jan 17 - Last night we started hearing rumors about a strike today. Strikes are almost as common as power cuts here and can seriously disrupt people's ability to move around the city, so everyone with a flight anytime today headed to the airport before dawn to be on the safe side. The four of us remaining discovered relatively quickly that the strike wasn't really happening after all, so we did some more exploring and just hung and relaxed until it was time for me to catch a cab to go meet an old friend from CARE who works at the US Embassy here now. He is also a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (he served in Cape Verde), so we had a nice evening reminiscing about our Peace Corps experiences and talking about Foreign Service. I also successfully made Chicken Yassa (one of my favorite Gambian dishes) in a western kitchen for the second time. I'm practically a pro now!

Jan 18 - My morning flight was rescheduled for mid-afternoon, so I got to spend the morning hanging out in my friend's comfy Embassy apartment catching up on email and enjoying amenities like heat and hot water. I'll head to the airport in an hour or so, and if all goes as planned, I will spend the night in Delhi (blegh), then join my wonderful husband in Normandy tomorrow evening :-)

Jan 12 - Yet another early morning today because we got up early to ride elephants in the park. While riding elephants can be exceedingly uncomfortable (as I discovered in Thailand), it was a very cool experience, especially because we got to see a mother rhino with her baby only a few feet away. Chitwan is known for its rhinos, but obviously we were not guaranteed to see any, so we were lucky. After the ride, we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a few hours (read: slept) before walking into town to explore the small town on foot. After exhausting the town, we rented bikes and biked out to some nearby communities, which allowed us to see a little more of what daily life is like here. We finished up the day with a bonfire again to keep warm.

Jan 13 - Slept in a bit then drove to Pokhara today. The drive was rather scary because we kept seeing overloaded trunks that had either tipped on a curve or gone off cliffs. That said, it was one of the most stunningly beautiful drives I've ever done. After settling into our hotel in Pokhara (which is again lacking in the heat department), we spent the remainder of the afternoon/evening exploring the town and trying to stay warm. It's a very nice town - clean, organized and full of cafes and cute shops. It's probably a bit touristy during tourist season, but we're still at least a few weeks ahead of that, so it's really quite nice.

Jan 14 - Got to sleep in for the second day in a row, then did some shopping and catching up on internet stuff then got ready for paragliding (an adventure sport that involves riding the air currents like a bird while being held up in the air by a parachute). I'm not exactly sure how I got talked into it, but I, along with most of the rest of our group, ended up running off a cliff and paragliding over the lake for half an hour with the Annapurna mountains in the background. It was nearly as scary as I expected and basically was just incredibly awesome. I loved it! Tomorrow we're back to getting up early to see the sunrise over the Annapurnas before driving to Kathmandu. I can't believe the trip is almost finished. What an amazing couple of weeks!

Jan 10 - We got a very early start today to give us the whole day to get across the border into Nepal. Luckily the trip and border crossing went smoothly and we made it to our hotel by early evening. This was our nicest hotel yet, so we all enjoyed the hot showers and comfy beds. For the second night in a row, we ended the evening playing games at the hotel restaurant. Our group is a really good mix of people and we get along really well. It's amazing how well we've all gotten to know each other in such a short time.

Jan 11 - We got to sleep in a bit today before visiting Buddha's birthplace, which I particularly appreciated because of all I learned about Buddhism during my time in Thailand. After the visit, we drove to Chitwan National Park. The road was very hilly, windy, and foggy, but our driver navigated it expertly. We stopped for chai in a hilltop village along the way at one of the most beautiful spots we've seen yet. Our hotel in Chitwan is a combination lodge/development project, and despite the lack of hot water and heaters in the rooms, it's a nice spot in the buffer zone around the park. After a nice dinner, we had a fun night chatting and drinking beer around a campfire with another GAP trip which is also staying here.

We all are very happy to finally be in Nepal after the crowds, constant noise, pollution and general sensory overload of India. Despite the pollution cough I picked up, I very much enjoyed my time in India and would recommend it to anyone. That said, after a week in India, the fresh air and peace and quiet of Nepal is a very welcome change.

More to come later!

Jan 5 - Wow - what a day! After a very early (and utterly frigid) train ride to Agra, we went to see the Red Fort, one of the biggest attractions in India. A massive and beautiful structure with a fascinating history, it really was quite impressive. I'm not usually a fort kind of girl, but I really enjoyed our visit. After a nice lunch (an eggplant dish with naan), we headed to the biggest attraction of all - the Taj Mahal. While the insane crowds there were a bit overwhelming and frustrating, it still lived up to all the hype. Amazing. Afterwards, we had a free evening to wander the area and relax.

Jan 6 - Caught yet another morning train to the small town of Orchha. After dropping our stuff off at the hotel (where we were assigned to sleep in the fanciest "tents" I've ever seen), we headed to the Raja Mahal, and beautiful palace that we all agreed was actually our favorite so far. It was particularly special because there were only a few other tourists there, so we basically had the place to ourselves, a true rarity in India! In addition to very impressive architecture, it had extremely well preserved 16th century fresco paintings and a resident population of monkeys that weren't the least bit scared of people. After a chai break, we had free time to explore the town a bit before going to an interesting Hindu ceremony at a local temple. We had a cheap and delicious dinner and beers at a restaurant nearby and went back to the hotel "tents" to continue the evening into the wee ours of the morning. Very fun night!

Jan 7 - Best day yet! We had a free morning, which most people (myself included) spent sleeping in, then we rented bikes and rode around the area. We toured a local NGO that makes recycled paper from cloth scraps, visited a small poor community, and saw a family farm. As our guide put it, "this is the real India." While it made me really miss The Gambia (the similarities were striking), I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to have had those experiences. It's not always easy to get out and see that sort of thing as a tourist, but it's something I was really hoping would be possible. After returning our bikes, we stopped for chai and a big of shopping, then headed back to a local woman's home for a cooking lesson and dinner. In a homey, authentic setting, she showed us how to make masala chai tea, vegetable pakora (fried vegetable and chickpea flour dumplings), chana masala (chickpea curry), rice pulao (friend rice with vegetables), guava chutney with cilantro, boordi raita (yogurt sauce) and puri (puffy bread served at special occasions here). My favorites were the chana masala and guava chutney. I look forward to making them at home. After dinner, we headed to the train station to catch an overnight train to the holy city of Varanasi.

Jan 8 - We got an upgrade on our train, so to use a British-ism, last night's train ride was "heaps" better than the last one. Once we got to Varanasi, we spent the day exploring the city and shopping at a silk shop with our guide, then we went down to the Ganges river in the evening. The river really comes alive in the evening with people doing everything from playing cricket or flying kites to conducting cremations and other Hindu rituals. We went out on a boat on the river and, while being entertained by traditional musicians, lit candles on tiny leaf and flower rafts, made wishes, set them afloat on the river, and watched our wishes twinkle away. The whole experience was hard to put into words, but it was incredible.

Jan 9 - We were supposed to do a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges today, but it was too foggy to see the sunrise, so we slept in, had a nice breakfast and went for a mid-morning boat trip instead. Two of the guys in our group and our guide took advantage of the opportunity to take a dip in the holy river to cleanse themselves of their sins. Given the level of excrement, human ashes, trash, and general filth in the river, I opted to pass. Afterwards, we wandered the city for a while longer on our own (getting lost, naturally), did a bit more shopping, and prepared for our impending12-hour bus ride to Nepal...

After a wonderful two weeks in Thailand with my parents (pictures to come once Dad gets them up), Jacob headed to France to start language classes and I flew to India to see a little more of Asia before meeting him in France. As this is my first solo non-work trip, and I have heard India can be rather overwhelming for first-time visitors, I opted for an organized tour with GAP Adventures. The trip started in Delhi, then we will be working our way towards the Nepalese border, crossing into Nepal, and finally finishing up in Kathmandu. Time and internet permitting over the next couple weeks, I will post updates (and pictures if you all are really lucky, but don't hold your breath). Here's what I've done so far in 2012:

Jan 1 - New Year's last night in Chiang Mai (northern Thailand) was really special. Nowhere else I would rather have been. Paper balloon lanterns and fireworks were beautiful. Happy 2012!! Thankfully not too tired this morning. Got up early for a cooking class. Made Panang Chicken Curry and Tom Kha Gai soup - my favorites! Unfortunately the results weren't quite as tasty as I'd hoped, but it was certainly operator error, so I guess that just means I need more practice. Definitely an interesting class though and I'm glad I got a chance to do it. Left Mom, Dad, Daniel and Jacob at the class and headed to the airport. Small airport, well run, so I got there way too early, but better safe than sorry, right? Uneventful flight to Bangkok. Found free internet kiosks in the international terminal of the Bangkok airport. Awesome. Relatively uneventful flight to Delhi, minus the airplane food not agreeing with me. The first thing I did upon arriving in India was throw up in the airport bathroom (sorry if that's TMI). An auspicious start to the trip, right? Found my airport transfer guy without any trouble, got to the hotel, and crashed.

