I moved out of my village a couple of weeks ago to start work in the city. I served for two years in a small rural village yet unveiled on this blog. Since I no longer live there, I'm allowed to tell you all about the place now. Drumroll please. The place formerly referred to as Salliya is............. Kanjibat. Spelled like that but somehow pronounced Con-G-bot-toe.

Its a small village just off the south bank road in the Western Region of The Gambia. Home to a whopping 60 people and formerly me. Check it out on google maps. You'll be able to see http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Kanjibat,+The+Gambia&hl=en&ll=13.261333,-15.446777&spn=2.614285,3.532104&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=34.038806,56.513672&vpsrc=6&hnear=Kanjibat,+Foni+Bondali,+West+Coast+Region,+The+Gambia&t=m&z=8

Make sure you look at it on satellite view. Probably more cool to me than anyone else, but you can see the house where I used to live behind where the A marker is to the left. The closest house to the marker was mine. If you drag the screen to the right you can see the school I used to work with. Further down the road near my house you can see the garden. Even further down that same road you get to the river.

The cluster of 3 houses that are formig a rectangle with my house is Sanneh Kunda. That was my compound. Maybe that gives people a little better idea of what a compound is. I know I've used that word with some of you and its not a concept we have in the US. All the people who live in those 3 houses are related by blood or marriage. They all eat together and share a lot of things- work, clothes, stuff, responsability for raising the kids, etc. Its an extended famiy all technically living in different houses but in the same compound, and really I feel like people treat the whole compound like immediate family.

I miss it a little but I knew from the get-go that this was just going to be for two years. And I'm really lucky and can be more objective about it than someone who is leaving the country because I can still see and talk to the people I miss. Hopefully I'll get to go for a visit in the next month or so. I'll blog an update on what I'm doing now- life in the city- soon.

New place in the city officially procured. I get to move in in a few days. There are so many things to be excited about: electricity, privacy, meeting new neighbors, a market near my house, and indoor plumbing to name a few. And how excited I am about these things makes me think maybe I should blog a bit about basic needs here and how for so many Gambians, satisfying those needs is different than for most people who will read this.

One of the most basic needs is water, so I'll blog about that one first.

Probably most of you have heard something from a charity in the US about water in Africa- how hard it is to get, how clean water is hard to come by,etc.

Here in The Gambia, we're pretty lucky with water. The country is based around a body of water- The River Gambia, so our water table is higher than a lot of places. This makes wells easier and cheaper to dig. In Foni, where I was posted before, our water table was about 5-10 meters (way more shallow than the national average). That means that in my area when you needed water, you either threw a bucket on a 15-30 foot rope down into a hole to pull up water or you went to the pump and pumped the water up. In some places, there are mechanized pumps run by solar or generator that put water in tanks that can then be gotten out of taps- like the hose pipe on the side of your house. Only with a tap or a pump, and often with a well for that matter, the water is shared between a lot of people. This gets a lot worse in the urban areas or in big villages where people have to stand in line for their turn for water or even plan their days around the time when the tap is open for use.

Clean water is aonther issue. There are 2 kinds of wells- open and covered. Their names say it all. Covered wells are covered with a concrete lid and a pump brings the water to the surface. This water is usually pretty clean and safe to drink. Open wells are open to the elements. They are just a deep hole in the ground. Anything can fall in there. Anything can grow in there. Its very easy for this kind of well to become contaminated. Covered wells are far superior, but also far more expensive and more liable to break. When the rope on your bucket breaks, pretty much any idiot can fix that. Tie a knot or get a new rope. When something inside a pump for a covered well breaks, only a trained professional can fix it. That takes money and the guy also has to show up to fix it. My village was without a covered well for about 3 months during my stay once because of a pump failure, and they did a commendable job of getting it back up and running quickly and efficiently. Some pumps sit months or years waiting to be fixed. And during this time, everyone around is drinking questionable water. In many villages, there are only open wells and only ever have been.

Think of all the things in your life that use water. Cooking, washing dishes, washing hands, showering, drinking, watering plants, pets drinking water, washing clothes, etc... Imagine if you had to go get that instead of it just coming into your house. Its not convenient. Thus why indoor plumbing is on my list of things to be excited about for city life.

I know this is a little late, as pretty much everybody knows I made it back safe and sound, but I just wanted to talk a little about going home and being back.

I had a great time in America. I got to see a lot of people I had missed and do a lot of things I had missed doing. It was awesome how quickly it felt normal hanging out with friends and family I hadn't seen in almost 2 years.

Overall, the U.S. wasn't as shocking as I thought it would be. Some things did take me by surprise: The grocery store was miraculous, albeit a little overwhelming. Driving a car again was fun, and the way American traffic is so organized and choreographed was beautiful/astounding/miraculous (that word describes a lot of American things.) Eating American food was amazing. I worked through my whole list, and it was all delicious. I would like to thank everyone who had a part in me gaining 7 pounds in a month. I appreciated it all so much! Along the same vein, throwing "spoiled" food away freaked me out more than I thought it would. Never thought I'd be so upset about having to throw away some old leftovers, but don't worry the food was rescued and my stomach of steel handled it just fine. In the end, I'm really glad I got the unexpected 2 week extension on my trip. It allowed me to do a lot more casual hanging out with friends and family that I wouldn't have had time for otherwise.

The trip back was great. On my 2 longest flights, I had an open seat beside me. I got horribly misdirected in some Canadian airport, but that just led to me seeing the beautiful terminal where the international flights to nice places leave from, then getting to ride on an express moving sidewalk two different times, (It travels faster than a person walking on a regular moving sidewalk- like running only you're standing still hoping you'll figure out how to get off when the sidewalk ends.) and getting to pass through customs with the wave of a card like some celebrity. Overall very good travel experience, and then at the end of my travel, friends had come to get me at the airport.

Once back, I got to hang out with a lot of people from the group I arrived in the country with 2 years ago, and then headed back to see my family here. Baby Muhammed Ken started walking just a couple of days after I returned to the compound, and I was so excited I didn't miss that. I don't know how its possible, but somehow he's even cuter now that he can walk. We had a big celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps a couple of weeks ago, put on by the president (of The Gambia). It was very cool. We all got to shake hands with His Excellency, and heard many speeches of Gambians appreciating the Peace Corps and what we have done in the country, and plus there was a ton of delicious food.

Part of the reasoning of going home was to see if I was ready to stay in The Gambian another year. Although it was awesome to be in America, I think the opportunities I have here for the coming year are too exciting to pass on. The work for the next year, provided that it works out, sounds like it will be challenging and a great experience. Looking at the job description, I can't believe someone thinks I am qualified to be doing this, but I have the opportunity to give it a try and I can't wait. And its not just the work I'm staying for. I really do enjoy living here. I have people here I enjoy hanging out with, and there's something about being here. Everyday, there's probably going to be something that will drive you absolutely crazy, and definitely ten other things that are just hilarious and a few things that make you really happy, and probably something that will make you think about how lucky you are that this is your life. Its a roller coaster, but I like to be on it, and in my experience, its way more up than down. So, barring any unforseen circumstances, I'm proceeding with my one year service extension. That means I get to look for an apartment next week!

A couple of the villages near Salliya just finished their futampaf, the celebration of the boys circumcisions. The celebration was held in the village nearest mine.

PRE-FUTAMPAF:

Women in the host village and most of the surrounding villages spent the weeks leading up to the futampaf pounding millet and grasses to make a drink (bunkap) that is always served at these occasions. It was likened to fermented tea by a few volunteers that came to visit. You could probably have filled a swimming pool with the amount of bunkap that they made.

There were so many guests from out of the area coming that every compound built extra housing for visitors. They were just palm frond huts but they at least doubled the living space in the village.

DAY 1

On the first day, the boys got ready to go to the bush. In the afternoon, the boys gathered to kill chickens. Each boy and his mother came to the gathering place with 2 chickens. The mothers gave the son two skirts, one to wear as a skirt, one to serve as a shirt. Each pair sat down on the ground and the mother killed the chickens. This is a big deal because here, women don't really do any animal killing. They let the chickens run around like, well, a chicken with its head cut off, and then once it dies, they check something inside of the chicken (maybe the kidneys?). If the chicken acts normally when it dies and if its kidneys look normal, the boy will be fine in the bush. If something is wrong with the chicken, the boy is going to be sick or die in the bush unless something is done about it. All of the chickens were fine so i didn't really get to see what happens if one is not, but when I asked, I got 2 different accounts. One said that if something is wrong, it is the father's fault and the father and the mother have to fight. The other said that the mother had to do a dance to ward off the bad spirits.

After killing the chickens, the boys were all taken to a communal tent to stay together for the night. For dinner, the boys get to eat the chickens. Two chickens per boy! These guys for sure never have and never will again get to eat that much chicken at one time.

DAY 2

In the morning, the boys were all kept inside their communal tent. They had to stay in there unless someone specifically invited an individual out for a conversation. Supposedly it was pretty cramped and hot in there. Outside the tent, there was a butesop. (I finally figured out the meaning of that for those of you that remember it a few posts back.) Butesop- n. an event characterized by people wearing protective jujus who try to cut, stab, shoot, or maim in some other way their bodies but cannot because the power of the juju protects them. In the afternoon, EVERYONE walked out into the bush. The crowd was huge. We walked out and danced and watched butesop in a big clearing in the bush. They set off explosives to ward off evil and witches, and they had a kankurang to chase away women and children once it became time for all but the men and initiates to leave the bush. At night they had dances at almost every compound in the village. It was a lot of fun because every party was a little different and we could go to one until we were bored or we drew too much of a crowd or just decided to switch types of music.

DAY 3

The music didn't stop at all between the afternoon of day 2 and the morning of day 4. Virtually every compound had rented a sound system and played it non-stop for at least 36 hours. I'd say in the entirity of the futampaf week, there was probably just about 12 hours that there was not music blaring from that village. I don't understand how anyone got any sleep. At some of the parties, people would be sleeping on mats 10 feet away from a 4 foot tall speaker blaring music!

