An article I wrote for the Education Newsletter

By this point, we’ve all been there…the dreaded staff meeting (and if you haven’t, you sneaky bastard you, please tell us your secrets.) Staff meetings are a place where the staff comes together to go over unimportant topics, waste as much time as possible, and generally drive a PCV crazier than they already are.

After attending every staff meeting at my school for the past year and a half and spending roughly 32 hours of my life in these “meetings” I’ve managed to develop and put to practice a survival guide. I believe it has kept me from going completely insane and ETing on the spot and I want to share it with you today. My friends get ready to be schooled on staff meeting survival:

1) Show up early. And by that I mean on time. You want to make sure you get a good seat. Preferably not directly in your head teacher’s line of vision. If possible sit next to or near your Oustas, or oldest teacher. You can make a bet with yourself or your closest teacher friend on how long it will take for him to fall asleep.

2) If you have long hair wear it down or to one side over your shoulder so that you can listen to your ipod. If you have short hair, again, seat placement is key. Try sitting in the back corner. I recommend the podcast “How Stuff Works.” It’s perfect for making 4 hours seem like 1 and it’ll make you giggle AND smarter at the same time.

3) Glue a crossword puzzle into a notebook so it looks like you are taking notes. Don’t forget to look up and nod every once in a while! And if your family and friends don’t think that sending 2 crossword puzzles in every care package is more important than peanut m&ms let me know, I have plenty and would be willing to give them away (at a price, cough peanut m&ms cough)

4) Find that one teacher who likes to stare at you, shouldn’t be hard, and have a stare-off. Try and make him as uncomfortable as he makes you on a daily basis. WARNING: If not done the right way this teacher could get the wrong idea so do with caution.

5) Count the number of yawns per half hour. Maybe it’ll match up with the teachers at my school!

6) During hour number 3, I would highly advise against shaking your head, rolling your eyes, sucking your teeth, staring daggers, and muttering under your breath at your long-winded head teacher. You will regret your irrational behavior once you see sunlight and breathe fresh air again.

7) Don’t get excited and start planning the rest of your day when you get to item number 5 out of 6 on the agenda after only an hour. The last item, A.O.B (any other business) will be the bane of your existence. AOB means hours and hours of pointless, irrelevant, redundant, unnecessarily drawn out debates with topics such as: on which side of the board to write the date, how should the girls have their hair braded, using your timetable to know where you should be at what time, how to call in sick, etc.

n One way to get through the particularly long and stupid debate is to keep score. All of the teachers will want their opinions heard and will say the same things over and over. You can make two teams out of the two sides of the argument. Come up with team names (such as the righties and the lefties for the chalkboard date debate.) Give each team a point whenever there is a sensible argument is made. If someone makes an especially good point throw your hands up in the air and yell “GOOOOOAAAALL!!!

8) Before the meeting, put a lot of credit on your phone so you can catch up with your fellow PCVs. Make sure to let them know that you’re texting them because you like them, not because you’re bored out of your mind and are trying to stay awake.

9) You can make a bingo card for yourself with phrases such as “are we there?” and “isn’t it?” and words such as: assessment or syllabus. You could even include actions such as a teacher jerking awake, a teacher chasing students away from the windows with a stick, someone taking a call, or your head teacher taking a call.

10) Lastly, you can always use the excess of wasted time to write an article for the critically acclaimed and award winning Ed newsletter for others to read during their mindless staff meeting.

Good luck to you all and remember, it WILL end…eventually.

An outstanding documentary a by fellow volunteer. It's a great look into some of the work we do here. Unfortunately I am not in it BUT my left hand, my school, and my principal all make an appearance. Enjoy!