Jan 2 - Freezing and no heat in the hotel, but I was tired enough that I slept fine anyways. Thought about exploring the area, but most things are closed on Mondays here and it didn't seem like the greatest neighborhood, so I opted to stay in, relax, and watch TV all morning instead. I'll have plenty of time for exploring later when I'm not alone anymore. Had our trip orientation at 2pm. Seems like a good group. 13 people and a local guide. People from Australia, UK, Denmark and US. Mix of couples, friends and single travellers. Took the subway with the group to see the "India Gate" (which wasn't particularly exciting). The subway was crowded but not as bad as I expected. They had separate men's and women's cars, which is actually pretty nice, particularly because there aren't many women on the trains, so the women's care are less crowded. Had a good group dinner (chicken and veggie dishes, rice, naan/roti, and Kingfisher beer) and made it an early night.

Jan 3 - Had to be up super early to catch an early morning train to Jaipur. Managed to get in a hot shower beforehand, which was nice. Getting on the train was pretty nuts. I'd hate to see the train station at rush hour. Uneventful train ride, arrived in Jaipur late morning. Took a rather harrowing tuk-tuk ride (motorbike pulling a seat for passengers) to our hotel, dropped off our stuff and headed out for lunch. Explored the city all afternoon with stops for chai tea and snacks, then had the opportunity to experience a Bollywood movie in an authentic Bollywood theatre. Even though it was mostly in Hindi, we were able to follow the plot decently well. For the most part, the movie was a surprisingly typical action flick. There was less singing and dancing than I expected, although our guide informed us there usually is more. The Indians in the audience still got really into it though! Maybe it's just because I hadn't seen a movie in a movie theatre for more than two years (!), but actually really enjoyed it. Fun experience.

Jan 4 - Had a leisurely morning and headed to the Amber Fort a little after 9am. Afterwards, had a nice lunch (lentil soup and garlic naan for me), then visited the Windy Palace and the Observatory and wandered the city. Quite interesting, but we were all pretty wiped by late afternoon. Headed back to the hotel to rest for an hour or two. About to go meet for an early dinner before making it an early night in preparation for another early morning train tomorrow to Agra. More to come later!

After a wonderful whirlwind week in Vietnam, we head back to Bangkok tomorrow to meet up with my parents and brother for a bike tour in Thailand. I can't wait! :-)

Check out my new Vietnam pictures at the same link I posted before (new pics added on to the end of the album) - https://picasaweb.google.com/sgardiner84/Vietnam?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJm5ltTpv8Xldw&feat=directlinkOh and in case I don't get a chance to post again before Christmas/New Years...Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy New Years, etc!! We're thinking about all our friends and family and looking forward to spending the holiday season with you all next year.

Hey everyone!

We arrived safely in Vietnam and have been having a great time so far. I posted some pictures at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/sgardiner84/VietnamThailandIndiaAndNepal?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOe2r8HG8oeNAQ&feat=directlink

I'll try to post more pictures whenever I can. Enjoy :-)

First, thanks so much to everyone who has supported us over the past two years of our service, whether by reading this blog, sending us mail, or simply by keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. From the bottom of our hearts...thank you. It means more than I can say to know that out of sight is not out of mind and you all have not forgotten about us while we have been on the other side of the world. This has been an incredible and life-changing experience for both of us, and we could not have done it without all of your support.

That said, our adventure is far from over. For the next two weeks, we will be hanging out in the capital, wrapping up various administrative stuff for Peace Corps, packing our things, and submitting our applications for graduate school. Jacob is applying to public policy and international affairs programs, and I am applying to public health and international development programs, all in the DC and NYC areas. After that, we will fly to Vietnam, spend about a week there, meet my parents and my brother in Bangkok, and spend the following couple weeks doing a bike tour of Thailand with them (hopefully not keeling over trying to keep up with them after two years of minimal real exercise and relatively poor nutrition). After that, I will fly to Delhi and do a tour of northern India and Nepal. Jacob will fly directly to Normandy, France and start French language classes. I will meet him there when the India/Nepal trip is over. After that it gets a bit fuzzier, but our priority is to pack in as much French language immersion as possible before the end of May, when we head back to the States. We're planning on doing a bit of a US country tour June-August before (hopefully) starting grad school in either DC or NYC in the fall. Whew! We'll be in touch as that time approaches - we want to see as many of you next summer as possible :-)

I'm not sure how much we'll have a chance to post pictures or write blog posts over the next 6 months, but we'll try, so check in every now and then if you think of it. Otherwise, thanks again and we look forward to seeing all of you in the not-so-distant future!

I haven't made any particularly reflective posts in a while, perhaps because everything is becoming so commonplace now, or maybe just because I'm getting lazy :-) Anyways, here are two topics I've been pondering lately:

1) Fear of losing one's job makes people work harder and is one of the things that makes economies tick. When people have no fear of losing their job, whether it's because socially and culturally they know their boss won't fire them, or because their employer doesn't have the desire or ability to enforce consequences for low performance, they don't do their best quality work. This is certainly a problem here, but it is definitely not problem limited to the developing world. Ten points to anyone who knows the example I'm thinking of in the US...

2) Inability to get student loans is a major barrier to obtaining higher education here. Higher education, while hugely valuable, is expensive. There are a few scholarships available here (if you know the right people), but the only place to get loans is from banks, which charge astronomical interest rates (due to high default rates and inability to reclaim losses). Bank loans also often require guarantors, which are hard to come by around here. As a result, many smart, motivated young people seek full scholarship programs to study abroad...and never come back home. This has made me realize exactly how important student loan programs are to building the human capital of a country.

Thoughts/comments welcome.

It's been an insane last couple months, which, among other things, included a celebration at the President's residence for Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary, Tobaski (one of the biggest Muslim holidays) and wrapping up our service. That's right, believe it or not, our time here is coming to a close. Peace Corps came to pick us up from our site on Monday, and now we will be hanging out in the capital for two weeks or so before flying to Asia. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here are the pics:

Peace Corps/US Embassy motorcade heading into the president's residence

Welcoming band

Walking in

Lunch

What's a Gambian program without a good dance party?

Gambian soldiers presenting the flags (Gambian, American, and Peace Corps)

Hanging up the flags

Yes, that's me shaking hands with His Excellency himself!

Some of the boys showing off their fancy outfits the President gave them

Transition to Tobaski in our village. Our village and the neighboring village gathering on the traditional prayer grounds.

Getting ready to butcher one of the many rams that were sacrificed. Not for the faint of heart.

Aminata making ebey

Mariama

Everyone wants to get in on the butchering action

Cucheng and her friends/sisters

Amie and SeedyFo looking fly

Mmmm...organ stew

Transition to Jacob's going-away party at the Community Health Nursing school. Some of the girl students making wonjo (bissap) juice.

Female staff members cooking

Awww...

Speeches

Soma Major Health Center staff waiting by the road to greet the President as he came by on his election tour. Green is the President's color and the neem leaves are often used to show support for him.

He's coming!

Fatou braiding my hair one last time :-/

My going-away party at the Health Center

Some of you may remember that around this time last year I was a part of a week-long HIV Education Bike trek at several upper basic schools (middle schools). I was more involved with planning and securing funding for this year's trek, which focused on different regions than last year and had a higher level of involvement of local students and teachers. The other main difference this year was that we decided to spend more time at fewer schools to really make sure the students understood what we were teaching them and gained the skills to speak out and share what they learned with their friends and families. Unfortunately, due to schedule conflicts, we ended up having to condense the trek (and drop the biking!!), but, as a group, we still ended up teaching a total of more than 600 students at four schools in two regions and got to spend two full days with each group of students. I was on the team that taught at Bansang Upper Basic in Central River Region South. This project was dreamed up by a few members of our 2010-2012 group, but we had a lot of newer volunteers involved this year, so we're optimistic that there will be another trek next year that is even better!

Meeting with our team to go over the curriculum the day before we started teaching

Kim running through a rehearsal lesson

Steph, Cat and Johanna making teaching materials from rice bags

Introducing ourselves at a student assembly

Fern leading the students in a game

Fern and Mama, one of our student health educators, drawing a diagram to show what how HIV affects the body

Students performing an HIV drama

Awesome geli we saw in the park while waiting for to start the car park drama after the first day's lessons

Kelsey and one of the students killing time waiting for the drama to start

Shake your booootay...