DAY 4

Yet another day of eating and dancing. I had visitors most of the week. My number of visitors ranged from one day when I had 0 to one day when I had 6. This particular day, I had 2 visitors. Visitors mean an invitation to eat lunch at a compound in the futampaf host village! The food for the futampaf was amazing. They killed a lot of cows, made sauces that they hardly ever cook; there was even salad!!! That never, never happens. Granted, the meals are at odd times- for instance, we ate the salad at about 2 in the morning, and lunch most days was around 5pm, but it was always worth the wait.

DAY 5

Nothing too much happened today. No visitors, so I ate normal food for lunch and then went to the futampaffing village to help the women cook dinner. After we cooked, it was getting pretty dark and a group of us from Salliya decided to walk home. In the distance though we could hear drums coming. The women told me it was tradition for all the boys to come out of the bush after dark on this night and beat the young girls. I got to see the flood of boys marching into the village in the distance, but we went home before the boys came anywhere close. Being unmarried but past prime marrying age here makes me a confusing girl/woman and I wan't too interested in sticking around to see if they'd beat me. I don't think they actually beat anyone because everyone seemed fine the next day. Maybe it was just a ceremonial tap on the head for each girl or something.

DAY 6

Day before the last, the boys got to take a bath. Traditionally they don't bathe at all for the time they are in the bush. This morning, all of the boys, escorted by a kankurang, walked to the river wearing white shawls covering their faces so no one could tell who they were. There, they all finally washed off, then trekked back to the bush. Later in the afternoon, the boys trek out of the bush again, but this time un-protected by a kankurang. In the futampaf host village there was a big field with a pole planted in it (kind of like a totem pole). Everyone in the area came out to stand on one side of the pole and the initiates came and stood on the far side of the field still wearing the white shawls from the morning. They did some kind of call and response clapping game with the men on our side of the field and on a certain clap, all the boys took off running toward the pole. Once they reached the pole, the boys dove face down on the ground, each holding a small green branch over their heads. The boys' parents could pay the men in charge to show them which one was their son, and then the son could wave his branch over his head to say "Hey, mom. I'm okay." After a few minutes of that, the kankurang came out of the bush on the far side of the clearing, so all the women and children had to run back to the village.

DAY 7

The boys came out of the bush to very little fanfare. I assumed after all the big parties we'd had while they were in the bush, there would be a blowout when the boys finally came home, but no. I thought, 'certainly, I'll know when the boys are coming, There'll be a big stir. People will tell me.' I didn't know anything until the boy from my compound who had gone into the bush came in wearing new clothes and shaking hands in a weird new way.

Facebook and Blogspot are slow at loading pictures but I've found that snapfish.com is not, so I devised a plan where you can look at my pictures there. Go to http://roethegambia.snapfish.com/snapfish and as of this evening, you can look at more than 200 pictures of my first year of PC horribly out of order but there for you to see. To read explanatory captions, enable the captions when you are looking at the pictures. Just open the pictures and the slideshow has an icon in the lower right corner to enable the captions. I've posted that everywhere but I'm just paranoid that all my caption writing is going to go to waste. And you can comment on the pictures also. I'm never against getting feedback! You'll probably have to make an account to get in but it shouldn't be too difficult.

My sister, Kayla, recently did her student teaching with a third grade class and they learned a little about The Gambia and then sent me their questions. I thought I'd put our Q&A up so everyone could read it. I know some questions and answers are a little repetitive but I wanted to answer them each, so forgive me and maybe you'll enjoy hearing all the different ways I can talk about food and whether I like Gambia.

What's Salliyaa like?

Salliyaa is a small, small village. There are only 4 families that live there, but the families are very big because all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all live together. The family I live with has more than 25 people in it! There are lots of houses made of mud bricks with metal roofs to hold all the people, but there people do not spend too much time inside. Most houses only have bedrooms. All the cooking and playing and working and chatting happens outside. People spend a lot of time at eachothers houses, and everyone knows eachother very well.

The place is very beautiful. The house I live in is under a giant tree. It's so big that its branches shade almost 1/4 of the village! There are also many mango trees in Salliyaa. The mangoes are almost ripe now. Soon we will eat mangoes every day. Outside the village, there are many palm trees, and if I walk for about 15 minutes, I can get to a small river. If I am lucky, sometimes I see monkeys on the way there.

How does it not have electricity?

In The Gambia, most villages outside the city do not have electricity. They just do not have electric poles or wires or a power station. Some people have solar electricity, so they collect energy from the sun during the day and store it in batteries so they can have lights at night, but most people do not have electricity at all. At night, people use flashlights or candles to see. In Salliyaa, they do not have any TVs, refrigerators, washing machinces, or computers. They do have battery powered radios, so many people listen to the news, music, or radio dramas at night for entertainment. And they spend much more time talking to eachother than you might be used to in America. There are many people with cell phones in my area, and there is a house in another village that has solar electricity, so they run a business charging cell phones.

Are there dogs and cats?

Yes. The family I live with has 3 dogs named Camel, Tiger and Lion, and they are getting a cat soon. Around the village there is also 1 other dog and a few cats. The animals all have work to do. The dogs go hunting with the boys and the cats catch mice and lizards around the house.

Do the peopls have unusual names?

They are names you would think were unususl if you head them in America, but they are normal for here. Many of them are Muslim names from the Koran like- Modoulamin, Ebrima, Seikou, Abdoulie (boys names) and Mariamma, Aminatta, Sallimata, Hawa (girls names.) Others are traditional tribal names like- Sutering, Kaken, Tumani (boys names) and Tening, Sanu, Meta (girls names).

Do they have books?

At school they have some text books for their classes. Most of the time several children have to share one book. They also have a very small library with some books on science and a few fictional books. Outside of school though, (at least in the area where I live) it is rare to see books. Many people here cannot read. Reading just isn't really a common form of entertainment here.

In school, do they have tests?

Yes. They have tests just like you. When they are in 3rd, 5th and 9th grades they have tests like the (TCAP/ TerraNova/ whatever you kids are taking these days).

Do the kids have toys?

There are a few toys around the village, but most of them are homemade. They make cars out of anything tied to a string. They use anything round as a ball. They play a lot of games with shoes. And they play a lot of games similar to hop-scotch that all they need is sand to draw in and some rocks.

Is the food nasty?

The food isn't nasty. Sometimes I get tired of some of the dishes they make, but it isn't nasty. Almost every day, we eat rice for lunch and dinner. Sometimes its rice with peanut sauce, sometimes rice with peanuts chopped up in it, sometimes rice and onions, sometimes rice and palm fruit sauce (i don't like this one very much), sometimes rice and sauce made of leaves and sometimes when there's a special occasion, we have fried rice (almost like what they have at the chinese restaurants.)

How much do people get paid to whack the monkeys at the hotel?

I'm assuming this is referring to the JanJangburreh Hotel my dad and I stayed at when he came.

I don't really know. Workers in The Gambia usually don't get paid very much if you compare them to workers in America. Everything here is paid in Gambian money called dalasis. If you are thinking about a Gambian wage in American money, it would be very small. Someone here who makes $10 per day is making good money.

How is it in Gambia?

It is nice here. The people are very friendly and i enjoy living here. The country is very small. (If you look on a map you will see that it is much smaller than Tennessee.) Since this country is small, almost every time you go somewhere, you see someone you know or you meet someone that knows the family you live with or someone you work with. As I said, people here talk to each other more than we are used to in America, so they are also used to talking to everyone they are around. No matter if you are at the market or waiting on the side of the road for the car, you will probably have someone to talk to. I appreciate being in such a friendly place. That makes up for it being so hot and dry and dusty most of the time.

Is it fun/cool?

Yes. It is definitely cool getting to live here and most of the time it is fun. It is very cool that I have the chance to live in The Gambia and learn what it is like to live in this place and culture. It is also cool that I have a chance to teach people at home in America about another part of the world. It is very cool to live and work in such a different eivironment!

What kind of sports do you like?

In America, I like to play tennis and disc golf, and I like to watch basketball. In Gambia, I like to watch basketball and soccer, but I don't really play any sports here.

Who's you favorite student there?

I try not to play favorites, but I'll tell you about a couple of my favorite different kinds of students. There is one 9th grade boy named Kawso who is very good at speaking english and tries very hard at school. He is older than most of the other students because a few years ago he dropped out of school so he could work to make money for his family. He understands how important his education is, so as soon as he could afford to (it was a few years), he started back to school and is one of the best students in his class. I do a lot of my teaching outside of school too, so one of my favorite students outside of school is a man named Modou. He is working on starting a vegetable garden in a village near mine. I help him by teaching him new ways to do things, like keeping insects from eating his plants. He is always willing to hear what I have to say, happy to see me come to his garden, and works hard.

What is your favorite food (at home and in Gambia)?

At home, my favorite food was mashed potatoes. In Gambia, my favorite food is called chakari. It is pounded millet in soured milk with sugar. It is maybe a LITTLE like yougurt with grape nuts in it.

Is it fun in Salliyaa?

Yes. Most of the time it is fun. I like hanging out with the ladies in my village doing household chores and chatting. And the children are always full of energy and fun to play with. I like my work, so even that is fun.

What are the sports like there?

Children here love to play soccer. Some of the schoolchildren know how to play volleyball and basketball. These sports are played by the same rules as in America. Each year, schools also have an "interhouse" which is like a field day where students participate in races and events like the long jump.

What is the food like?

The family I live with rarely cooks breakfast. They usually heat up what was left from dinner the night before but when they cook a special breakfast, they make porridge with rice. It's a little bit like oatmeal. I make my own breakfast, so sometimes I eat oatmeal, sometimes I mix granola and peanut butter, or I make some grits. Almost every day we eat rice dishes for lunch and dinner. It is rice with some kind of sauce on top. Sometimes, there is fish in the sauce as well. Even more rarely, we get chicken. On special occasions, we eat fried rice with goat, sheep or cow meat.