Pathways to Progress: Peace Corps in The Gambia

While I was on vacation in America back in June I decided that upon my return to Gambia I was going to tell my Gambian host family, my Gambian co-workers, and Gambian friends that I had gotten married to George while I was home. A big lie, I know, and a lie that made me really uncomfortable considering my history of hesitation with long term commitment, but I had grand plans. To a bumster, or many Gambian men, being here in Gambia and having a boyfriend in America is the same as being single. So of course, in their eyes, what else would a 25 year old single woman be doing with her life but lookin’ for a husband. And they took it upon themselves to make it known every. waking. moment. of my life that they are here to help me out with my problem. Of course, this applies to the random men I come across here but also one of my host brothers, my counterpart, and many of the teachers I work with. I came back, told the lie to EVERYONE (with the exception of the Peace Corps community) with the hopes that I could live a less bothered life, and it worked like a charm. When I told my counterpart he didn’t speak or look at me in the face for almost 2 weeks but been great ever since. It’s like I’m just any other old Gambian woman. My host brother has even stopped giving me the weird wooden bracelets that he seems to think will woo me. Things were going perfectly. I was still getting the inevitable daily marriage proposal on the street, but at least now they weren’t coming from men I know. That was easy; I remember thinking. Almost too easy. Little did I know… A few weeks after, I was sitting outside one evening with my host mother just chatting. She was asking me about George and she said “When George comes, do you want a ram at your wedding?” I choked on the mango juice I was drinking and said “Sorry, I didn’t understand…wedding?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yes, your wedding, when he comes to visit we’ll have a wedding here.” “No!! No, no…that won’t be necessary” I said. Her face dropped and she said something along the lines of that here in The Gambia they are my family and if one of her daughters left the compound and was married somewhere far away, when she came home they would have another wedding ceremony here as well. And since I am like a daughter to her, she wants to have one for me. "It's tradition, you have to do it" she said. In my mind I’m yelling “I’M NOT REALLY MARRIED, PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS!!’’ But out loud I’m just saying “no, no, no, sorry, no.” She goes on, talking over me, saying “and you’ll have to invite all of your Peace Corps friends, and all of the people on our street…and we’ll have to get a ram” meaning I’ll have to buy a ram. So then I start thinking about how expensive a ram is and how much more frugally I would have to live in January if I were to spend my whole month's stipend on a ram and so I said “What about a crate of chickens instead of a ram?” She smirked, knowing she had tricked me into agreeing, clapped her hands together and said “Ok good, chickens it is! We’ll braid your hair, cover you in our traditional jewelry, you’ll have to wash his clothes as part of tradition but we’ll help you…When is George coming again? And you’ll have to dance this time” and so on… She was so pleased with herself and it was far too late to tell her no. So now I’m getting married in a traditional Gambian wedding. I called George and told him and he started giggling, murmuring something about becoming Mr. Caroline Stamatakis. Every single one of my Peace Corps friends here said they wouldn’t miss it for the world. And by that they mean they want to see me looking completely ridiculous and embarrassed. Then, last week my camera was stolen somewhere in route to the market. I haven’t had anything stolen yet but that day I was carrying a tote bag. Looking back, a bad, bad idea for the Brikama market. Anyway, I learned my lesson and now I’m camera-less but I was telling my host mother about it the other day. I couldn’t remember the word for “taken” or “stolen” so I told her that my camera was gone. She looked shocked. Her mouth fell open and she said slowly “ila camera faa taa??” Your camera is dead?? I said yes, just trying to get the point across that I don’t have it anymore. She started shaking her head and looking at me with the most worried expression on her face. “So no wedding…” she said. I was a little confused but jumping with joy inside!! If it had been that easy to get her off the wedding thing I would have GIVEN my camera away loooong ago. But as she was talking I realized that she wasn’t saying “camera” she was saying “kema”…which means husband. Because of course, camera with a Gambian accent sounds just like “Kema.” I considered letting her believe George was dead for a while so the whole wedding experience could be passed over, but then I thought no…when he shows up they’ll think he’s a devil. And that would be bad. So here I am, awaiting my wedding day in January. It’s going to be the most awkward, uncomfortable, and embarrassing day of my life….and you’re all invited.

And so the school year begins. We're now a month in and the lessons have finally started, the students have all decided to come, and the teachers have stopped pouting and have started making their appearances in the classroom. The first two weeks I went to school everyday, the only person to do so, and was there at 8:00 sharp. Yet, I did not get a single thing accomplished because no one else was ready to work yet. Even though this time I knew this was coming and it was all to be expected, the familiar frustrations began to rise. Especially when I found out my counterpart decided to go back to university... and would probably not be around next year...and I was the last to know. This is great for him, but horrible for the sustainability of our projects that we have spent a year working on. This week though things have started to turn around. I finally tracked down my counterpart, who has yet to actually show up at school, and we decided that he will still help out this year but we also need to find another teacher to participate and will carry on the projects next year. Easier said than done, it will be a challenge to talk another teacher into taking on more work than they already have but he seems confident that it will happen...Inshallah.

Last Friday was the school's "setsetal" or cleaning day. As usual, I had no idea this was going to happen and you can imagine my terror when at 11:00 they rang the bell and 1,000 middle school students came running out of their classes with machetes and pitchforks. "Hmm, this is unusual" I thought peeking out of the office door. As I watched, the students ran to the school yard and start whacking away at the shoulder high grass. As they're working away under the hot, humid sun I could see their uniforms soaking though with sweat. The teachers were walking around them with their rubber hoses waiting for one of them to start playing around. They did this for about an hour until the field was cleared and then they all crowded around the school pump, chugging water before they walked home. Whenever my life here becomes redundant something always happens to remind me that Gambia is a very different place than America.

Ahhhh October, aka Sweatober, is coming to an end. FINALLY. What a horrible, horrible month. I have no idea what the temperature is due to the lack of thermometers about, but its really really damn hot. The rains have stopped so there is never a break in the heat and there is still moisture in the ground so the humidity is absolutely unbearable. Here is my day: I wake up early, already sweating, by the time I've gotten ready for school I've already sweated through my clothes. At school I sit with the teachers fanning ourselves with cheap plastic fans made in Japan, talking about how hot it is. When I do laundry it takes two or three days to dry because of the humidity. If they are folded without being completely dry they mold. I do hot yoga everyday....no need for a heater. It sounds like its raining while I'm doing yoga because of the sweat dripping off my face, arms, and legs onto the mat. The majority of my day is spent laying on a bantaba under a tree in the yard listening to my host mother tell me how to get rid of my heat rash that is now covering my body from my bellybutton to my chin. When I take a bucket bath at night I never fully dry and I cant even stop sweating long enough to even put on baby powder. Oh, October how I despise you. Only a few weeks until the glorious cold season rolls in, a few weeks until I can sleep with a sheet on, and for my spices to stop melting.

I know I tend to write more about my cultural experience than work here. So I'll spend some time now catching you up on what I've been up to. Peer tutoring is back up and running as of yesterday. We had the training for the tutors and the program as grown to 100 students in grades 8 and 9. Hopefully this wont be too overwhelming but I think that the more students and teachers I can get involved this year, the more of a chance this program will continue next year when I'm gone.

After months and months of begging, letter writing, and ass-kissing I finally talked the regional education office into giving my school 5 of the 25 donated computers they received. To be honest they were all probably going to be given to the staff for personal use so it was a miracle I even talked them into giving us 5. So after months and months of working on this with the head teacher we were given the computers but still no one from my school has gone to pick them up. I'm sure the principal will go and get them eventually but this is a perfect example of one of the biggest challenges we face, our counterparts becoming bored with a project and giving up.