Car park drama #1

Car park drama #2

Jen playing HIV hangman with our kids on day 2 of teaching. They loved it!

Basiru, our other student health educator, helping clarify a concept for the class.

Bansang team at the closing ceremony in Basse

Fatou in her engagement outfit

With me, Kaddy and Tida

Man, I love this girl

Awesome sign in Bikau. I don't know how I never noticed this before!

Chefs and sous-chefs for taco night. Not the greatest pic, but I had to document the deliciousness.

The two remaining couples in our group at Clay Oven during our close of service conference. We miss you Luke and Alison!!

Our group's lovely ladies

Jacob with Devin, his date for "Gambian Prom"

Me with Sunny, my date

Showing off our dresses made by Jay, our favorite tailor

Last month, I helped out with an environmentally-focused girls leadership camp up in Basse. While I didn't end up being able to bring girls from my village like I had hoped to, we still were able to make sure that every region of the country was represented. I co-facilitated three sessions on the following topics: decomposition; air pollution; and proper trash disposal. In addition to formal sessions, the upper basic level (middle school/junior high) girls and female teacher participants sang songs, played countless games, and ended the week with a grand finale talent show. They had a blast and learned an amazing amount. It was very fun to watch them come out of their shells and open up over the course of the week. Here are some pictures from the camp:

Catherine, Erica and Lina in action teaching the girls about natural resources

Playing one of many many games

Julia's lovely trash dress. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Peace Corps Volunteers showing the girls how dramas are done (as if they needed to be shown). We take our drama seriously around here!

And another

Captive audience

Impromptu dance party while making neem cream (local insect repellant)...yes, please!

Kyle and Shawn help the girls make a "web of life"

All gussied up for the talent show, the girls make their entrance

What Peace Corps event is complete without taking serious Gambian pictures??

They've got the serious poses down!

Another dance party? Well, if you insist...

Talent show drama

Peace Corps Volunteer song/drama demonstrating the effects of overpopulation (we were all trying to fit around one food bowl)

Group shot with all the campers after the talent show

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already or not, but just to be safe, I'm going to do it again.

We have been overwhelmed and touched and insanely grateful for all the mail and packages everyone has sent us over the course of our service (you know who you are - thank you SO much!!). However, given our impending departure and the length of time it takes to receive things here, we're going to have to ask that people stop sending us stuff, because it might not make it here before we leave. Thanks!!

Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been almost a month and a half since I last posted. I’ve been slacking. Sorry guys :-( Unfortunately though, with all we’ve got going on during the next couple months, I can’t make any promises that I’m going to be much better moving forward. That said, we’ve been BUSY! In the interest of time, I’m going to just going make a laundry list of all the stuff we’ve done since I last posted. Here goes, more or less in chronological order:

· Traveled to Basse for a meeting to plan an environmentally-focused girls’ leadership camp.

· Met our new sitemate, an IT volunteer – Jacob is thrilled!

· Got data collection started for a safe delivery barrier analysis research project and started entering it in a database as completed surveys started coming in.

· Had a brief but awesome trip home to the US which unfortunately involved me being stuck in Casablanca for two days (stuck on the wrong side of the hurricane) and most of my clothes being lost.

· Collected reproductive health data for a returned Peace Corps Volunteer in the US working on his Master’s thesis.

· Traveled to Basse to help with the previously mentioned girls’ camp and a counterpart training for an upcoming HIV education bike trek (pictures from the girls’ camp to come later when I’m not on a connection where I pay by the kilobyte, I promise).

· Priced out an upgrade for the Community Health Nursing School computer lab and found funding for it, then travelled to Kombo to purchase necessary items.

· Started the loooong process of applying to 6-8 graduate programs each, which we want to have completed by the time we leave here in early Dec(!).

· Started working on required documents for our impending close of service conference.

· Continuing to work sporadically on planning our post-Peace Corps travels.

And that’s just the big stuff that I can think of off the top of my head! We’re in the home stretch now though and we’ll be done before we know it. Love and miss you all and looking forward to being stateside again more than you know…

I know I write about gender issues a lot; it’s because they’re often in the forefront of my mind here. It’s been a while though, so I think I’m about due for another one. Here goes:

Today I had a very interesting conversation with a male counterpart (why do so many of my blog posts seem to start that way??) about “working women” in the Gambia, i.e., women who work outside the home bringing in money. He explained that working women here usually give a large portion (1/2 to 2/3) of their earnings, either in cash or in kind, to their biological families. It generally goes to their parents but sometimes it goes to siblings or extended family. However, if she is married, even though she is bringing in money, there is still a very strong cultural expectation that her husband will support her and their children by paying all their everyday expenses. This has two direct consequences:

1) Men often do not like to marry working women (at least as their first wives) because working women's household work suffers compared to women who don't work and the men see very little, if any of the money she makes. Remember, without things like dishwashers, washing machines, microwaves, running water, etc, maintaining a household here takes a LOT more time and effort than in the US.

2) In many cultures, there is significant preference for sons over daughters because daughters have to be married off (which sometimes involves paying a dowry) and never give much back to their biological families once they're married. Here, not only do daughters shoulder a huge amount of household work (sweeping, fetching water, doing laundry, etc), but parents know that if she ends up working when she is grown, she will support them financially. My counterpart insisted that this is happening, daughters are supporting their families, and even cited daughters paying to send their fathers on pilgrimage to Mecca. Talk about a role reversal! Not surprisingly, son preference is not as deeply ingrained here as it is in many other cultures.

This again raised the related issue of the intense financial strain on "working men," i.e., men who are bringing in money. Very often, the man who goes out and get a good job instead of sitting back and waiting for aid dollars or a free ticket to America is faced with outstretched hands and deeply ingrained dependency everywhere he turns; his wife/wives, his children, his parents, his extended family, even his lazy friends who know they can get by just fine without having to work all look to him for financial support. They all are pulling these men down, making it virtually impossible for them to save or invest in their future (such as going back to school) in a way that would give them a chance to break out of the cycle of poverty.

That said, on the flip side, the social safety net of those who have supporting those who don't is what supports the elderly, ensures sick and disabled people and orphans are cared for, keeps a roof over people's heads and food in their bellies when they have a bad harvest or their house burns down, pays the school fees of countless children and provides housing when their school is far from home, and countless other social services that the government does not provide here. This is a desperately poor country, and yet, people aren't starving and there are no homeless people on the streets. Why? Because people here share everything and everyone is constantly helping each other. To a fault. Good or bad? You tell me.

For the last year-plus, a group of guys in our group worked extremely hard putting together a two-month long North Bank football (soccer) tournament. The PEPFAR-funded project, which was a collaboration of many partners, including the National AIDS Secretariat and the Ministry of Youth and Sport, among others, was brilliant because it used football, something almost every young man in this country is passionate about, as a way to reach the all-important but hard-to-pin-down young male demographic with information about HIV/AIDS. In a country where most of the sexual decision-making is done by men, this kind of project is hugely important.

The tournament, which consisted of 12 official games throughout the region, wrapped up a couple weeks ago and it's fair to say it was a huge success, with 120 players and coaches educated and trained on HIV (with a focus on prevention through condom use and limiting their number of partners), by local health workers with support from Peace Corps Volunteers, ~7,000 spectators reached with messages about HIV transmission, protection, testing, and macro causes of the epidemic. Radio stations aired three programs with local football players and hospital staff talking about HIV/AIDS. In preparation for the tournament, the project moved two tons of rocks, hung 24 nets, and lined 13 fields. Over the course of the tournament, the project also played over 48 hours of music, and moved people collectively over a thousand kilometers. A massive undertaking, but a highly successful one, and one we all hope will be replicated in other regions and countries in the years to come. Here are some pictures from the final game in Farafenni the weekend before last:

Most of the people who made the tournament happen

Nope, your eyes aren't deceiving you...those are girls playing! Two girls teams got to play an exhibition game before the big final.

Almost ready to start

These guys have worked their butts off for over a year to make this happen. So proud of them!

Lining up

Kickoff!

I don't know much about football, but these guys can PLAY!

Erica up in the stands cheering on her team

Fans doing what they do best...rushing the field

Upper Niumi celebrating their win

Champions of North Bank Region!

One of our good friends living in a small Wolof community on North Bank, Lindsey, has spend most of her service to-date working on an innovative community health competition targeting mothers called "Baby Mamas." In Lindsey's words: "The heart of Baby Mamas is six health lessons, each lesson taught twice, dealing with issues identified in a village health assessment, such as reproductive and child health, exclusive breastfeeding, nutrtion, personal hygiene, evironmental santiation, malaria, and female reproduction and anatomy. For each lesson a woman attends, she gets two points if she is on time and one point if she is late. Women also can earn points for attending RCH (monthly government-run Reproductive and Child Health clinics)."