What is your favorite animal?

In general, my favorite animals are penguins. My favorite animal in The Gambia is the monitor lizard. They are huge lizards that live near the river, and I'm lucky enough to see one every few months.

What's your favorite color?

My favorite color is green

What do you do in Gambia?

I am an Environmental Education and Awareness Peace Corps Volunteer. I do work with school gardens. Many of the schools here have gardens where the children learn about growing things and the school can either use the vegetables in school food or sell the vegetables they grow to raise money. I help improve the garden at the school near me, and I work with an organization in the city on making school gardens all over the country better. I also work with a few people in my area on making their gardens better, so they can provide their families with more nutritious food and make some money. I also do other small projects like planting tree seedlings and doing HIV/AIDS education, among other things. Part of my job is also to live with the people here and try to understand what life and people here are like so that I can help Americans learn about other cultures.

Do they eat fried chicken?

They do make fried chicken here, They don't put breading on it like most people do in America, but its fried chicken and its good anyway.

Is Gambia a great place?

Yeah, it's a great place. There are problems here like poverty, struggles of education and deforestation, but there are also many good things. The country has many beautiful places. The people are nice. The culture here is interesting. Overall, I still think The Gambia rates as great.

Do they have Police?

Yes, but their police do not drive around in cals like the ones you are used to. Some police walk around the city to make sure everything is peaceful, but most of the police in this country work at checkpoints along the roads. When you are riding in a car and your car comes to one of these checkpoints, the car has to stop and the policeman looks in the car. Sometimes, he asks for the driver's driving licence to make sure he is driving legally. Sometimes they check to see if the passenger is wearing a seatbelt. Sometimes if they feel suspicious of the people in the car they ask to see their identification and might even take their bags out and search them for anything illegal.

What foods do they have there?

In the city, we have many of the same foods as we have in America: pizza, hamburgers, spaghetti, egg sandwiches, chicken, french fries, even chinese food. I miss some food like mexican food, sushi, turkey sandwiches, lasagna, chili and lots of other things that are not anywhere in this country. Outside of the city, the food is different. For breakfast, many people eat sandwiches. The most common type is bean sandwiches. It sounds strange, but they are very good. In most smaller villages, no one sells sandwiches, so bread or porridge is a normal breakfast. After that, it is usually rice for all the meals. In some families, millet with sauce is eaten instead of rice for one meal a day. For snacks, people eat fruit that grows on trees here. There is cashew fruit, mangoes, baobab, oranges, mandinka cola, kaba, and some other fruits that have no english name. Many of these fruits are not in America, not even in the grocery stores.

Do you teach the children about the United States?

I do not teach a class about the US or anything but I do answer questions all the time about what the US is like.

Casey, Eileen and me overlooking a valley. Guinea has topography!!!

Thankfully, our guide had plenty of poses he wanted us to do for pictures, so we never had to think about how to stand for pictures.

We got to swim in this waterfall and then ate lunch beside it.

Huge rock formation we hiked around

Vulture over the valley

I just got back from 8 days of traveling in Sierra Leone and Guinea Conakry. I traveled with 2 friends from Peace Corps The Gambia- Casey and Eileen.We flew into Freetown, Sierra Leone and took the ferry to meet Chelsea and Mike, my friends who live in Freetown. They took us to River #2 for a great day at the beach. The water was a perfect temperature, the beach was beautiful and it was awesome to get to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in such a long time. Casey, Eileen and I were planning on visiting a national park in Sierra Leone, but after finding out how complicated and perhaps impossible it would be to get there, we decided it'd be more fun to just go to Guinea from Freetown. We loaded up in a station wagon (public transportation) and headed across the border. We spent one day in Conakry. Between the city being crowded and confusing and everyone speaking French, it didn't register as one of my favorite places to be in the world. We left the city asap. Once we were out of the city, the drive was BEAUTIFUL. Being in an overcrowded compact car for more than 8 hours was actually pleasant because of the scenery. We're used to flat, dry Gambia and Guinea (Sierra Leone too) is nothing like that. There are hills, valleys, and trees everywhere! After 2 days in transit, we made it to Dookie for hiking. The hiking was a ton of fun. For a couple of days, we clinbed around on rocks, swam in waterfalls, swam in waterfalls inside caves, saw valleys, mountains and cliffs. Once again, coming from flat, dry Gambia this was all SO impressive. Also, coming from flat, dry Gambia, we were all SO sore afterwards. On the way back to the city to catch our plane back to The Gambia, we spent a night in a huge village on the way toward the capitol. It was a nice laid back night (with air conditioning!!!) followed by getting to hang out with the resident Peace Corps Volunteer. She showed us around a bit, took us to a restaurant and then used her French to get us in a cab straight to the airport. Its really awesome to be able to link into the Peace Corps network. You meet some cool people and I'm so thankful for all the help we got from volunteers along the way.Now I'm back in The Gambia. Even though, it doesn't have mountains or waterfalls, I'm glad to be back!

First of all, I have no idea what the aforementioned word means. It might mean banging metal together; it might just mean cultural party; it might mean whatever happens before a circumcision ceremony, but whatever it is, it just happened in my area.

A couple of days ago, we had the official announcement of when the circumcision ceremony near me is scheduled to be. This was a huge party. We had people coming in from all over the area, the city and the Cassamance to attend the event. The event was supposed to start around 8 or 9 am, but in tradition of Gambian Maybe Time, it began around 4pm. There were a couple of hundred people dancing on the highway for a while to the music of girls banging pieces of metal together. During this dance, there was one old man in the front who was using something which was possibly formerly a cow's tail to fling ceremonial water on people in the crowd. A few times during our time spent in the road, some men did a display of the magical powers of their jujus by attempting to cut themselves with knives or machettes, but they were never cut because they were protected by their jujus. There was maybe an hour of dancing in the road before the whole crowd moved into the bush to wait for the date announcement. On the way, the crowd upset some bees, making everyone run a small portion of the trail to avoid being stung. This episode also made the crowd really nervous of bees, thus contributing to a couple of stampedes later in the day when a few people in the crowd thought they saw a bee. Before we walked back to town, an offering had to be brought to the bees to convince them not to sting anyone on our way back out. It must have worked because there was not nearly so much running and yelling as on the way in.

While we were in the bush, there was more dancing to clanging metal with the ladies, while the men all went to sit under a big tree where the date decision was being made. After an hour or 2, the date was announced and the men paraded back to meet the women waving tree branches and singing. We all walked home for dinner, and then after dinner, there was a party with a drumming group and lots of dancing until late into the night.

After all this, I assumed the date would be all anyone talked about, but in fact, no one seems to care about the date that was announced- the entire purpose of this party. I think there was just too much fun to be had to worry about some date. I still don't know when it is and I've asked around like crazy. But whenever that date is, I've been promised that the party will be bigger, better, and last a whole week.

Most everyone knows I go by Sally while I'm in Gambia. Its nice to have a Gambian name partly because, with a Gambian name, you know people you meet will be able to pronounce it. But probably the best part of having a Gambian name is the "toma effect." A toma is someone that shares the same name as you. Meeting a toma is great. Its an instant guarantee of friendship and your tomaship will probably be announced to everyone around. In America, I feel like being in a group with several people with the same name its a little annoying, but here they love it. There's a standard bank of names that most people use, so I'd guess that at least 75% of the country is named names from the top maybe 25 names. (And I feel like that's a conservative estimate.) Most of the standard names are Muslim names: Modoulamin, Muhammed, Ebrima, Fatoumatta, Mariamma, Isatou... These, and nicknames that derive from them, account for tons of the population.

One of my favorite conversations with a middle school boy at school was about names, and he said all boys should just be named Lamin (a shortenig of Modoulamin). It's the best name because so many people have it, and if all the people named Lamin decided to fight everyone else they would win, no doubt. Sounds like logic is on his side.

In my village, its no exception to the name situation in the rest of the country.

- A full 10% of my village's population (not women, total population) is named Fatou Badjie.

- My host father has 6 sons, 2 of them are named Ebrima.

- My host father had 4 wives- 2 of them have exactly the same name.

- The oldest son in every family in my village is named Modoulamin.

Its just crazy that this much name overlap is unheard of in America but is so common here. So common that I'm the only one around who finds it confusing.

These are a selection of pictures that the first grade class at the school closest to me drew for Kayla's Kindergarten student teaching class. I just thought people might like to see.

The class has about 40 first graders. I don't know how Mrs. Gibba handles it but somehow she does, and after being in class with her for that day we did drawing, she's coming out ahead as perhaps my favorite teacher at the school.

I'm giong to have to ask you all to turn your heads to enjoy these pictures. I forgot to turn them before loading, and loading again is not an option.

Just got back from mailrun- a trip around the country delivering Peace Corps Volunteers their mail. We spent 5 days in a car driving everywhere. I got to see a lot of the country I hadn't seen before, which was really interesting. I got to ride on the big ferry for the first time, spent my first long trip on the north bank road and gained a new appreciation for being able to walk from my doorstep to the main highway in 15 minutes or less.

This is the side view of the car on day 1. This car was packed full!

The mailrun crew in our asobee. Even Bob (the cat) had a collar but you probably can't see it.

Team 2 is #1!

The team out in the bush en route to one of our sites

A baboon some of my team and i hung out with while we were waiting

Basketball got introduced to my area this year. A non-profit in my area made a basketball court and trained a few teachers on how to play the game, and then they had about 2 months to get girls basketball teams together. They held a regional tournament that was based at the school nearest me, so i got to be around and root the girls on Bondali's team on. Three of the girls on the team are from my village so it was great to get to see them play and they did GREAT. They won our district and are playing in the regional final next month. It was exciting to see these girls who are generally so shy in front of people going out on the court in front of a small crowd and really being proud of themselves. Go Bondali Nugggets! (They didn't pick the names by the way. Some American shirt printing comapny's printing error made these jersy's discards, then donations, which chose the name for them.)