One of the best moments of my service to date happened right before school started this year. There is a family that is renting within my compound, the Fattys. The daughter is maybe 14 or 15, her name is Niema. She didn't go to school last year, but after sitting down and talking with her a few times she decided she wanted to go back. She talked to her parents and they agreed to let her go back. The next day, Niema's mother approached me and brought Fatou with her to translate, so I knew it was something important. She asked me to go to school with Niema and talk the principal into accepting her to the school. I totally didn't need to do this, I'm sure they would have accepted her on her own but I agreed to go anyway. The next day Niema and her father and I walked to school. We sat down with Mr. Darboe and I told him about Niema and of course he agreed to accept her. Then Mr Fatty, an imam, and a very quiet, stoic, and well-respected man began speaking rapidly in Mandinka. I knew he was talking about me but I only caught some of it. Mr Darboe turned to me when Mr. Fatty was finished. Apparently, Mr Fatty had been praising me. He told me that Mr. Fatty respects the way I carry myself and treat other Gambians. He thinks that I am a role model for the community and they should take more advantage of my presence in their community and learn from me while I'm here...and so on...I began to tear up towards the end of Mr. Fatty's speech and then it got awkward because Gambians rarely cry. It was one of those moments that motivates me to keep going and work towards fulfilling his idea and expectations of who I am.

One of the biggest annual Peace corps group projects is the HIV/AIDs education bike trek. I really regretted not being able to participate last year (I was still in 3 month challenge) so I decided I couldn't miss it this year and signed up. Because of issues with the 50th anniversary program date change the bike trek went from a week long trek on a bike, to a 4 day trek on gely gelys. I was assigned to teach at Bakadaji Upper Basic School, which is in the upper river region all the way at the end of the country and about as rural as it gets. We spent the day traveling up in a set-place. All of the teams had to sleep at the school, in an abandoned classroom, on the floor, which was an experience in it self. Not to mention taking bucket baths out in the open right behind the school. We were paired up and split the lessons down the middle and each taught half. My partner Brian was even less comfortable doing the transmission part of the lesson than I was so I stepped up and agreed to do it. The majority of the transmission lesson is talking about sex and I was super nervous. I've never graphically and clearly described vaginal and oral sex to a group of 50 middle school students before and I have to say that first time wasn't easy. When talking to Gambian students, its necessary to speak uncomfortably slow so they can understand whats being said , so there was no rushing through this.. They were all giggling and covering their faces. My hands were shaking at the effort not to start giggling myself, I couldn't even look in the direction Brian was standing because I knew the second I glanced at him my maturity and seriousness would vanish and I would be reduced to giggling and covering my face like all of the students. So I got through what felt like the hours long sex talk and answered all of their inappropriate sex questions. The rest of the curriculum was a breeze. We taught them facts about HIV/AIDS and how to speak out about it in their communities. It was a tough 4 days but we all left feeling amazing about what we had done.

As of now I only have about 9 months left until I reach my completion of service. It's difficult because now I'm at the point where I feel like I've been here forever, 16 months, but I still have quite a ways to go. Luckily I have tons of vacation days left and I plan on using them all, at least as many as I can until my money runs out. Alice and Meghan are coming to visit in December, George in January, I'm going to Cape Verde for Carnival in February, and possibly Ghana and Benin in April, so I have plenty to look forward to. If you want to visit everyone and anyone is welcome! I would love to share this experience with as many people as possible. And one last thing, if you're ever feeling bored write me a letter! You cannot imagine how much receiving a letter brightens my day. And if you're feeling extra generous, care packages are always always appreciated.

See you in 9 months!!

Traditionally, one week after a baby is born, it's family will have a kooliyo (naming ceremony) for it. Rajah, my oldest sister, had a baby boy and my family went all out. She came to Brikama from her compound in Sera Kunda a few days earlier for my family to meet the baby. Mandinkas never compliment a baby. They think it's bad luck. So when Rahjah gave the new baby to Niema to hold she looked down at it, smirked a little bit and then looked Rahjah straight in the face and said "this baby...this baby is ugly." I've tried doing it, I know it's just part of the culture but I absolutely cannot bring myself to look a mother in the face and tell her that she's got an ugly baby...even if it is. So I held it, said the prayer for it, and then told her it was fat. The kooliyo was the next day. The events of Wednesday September 14th 2011 couldn't have been stranger if I had made it up.

I woke up at about 8 and sat out on my porch to read some of my book before the madness began. Earlier, I saw Siboo walk over to the corner of the year where they would be cooking ebbe, the disgusting slimy fish stew that Gambians obsess over, but she was hidden by laundry hanging on the line to dry. I heard her rustling around over there for a while and then she started screaming my name at the top of her lungs. I ran over to her and saw something run fast across the yard out of the corner of my eye, chasing Siboo. My first thought was "oh god, the spiders have gotten even bigger" but then Siboo turned to me and yelled "crab, Sali, get the crab! GET THE CRAB." It was a giant blue crab that had crawled out of the box of dead crabs for the stew, that was definitely not dead. I got it back into the box for her after chasing her around with it for a while. Her friend arrived conveniently after my crab brawl to tear them apart wit her bare hands.