At the end of the project, Lindsey tallied up all the points and had a big closing ceremony where she gave awesome prizes to all the participants based on how many points they had earned. Prizes included practical but highly valued items like buckets, bowls, and fabric. In case you're curious, the whole project, including an opening ceremony and a closing ceremony with a sound system and snacks, prizes, teaching materials, etc, cost about $700. It really is amazing how far money goes here (and how much you can do with little or no money!). I was lucky enough to get up there for the closing ceremony program. Here are some pictures from the event:

All the Peace Corps ladies at the program (minus Lindsey, who was a wee bit preoccupied!)

Lindsey's baby mommas waiting for the program to start

Kids watching from the shade inside the skill center

Time to kill? It's obviously time for a dance party.

Getting started

Lindsey kicking butt with an awesome speech in Wolof. Love their asobi fabric!

Baby mamas performing a drama demonstrating what they learned in their lessons. I think this one was about proper care for skin infections.

Attentive audience for a drama

Lindsey handing out prizes

Sometime in the middle of July, a local NGO contacted Peace Corps for help with their annual UNICEF-sponsored girls camp focused on bringing up-country girls down to Kombo to meet successful professional women there. The rationale is that there aren't a lot of women that fit that description up-country, so many girls don't have female role models to inspire them to strive to achieve more than simply becoming housewives. The camp was scheduled for the end of the month, so we didn't have much warning, but despite the late notice, we rallied and five of us identified smart, motivated teenage girls from our areas and brought them down for the camp. While I have to admit the camp's logistics were a bit of a nightmare, it still was an amazing experience for the girls (some of whom had never been to Kombo or hadn't been for many years) and we had a blast.

The girls visited and/or met women working in the following professional settings: Gambia Teachers' Union; Julbrew bottling company; a very successful female tailor with a team of men working under her; Gambian Technical training Institute; a women's oyster-harvesting cooperative; the Female Laywers Association of The Gambia; a young female journalist; and The Forum for African Women Educationalists, Gambia Chapter.

The girls also got an opportunity to visit the national museum, go up the famed arch in Banjul for a bird's eye view of the city, and went on a mini-shopping spree at the biggest shopping center in the country. We also helped facilitate a variety of interactive life skills lesson on topics like leadership, teamwork, role models, and sexual health education. Here are some picture from the camp:

We asked the girls to get in line for breakfast and this is what happened. Sigh. Pick your battles, right?

The first of many dance parties

Opening ceremony. The ambassador came! In her speech, she encouraged the girls to dream big and start dreaming NOW. She told them that if they want to have a husband and kids, that's great, but if they really want to help their families, their communities, and their country, that's simply not enough.

Me with my girls

Koko explaining a game to the girls. They all closed their eyes and one side of the table raced the other side passing a hand squeeze down the line to the end. The last person grabbed the roll of tape when the squeeze got to them. Yay teamwork...

They LOVED the game!

Pairing up by picking a shoe from the pile and finding its owner

Awa, a very inspirational young journalist who came to talk to the girls

The girls' role models

A group from a school in Kombo came and did a presentation for us

Group picture of the girls showing off their Africell shirts before the shopping center excursion

Group shot in front of the arch in Banjul

Killing time by posing with the kankeron statue while waiting to go up the arch

Still killing time. Two of my girls playing games with some random kids.

Finally going up. They were SO excited...

Some of Koko's girls looking out over Banjul. Most of the girls had never been up this high before.

Beaded jewelry the girls made

Performing one of many dramas. This one was about the dangers of "sugar daddies" - men who help girls out financially and buy them things with the expectation that they will be compensated with sexual favors.

A couple weeks ago, one of our good friends in village got married (to a long-time boyfriend of choosing, it's worth mentioning!). Well, technically they had already been married for over a year, but it's common here to put off the actual wedding until the family can save up the money for it. Unfortunately, her husband is in the military and they scheduled the wedding for two weeks after her he had been sent to Sudan on a year-long peacekeeping mission, but he most likely wouldn't have played much of a role in the wedding anyways, so no matter.

Looks like dinner...

Mariama and a friend peeling cassava for ebey (a thick spicy tangy cassava/fish/tamarind/palm oil stew that I love and Jacob hates)

Draining the "cous cous" (i.e., vermicelli pasta) after steaming it wrapped in cloth. The cous cous was later served with chicken, tangy onion sauce (yassa), and fried potatoes. Ask our parents - it's delicious!

Making baobob juice. Baobob is a chalky fruit filled with seeds and fibers, so it has to be soaked in water to liquify the fruit, then strained. The liquid is then mixed with milk, mashed banana, coconut, sugar, and artificial flavoring. Basically a smoothie. It's good stuff.

Ebey's almost finished

Mariama getting her hair done

Quick, quick, Fanta, it's time for pictures!!!

Utter chaos. This is what almost all of the pictures looked like.

If you take enough pictures, eventually you get one with everyone looking at the camera and no one sticking their hands in front or walking in front of the camera.

Gambian women don't kid around with their make-up

Whew. Saved by the rain! It's amazing how quickly the compound cleared out.

Just kidding. The photo shoot just moved inside. Fatou, sister of the bride.

Finally got one with Amie, the mother of the bride (who also happens to be our surrogate mother here)

Kaddy, one of our favorites

Look, I was there too!

Me with Amie and Kaddy

Mariama posting with her loot after everyone had left (wedding presents from her husband's parents - mostly fabric and soap)

Once every month or two, Peace Corps sends out a mail truck to deliver mail, packages, newsletters, reading material, project supplies, etc to all the volunteers in the country. After a year and a half on the waiting list, June was finally our turn!

We started in Kombo (the urban area south of Banjul where the Peace Corps Office is located), crossed the river at the Barra ferry crossing, drove east on the north bank road to Janjanbureh, crossed the river again there, took the south bank road east all the way to Fatoto, then worked our way all the way back west to Kombo on the south bank road. All in all, it took six days. Despite having our hands more than full with mail, I did my best to photo-document the trek to give everyone at home an idea of what life is like for Peace Corps Volunteers here.

Check out my pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/sgardiner84/PeaceCorpsTheGambiaMailRunJune2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMj_-pSD06CITg&feat=directlink

During my time at CARE, I was constantly hearing about how income-generating activities empower women. While I accepted it in concept, I never really understood why or how that is the case, and to be honest, I'm not sure I ever 100% bought that a woman bringing in money could have a significant impact on the power dynamics in male-female relationships in male-dominated cultures. However, yesterday I had a fascinating conversation with one of my favorite Peace Corps drivers (a jovial middle-aged Gambian man who most likely dropped out of school before high school and probably has never even heard the term "women's empowerment") that finally convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The driver was talking about how he had put his niece through school (it's very common for anyone with a regular salary to be expected to support their entire extended family with things like paying school fees, buying bags of rice, etc), and now that she had finished Grade 12, he was using his personal connections to get her a job at a government agency. Why, I asked? To keep her from getting pregnant before she got married. Certainly not the answer I was expecting. So how does that work? He matter-of-factly explained that a young woman with a good job achieves a level of respect from men that a young woman without a good job could never hope for. This gives her significantly more control over her sexual and reproductive destiny than she would have otherwise, preventing unwanted pregnancies.

The lessons you learn in the most unexpected places here...

Could she be any more adorable?!?Rhinoceros mango!Lamin is confused as to how this mango came to beI rode out to visit Meghan at her site and we went on a quest to find the river.We sort of found it...Semi-legit bridgeThis is what I look like after eating a mango too. No, seriously.Meghan making onion badjies for my un-birthday (I had food poisoning on my actual birthday, so we rescheduled it)Onion badjis w/ dipping sauce. Yum!Lighting got messed up, but you can still see the mango pies we made and the surprise cake Ida made for meAgain, not the best picture, but evidence that I even had candles on my cake!Last weekend we helped out at a youth leadership workshop at the nearby Scout Center. Jacob and I led a session on leadership together and Jacob did a second one on global warming.Group workFatou tracked down sour milk and made chakari (a tasty yogurt-like drink made with sour milk, sugar, coconut and millet or rice) for my un-birthday

Remember way back when (January) when Sarah and I worked with WFP to help collect some data for a report... Well the report has been published and you can find it at the following link:

http://www.wfp.org/content/gambia-comprehensive-food-security-and-vulnerability-analysis-2011

Coming to The Gambia, I considered myself to be computer literate, but not exactly skilled at troubleshooting and resolving problems. Over the past 9-12 months I have been hard at work trying to develop such skills. Two weeks ago I traveled up to Basse and spent the weekend working with another volunteer to try and turn the Regional Health Team's computers into something they could actually use. This gave me the opportunity to put all those skills to use in one very busy, yet fun, long weekend.