The team

SCORE!!!

Mandinka for "It's done/finished."

Just finished the WFP Food Security and Livelihood Assessment trek. We went around the country taking surveys to help the World Food Programme figure out what the food security status of The Gambia is. I've thrown the term food security around a lot, so here's an official definition:

"Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietart needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life"- World Food Summit, 1996

As one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, and one of the smallest, food security is a big concern here. Gambia is a net importer of food, which means the country doesn't produce enough food to support itself and has to buy almost half its food from outside its borders. And being among the poorer countries, affording said food is sometimes an issue for people. So the survey is supposed to help inform the government, NGOs (non-profit organizations, etc) and the UN on what their plans should be to address this in the future.

My team covered the West Coast Region. It was me and 7 guys in a minivan for about 10 days. Me, a driver and 6 interviewers (mostly university students.) Treks get better with time, so for the first few days, I was super stressed and running around like crazy, but by the end it was fun. My role was organizer. I had to plan the days, keep the team moving and check all the surveys for obvious errors. I just did the background work. I had a great team. We got along great, spent a lot of time together, and were all a little sorry to see the trek end.

Pictures and hopefully an amusing story or 2 to follow...

Going to the market is always interesting. You never know what you're going up against. Maybe you'll be followed by a flock of young girls attempting to "help" you, maybe you'll get kicked in the shin by a crazy man or maybe you'll find a friend you hadn't seen in months. Maybe you'll get what you want or you might walk around for an hour and never find what you need. My friend Katie and I took a trip to the Serekunda market a couple of days ago. Our mission was bracelets for a friend and 2 meters of Fula fabric for me. At our first fabric shop/stall, Katie greeted the workers in Pulaar, picked some fabric and asked the price. They gave us a price 3 times what the fabric actually sells for. (Because we're white. Apparently knowing a local language isn't proof enough that they shouldn't rip us off) When we told then they were crazy, and then another man from the road came up to yell at the workers for us, they reduced the price to only twice what the fabric is worth. We walked away throwing exclamations back toward the shop about how they were just trying to cheat white people. Guy who came off the street to yell at the workers for us decided to take it upon himself to show us al kinds of places to buy honestly priced fabric and eventually escort us to the bracelets. Conveniently enough, his wife was selling bracelets. She didn't have what we were looking for but we got some bracelets from a deaf and dumb girl. It was really interesting. We ended up negotiating the price with another lady and then just paying that girl whatever the other lady decided on. First goal accomplished!

Katie still wanted to look at fabric. On that journey, I found some fabric with the president's face on it. I'm not going to wear it when I'm in Gambia because I don't want to be associated with any political views but its one of those things i had to get because they don't have anything remotely like it in America. Along the way, we picked up another guy off the road that wanted to show us where to look for things. This man was actually really helpful. He showed us where to get Fula fabric. There was a huge selection and they gave me a fair price. Fula fabric is hand woven fabric made in The Gambia. Its nice and I found the exact kind of pattern I wanted- black and white plaid with colored stripes in it. After that, it was popsicle time; then we escaped from the market!

I just had my dad in to visit. It was really fun having him here and doing all the Gambian stuff (the great and the less than great) with him. We did a lot, ate a lot, walked a lot, saw a lot of animals, rode in a lot of vehicles, and survived a lot of nights without air conditioning. And I know I had a lot of fun.

We did a bit of traveling around the country. We spent a few days in the city going to the monkey park, the beach and the nature reserve. During this time, Dad and I saw tons of monkeys both wild and too tame, found out how big hayenas really are and Dad got to encounter his first bumsters (boys whose "job" is to hang out on the beach and try to make any unwitting tourist, especially older white women, their ticket to a new life in Europe. Next we traveled to my village. We were welcomed by all the children, who still managed to really like Dad even though none of them could understand anything he ever said. Dad picked up a few words of Jola in our time in Saliyaa, so he could at least greet people and by the end he even got some "na jamjam"s meaning "he can hear the language." We went to see the river and all the cool trees of the area. I took him to the school, so he got to see what a day of school-based confusion/work looks like. He even got to help in the garden a little. Mostly though, we just hung around the village so he could get to know the people I'm with all the time. We took a break from village to go to Janjangburreh (JJB), where we took a boat trip to spot hippos and got to spend some time with the monkeys at our hotel. We even got part of our breakfast stolen by one highly skilled monkey. On the JJB trip, Dad got a good taste of gelly riding. Its a rough and dusty off-roading with sheep on top of your car experience and we made it through. We even made it home on time. The last leg of our trip was Kartong. We hung out on the beach a lot. We happened to be there for Tobaski, the biggest Muslim holiday of the year, so we spent the day with the family of a friend in the village. It was a nice experience, and the food was great. We had so much beef: chunks of beef and onions, beef and rice, and beef sandwiches. It was unbelievable. Then the next day we went on a long walk on the beach to walk off some of the excess food from the previous day of gluttony. Then, all too soon, it was time to go to the airport again.

I can't believe that one year ago today, I was arriving in Philadelphia, getting ready to start Peace Corps The Gambia. Eating my last American meal, making my last phone calls, meeting lots of new people... It's one of those times where you feel like you've been at it forever, but also like you just started.

This year has been really great, and I can't believe that I'm almost halfway through my service. In fact its a little terrifying- I'm still just getting started!!!

So, lots of love to everyone I said goodbye to a year ago. Thanks for the support. And again thanks for not crying in front of me!

One day during Ramadan, I went with some of the girls in my compound to collect leaves for the dinner sauce. Turns out, they had more plans than just collecting some leaves. This was one of the most fun afternoons I've had in Salliyaa.

Fanta posing where the journey all began

Can you find the girls hiding in this picture? Siabatou and Nyima hid from us in the shoulder-high weeds, but eventually we tracked them down.

Here's the crew- (L-R) Nyima, Fanta, Sibo and Siabatou in the backTrekking through the bush

Sibo and our bowl ready for harvesting

A big termite mound. This thing is as tall as me and much wider.

Sibo and Fanta fighting over the bowl (and the camera shot) at the quarry.

Nyima and Fanta swimming in puddles at the quarry. When we got to the quarry, the girls stripped down and went nuts- swimming and running around.

Here they've switched puddles. You can see the road right behind them. I scared them a couple of times yelling that a car was coming.

By this point, we'd collected enough leaves for the sauce for dinner and the girls found some bush vegetable that looks like a green grape but tastes like okra and started collecting that.

On the way home with our harvest. There was some song and dance going on in this picture.

The girls decided that they would try and hide the bush vegetabe so they wouldn't have to share any of it and could cook all of it for lunch the next day (Remember how the girls cooked for just the kids for lunch during Ramadan?) and it was decided that under Nyima's shirt was the most inconspicuous place.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a few villages in my area to teach how to make mosquito repellant out of local materials. All it takes is soap, oil and some specific leaves from around the area to make a batch of this "neem cream." Here, getting bitten by mosquitoes is not only uncomfortable- it's a health issue because malaria is spread through mosquito bites. So for these dual reasons, people are enthusiastic to learn about "tule ay bawolop" as we call it in Salliyaa. I went by bike and was escorted by a man from a village near mine who worked basically as my assistant for the trek. He set up all the engagements and showed me how to get to the villages he had talked to. This was originally going to be a one-village, one-day trek, but Ablie got enthusiastic on the scheduling so it expanded to a 2-day, three-village trek.

This is perhaps the nicest road in the country. This is an offshoot of the Gambia's south bank highway, and all the villages I went to are off of this road.......Some of them way off the nice road. Here we are wading through a flooded rice field with our bikes to get to waht is supposed to be our first village.Still on the way...

Things don't always go as planned in the first village. It was funny- this village that had been our original target bailed on our meetings twice! This is a picture of the second day when we have resorted to searching for women in their rice fields asking why they aren't showing up for the meeting they scheduled. This is my frustrated face and Ablie's 'what is she doing now? I am trying to talk' face.

This village was the first where I actually got to do the demonstration. The location was really picturesque, but the people didn't speak any jola so I was really glad Ablie was there to translate into Woloof.

Here I am with some of the participants. The girls on my right are shaving up bars of soap to add to the recepie. The people from this village were so nice and really came out for the demonstration. I really wish i could understand them so I could do work there more often.

Finishing up the mixing and getting ready to distribute. A man from this village actually came to Salliyaa to thank us the next day for teaching this in his village. He told us how well it worked and how excited the whole village was about knowing how to make neem cream. Its great to hear that something made of things everyone can get locally for a reasonable price is actually working! Hopefully when I go around on a follow-up visit everyone will have made a new batch when they ran out. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

The pump in my village is out of commission for the time being so everyone is going to the wells in the garden to fetch water for drinking. (Except for me. I'm taking the safer route and going to the pump in the next village, which really isn't as far as that makes it sound.) I followed along with my camera on a water run.

Sibo and me on the way

Sona (with Joma on her back), Binta, and Seedy in the back with a bucket on his head

Some of the men at the 40 Days Charity for my host father. There were so many people!

The cow from the 40 Days charity

Working in some rice

Sunset out my back door

Gibril, Ebrima, and Uspha looking at one of my magazines. Magazines are a big hit here.

A classic example of no one ever behaving normally once i pull out a camera. Uspha wanted to pose like a karate guy and Musa wanted to make sure he couldn't look cool in a picture.

Rainbow over Salliyaa

Ramadan ended a day later than everyone expected because no one spotted the moon. There wasn't really a big party because it rained pretty solid for the entire 2 days after Ramadan ended. Everything is pretty much back to normal.