As she was going at it Siboo and I sat down to gut fish, then peel potatoes, then chop up hot peppers, onions, and lettuce. As the morning hours passed and the blisters on my hands grew, hundreds of Gambians came and went to partake in the kooliyo. I was so focused on the task at hand that I didn't notice my host brothers carrying a ram onto the piece of corrugated metal on the ground less than 3 feet behind me and only realized they had slaughtered it when I saw Muhammed washing the blood off his hands. I think I've officially integrated. A few minutes later a woman came over and announced that the baby was named Muhammed Lamin. I missed the naming! I can;t say that I was surprised. My host family usually assume I know more about what's going on around me than I actually do. So I missed the Imam shaving his head and whispering his name in his ear and all of the people;s prayers for him. One tradition that I plan on bringing back to America is this one: The new mother's female cousins pin money onto their shirts during the kooliyo to signify that they are her "slaves" for the day (their words, not mine!) They cook all of the food, set up, clean, etc and actually pay for a lot of it too.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. Luckily I had some Peace Corps volunteers visiting me throughout the day to keep me sane. I decided to keep track of a few things after the first group improv song about me. I think the following sums up my day pretty well

-Asked for money from someone who looks 100 years old+ :11

-Songs made up about me: 3

-Dances for me by the crazy old lady from across the street: 5

-Meals eaten: 6

-Marriage proposals (for just me): 4

-Babies offered for me to take back to America: 3

-Five minute long greetings: more than you can ever imagine

-Rajah's outfit changes: 7

I went to take pictures of Rajah, as she requested, and she looked super stressed. She said people were trying to steal her new dresses and asked if she could bring them all into my house for her "costume changes" for the rest of the day. I said yes, of course, and then realized that I was going to have to stay up until the party ended (usually well after midnight.) Every hour or so Rajah and six of her closest friends would come tromping out of the crowd of people and into my house to change her clothes. Around 9pm my patience was wearing thing. I was becoming fed up with being paraded around as the only toubab at the party and tired of girls running in and out of my house all day and tired of being asked for money and being made fun of for my "bad" mandinka and cooking skills. At that very moment a huge gust of wind came through and I heard shouts of "saama nata, saama nata!" the rain was coming! All of the women in their heels, sparkly outfits, fake hair, colorful eyebrows, began scrambling for home at full speed...faster than you can say "your eyebrows are running."

The compound cleared out as it started to pour. I helped Rahjah carry all of her clothes back over to her house. I showered and was in my bed happily sweating by eleven pm. I woke up the next morning and noticed my floor was completely covered in glitter and have spent the past few days trying to de-glitterfy my house and put that kooliyo behind me forever...or at least until the one next month.

No eating from sunup to sundown, no listening to music, no dancing, no water, no sex, no cigarettes, no fun. That's right, it's Ramadan again. The Mandinkas call it Sungkaro which means the month of fasting. I tried it for one day, woke up at 5:30 and ate 2 protein bars, drank 2 liters of water, tried to move as little as possible throughout the heat of the day, ignored my angry stomach which was asking me "WHY?? whyyyyyy?? youre not muslim!!" and I made it unitl break-fast time... and then ate a whole box of macaroni and cheese. That was the last and only day of my personal Ramadan experience. I guess I don't have enough of the fear of God in me to keep it up.

There are still two weeks left and I've had lots of time to ponder Ramadan and I've come up with some positves and negatives of living in a Muslim country during the month of fasting:

The positives are as follows:

If I want to be lazy and not walk around in the sun I don't need an excuse, I can just sit on the bantaba with everyone all day and do nothing.

Not eating or drinking water keeps most of the bumsters at bay...no energy to chase me around.

Break-fast is fun to watch. I make bets with myself everyday on how many handfulls of food each of my siblings can fit into their mouths in one minute. Mama (the 8 year old) is winning with 5...and I don't even think she's fasting

Break-fast foods are DELICIOUS. Chicken sometimes, cold water and juice, tasty ground mystery meat, and beans.

The markets are almost, dare I say, peaceful in the mornings because the usual women buying food to cook for lunch arent there.

They arent allowed to listen to anything but religious music so I'm getting a break from the constant Jelibah, Rhianna, Vivianne, and other various annoying Gambian pop artists who are begining to cause an unwanted twitch

Watching the Gambia vs. Congo football match. The Gambian team was fasting, Congo's was not. The Gambians still managed to kick their asses 3-0 while walking pretty much the whole game.

The negatives:

Everyone is grumpy. Everyone.

I am asked by every person that greets me if I'm fasting. And then why not... and screaming "BECAUSE I"M NOT A MUSLIM" and whispering it outloud usually isn't a good enough answer.

No eating or drinking in public. I keep catching myself hiding behind bushes to take a sip of water as to not offend anyone.

Only Arabic music, top volume, all. day. long.

The one day I did fast (and then quit) they told me it wasnt really fasting since it was just for one day.

So, as from and outsiders perspective I guess I like Ramadan more than not. I can't understand how or why they do it but i would like to say keep it up. One less day of having to listen to fake reggae music give me one more day's worth of functioning strength. Thank you Ramadan.

Last month I was preparing to leave for the glorious land of AC and microbrews. I had been dreaming of this trip home to America for months. Flying out of the only tiny airport in Gambia was maybe 600$ more expensive than traveling by land to Dakar, Senegal and flying out of there. So Dakar it was. Dakar is north of The Gambia and a bitch to get to. About a mile into Senegal the road literally falls apart. It's riddled with potholes as deep and big around as the car you're riding in. A set-place is one of the few choices in transport there but they are known even by Gambians by how uncomfortable they are. The trip can take anywhere between 6-15 hours depending on luck and how many times your car breaks down.