The lab was having two major problems. First, the computers were full of viruses, worms, malware, etc. to the point that many were unusable. The one connected to the printer was so bad, that as soon as you put your flash drive in it, the flash drive was effectively rendered useless until cleaned (I have scanned a computer and literally had the scanner detect more than 10,000 viruses). Computer viruses/malware/worms/etc are a serious problem for The Gambia. Many Gambians have flash drives, but almost no one has any sort of anti-virus software. Of those that have the relevant software, very few actually keep the software up to date. As a result, almost all computers in the country have serious virus problems. Second, while the computers used to be networked, the network was no longer functioning.

To solve the first problem, I chose to reformat every computer to clean them out. Then to prevent future trouble I disabled all the USB ports on all the computers running Windows. Sharing flash drives is a major cause of spreading computer viruses (there are a shocking number of parallels to sexual health and preventing STD transmission) so making it so users cannot use flash drives is a major barrier to future virus transmission. I also set one computer to run Ubuntu instead of Windows. Very simply, Ubuntu is a free operating system that is relatively intuitive to use, and since most viruses are written to take advantage in security holes in Windows, relatively free from viruses. This computer was connected to the lab printer and also was the one computer that users could use their flash drives to add or remove files (until the lab internet connection is repaired and then people could email files back and forth).

The resolve the second problem I just recreated the network and added all the computers to the network. I set up a shared folder that allows users to transfer files back and forth between the various networked computers without the need for internet access or flash drives.

With all this said, there are still a few things I would still like to do. Right before leaving, we noticed another computer that was in a different room, but should be added to the network. If I go back to Basse I will have to clean out that computer and make the ethernet cables to join it to the network (the wire is laid, but the small plastic pieces that physically connect the wire to the computer and the switch are not there). Supposedly all I need is a wire crimper (which I should be able to find in country) and then I can solve that problem. I would also like to resolve the trouble they were having with their internet connection. Finally, I would like to set up an automated backup system so in case their server fails, they do not lose all their data.

So far so good - two weeks in and neither I nor the volunteer I worked with have heard of any major problems. While I picked an unfortunate time to travel to Basse (May is one of the hottest times), I had a lot of fun and I am glad I went. It is always nice to feel useful...

Its also nice to have developed a new skill set. I enjoy the work and would like to continue when I return home. I am not saying I want to shift to the IT sector, but it would be fun to continue playing with some of these things in my free time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/world/europe/26migrants.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

This should be required reading for every Gambian male. Every word of this article fits with what we have seen and heard on the other end.

As some of you may know, but most of you probably don't, I co-edit Peace Corps/The Gambia's internal bimonthly Gender and Development newsletter. The newsletter includes articles on a wide range of topics relating to gender and development, most of which are written by volunteers, but occasionally we have contributions by Peace Corps staff members as well. I'm currently working on preparing our June issue, which has an education focus.

Julia, one of our friends living up in URR (far east of the country) had the excellent idea to interview Ida, one of Peace Corps/The Gambia's long-time language and culture facilitator, who also happens to be a former teacher (see pic below). Julia asked Ida to share her insights on the state of girls' education in The Gambia, and I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by her responses. It's easy to get down and jaded looking at things in the short-term here, but it's important to remember that the kind of change we are looking to effect in the country is a long, slow process. Just because we can't see the progress during the two years we are here doesn't mean it isn't happening. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

"In my generation, people thought if they sent their daughters to school, they would have sex outside of marriage or become prostitutes. They worried that their daughters would not be able to do the compound work and would be less desirable to husbands if they were not able to take care of the family. Now all that is changing. When men are looking for a wife, they are choosing more education women. This means families are deciding to educate their daughters so they will find a good husband. Additionally, with more female teachers as examples of good Muslim women who take care of their husbands, people can see that girls can be educated with a good job and also be a good wife. Men who are educated and go on to work outside the compound use what they make to support their own compound. However, when women are making money outside the compound, they share it with their parents, since they are provided for by their husbands. Seeing this encourages families to support their daughters' educations so they will have more financial help in the future. Also, compounds where both the husband and wife have jobs have more financial security.

When I was in school (working in a Serehule community), only 10% of the students were female, so I tried to encourage people to send their daughters by using myself as an example. I'm a Serehule. I'm married. Being a teacher won't stop girls from being the women their parents want them to be. If you educate your daughters, then they will be teachers, nurses, and health workers in your community. Girls are doing wonderful things for their families."

"Jahanka and Serehule villages that didn't have western schools before now have lower basic, upper basic, and senior secondary schools in many communities. Also, you are seeing more Jahankas and Serehules in higher government positions because they're better educated now and able to get those positions. Also, there are fewer early marriages now. Men and women are choosing their own husband or wife now, or if it is arranged, it is at least with someone they love."

As some of you know, a few months ago, I got this crazy idea to attempt to take intro economics courses through an online distance learning program while living in a rural village in Africa. What could possibly go wrong, right? So why would I subject myself to this logistical nightmare, you might ask. There are several reasons, but the primary one is that I had never taken an Econ class in my life before this (I'd always assumed I would hate the subject), and unfortunately, intro econ classes are prerequisites for a couple of the graduate programs I plan to apply to in the fall. Well...that and it's something I should have done a long time ago for my personal education.

Much to my surprise, I'm finding most of the material relatively interesting and extremely relevant, given the huge economic and financial challenges facing the world today. While the courses certainly have made my life more complicated (and, sadly, drastically reduced my time available to read anything else), I'm very glad I'm doing it.

On a related note, Jacob and I recently started helping a small group of Senior Secondary (High School) students prepare for their end-of-term exams in July. We've been meeting for a couple hours most nights at the village Skill Center, which has solar-powered lights, a table, real chairs, and even a blackboard. It's a huge improvement over the typical study environment of sitting on a mat on the ground in a noisy compound, attempting to study by the light of a candle or an awkwardly-held flashlight. So far we have focused mainly on math, economics, accounting, and English. While these kids are eager to learn and trying hard, it's frustrating that they are expected to do things like graph quadratic equations when their grasp of basic concepts like negative numbers, exponents, fractions, order of operations, and even graphing itself, is shakey at best. Once we get past our frustrations with the education system, however, this study group really is a great opportunity for us to make a difference in these kids' lives. Unlike working with the younger (illiterate, non-English-speaking) kids, which we have tried and found that it requires significantly more patience than either of us possess, working with these high schoolers is extremely rewarding.

Last night, I had a particularly cool experience with the study group. They showed up with an econ homework assignment: Illustrate and explain a situation where output increases and a) revenue decreases; and b) revenue increases. This quite literally could have been one of my Intro to Micro assignments, so I got to stand up and teach Gambian teenagers in a rural village exactly what I had been learning in my online class from an American university. Pretty cool, huh?

We’ve been here for a year and a half now, and people often ask us what we miss most about the US. It’s not an easy question. Among other reasons, it’s hard to pick just one or two things and our answers heavily depend on our mood at the time. So, being my type-A list-making self, I decided to make a list :-) Not surprisingly, despite the significant dent in our food cravings made by care package items (thank you SO much everyone - you know who you are!), food started taking over the list, so I decided the only solution was to make a separate food list. I limited each list to ten items and the lists are in no particular order (except for #1 on the first list, of course). See below:

Non-food

1. Family and friends (in addition to the obvious, a big difference is that in the US, even people we didn’t get to see much were just an easy phone call or email or gchat away)

2. Swimming (me only)

3. Cycling

4. Privacy

5. Blending in/anonymousness/the freedom to be left alone (see post from a few months ago)

6. Efficiency/things that work well and the way they should

7. Routines

8. Reliable electricity and internet

9. Not being dirty and sweaty all the time

10. Being able to act like a couple and do couple-y things without being culturally inappropriate and/or harassed

Food

1. Tasty beer

2. Cheese (especially feta and goat cheese)

(sidenote - apparently I’ve got more Wisconsite left in me than I realized!)

3. Bagels (I literally dream about bagels on a regular basis)

4. Breakfast cereal with cold skim milk

5. Salads (aside from the occasional lettuce, people rarely eat raw vegetables here – see crunchy things)

6. Starbucks (both the coffee and the coffeeshop atmosphere)

7. Fish or meat that isn't smoked, dried and/or consists almost exclusively of bone, gristle, and fat

8. Almost anything you need an oven to make

9. Crunchy things (almost all food here is mushy, partially because people’s teeth are so bad by the time they are middle-aged, they can’t eat much else)

10. Being able to relatively easily make or go out for pretty much any type of cuisine you might be in the mood for

While Mother’s Day is not observed here, we wanted to take a moment to say happy Mother’s Day to all our mothers, mothers-in law, grandmothers, aunts, surrogate mothers, and all the other women in our lives who have stepped in and mothered us when we needed it. You are all amazingly strong, inspirational and compassionate women and we wouldn’t be where we are today without you. THANK YOU!!!