School is starting back again now. It was supposed to start last Monday, but that day only one teacher who had come to inform the village he had been transferred and I showed up. I returned on Wednesday to find a few teachers and a few students sweeping out classrooms and chatting. The next Monday, most of the teachers showed up and probably about half of the students. We had a staff meeting, but there were still no classes. By the time I get back, I'm thinking school should actually have started. We'll see...

Other than that, since the last time I was in town, I've:

- waged war against the termites in my house

- accepted defeat in said battle

- learned how to carry a baby on my back

- taught the little boys in my compound how to thumb wrestle

- learned how to plant rice

- made some urine-based fertilizer

- had a baby boy born in my compound

- got some really awesome packages- Thank you!

The month of Ramadan is the Muslim month of fasting during which all muslims in the world who are physically able fast every day. From sunrise to sunset, they drink no water and eat no food. From what people have told me, Ramadan is about showing devotion to Allah through fasting, purifying your body, and gaining compassion for those who do not have the basics of life through experiencing a little of their difficulty. During this month, the people in this area, who are a pretty religious lot to start with, become extra religious. They have longer than usual prayer services in the evenings, and i have seen more people sitting around studying the Koran. They are also supposed to be extra careful about keeping all of the Koranic laws during this month. Everyone does all the work they normally would on the farm and around the house except without eating or drinking. It's intense!

The fast is organized on the lunar calendar, so it has been going on since about the 10th of last month and has just a few days left. I have fasted for 3 days so far, but I've never even tried to make it the whole 14 hours without water. My general (well, all 3 times) routine is to drink water before I leave my house in the morning so I shouldn't have more than about 10 hours without water. Even with most of the village fasting, I'm still able to find food in the middle of the day. It's just a little more interesting than usual. Since the children aren't fasting, they're the ones in charge of getting lunches together for themselves. It's been a funny combination of leftovers from the night before and sauces made from leaves the kids can get from the bush themselves and sometimes even less preferred parts of the fish the girls had hidden away when they were cleaning the fish the night before. And with the kids being in charge of the cooking, I don't get my own bowl so I eat with the little girls around their bowl. (Actually I don't know if I've ever addressed the way people eat in this blog. See * below) With some of the women their daily question is not "Are you fasting?" it's "Are you a kid today?" And most days I'm a kid. I'm not going to miss being asked if I'm fasting and/or told I should be fasting 50 times a day, and I'm glad that it'll be over just so everyone else can eat, but I have had a good Ramadan.

The Ramadan ends sometime in the middle of this week (depending on when you can see the moon- it is yet to be determined). Everyone celebrates the end of Ramadan with big parties and good food. Surprisingly enough, one of the most exciting foods to me and everyone else is soured milk with pounded millet in it called chakari. When I came to The Gambia, having to eat soured milk was one thing that made me really nervous, but now I'm just sorry we hardly ever have it. Supposedly after sunset on the last day of the fast, the party begins. There's food for all and lots of dance parties. All of the young people go around to different villages in the area to attend all the parties, see all their friends, and celebrate the fact that after a month of experiencing hunger they can appreciate all they have.

*People here eat out of a communal food bowl. Each family generally has a series of food bowls divided by who eats together. "Strangers" like me and any non-family visitors get their own small bowls. The men and teenage boys all share one bowl (which is probably 2 feet in diameter- it's a big bowl). The women and children share one bowl. The grandmothers of one side of the family share one bowl and the one grandma on the other side of the family gets her own. There are a few more bowls that are around for random parts of the family but you get the idea. The bowl sits on the ground and all of the people eating out of the bowl crouch around the bowl and use their right hand (the clean hand) to eat. Everyone has a pie shaped section of the food that is "theirs." Everything in "your" section is yours and if you don't want it you can put it in the middle of the bowl. Anything in the middle is free game and you can feel free to take pieces of it an move it to your place. People who are nice might even throw something they know you like into your place so you can have it. When you eat you take a handful of food, ball it up and eat it out of your hand. Then you go for another. The older men often use spoons, and sometimes if I'm eating at someone's house or office they will give me a spoon because I'm the guest, but for most families only the fathers of the family would have spoons and everyone else would use their hands.

The other day, I went to a naming ceremony in the city. The naming ceremony was in honor of the new baby of one of my host brothers' wives. The party consisted of lots of food and dancing. It was really fun. I got to see some of the family I hadn't seen in a while and talked to them. I got to learn to cook some Gambian soup (ebe) I had never even tasted before. It was good and being able to help cook was nice. That gave me an excuse to hang out with some of the women and get away from the main party for a while. I danced for a while, which is fun for everyone around me. I'm quite a spectacle. It's terrible! I don't mind dancing for a while, and I actually like it if I have someone to dance with. I just get uncomfortable having to freestyle solo dances in the middle of a circle of clapping women. Thankfully I didn't spend too much of my day doing that! Eventually I staked a place out on the floor, grabbed a couch cushion and fell asleep on the floor of the living room of the house.

I woke up in the morning to a phone call from a man in the village up from mine saying that my host father had died a few hours earlier. I spent the next several hours trying to figure out if people at the house I was at know about it or not. After a couple of stressful hours, I finally had decided that a certain group of women knew what was going on. I packed up my stuff and set out walking with them. We walked at least 3 miles to get to this road where we waited for a little while as more of the family trickled up. Then a big vehicle came and we all rode back to my village, stopping along the way to gather people from a few different villages. (The ride back to my vill was one of the most exciting times so far in my service- honestly one of the most exciting things in my ervice. I was having to try to look more at least a little somber.) We got to Salliyaa and everyone piled out of the vehicle. There were SO many people at my compound. I went around and greeted people, etc. It was great to see a lot of them. A lot of people had some into town to see my host father in the last couple of months while he was sick, so I had met most of the people in for the funeral. Eventually I got to shower and put on a complet (2 piece Gambian dressy outfit- see my swear-in pictures). By the time I got out, the funeral had already started. I actually have no idea what happened most of the time. It was in Arabic and Mandinka and it was an Islamic ceremony. There was a lot of wailing from the women and then the men carried the body to the edge of town for the burial. After that, everything was pretty much over. Since then, there have been lots of people and lots of cooking at my house. I'm hoping there will still be some of my favorite family visitors at the house when I get back tomorrow, but maybe not as many people as were there when I left. There were probably 100 people in my compound when I woke up yesterday morning. That's a little overwhelming. It'll be interesting adjusting to the new family structure and seeing what changes now.

Once upon a time, right after the rains in The Gambia had begun....

Dinner had just gotten done cooking and I came into my house with my 2 bowls. The rice didn't have a red sauce, so I was going to eat with my hand. I walked to my back door, which latches at the top and in the middle. I reached up to undo the top latch without looking first. I glaced up to find a 6" scorpion inches from my hand. I leapt across the house and crouched in my plastic lawn chair keeping an eye on the scorpion and trying to formulate a plan. I had never seen a scorpion before this point and had never seen one killed or shooed out of a house, so I had no idea what to do. During my long staring session with the scorpion, Dad called, so he got to experience some of this excitement firsthand. At some point during the call, the scorpion dropped from the wall down to the floor. That thing was so scary looking. After the phonecall was over, I was ready to take care of the situation, so I went out to find someone to help me. I decided my host brother Sute was the perfect candidate. He speaks enough english that I thought I could freak out a little and speak english about what I needed and this would still get taken care of.

I went into Sute's room and told him I had a scorpion in my house and I didn't know what to do. He asked me what color it was.

"Black"

"Ooh- those are dangerous"

"Do scorpions come in other colors? What colors are the most dangerous?"

"All of them are black" (Come to find out later, there are white ones that are even worse than the kind I had in my house)

Sute came into my house and grabbed my broom and held the scorpion down. He cut off the tail with his shoe and kind of smushed the scorpion. The scorpion grabbed the broom and then Sute launched the scorpion over my bathroom fence. Sute is such a hero!

I thought my ordeal was over here. I finally ate my dinner, hung out with the family for a minute and went to bed. In the morning I got up, walked out and took my bowl out to my family. On the way I noticed that someone had hung the scorpion on the clothesline. Yikes! I handed my bowl to one of my mothers, turned around and ran smack into the scorpion with my face. That was not even the only time that day that this happened. Ugh! Thankfully me running into it repeatedly prompted it to be taken down and thrown out of the compound.

Thankfully that has been my only scorpion encounter thus far and now I feel equipped to handle an encounter if one does happen in the future. Big thanks to Sute- he's such a hero.

This is the scorpion hanging on the clothesline in the morning. If you look closely, you can even see that he's hairy! He used to have a tail too.

The rainy season has finally come to The Gambia. It's been raining every 3-5 days since the rains started the first week of june. It has been so exciting to have rain! There hadn't been even a drop of rain here since November, so I was so glad to see some RAIN. I don't know when I'll get tired of it but I think it'll be a while.