I didn't really start thinking about getting to Dakar until a few weeks before. I got pretty decent directions from other volunteers and some advice including "traveling to Dakar is hell", "hey, at least you'll have good stories when you're done", you don't speak the language so...good luck?", "the cab drivers are all assholes", and "those Senegalese are evil and will take all of your things if you're not careful." I was terrified. Then I told the renters what I was doing. BIG mistake. They spent hours trying to talk me out of traveling to Dakar and when I told them that I kind of had to because the plane ticket had already been booked they spent hours calling everyone they know in Senegal to find someone to accompany me. By the end of the day I had 25 numbers of people I didn't know and whose numbers I would never use.

The entire week before I left I didn't seep a wink. My fear of traveling alone across borders in Africa had completely overshadowed my excitement of being home for the first time in a year. Two days before my flight I traveled to the transit house and spent the night there. The next day another volunteer was going back to site on the north side of the river and said he would help me exchange my Dalasi into the Senegalese CFA on the other side of the river in the carpark. We got a bush-taxi to Banjul and went to wait for the ferry, which involves standing in a packed crowd of people in the sun for the ferry which has no time table. People crowd in because there is usually not enough room in the ferry for all of the people and cars waiting and everyone wants a spot. So we stood there waiting for the sounds of the arriving ferry for 2 hours. The ferry arrived just as I was about to pass out from standing in the sun holding my bag for so long. The entire time I had smelled something that smelled suspiciously like shit (more so than usual) and as soon as we started moving forward (and by moving I mean pushing and running) I realized what the smell was. It was shit. Sewage busted at the ferry ramp entrance and we all had to wade through it to get on the ferry. The volunteer I was with found a tiny ledge on the side and I balanced my way across it, with my bag and lots of pushing might I add, and only slipped once so ended up with only one poo covered foot instead of two.

We landed on the other side of the river one hour later. We went to get my money exchanged and the guy gave me 1,000 cfa less than I thought was appropriate so I argued with him for a while in Mandinka and he finally gave in and gave it to me. [score 1 for me!] I then went into the carpark and found a car going to the border. Once in the car I began talking to one Mandinka woman. She said she was going to Dakar too and she would help me out. As we were chatting I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there was a white couple, late 20s, both incredibly skinny (I would find out why later) creepily smiling at me. They asked me where I was going and when I told them Dakar airport they asked if I could help them get there. I really really didn't want to say yes, but I did. When we got to the border the Gambian woman went and found a donkey cart while we went through the Gambian side and then Senegalese side. I told the police right away I was Peace Corps and they didn't give me too much trouble, at least on the Gambian side. The couple took about 30 minutes longer trying to get out of bribes, etc. We got in the donkey cart in Senegal and rode to the carpark. It was 1:00 by the time I got to the carpark. I had left the transit house at 7 am and I had only traveled about about 20 miles. The travel gods were already against me. So the Gambian woman negotiated a decent price for us in Wolof. I was standing there with her, she told me to give her the money to pay the driver. The smallest bill I had was 10,000 cfa so I gave it to her and expected back 4,000 cfa change. You also have to realize we are in the middle of a crowd of beggars, small boys, drivers trying to pull us to their cars, pickpockets, overall chaos. So when she said she would give me my change in the car later I believed her and was more than ready to sit in a tiny hot car to get away from the people.

After the carpark ordeal I just wanted to sit and read my book and not talk to anyone, but the British couple had other things in mind. They started chatting with me. Ok...they aren't so bad. They seemed pretty normal and kind of funny. Apparently his father owned a cashew tree orchard. The father went back to the UK and the couple have been staying in his compound for the past 2 years caring for it and the orchard. We talked for about an hour. They told me completely normal things and had a completely normal conversation and then during a pause, he looks at me all crazy-eyed and said "have you ever heard of the Illuminati or the free-masons?" ....Whaaaaat. From there they went on to tell me about any conspiracy theory that's ever existed and how true they all are. Here were a few of his main topics:

-9/11.

-Rhianna, Jay-Z, and Kanye West are all devil worshipers and if I slow their songs and music videos down he could show me clues.

-All food, besides some raw vegetables, are poisonous and are marketed to us by the government (hence their extreme skinniness.)

So while this is going on I'm struggling in my mind going back and forth from silently laughing to worrying about being taken by the crazies. I would interrupt and tell a story non-related to crazy conspiracies and they would nod patiently and as soon as I was finished "and then in one of his videos, Kanye makes the sign of the devil with his right hand..."

All the while I was asking the Gambian woman for my change and she keeps telling me she'll get it to me once she gets smaller change.

At one point there was complete silence in the car and out of no where all of the Gambians starting yelling at the driver and then I heard them making fun of him for the rest of the drive. Turns out, he FELL ASLEEP while he was driving.

The Gambian woman fell asleep for about 4 hours so I held her throwing-up baby for her, because I felt I owed it to her because she got us this car at a decent price. We finally got into Dakar around 9pm. The Gambian woman hops out of the car at a carpark. I asked her one last time for my change and she then decides to tell me that she used it to pay her own fare because she didn't thing she had enough money. 4,000 cfa isn't that much money by American standards (about 8$) but by African standards, it's huge. I was pissed but there was nothing I could do. She scammed me and probably didn't feel bad. But what truely made me angry was the fact that I had held that puking baby for half the ride.

The only good thing about having the crazies in the car with me was that when we got into Dakar it was dark. The cars do not go directly to the airport, instead they go to a carpark where you have to find another car going to the airport. I got a car for us for the right price with only knowing how to count to 5 in french and how to ask "how is the morning?" in Wolof and was pretty damn proud of myself.