As many of you know, for over a year now, we have been working on getting a nearby community access to safe drinking water. After countless hours of work with the community and more setbacks than I even want to think about right now, with the assistance of a US Government grant (a SPA grant, for those of you who know what that is)...we did it! The community now has three public taps where they can access safe, clean, piped water. Last Sunday the community threw a party to celebrate the “grand opening” of the taps. We even made it into the local paper! Here is a link to the article: http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/d250000-sankwia-water-project-inaugurated

Here are a few pictures from the event, courtesy of our new sitemate Travis (whose camera is much better than ours, and more importantly, not broken!):

Us giving our speech in Mandinka and English

Community members watching the presentation

Posing at the official handing-over of the keys (for the tap locks that hadn't been purchased at that point). After this was taken, we dramatically turned the tap for the photo opp with water running...drumroll....and no water came out (the water usually isn't on in the middle of the day, so this wasn't actually reason for concern, just funny).

Me with two of the community women

Two more of the village women (and baby) watching the program

Our village chief doing the ceremonial ribbon cutting on one of the taps

As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are strictly forbidden from involvement in local politics (for a lot of good reasons), but given this is an election year, it is pretty difficult for us to completely avoid hearing/reading about politics. For example, just like in the US, newspapers have started publishing political editorials. We thought all of you at home might be interested in seeing a sample of one such editorial: http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/wuli-east-by-election-1

The other day I was helping a friend set up internet access for an internet cafe he is trying to open. After spending all day working with him, I obviously had to be invited for lunch. Unfortunately finding spoons can sometimes be a problem, so I had to eat with my hands. At first, I did not think this would be a problem, but apparently I am a little out of practice at using my right hand to eat. Two bites in my friend turns to me and says, "You eat like a small African child!" I know this would be easier to visualize with pictures, but as Sarah said our camera has seen better days. In case you are curious and want to know how to eat like a small African child I would suggest following these steps: 1. Grab food in your right hand and try and squish it into a ball. 2. Fail miserably at balling your food and have a hand full of rice spread out over your palm and not in an easy to eat ball. 3. In order to protect your clothes raise hand up and tilt head back and then try and quickly place the food in your wide open mouth. 4. Smile to yourself because you successfully got lunch into your mouth without getting half of it all over your clothes. If you successfully follow all of these steps (even better if you fail at step 4) you will be eating like a small African child. If, on the other hand, you would like to eat like an adult African you should follow these directions: 1. Grab food in your right hand and successfully turn it into a compact ball. 2. Turn hand almost vertical and magically keep your food from falling to the ground. 3. Lick ball of food off your hand. If you can manage these seemingly simple steps, you will be able to do something I cannot do, and eat like an adult African. Good luck!

It pains me announce that my trusty camera has been retired. While not the best camera in the world, it served me well for the past year and a half. Part of me hoped it would last another year or so, until we get back to the States for good, but I’m not completely surprised that the heat, dust, bumpy roads, etc, here did it in. My parents generously offered to send me a replacement, but I won’t get it for over a month, so unless I can find some magical do-it-yourself fix, I’m going to have gap in my pictures. That being said, here are the last few pictures I took on the camera (with a few stolen from Kelsey mixed in):

Re-wearing our naming ceremony asobis at swear-in. A little on the sweaty side, but at least we look happy, right?

“No Mocking” sign on a geli geli we took back from Kombo after All-Vol (it was supposed to say “No Smoking,” but it was misspelled with an extra “c” and missing an “s”

Our friend Umi all gussied up and ready to go somewhere. Have I mentioned that sometimes being around Gambian women makes me feel seriously underdressed??

Sunrise over the river at Kalagi, getting ready to start our (mini) Lower River Region HIV Education Bike Trek. We went to three schools and taught a half-day curriculum to ~60 kids at each. I’m proud to say this was truly a cross-sectoral initiative…we had volunteers representing all three Peace Corps sectors in The Gambia!

One of The Gambia’s few bridges

Getting ready to roll out

Sheila came along for the first two days…she was a real trooper!

Baby Mangroves Josh, Kelsey, and many others helped plant on the river bank

Lindsay and Kelsey posting on the bridge with the mangroves seedlings in the background

Me in action

Look closely the names on this class list. This is not a joke. Thank god I’m not a teacher.

Done teaching, Travis and I heading off to bike 25k home on the worst section of main road in the country in the heat of the day. Probably not advisable, but we made it in less than 2 hours!

Back in Sankwia for Jacob’s birthday, Jacob and I went on an early morning bike ride in the bush

Birthday boy

Look Peace Corps, we’re such good little volunteers, we ALWAYS wear our helmets!

Our new sitemate Travis came over for Jacob’s birthday lunch. We decided to make popcorn as an appetizer, but none of us had ever done it in a pan before. We learned very quickly that it pops all over the place with surprising force!

The birthday boy making moo shu chicken

Moo shu chicken, complete with tortillas and plum sauce, and fresh mango pie for dessert. Yum!

Our friends Ida and Aminata in matching white outfits for Gamo (the village Koranic reading), posing with a friend

Birthday celebrations continued on Sunday. Jacob’s birthday brunch consisted of Middle Eastern egg sandwiches with chickpea spread and ramen noodle salad with cabbage.

My camera was on its dying breath, but by massively altering the picture, I managed salvage a group shot on our front porch. Seven other volunteers made the trek to our house for the brunch.

Jacob and ET with Jacob’s birthday cheesecakes (coffee on the left, chocolate strawberry on the right)

Finally, in my unsuccessful attempts to fix my camera, I ended up with some sorta cool messed-up pictures…

First off, let me make it crystal clear that I 100% support women's rights, gender equality, women's empowerment, and whatever other term you might want to use for the movement to give women the same opportunities as men. After three years working at CARE and over a year as an active member of Peace Corps/The Gambia's Gender and Development committee, I could not be any other way. In fact, I would go so far as to say I even have a feminist streak from time to time. All that being said, after a year and a half in this country and countless debates about the merits of “50/50,” as they call it here, I am finally starting to appreciate the complexity and, yes, the potential negative impacts of bringing women into the formal workforce here. Here are a few of the major factors to consider: 1) While girls school enrollment has increased dramatically in recent years, girls still are not performing nearly as well in school as boys. There are a lot of factors that go into explaining why this is, and it is something the government is working on, but that still is the current reality. The result of that reality is that when (if) they finish school, the young women are not as qualified as the men for jobs. If a woman is not as qualified as a man for a job and you hire her anyway, simply because she is a woman, in the short term, is that really helping the country develop? 2) There is a lot of social pressure for women to have a lot of babies here. We have discussed why in earlier posts. Employers (rightfully) give women generous maternity leave after having a baby, which means that when they employ women, they are constantly running off on maternity leave. Male employees would not have that problem. Again, in the short term, is hiring women knowing this will happen really helping the country? 3) Working women are still expected to perform all the typical woman's household duties (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, childcare, etc), many of which are very time-intensive because they don't have things like microwaves and dishwashers and washing machines and dry cleaners and cars to help them, which detracts from their ability to fully commit themselves to their jobs. Again, when employers hire women, they are be constantly running off to take care of these household duties, while male employees would not have that problem. Yet again, in the short term, is hiring these women anyways really helping the country? 4) Government jobs make up the vast majority of salaried positions in rural areas (the only other salaried jobs are usually jobs with NGOs or banks), and most, if not all, government jobs in rural areas are extension workers or other rotating positions. This includes teachers, health workers, agriculture and forestry workers, development assistants, security staff (police and military), as well as some others I'm probably forgetting. Rotating positions here change postings throughout the country every year or two, which results in most of the staff living away from their spouses and families. In this culture, women run the households, so a female extension worker has to choose between leaving a sister or female cousin to run her household and raise her children while she is posted on the other end of the country or moving her family around year or two. This certainly is not a choice I would wish on any woman. So...given all those factors above, the question is, given the current cultural context, is it appropriate and beneficial to bring women into the formal workforce here, and especially into these types of rotating positions? If the answer is no, not unless the cultural expectations change, then how and what is going to cause those expectations to change? Is putting the women in there anyways, despite the fact that it is not beneficial in a lot of ways, the only way to convince people that having the women in the workforce is worth it? The Gambia is very much in transition on this issue, similar to the transition the US went through in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I'm curious to learn how we were able to successfully navigate that transition in the US. Any thoughts or reading suggestions?