The rain changes everything. The air is humid now all of the time, so I'm sweating all of the time. The whole country is getting green. There's grass coming up everywhere. The area around my village is starting to look like a tropical rainforest, except for the farms, which are getting planted right now. There are also a ton of new bugs coming out of hiding. So far, most of the rains have come at night. The rain is so loud on my metal roof! When it rains during the day, everything shuts down. The kids don't go to school and most people just go back to bed. The first day that it rained during the morning, I was supposed to go to the school and I didn't know that no one leaves the house, so I headed to the school. Since I was going, my host father decided to make two of the boys go too. The boys and I sloshed our way across the rice field between the house and the school. One of them even fell in and got pretty muddy. When we got to the school, there were a few kids, one teacher, and a lot of goats there. Needless to say, nothing got accomplished that day. I just hung out with some of the little girls. It was fun, but next time I'll sleep in!

some of the green

The gelly is the Gambian bush taxi. It's the way to get around the country. I'll just go through what it takes to get from my place to the city. So first I walk to the main road. I'm pretty lucky to live less than 1k away from the south bank highway so this leg of the trip isn't bad at all. I generally take a circuitous route to the road that takes me through the other main compound in Salliyaa just so no one can say they didn't know I was leaving. Once I get to the road, it's a waiting game. I sit by the road until a gelly with an empty seat comes by, which could be 10 minutes or 2 hours. It just depends on luck. When you see a gelly coming down the road headed the direction you want to go, you stick your arm out signaling you want a ride. If the gelly is full the driver will honk at you or flash his lights or just wave to let you know the car is full. When your time comes, the gelly pulls off the road so you can get in. So you get in this van-sized vehicle that has been outfitted with benches so it can accomodate twice what a normal van would. Then you set off down the south bank highway. Depending a little on the health of your gelly, it's pretty much like riding a wooden roller coaster for a couple of hours. Somewhere along the way, the apprentice driver (apparente) asks you for your money, which amounts to about $2 for my first leg of the trip and about 50 cents for the next 2 legs of the trip combined. Apparantes are some of the most interesting people in The Gambia. They are mostly teenage boys who spend their days opening and closing the doors of the gelly, jumping into the gelly while it is moving, putting whatever people want to transport onto the top of the gelly (this varies from luggage to livestock to furniture), collecting money, passing people babies in and out of the gelly, arguing with people over what the pass cost should be, "learning people skills required for being a driver" and making rediculous fashion choices. My first gelly stops in Brikama at a major carpark. I get out and negotiate the acre of gellys everywhere. There have got to be I dunno... more than 100 gellys there at a time all coming and going. There I have to get another gelly headed to a place where I get a taxi that will drop me at either the office or a short walk from the house. Overall in about 3-4 hours I can from my place to the office or house. Always an adventure!

Hey, just stopped in the city for a night on my way out for a trek around schools to look at their tree nurseries. I just thought I'd let you know I'm doing great and I'm glad I'm here (not that I don't miss you all). I got mail yesterday. It was really great to hear from people! I really appreciate it. Gotta go! Bay fotuley! ('Till later in Jola)

This is me and one of my host mothers, Tening, sitting under the mango tree by the house. Pretty much every day people hang out there in the afternoon. That's my fence behind us.

This is me and my host sister in law in the Bintang Bolong.

My bike with a bag of mangoes and a chicken on the back. I biked on basically a mountain biking path for 30 minutes or so and the chicken kept squaking in protest and slipping down toward the tire. It was hilarious but only to me. Everyone around thought it was perfectly normal.

I went visiting friends during the first part of may. Maggie, Maggie and I had a Cinco de Mango party. We ate SO many mangoes and chocolate cake too. Great day!

The inside of a classroom

This is a small school. Most schools have several buildings like this one.

This blog is especially for my WWS correspondence class. You asked what the schools here are like. They are much different than they are in America. First of all, most kids in the US speak English at home and at school. In The Gambia, kids speak one language at home (It might be Mandinka, Jola, Wolof, Fula or another one of the local languages.) and a different language at school (English). When the children start school, they have to start lerning English as well as their other subjects. Gambian students study many of the same subjects as American students: science, math, English, physical education, art and social studies; but they also study agriculture and Islamic studies. There are no school busses here, so most of the kids walk to school. Some ride bicycles, and in the city some kids ride public transportation. The schools here do not have windows so that it does not get too hot in their classroom. Most schools outside of the city do not have electricity, so that means no computers or television or air conditioning. Every morning, the students have an assembly where they hear announcements, sing the national anthem of The Gambia and recite a prayer. After assembly, students go to their classrooms. They study their lessons until lunchtime. They learn by copying from the blackboard, reading out loud, reciting parts of their lessons from memory, singing songs, and doing practice work. At lunch, the students spread out over the school yard to eat. Students get into groups, and each group gets a bowl of rice with some sauce. In some schools, there are not enough teachers for all of the classes, so a new group of students comes after lunch and the morning students go home. Students have many responsibilities at school. Some students are responsible for sweeping their classrooms, some fetch water for their class, and some water the school garden.If you have any more questions, let me know.

I just thought I would post a couple more pictures before I head back to Salliyaa. I'll be headed out in a couple of days.

The Western Region volunteers in our asobees (matching outfits)

The view out my backdoor

Some of the teenage girls from my village on the way to a soccer game. This game was a big deal. They dressed up and we walked about 5k to get there.

Q: I read somewhere that Gambia is about 90% Muslim. Are religious differences an issue in your village?

A: In my village, not at all. I am the only non-Muslim resident of Salliyaa. It took my family a good few weeks to ask whether I was a Muslim or not and even now that they know I am not it does not seem to change things at all. The kids occasionall ask questions about me not being a Muslim, about Christian prayers, etc and they invite me to pray with them in the mosque every once in a while. As a white person, it is kind of expected that I am not a Muslim and no one has ever tried to convert me or anything.

The Gambia as a whole is really religiously tolerant. In many places there are only Muslims, but, as I understand it, in places where there are Muslims and Christians (or any other religious group), people get along well and still seem to see more of their common ground than differences.

Q: At this point in the learning process, how well can you communicate with your family and other villagers?

A: It amazes me how well it is going. I can get what I need and just converse with people a little, too. The village is really, really great at helping me understand what they are talking about. Just a warning- after this you never want to play charades against me! Sometimes things get confusing and both parties in a conversation are confused but that doesn't happen all that often. Between context clues and having an expanding vocabulary I make do pretty well. I can't have any really in depth conversations but I and my family are pleased with my progress and I'm on my way to language proficiency!

This is my house. It's attached in a row to three others, but most of what you see is mine. Note the great tree behind it.

I don't know why this likes to distort my pictures. This is me and my host sister Siabitou.

Me helping pound palm nuts.

This is the salt flat. I've gone down here several times to help the women make salt. It's pretty hard work.

Some of the kids in my village. These three are SUPER cute- Hawa, Ami and Aba.

(L to R) Me, Koko, Casey and Jenna on the beach in Senegambia. We had just finally found some ice cream so we are very happy!

Q: What did you decide on as your project?

A: Ask me this question again in a year and maybe I'll have an answer. The way projects work here, I'm pretty much placed in an area and it is up to me to work with the community to choose/ design projects that the area needs. So far, I have done a bit of work on different things so I'll throw a few of my posabilities out there: doing environmental education with the school, working on woodlot project in the area with an NGO and the forestry department, working with the forestry department on education or starting a community forest in the area, working with the ag extensionist in the area on education programming, doing education work in village, convincing people in my village to plant trees, etc.... There are lots of things I could do and its all up to me. We'll see how this plays out.

Q: Have you had any wildlife encounters?

A: I have gotten to see monkeys. They live near my house. I've gotten within about 20 yards of them. Other than that, no real encounters with wildlife. I have encounters with domestic animals frequently. I have had many close encounters with chickens and I had a cow eat part of the fence of my bathroom. I woke up at 3 in the morning to the sound of chomping on my fence. It happens a lot so I didn't respond at first, but it sounded like a lot of fence getting snacked on so I jumped out of bed and ran out to scare off the cow. I didn't notice anything wrong with the fence until the next evening when I went out to take a shower and I was exposed stomach up through part of the fence. After a couple days that finally got fixed. It's happened one more time since then, but it was a small enough hole the second time I could fix it myself.

Q: Have you made friends with the locals?

A: Well, I definitely have people to hang out with and joke around with. I sit around with the women in my village a lot, but I don't know that I would really qualify anyone as my friends quite yet. Probably my best Gambian friend is my 13 year old host sister Adja. She and I go places together (meaning I follow her around) and we joke around and act silly and have races. As I get better at the language I'm sure I will develop real friendships, but I have learned that you can have a great deal of fun with people you don't really understand. And I think that, as people, we understand each other more than you would imagine without needing to understand the words being said. I'm not lonely. I have a whole village to hang out with.

Q: Why did you punch a chicken?

A: I was out with my village cracking peanuts by the road. That's a normal afternoon activity and the chickens often discover that everyone is there and want some peanuts for themselves. They often try to sneak up and steal off of someone's pile. One was sneaking up to my pile and I went to shoo it away with my fist full of peanuts. Because of my catlike reflexes, I was too fast for the chicken and ended up punching it a little bit before it got out of the way.

Q: Has a donkey been a mode of transportation for you yet?

A: Yes ma'am. No one but small boys ride donkeys, but donkey carts are pretty common. I've only been on one once. In training village, I hitched a ride on one on the way to my friend Casey's house.

Q: Have you danced at the discos?

A: Yep. Supposedly I'm pretty good. Who knows!

Q: What is the music situation in your village?

A: No one really plays an "insturment" but people will beat on pretty much anything that sounds like a drum. People sing all of the time and the girls dance a lot.

Q: What's the weather like? (I'm just giving a general response to weather questions here)

A: Right now it is hot and dry. It's not as hot as I thought it could be, but there is still a good deal of the hot season left, so I still might be impressed. I am also in the western half of the country, which is a good deal cooler than the eastern portion. Most days just feel like a hot summer day in the southeast US. Maybe a little hotter but less humid so it balances out. I spend a lot of time sweaty and gross, but that is to be expected. It hasn't rained even a drop since December and even then then, the only rain I saw was just maybe 30 drops in my yard. I won't see rain until June. There are 4 seasons here, but there are always 2 seasons happening simultaneously. Hot, cool, wet and dry. Right now I am in the hot and dry seasons. The weather here allows for an almost constant growing season. Any area that can be watered can be planted with crops in the dry season. Larger scale agriculture only happens in the wet season because you don't need to worry about watering your crops. They plant rice, millet and peanuts in Salliyaa.

Q: What do you need?

A: Letters!

Honestly I don't really need anything.

If you want ideas on stuff though:

Granola bars, Cliff bars, etc are always a safe bet.