So my day with the crazies wasn't over yet. My flight wasn't until 6am and theirs was at 2am. We sat outside for a while drinking tea and chatting about more conspiracies.The entire time I was eying my tea and wondering if they had roofied it. Eventually we went into the airport. then the crazies went manic. They found out that they had never even booked their flight to Spain. The girl was crying, the guy was running around not really doing anything productive. They eventually got a flight booked for the next day and left in a whirlwind to find a hostel for the night. I sat there all night relishing the air conditioning, flush toilets, and lack of conversation. When it was time to board my flight I was so excited to finally sleep. But one more thing...they had to search all of our bags and all of our bodies by hand because the security equipment at the Dakar airport wasn't to American security standards.

I finally got to board the plane. It was a South African Airlines flight making its way to America but stopping in Dakar on the way so it was already almost filled with South Africans. I have no idea what I looked like at this point but I do know that I was absolutely filthy, covered in Dakar dust. It had been 24 hours since I had slept and about 20 hours since I had eaten. Once we reached our flying altitude I was wrapped up in my SAA blanket with the SAA socks on my feet, passed out, when I hear the flight attendant handing out food. I woke up and she handed me a ham and cheese sandwiches and a cadberry bar. Heaven. I hadn't had food that good since I left America. As soon as I finished I looked up and all of the classy South Africans were all staring at me...the dirty girl who just ate a sandwich and a chocolate bar in less than a minute. I didn't care a bit. I pulled my eye-mask on, listened to the airlines soft R&B station, and slept almost all 8 hours of the trip home. The only times I woke up were when the 8 year old Senegalese-American girl sitting next to me moved her head and the beads in her braids clinked. I think she also read the entire skymall magazine to me for most of the flight and I have to say that this girl has the most soothing voice I've ever heard in my life.

I switched planes in DC. I knew I was in the right terminal going to North Carolina by the cut off sleeve tee-shirts, jean shorts, and the word "y'all" being thrown around. When I got to Raleigh my Mom, Alice, Doris, and George were waiting at the airport for me. Now, I'm not a big crier, I didn't want to or feel like crying that day, I was so happy, but when I saw the signs they were holding the tears started falling.

America was great. I ate and drank more thank I thought I would, and the 8 pounds I gained while I was home was so worth it. I went tubing, went to the beach for a weekend, had a cookout, friends came to visit, and I went out almost every night. When it was time for me to return to Gambia, it was much easier than I thought it would be. I was dreading the Dakar leg of the trip of course but I was really looking forward to seeing all of my friends here who I had missed.

When I got to DC and boarded the plane I had the same seat as before. Aisle, in the middle row. Right next to me was this good ol' boy from the mid-west who works at the mines in South Africa. As we were boarding I noticed half of the passengers were ridiculously big guys. Muscles the size of tree trunks everywhere. I kind of forgot about it after I boarded and they sat down all around us (gigantic muscles aren't really my thing) until the guy sitting next to me started freaking out. He saw these men walk onto the plane and began jerking around trying to get a better look at them. He leaned into me and whispered "Do you know who these guys are?" his voice reaching a pitch only dogs could hear. "They're WWF wrestlers!" He turned into a little school girl and was taking pictures of them on his camera phone and giggling. When we took off the pilot welcomed the wrestlers onto the plane and the guy next to me started applauding.

8 hours later, after hearing gigantic men trying to fit themselves into the plane seats and the crinkling of protein powder packets the entire time (no sleep), we landed in Dakar. It was 5:30 am and still dark outside. We were rushed through customs and shoved out the door. Once again I was in Dakar in the dark...this time alone. Every cab I came across near the airport was asking for 5,000 cfa (when it shouldn't ever be more than 2,000) for a ride to the carpark. I had to walk about a mile from the airport before I found a driver who would agree to take me for 2,000 cfa. We got to the carpark and immediately I found a set-place going to Banjul with one spot left in the middle of the backseat. The seat no one ever wants because it's so unbearably uncomfortable. So my choices were that I could either wait a few more hours for another car to fill up and maybe get a better seat, or leave now and be in hell for 8 hours. I, for God knows what reason, chose the latter. I sat between two Gambians, the whole sides of our bodies touching. My knees were almost touching my chin, there was no airflow, and I could only move my feet forward or back maybe an inch. Usually the set-places stop once in Kaolack which is half way to Gambia. As we got closer and I could start to smell the stench that Kaolack is known for, I was visualizing stretching out my legs and getting some sort of blood flow back into them and then the driver drove straight through. I almost said something, and then stopped myself because I didn't want to be the toubab who cant handle sitting in the back of a car forever. By the time we got to Gambia my ass felt like it was on fire and my legs were aching so bad I would have probably been crying if I wasn't so delirious from lack of sleep. We crossed the border and I got to the ferry and had a chat with 5 old men in a language I understood and never felt more happy to be anywhere than right here in Gambia.

Who would have thought.

Recently I changed the batteries in my headlamp so it was super bright, and went out at night to use the bathroom. When I lifted the lid off the beam of light was unintentionally pointed directly to the bottom of my pit latrine. This is one of the things here I try to avoid seeing or thinking about...kind of like what's in my food, or what the man sitting next to me on the gely is thinking, I don't want to know. And I don't want to know what's at the bottom of my pit latrine either. That night I got a good eye full and my life hasn't been the same since. I thought I saw the bottom of my pit latrine moving. What?...I bent closer, rubbed my eyes, and saw that the entire bottom and sides of the 6 foot hole was covered in gigantic cockroaches. Yes I'm admitting it, I had a serious serious cockroach problem. And these aren't you're average unintimidating American cockroach, these are African cockroaches and like everything else in Africa, they are enormous. As I was looking down, I remember thinking "uh oh, the pit latrine has collapsed inside because there's no way a cockroach six feet away can still look so big...ohhhh, no they're really that big."