As promised, my parents just posted their pics from their visit and our trip to Tanzania. I take absolutely no credit...my dad is a much better photographer than me, so I took the lazy route and just let him handle all the picture taking this time. Just click on the links below, and when the pictures come up hit "Slideshow" on the upper left corner of the screen to begin viewing the pictures. Enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/ann.gardiner3/Tanzania11?authkey=Gv1sRgCP_U3eP746-MuQE#

https://picasaweb.google.com/ann.gardiner3/GambiaAndSenegal11?authkey=Gv1sRgCLbLhq2B-LffIg#

This evening I was sitting on a mat outside outside our house reading a magazine like I often do, when our host sister Aja came and sat down next to me to look at the magazine pictures. This is a common activity for us here...magazine pictures are a great way to start conversations and teach people about the world beyond beyond The Gambia. This particular time, Aja happened to notice a picture of people protesting plans to build Park 51 at Ground Zero in NYC. As Aja starting asking me questions about what all the people were doing and what their picket signs said, I have to admit I felt myself flush with shame. How could I tell this 11 year-old Muslim girl who doesn't know what a terrorist is, much less 9/11, that these nice rich Americans were angry because American Muslims wanted to build a mosque, a peaceful and holy symbol that is at the very core of the only life she has ever known?

In the end, I told her that people had gathered in NYC and were protesting because they were unhappy, but I could not bring myself to tell her about what. Sympathetic to my sometimes less-than-stellar Mandinka, she assumed my hesitation was due to my language skills, and stated as much. I didn't correct her. Not a proud moment.

Last week we had a whole slew of Peace Corps activities in Kombo (the urban area around the capital for those of you who don’t know), including an all-volunteer Conference, more meetings than I can count, a swear-in ceremony and party for the latest group of trainees (it's hard to believe it's been a year since it was us standing up there!), a couples dinner at our country director’s house, an open mic nite, and much much more. While I couldn’t capture all of this on camera, I did get some pictures. Enjoy!

Matt, Rachelle and Rachelle’s friend Lani (sp?) who was visiting, out to dinner at a deeelicious indian restuarant for Rachelle’s birthday

Me with the birthday girl

The whole table

Sunny, Casey and Lucia at swear-in. Lucia’s hat was amaaazing!

Gibril, the Peace Corps health program manager, and the lovely Haddy, a Peace Corps language and culture trainer, the staff advisor for the gender and development committee, and an awesome person.

Our new Ambassador, Pamela White

Cornish, our country director

Scott, one of the newbies, giving the swear-in speech in Pulaar. Bravo!

All the newbies in their asobis (matching outfits), now official PCVs

Trainers in the training asobi (we were in Tanzania when they bought the fabric, so we didn’t get them even though we helped with training, but we’ll live)

Adam, Ida and Haddy, three of my favorite language and culture trainers, with Katie, the PCV leader for our sector

Rachelle and Danielle cooking swear-in dinner. They didn’t really want their pictures taken, but I had to document! Note how well the lettuce matches Rachelle's dress...

Kim making peanut noodles in a Tupperware and mixing it with her hands. And no, no one saw any problem with this. That’s how we roll around here.

Wells manning the burger and kebab table at the swear-in dinner

Danielle manning (womanning?) the indian and thai food table

Couples dinner at Cornish’s house (the blue checked fabric was the western region asobi for all-vol). Huge thanks to Luke for making an amazing thai meal despite a busted-up knee!

I think I’ve mentioned that naming ceremonies (kulios) are a pretty big deal here. A kulio is basically like a Muslim christening or bris/t, followed by a huge party, often with most of the village in attendance. They are supposed to be soon after the baby is born, but they are expensive affairs, so sometimes they are delayed until the family can pull together enough money (in that case, the baby is given a unofficial name for the interim). If the family can’t afford a kulio, there are also smaller versions of naming ceremonies they can do instead, but if at all possible, the family will try to do a kulio. This particular baby was our host aunt and uncle’s first child first son and the compound had been actively planning for the kulio for at least a month.

While there is a brief element of praying for the baby’s future and officially giving the baby its name, like pretty much every other community event, the main focus of a kulio is on exchanging money and gifts, wearing fancy clothes and matching outfits, eating a lot of good food, and dancing. Here are some pictures from the kulio:

The rainbow of women greeting the new mother, Jeneba

Jeneba in her finest, surrounded by family and friends

Jeneba with her escorts, Alima and Fatoumata

Umie with Muddy Jamfata (literally Tall Muddy)

Hawa with Muddy, who, of course, was completely oblivious to the fact that he was the reason for all this fuss!

Me and Jacob in our asobis

Me and Jacob with Lucy and Ellie, two VSO volunteers (the British equivalent of Peace Corps) living nearby who came for the kulio

They had hired a camera guy for the kulio and he brought a flood light, so I was able to get some really cool pictures of the women dancing

More dancing

And more

Me with Sonka and Umie

Me with Ramo and Ida

Me, Fatou, and some other girl I don’t know

Jonyi with her friend whose name I can never remember

I've written before about the importance of little victories for any Peace Corps volunteer. The little victories really, truly are what get you through the tough times. You absolutely have to celebrate them and milk these little proud moments for all they are worth. They are what Peace Corps service is all about. Here is my latest one (hopefully this translates...I think it will):

First, two important bits of background information.

1) Gambian money is disgusting. Especially the small bills, which of course are what are used the most. Every once in a while you'll run across a crisp new one, but 99% of the time, these bills are grubby and a little smelly and crumbled and torn (tape and/or staples are commonly used to repair them). The bank seems to pay no attention to the state of the bills when you take out money, but many shopkeepers refuse to take the most tattered ones. This results in most Peace Corps Volunteers carrying around several disintegrating bills that they can't seem to get rid of.

2) The smallest unit of currency that is worth anyone's time here is a 50 butuut coin, which is worth about 2 cents. 50 butuuts will buy you a cheap minty (a cough drop that people eat like candy here) or two 50 butuut coins will buy you a small icy (maybe 1/2 cup of kool-aid frozen in plastic bag). However, left over from days when they were worth more, there are 25 butuut coins floating around, which no one ever wants, because they're really pretty useless. Like a penny basically, except most people don't carry wallets regularly here, and most of the coins are pretty big, making coins in general even more annoying than they are at home.

Ok, so now the story. I was in the market this part week buying some vegetables for lunch and when I gave the girl running the vegetable stall my D50 bill, she refused to take it because a small corner was missing. Now, in the past, I would have just sighed, given her a different bill, and made sure to fold up the bill carefully before I tried to use it again. However, for whatever reason, that day I decided to fight it. In my slowly-improving Mandinka, I told her in no uncertain terms that she knew perfectly well that all Gambian money looks like this and it's certainly not my fault and she was being ridiculous. To my surprise, she (and the other vegetable women) laughed, agreed that Gambian money was "not good," and she took the bill. As I was waiting for my change, I watched her dig around in the bottom of her container of money to give me by D2 change in 25 butuut coins. I swear she had a smirk on her face too...she was clearly messing with me. Usually I just roll my eyes and take the coins, but not today. Before she could even try to give me the offending coins, I called her out on what she was doing and said that I knew she had D1 coins in that container somewhere. Again, to my surprise, it worked! The women erupted in laughter again, told me I was a Mandinka woman now, and I walked away my vegetables and my two D1 coins on top of the world. :-)

Ever since I decided to go into international public health/development work, people have been asking me why I want to go work so far away and live in uncomfortable conditions when there are countless important problems to be addressed in my own country. There are a lot of ways to answer that question, but the simplest one starts with the following (from The Audacity of Hope, which, yes, I am still slowly working my way through):

"It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services - electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances - that are still unattainable for most of the world."

I would add to that list: emergency health care; social security; welfare; medicare/medicaid; affordable public education; libraries; the internet and the enormous wealth of information that comes with it; safe and reliable public transportation; a functioning legal system...the list goes on and on.

In most developing countries, someone who has even half those things is considered very, very wealthy and/or fortunate. Puts things in perspective a bit, doesn't it? Yes, there are problems in the US that affect a lot of people's lives and absolutely deserve attention, I don't deny that, and I'm very glad that they are smart, motivated individuals working on those problems. Someday, maybe I will even become one of them. However, I strongly believe in the importance of being passionate about your work, and right now, at this point in my life, the problems being faced by people in the developing world are the ones that speak to me the most.

I was lucky enough to be born into an extremely privileged life, and I feel a deep responsibility to give back by helping those who who were not so lucky. The way I see it, it's logical to start with the people in the world who are the most unlucky, and to me personally, that means people that are poor and/or underprivileged by the standards of the developing world, not the Western world.