M&Ms (especially peanut butter)

Pictures

Flavored tuna packs

Beef jerky

Newspaper clippings

Magazines

Memory card with a case for sending back and forth

Suprise me...even if I don't want something you send (which is highly unlikely, I'm sure one of my friends does)

Learning from other people's packages I have compiled a list of things not to send as well- things for my host family (I need to make it very clear to them I am not here to give them stuff- only help), stuffed animals, peanuts (I eat these every day anyway), a christmas tree, etc.

Thanks for all of the questions. I'm always glad to get questions to answer, so post them as a comment on here or facebook any time.

I am planning on doing a Q & A blog while I am in the city this time, but to do this I need questions, so I need your help! Anything you want to know write as a comment on this blog or send the question to me on facebook. I'll answer around the 12th. Really any time you have questions feel free to post questions on here. I'm glad to answer. Can't wait to get your questions!

I got a question on facebook about what a normal day for me is like and thought that would be a good blog.

A normal day in village*:

7:30-8... wake up, maybe read some

8:00-9:00... untuck the mosquito net and get out of bed, then get ready for the day

about 9... go out into my compound, take the bowls from my dinner out to the kitchens

after that... help out with something around the compound or just hang out (maybe process some palm fruit, maybe sit around and talk to some kids, maybe sweep my house- just depends)

after that... usually go to another place to hang out for a while or do some work. Could be the school, forestry camp, another compound, agriculture camp, etc.

1:45... if I'm going to go home for lunch I need to be home by now. We eat lunch between now and 2:30.

after lunch... I hang stay in my house for about an hour taking care of business

3:30-5:00... hang out with people around the village. Lots of times we crack peanuts.

5:00-7:30... this is a big work time of the day. I go to the garden every day to water my tomotoes and help out with watering. Sometimes I do other things like go to the salt flat, go out to gather fire wood, etc.

7:30... take a bath. Take comfort everyone- my family here makes me bathe every day. It's rediculous!

8:00... either help cook or spend time with my family

9:00... eat dinner

9:30... go out and spend more time with my family

after that... go in my house and read, write letters, get ready for bed, etc.

I'm asleep by midnight.

*All times are extremely approximate

Probably the thing I get the most questions about is the food, so I thought I would make a post about it.

I eat what my family eats so that means rice or millet- plus oil, usually fish, usually some MSG/bullion and other stuff. My family is really big, and a few years ago it was decided that there are too many people for one person to cook for, so we have 2 dishes for every meal cooked by two different teams of women. For breakfast, the family usually eats leftovers from dinner the night before. I sometimes do if it's nyakatonge- my favorite dish, but usually I eat granola with peanut butter and milk powder mixed together. Or if I really feel like living it up I eat a granola bar. On Sundays, I mix chocconut (pretty much nutella: chocolate-hazelnut butter) in with the peanut butter, milk powder, granola combo. That is really good.

Nyakatonge is rice or millet cooked with pounded up peanuts and bullion and most of the time pounded up fish. It is so good!

Here are some picture of my food-

These are both millet nyakatonge I think

This is fitof (palm oil) domoda (sauce with pounded peanuts) and rice

This is different than the millet I usually eat- this kind is ground much smaller. This is how most Gambians eat millet but I am just lucky that Jolas grind their millet more coursely because it tastes great that way!

I think it's millet nyakatonge on the left and rice with noodles on the right. They use maccaroni here to soak up flavor and oil and basically use the pasta as a sauce for rice.

I don't know why some of these look so distorted, but you should at least get the idea. In general, I like the food here a lot. There is really just one dish that I really hate and cannot eat. I have no idea what it is. I think it might just be rice with vegetable oil. Whatever it is, it's terrible and whenever that comes (which thankfully is not very often) I rely heavily on the other dish or make something in my house.I eat on a different schedule here than I used to at home. We eat lunch at about 2:00- they usually bring me my bowls right before the 2:00 prayer. Then we eat dinner between 8:30 and 9. Breakfast is an eat when you want affair so depending on the day, I might eat any time between 8 & 11.

Just leaving a quick post to say that I am headed to Salliyaa tomorrow. I should be there about the time most of you are eating breakfast in the morning. I'll probably be back near a computer in 6 weeks or so.

Ni jaawjaaw Salliyaa- I'm going to Salliyaa! (in Jola)

I am going to be finishing up Jola classes today. We are on our break right now. I'm pretty excited about how well Jola has gone. Our class goal today is to try and see how long we can have a conversation in Jola without breaking down to using English. They're by no means deep, meaningful conversations but I feel pretty proud of myself right now. We've ben doing so much practice on asking questions about people and their families, etc. - all the basic get to know you stuff- that we got bored with eachothers answers, so in the last couple of days we've been pretending to be celebrities speaking Jola. We've used Britney Spears, Hillary Clinton, Paris Hilton, Angelina Jolie, etc. It's been pretty fun and I think it makes us better because we can't just rattle off the phrases about our families and stuff that we have memorized; we have to actually think about the answers. Usually with a celebrity, you can come up with much more entertaining questions and anwers than you can for yourself, so that adds another layer of fun.

I took a picture of a page from my Jola notebook. It's just a bunch of random vocabulary, but if anyone really wants to see what some jola words are like, you can click on the picture and it should get big enough for you to read.

I uploaded a bunch of pictures for you guys. This should pretty much catch you up on what I've taken pics of so far. It spans from Christmas till about now. I should be headed to Salliyaa this weekend, so this may be the last post for a month or so. Enjoy!

A picture of the view for hours on our Christmas Eve hike

Our group at some point in our being lost

At the beginning of our Christmas "cruise"

Note the water being dumped over the side of the boat- that's the deckhand bailing out the water we were taking on

Wildlife along the river

Our drivers loading up the cars to drop us off on our site visit. The driver on top of the back car has on a Santa hat- Merry Christmas!

This is the back of my yard at my house. The dry palm fronds at the bottom are my fence and the trees you can see are a mango tree and an amazing silk cotton that are growing together. I've got a great place.

This is another view from my backyard

Some of us outside of the training center

The view from the front porch of the stodge/ transit house

One of the cars ready to head upcountry to drop people at their permanent sites

Another view of the same car- it was definately the most impressively loaded down

While I've been in the city, I've hung out with a couple that moved to The Gambia about the same time I did and one of their visiting friends. This is from when we went on a hike at a national park right outside of the city. It was really nice and there were a bunch of monkeys.

Jennifer, me and a monkey

I'm still in Kombo having Jola class. We've had some issues with the internet, but I think it's up and running for a while at least. Nothing too much going on here so I figured I'd do an in-depth blog on something I do every day- walking from the house to the office.

Class "starts" at 9 every day, which means that class may start between 9:30 and 10 but at least before lunch. The 3 of us in my class always get there around 9 and hang out around the office until class time comes.

I leave the house about 15 minutes before class "starts" so that I am there by a little after 9. I usually walk with Melissa- the other new trainee in my Jola class. We say bye to the guard on the way out of the compound and usually walk about 30 yards out of our way to a shop on our road that sells bread. It costs about 20 cents for a loaf and Melissa and I split one. It's enough for each of us for breakfast and some days I have some for a snack or part of lunch later. Then we walk back down the road- it's just a sand road past several other compounds and cross behind a war memorial cemetary. It has really nice grass (the 2nd nicest grass in the whole country I've heard- 2nd only to the president's house). We go past the cemetary and walk on- behind the store that buys its inventory at a Wal-Mart in Virginia and has it shipped here periodically, behind the Lebonese restaurant, past a big trash pile, past lots of bougenvalia (sp?), and finally we get to our big road crossing. This is where things start to be paved (for at least most of the way).

We cross the road and walk behind a bank- it's a big modern building and we cut down towards the main road beside the bank. Past the bank it starts to be more crowded and urban. Between here and the US Embassy, there are several hardware stores, a couple western style grocery stores, a couple people who set up shop by the road every day selling brooms & buckets, a couple of stationary stores, several ladies who set up stands selling sandwiches (sandwiches are more of a breakfast food here; by about 1pm there really aren't sandwiches anywhere to be found), taxis everywhere- really lots of stuff happening. We walk past the US Embassy on our way. They have these barricades set up so that if you walk between the barricades and the fence, which is really the place you would want to be seeing as it is a bit further away from the cars on the road, men with automatic rifles tell you to go to the other side of the barricade. People learn quickly to walk on the car-side of the barricade. Past the embassy there is only a set of houses, a furniture store and a drug store, plus a wall and some guards, between us and the office. We wave hi to the guards on the way in. We've been coming in every day for long enough they don't ID check us anymore. Sometimes we get lucky and one of the guards even greets us in Jola. Then all that's left to do is wait for class.

I figured I would do an educatoinal blog today on Gambian families and how they are different from those in the US. First of all, polygamy is common in The Gambia. According to the laws of Islam a man may have up to 4 wives and according to the laws of Gambia, there is no limit. My host family in my training village was a polygamous family. Between the language barrier and not being used to the family setup I am still a bit confused about how everyone was related, but from the best I could tell I had 3 host mothers. Children in the family treat all of the mothers as a mother and all of the mothers do their part to keep the household running. Like in my family one of my mothers cooked all the time and another was always washing things, be it kids or clothes- whatever. The kids are all considered brothers and sisters but often when someone is talking about their brother or sister they might specify same mother and same father.

Unless they move to another town to find work, sons tend to live in the family compund their whole lives. Wives move to their husband's family compound. Often, husbands come to the city to find work but their families stay at home in the village. There are a lot of circumstances where the husband (or son for that matter) will move to another country to find good work and send money back to his family. Family members here seem very comitted to the family unit. People with good jobs may suport their whole extended family.