I should have let it go. They don't really bother me. I've never seen one crawl out while the lid was off...except for the few that would sometimes be stuck to the lid. But of course I couldn't let it go. I would lay awake at night constructing ideas for the cockroach colony's demise. So I tried smoking them out by throwing burning trash down there and covering the top with a rice bag. Unsuccessful. I have been throwing my old batteries down there (and before you flip out let me just say that there is no recycling in this country, or battery collection for that matter, so it all ends up in the ground anyway) but no, I think the battery acid just made them bigger.

So the last thing I tried may have ended up being one of the most traumatizing events of my life, and therefore one of the most regrettable things I've ever done. It all started when I was chasing a spider around (as usual) with a can of insect killer, which by the way I think should be taken off the market because it smells like flowers even though breathing it in probably gives you cancer. But lets leave it on the market until I'm done here. So this is how I ended up standing next to my pit latrine with a can of Bop in my hand and a dead spider at my feet. For months I had been considering it...Just a little spray down there would do so much more damage than the smoke or batteries ever did. But what had been stopping me was the sound of Lucia's voice ringing in my ears, telling the story of what happened when she sprayed Bop down her pit latrine. Mass exodus. All of the bugs in her pit latrine had come crawling out at once. I really didn't want that to happen, but standing there with the Bop in one hand, eyes on the pit latrine, and a lack of impulse control were all too much. I lifted the lid and sprayed straight into the hole for a good half minute. I threw the lid back on and listened. No stampeding...just silence. I lifted the lid an inch and peeked. Nothing. Ha! That's right you little shits, I win! So I sprayed for another minute and put the lid back on. Problem solved, or so I thought.

Fifteen minutes later I had to pee, of course. I swear I only pee 3 times a day here no matter how much water I drink and they are always at the most inconvenient times. So I went into my backyard, planned on just peeking again to see if they were going to come out. I lifted the lid 1/2 an inch and then, madness. The lid went flying out of my hands as hundreds of toycar-sized red cockroaches came running out. I was hopping around trying not to scream or piss myself as they were crawling over my feet and up my legs.

Did you know cockroaches can fly? Somehow I missed this piece of common knowledge, even after a Biology degree (thank you Appalachian State) so you can imagine my surprise when the one I was banging with a flip-flop decides nonchalantly just to fly away. The cheap bitik flipflop wasn't doing the job so I grabbed the plastic cup I use for my bucket baths. I must have blacked out in a cockroach killing rage because the next thing I know I'm sitting on the ground with a broken plastic cup in my hand in the middle of a battlefield of hundreds of twitching and dead roaches...still terrified.

Normally roaches don't scare me, even the ones here which are so big it's got to be a joke, but seeing two hundred of anything running towards me is definitely enough to traumatize. I pulled myself together and called Katie to tell her what had happened. She laughed and said to make sure to get rid of all of the white things that had come out when I squished them because those were the egg sacks.

That night I was ready to take the lid off again. I put on closed toed shoes with my pants tucked into them (no nerd!) and had a brick in my other hand. I took the lid off and nothing, no movement and complete silence. I shone my light down to the bottom and took complete pleasure in what I saw. There were no roaches on the lid or the sides and the bottom wasn't moving. Just a layer of hundreds of dead cockroaches laying still and very dead at the bottom. Sweet sweet success.

So I only have five minutes to type this up. I think I can do it.

This morning I had planned on meeting Katie on the road at 8:30am to come into Kombo to write up our volunteer reports which are due next week. I was running around my house trying to get ready and pack up all the things I need for the day and I heard Mama, my youngest host sister, yelling outside with her friends. I didnt think anything of it. Yelling is a normal way to express any feeling here. I finished getting ready and walked outside, locked my door, and greeted Mama. She was standing near the door, dressed for school, trying to leave the compound. I look towards the door to our front gate, the only way to get out of the compound, and then I see what all of the yelling was about. A rabid dog was sitting there, right infront of the closed door, obviously freaking out because he couldnt get out, but still not leting anyone near him. I told Mama, who is terrified by dogs, it's ok, i'll make him leave. I've faced spiders bigger than this dog. I can do this. Just please don;t bite me. I started walking toward the dog and he barks, growls, paws at the ground, etc. Hmm. Rabies shots in the stomach aren't exactly what I was planning on doing with my week so I stood next to Mama, just staring at each other wondering how we were going to get out. I decided that maybe throwing Mangoes at the dog will scare him and he'll move from the door. This didnt even phase him. My host mother came walking out. "Munne keta?!" What happened?!. I told her the dog sitting there is crazy. She just laughed and shook her head, picked up a rock and threw it HARD at the dog. This still wasnt working, the shop owner came out to see what was going on and proceeded to literally kick the dog out of the compound. I made a dash for it, ran past the dog and was free. Out on our dirt road and on my way to the road to Kombo. While speed-walking towards the road I turn around and I swear I see the dog laughing while chasing Mama all the way to school.

Right after this happened I was walking behind a 5 or 6 year old boy walking home from the water pump holding a bucket of water on his head. I see his pants riding lower and lower until his little butt was completely out of his pants. Cutest thing ever. He's still holding the bucket with one hand and groping at his pants with the other hand, all the while I'm doubled over laughing at this little boy loosing his pants and Mama screaming at the top of her lungs being chased by a laughing dog. Best morning ever.

Mountain Goats, you read my mind. Whenever anything goes wrong here, those lyrics from the chorus of "This Year" immediately start playing in my head. At one open-mic night Kelsey and Josh sang it with Gambia adapted lyrics and it was perfect. I cannot think of a better way to describe the attitude of the volunteers here.