We just got back from a wonderful trip to Tanzania with my parents, which is why I haven't posted in a while. My parents came to our site for a few days, then we all went to Tanzania together to experience a completely different part of Africa. Among other things, we did several game drives where we saw elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, and many other animals. We also had an opportunity to spend some time in a Maasai village in a conservation area. It was a great trip for a lot of reasons (not least because I got to spend almost two weeks with my parents!), but the most blog-worthy part was seeing the similarities and differences between Gambian and Tanzanian cultures. Here are a few random things that stood out to us, in no particular order:

Similarities

- Communal cultures

- Importance of greetings

- English is widely spoken (particularly by civil servants and other educated people)

- Mud bricks are a common housing material, but Tanzanians fire them in a way that makes them much more resistant to rain than the ones in The Gambia.

- The cuisines are somewhat similar, with a lot of sauces and fish and beans, although they also have a stiff porridge called ugali (sort of like polenta) and plantains that they sometimes substitute for rice. They also have more curries and other spices, as well as chapatti bread, which are apparently more common near the coast where the Indian influence is stronger.

- Domesticated animals (goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys) are everywhere.

- Tension between the increased influence of Western culture (in everything from education to clothing to entertainment to individual freedoms) and the desire to preserve the traditional cultures.

Differences

-Tanzania has two rainy seasons, making the land a lot of lush and fertile.

-Tanzania has mountains!

-Tanzania seems much cleaner than the Gambia (at least in the area we were in), possibly because there are enforced laws against littering.

-Tanzania generally seems better off financially (at least in the area we were in), partially due to a well-developed tourism industry, and partially due to natural resources and agricultural exports (coffee, cotton, cashews, tobacco, tea, sisal, gold, diamonds, tanzanite).

-Tanzania has 120 different ethnic groups!! They are united by a single language, Swahili, which is taught in primary and upper basic school - they switch to English in senior secondary school.

-Tanzania is equal parts Christian and Muslim. They keep the peace by equal representation in the government - even the presidency alternates Christian and Muslim!

-Even small markets take US Dollars (as well as Tanzanian shillings) in Tanzania, apparently because US Dollars are a more stable currency.

- People do carry things on their heads, but not nearly as much as in The Gambia. They also carry some things, like firewood, on their backs with a strap across their forehead, similiar to the technique used in Asia. I'm guessing this has to do with the difficulty of carrying things on your head over mountainous terrain.

Ok, that's enough for now, but feel free to post any questions you may have. I'll post a link to pictures as soon as my dad gets them up on Picasa.

A few days ago I finally got around to starting to read The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I’m less than 100 pages in, and to be honest, while it is an interesting and important read, it isn’t exactly light reading for someone who doesn’t come from the sort of family where you are discussing politics before you can walk (you know who you are). Anyways, that’s not the point.

In the context of a discussion of the central values that shape American culture, Obama describes Michelle’s reaction to her first trip to Kenya. He describes how, from an American perspective, “the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties can be [suffocating], with distant cousins constantly asking for favors [and] uncles and aunts showing up unannounced.” The trip gave Michelle a new awareness and appreciation for a specific type of freedom that is almost uniquely American; an individual’s freedom to be left alone. Obama argues that this is something that, as a general rule, Americans believe in, and tend to be “suspicious of those – whether Big Brother or nosy neighbors – who want to meddle in our business.” This value is not, in any way, normal, when you look at the rest of the world. We are the exception, not the rule.

This discussion was particularly poignant to me, given our current situation, living in a culture where life is lived in public, and the concept of privacy just doesn’t exist. People are baffled at (what seems to them) the excessive amount of time we spend in our house with the door closed, and even now, after living here a year, they call in to ask if we are ok, and/or what we could be doing in there for so long. Not to mention the fact that EVERY TIME we leave the village, EVERY PERSON we pass asks where we are going, what we will be doing there (and vice versa when we return), etc. I could go on for pages about this, but you get the idea. It’s like being in middle school again! What are you doing, where are you going, how are you getting there, who are you going with, when will you be back…you all know the script.

Obama’s book provided a much-needed reminder that in every society, there has to be a balance between the individualistic and the communal. In some cultures, the scale is tipped one way, in others, the other way. American culture is tipped towards the individualistic. Most African cultures are tipped towards the communal. As we have discovered, to transition from one extreme to the other is exceedingly difficult. It takes some of our most deeply ingrained values and turns them on their heads, which is not something the human brain deals with particularly well. Small wonder that sometimes we struggle with it!

Our village is sponsored by a “sister village” in Wales that sends our village all sorts of stuff and sends representatives for a visit once a year. They also pay the school fees for all the kids in village and have contributed significantly to a skill center here. Good stuff! The Welsh representatives came with a huge container of stuff and a tractor last week, so our village had a big party welcoming them. Here are some pictures from the party:

Getting ready to unload the container. Did I mention they brought a tractor? Very exciting.

Unloading the container

Look...a workbench!

Count on the small boys to always be in on the action

Jacob and Wuyay, who worked his butt off to get ready for this donor visit

Sonka and Jacob

Hawa/Adama (I can never keep the twins straight) and a friend in their school uniforms for sponsorship pictures

Umie and me

Umie and Jacob

A few of my favorites

Punk hair braiding!

Front shot

Sarjo showing off her new completo Umie made her at the skill center. I told Umie I want a matching one my size!

An old woman at Fatou's grandmother's 40 Day Charity (like a funeral)

A slightly crazed looking Aja with a less than pleased looking SeedyBuloo and Mohammed

Jeneba and baby Muddy

Me and Jacob with Mohammed and SeedyBuloo

Believe it or not, getting in line like this was their idea. Well, except Mohammed refused to stand in his place at the end of the line. I guess he doesn't like being the shortest :-)

Ida and Ramo

Mariama with Hawa and Adama and Aminata. As usual, Hawa is crying because she is still terrified of me, even after all this time.

Hawa...seriously...I don't bite!!

Mike, the only dog in the village that is treated remotely like an American pet. Since his family actually feeds him, he's twice the size of most of the other dogs. Go figure.

Caught you! Fatou checking herself out in a rear-view mirror.

Ramo brewing attaya. You see a LOT of this here!

Kaddy. Love this girl!

The small boy army in Fatou's compound

Hawa wanted me to take a picture of her pounding rice for some reason. Too bad my camera couldn't keep up with the speed of her pounder!

Hawa sitting pretty

Mariama making porridge for her husband for dinner

Early this morning I was doing laundry in the back yard when I heard my friend Bundung calling my name. I went out front to see what she wanted and found her red and teary eyed. Choking back tears, she explained that she was leaving for Casamance (the part of Senegal south of the Gambia), immediately. After asking a few questions, I learned out that her husband-to-be's brother came to collect her. He arrived last night and they left early this morning to make it back home before night. So he whisked Bundung away and now she is gone. No one knows if or when she will be able to come back to see her family and friends, as that will be decided by her husband and his mother. She has never met her new husband or his family and I doubt she has ever been as far as Kombo (the urban area around the capital of The Gambia), much less Cassamance. Her new husband apparently spent some time in “toubabadou” (white man land) though, so he most likely has money, making it a "good match" for her. Now, I didn't even know Bundung was getting married, and she's only 16 or 17 years old, so, as you might imagine, this all came as quite a shock. I tried to ask her how much warning she had of this impending crisis (if any), but even with assistance, the message didn't compute. I realized later why. It's irrelevant. Everything from circumcision ceremonies to religious holidays to trips to visit friends or family is announced at the last minute here. The concept of having more than a few hours to prepare, either physically or mentally, just doesn't exist. When it's time, you drop everything and switch gears. Why should a new wife being taken away to her husband's family be any different? Arranged marriages and the practice of new (and often very young) wives being taken away to live with their new husband's families are far from unique to The Gambia. Looking back at history, as well as at modern marriage practices around the world, what we consider “normal” is, in fact, very much the exception. Young women in our culture are incredibly fortunate to have the control we do over our own futures and we shouldn't for a minute take it for granted.

Lisa with Haddy at her going-away party at the Community Health Nursing School

Lisa receiving her going-away gift

Enjoying Auntie's cooking at the after-party

Going-away party, take 2. Lisa with her burrito. Thanks for the tortillas and cheese, Mom!

We're going to miss this girl!

My latest hair braiding. Pretty cool, huh?!?

Back view

MRC Dave and Brendan leading us in Christmas carols at the “Scottish Embassy”

Our Christmas tree at the Stodge

Cooking Christmas Brunch at the Stodge

Ian, the pancake master

Trish, protector of the bacon

Brunch is served!

Gathered around the tree for a white elephant gift exchange

Ntandingdingding wearing my helmet

Ntandingdingding and Isa

Seedy Boulo...as usual, dirty but cute

Aja, in all her sassy pre-teen glory