I had the good fortune to be placed in trining village with some of the greatest bloggers I have ever met. This couple wrote blogs while we were in village and past-posted them once we got back to the city. Their blog is great! Probably the most comprehensive way to catch up with all I missed blogging about is to look at their blog. Since we were in training village together, we've been in the same place almost the whole time until today when they left the city to go to their site, so it is pretty representative of what I have done. Their blog is SandJwalkingamile.blogspot.com- enjoy it! If you want to ask me anything about what is on their blog, just post on here or facebook me.

Over our Christmas holiday we got our site assignments. I am posted to a tiny village in the Western Region of The Gambia. I'm not supposed to post the name on here for safety and security reasons, but we'll just call it Salliyaa, which means "Salli's place" in Mandinka. Salliyaa is a Jolla village. Jollas are one of the smaller tribes in the country. I am going to be learning Jolla now. It's the primary language in my village, but luckily over time they have borrowed a lot of words from Mandinka so what I have learned so far was worthwhile. Speaking of that, I passed my language test, ranking as an Intermediate High Mandinka speaker. I was happy to score above what I had to have to swear in.

Our whole training class swore in last Friday. It was only the second time Peace Corps The Gambia has had a group make it through training without anyone quitting the program. Our ceremony was at the American ambassador's residence, right on the beach. It was really nice. It was even televised on Gambian national television. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of swear in on the blog before I head to my site. The two days after swear in were spent shopping for things we would need at our new houses. Yesterday I was in one of the markets and a guy came up to me and said he had seen me on TV. It was funny- he did an impression of us making our oath and was talking about our song. I guess people really did watch it. Our musical performance went much better than I had expected. In the practices we usually sounded unenthusiastic and the song didn't sound too good, but I guess for the real thing we were all excited enough that the song didn't sound half bad. The song was in Mandinka and it translated loosely to: Brotherhood and love, Peace Corps has come, Peace group. We all wore matching outfits, which is a big deal here- the people love it. When a group gets matcing outfits for an event, the outfits are called asobees. Lots of people do asobees for weddings, pretty much like bridesmaids' dresses. It was so funny hanging out at the house in the morning before the ceremony with 35 people all dressed in the same fabric walking around.

I'm going to be in the city for another couple of days, probably heading to Salliyaa on Thursday, so I should be able to post another time or 2.

Just thought that since I have a couple of extra minutes at this computer I would share a funny game a few of us PCTs play. It's called donkey punch. Outside of the city there are donkeys everywhere. They just roam around free so honestly they are everywhere and you never know when you are going to see one. The game is based loosely on the traveling game punch buggy if you know about that.

The rules:

If a donkey is spotted, the first one to see the donkey punches the closest person who is also playing the game.

If a false punch is made certain repercussions apply: If you punch someone for what you thought to be a donkey from far away and it actually turns out to be a horse, the victim gets to punch you twice. If you confuse a goat for a donkey, the victim may punch you 4 times. If you wrongly punch someone, confusing a chicken for a donkey, the victim has the right to beat you mercilessly with a stick.

The game never ends. Once you are playing, you are always playing as long as there is someone with you who is also participating in the game.

The game has no purpose or goal whatsoever, except perhaps violence, stupidity, fun and the perk of realizing how many donkeys are around us every day.

Sorry everybody- the pictures ended up in reverse order:

This is a monkey at a hotel we stayed at on our environmental sector field trip. These monkeys would even come up to you and steal food off you plate if you turned you back on it for a second.

This is part of my family from training village on Tobaski (a Muslim holiday).

These are the trainees in my training village (Kaiaf). Our families dressed us up for our naming ceremonies. I got my name Sally Barrow that day, but my name has since changed to Salli Sanneh.

This is my bathroom from Kaiaf. Where it is wet is where you bathe and the toilet is on the right.

This is the day we moved in to Kaiaf. In the very front of the line of people is a donkey cart with all of our stuff on it.

This is right before we moved out to our training villages. The cars are getting loaded up while all of us trainees get nervous.

The beach in Komboo. The Gambia is Beautiful!

So I just looked at my last couple of posts and i feel like I have come a long way since then. For starters- the last language lesson: "until later" is actually Fo nyatto. I am a lot better at the language now. Not to say that I am good, but I can respond to some questions and overall feel pretty good about how I am doing in Mandinka so far. I am starting on my second language now. As soon as I get back to my site I am going to start learning Jolla.

The last few weeks have been good. I figure I'll do an update on the holidays. On Christmas Eve, our group of trainees went on a hike. It was called the Death March up until this year when it was decided to call it a nicer name like Marathon March. It was supposed to be a 26 kilometer walk to the river and back to our hotel. Our guide got a bit lost and it ended up being an 11 hour trek through the bush. We didn't ever get to the river, but we did eventually get back to our hotel. The hike ended up much closer to being a marathon than planned. No one knows how far we walked but it can only be assumed that in 10.5 hours of solid walking we probably did walk 20-something miles. It was a long day but it was a great team-building activity and a lot of excersise.

On Christmas, we got the day off. I went on a boat ride on the river in the morning. We got to see the sun rise on the river. Afterwards, I went to a mission church for their Christmas service. It was in part Mandinka and part English. It was cool doing church in a different language.

Betweeen Christmas and New Years I went to visit my permanent site, which I'll post about in anothger post on another day.

For New Years eve, we traveled in to the city (Kombo) on our own as practice for using public transportation. I had to take a 2-3 hour gelly (modified old van with benches in it that fit as many people as possible in) ride. Then I transferred to another gelly for a maybe 30 minute ride where I transferred to a car for a few minute ride to the house where we're staying in. It was really not all that difficult and I met a few Gambians along the way that helped me out getting where I needed to go. Without their help I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to get here, but I'm sure I would have been a lot more stressed when I got here. After getting to Kombo, I walked to the house, sat my stuff down and headed out for lunch. I had a hamburger and french fries. It was DELICIOUS! It is amazing how much my pickiness with food has cleared up in the last couple of months. I have eaten so many things with katsup on them in the last few days no one would believe it and I eat onions now. Not raw ones but I hardly even pick around cooked ones anymore! Like that delicious hamburger I mentioned earlier came with onions and katsup on it. You don't really special order things here so you take what you get and I must say I was more than happy with what came to me.

For New Years night we trainees were not allowed to leave our house, so we had a party here complete with a ball drop. Some of our group wrapped a soccer ball in tinsel and carryout containers and lowered it from the balcony for our countdown. It was really festive!

We had New Years day off to do whatever we wanted. I lazed around the house for a while and went to the beach in the afternoon.

Since then we've been having training classes. I had my last Mandinka language evaluation today. My score will determine whether I can become a volunteer or whether I have to take a few more classes before I get sworn in. I think I did ok. We'll see in a few days after they review our test tapes, but I'm thinking I'll be a volunteer by the end of next week!

Ok, people. One day, I promise I will actually think about what to write about before I get in front of a computer. That isn't today- sorry. I'm not very focused. We've been having classes a lot lately. Your first phrase to learn is "Salaam alakum." That's how you greet everyone in TG no matter what language they speak. Then it gets much tricker depending on what language the other person speaks. I find out waht language I am learning soon. Maybe tomorrow! I can't wait to find out what I can concentrate on from now on. I had my interview today to get a better idea on what my placement will be. That decides my language (which is why I find out tomorrow).

Random things for people to know. I probably don't need as many book as I thought. The library is really good so I am not as desperate as I expected. To send packages a padded envelope might be the best thing or a flat rate international box.

Everything is going really well. I'm doing great and am excited to be here.

I made it into Banjul yesterday. We spent a long time on the way- it took 28 hours from the time we got to the airport in Newark till the time we got off of the plane in Banjul. It is so exciting to be here! Last night we all went from the airport to the house we're staying in and had some pizza. So I know you can definately get pizza in The Gambia. It was really good and I got a good night of sleep. Today we had our first classes. We had a trip to the nurse where I got 2 shots and had a medical interview. The nurse was really nice. We toured the office here, opened bank accounts, and got cell phones. To the parents, I think I have devised the best system for us to call eachother, but my phone isn't activated quite yet. Maybe before you read this I will send you a message with my number, but I won't do that until my phone is active so it will be between now and a couple of days from now. It turns out that the phone was free and the minutes between all of us PC people are taken care of in some deal, so we are going to be able to keep track of eachother pretty easily.

So far it has been hot but not unbearably so. We got to have out language class outside today. That was nice. It is going to be difficult to learn a new language but I am really excited about it. At the beginning of next week we interview for our positions and it looks like I am going to know my position earlier than I thought. Can't wait :) The city isn't too busy. There are always people walking around and there have been goats roaming along the side of the road, so it's a bit different from 'ol Jackson, TN.

I know this post is a little scattered, but I am safe, I am well and I am having a good time.

Oh, and thanks for the comment(s) on the last post. I love to see them.

I'm in Philadelphia at my staging event now. The trip to Philly went well. I even got a little sleep on the plane. I went to lunch in the city with a girl from our group, then we started in on business. I've gotten to meet a lot of fellow volunteers. There are 35 of us heading out together to The Gambia. We had several hours of seminars covering things we'll need to know and what to expect in the next couple of days. I got to have a good dinner at a Cuban restaurant a group of us walked to, plus some good hang-out time with other new PCTs. I think we've got a good group of people and I'm excited for us all to get started on training! I don't know when I'll get to update next, but I'll get something on here as soon as I can letting you know how it's going. Love, one of the world's newest Peace Corps Trainees, Lindsay.

Logistically I am not ready- not packed, still waiting for a few things I ordered on the internet, generally dragging my feet on the whole process, but what kind of procrastinator would I be if I was already packed and ready a week ahead of time? Ready or not, though, I cannot wait to get this show on the road! Right now, I think I could just load a backpack and hop on a plane. Mostly I am just tired of thinking about everything that needs to be done! One week left to go.

I should be in The Gambia on November 5. My contact info will be:

Lindsay Roe, PCT

Peace Corps The Gambia

PO Box 582

Banjul, The Gambia

West Africa

Any letters will be very appreciated and very exciting!