So it's been almost a year. I got a text from Abby this morning telling me that we are 40% done with our service. It's gone by so quickly and so slowly at the same time. I am coming back to the civilized world June 17th for two weeks and it's all I can focus on. I'm beginning to learn to truly love living here, but it's definitely time for a vacation.

Looking back to when I first arrived, I cannot believe how much I've learned. We were literally babies who couldnt even feed or water ourselves without someones help. I realize that none of what I'm about to share with you is applicable in America. So due to the fact that I've been focusing on the following, please excuse my social awkwardness when you see me in a month. So here are a few of the things I've learned in the past year, hope it entertains.

Those tiny spiders that don't scare me anymore WILL grow up to be the monsters that almost make me early terminate every time they decide to make an appearance, so it's best to get them while they're small.Gambian men will ALWAYS take friendliness the wrong way.Cars here will not slow down or go around me, so I must move for them.By this point I could probably eat anything, and I mean anything, and be ok.Working with Gambians is really fucking hard.Rice and fish really isn't so bad...as long as I'm hungry.But I still don't like the palm oil.It's ok to call the apparantes "boy" or make them hold my stuff when I get into or out of a gely.

Doing laundry while listening to my iPod definitely isnt a good idea. (RIP little guy)When I absolutely need to find power, it will be out in Brikama. When my drinking water bucket is dry, the tap won't be working so always, always have a backup plan.Bush rats are real, not myth (yes, I finally saw one) and they actually are the size of dogs...and Gambians EAT THEM!!!My host family likes me better when I come home after having had a few drinks with Katie or Lucia at Jokors (not that they know why I'm more chatty)It's best to do like the Gambians and try not to move between the hours of noon and 5 pm to avoid the heat.Adding a packet of Jumbo (MSG) to anything will make it taste 100x better.Every Gambian ceremony (or program as they call it) will be the same. I'll get to eat lots of food, get paraded around, and then sit for hours...and hours...and hours doing nothing but listening to chatter in a language that I still can't really understand.

If I'm hungry, I just have to walk slowly past a family eating at a foodbowl. They will always eventually invite me to come and eat with themBring a book everywhere. You never know when the gely will break down or everyone will show up to a meeting three hours late.Gin packets will always give me a wicked hangover.

Avoid giving my phone number out at all costs...even to women.I'm convinced that the bumsters live by the moto "I will stalk you until you love me."See you in a month!!

As the Gambians would say, life here "it's not easy, man." Agreed, Gambians. Agreed. Life here is pretty damn difficult. But every time the heat, gigantic bugs, the harassment, the bitchy women and annoying children, the disgusting unvarying food, and the failures at work start getting me down, something always happens. It may be big, or little, but its enough to keep me going here. I thought I'd share just a few of the ridiculously cute moments I've experienced here in The Gambia with you. Enjoy...

Right after I moved into the compound my host mother invited me to a naming ceremony with her and my sister, Mama. It's become common here for people to hire photographers (usually just a friend who owns a digital camera) to come to their program, take pictures, and then return at some future date to sell them the prints. So I went to the ceremony and had my picture taken, never expecting to see it again. About a month later I went into my families house to greet them and noticed that a picture of me, Mama, and my host mother was framed and hanging on their bare wall. I got excited, started pointing and saying "Sali fele! Sali fele!" Sali is there ! Sali is there! My host mother just nodded and said "yes Sali, it's you."

Fatou, my favorite of all of the renters, is at the college right now training to be a teacher. One of their assignments was to make two teaching and learning aids to turn in for a grade. Fatou, having seen me make teaching aids before, came over and asked me to draw out a picture of a frog and a lizard for her to make into a diagram. I told her that I wouldn't do it FOR her, and that she needed to try first, but I would help if she needed it. She got kind of irritated, but still allowed me to sit with her and give her advice. Turns out, that girl can DRAW. She turned in the teaching aids and got As on both of them. A few days later there was a knock at my door. It was Fatou. She said that she wanted to come over and thank me for not doing the teaching aids for her like she had wanted because she said that now she knows she can do it, and if I had done them for her she would have never known she can draw.

Usually when I walk down the street I'm followed by a chorus of "Toubab! Toubab! Any minti!? Toubab!" wherever I go. Every now and then, midst toubab shout, one of the kids will recognize me and start calling my name. The rest of the children always follow suit.

One afternoon, I was sitting outside with my host mother and one of my host sisters, Siboo, just chatting. I was telling my host mother to name off all of her children so that I could work on learning all of their names. Siboo was laying on the ground next to her, face-down on a prayer mat. My host mother starts naming them off "Omar, Radja, Niema, Siboo, Mama, Sullyman, Muhammed, Abdulie..." then she stops and then Siboo, still laying face-down says "and don't forget Sali."

I taught a teaching and learning aid workshop at school one day. I spent weeks preparing and talked the principal into making attendance mandatory. All of the teachers came, didn't really listen, but were really enthusiastic about making the teaching aids. We made a ton of poster teaching aids out of fabric so that they would last longer than the paper ones. And although they didn't follow any of the tips I gave them , at least they were doing something. Anyway, after the workshop there were only a few teachers who really caught on to the idea of using teaching aids in the classroom. One of which was Mr. Nyassi, the head of the science department. Now, from time to time I see Mr. Nyassi strutting to his classroom, with one of the fabric teaching aids tied around his neck like a cape, on the way to teach.

There is a child that lives on my street. I don't know his name, or where he actually lives, but I do know that his only article of clothing is a purple and pink striped onesie and he works that think like I've never seen!

The children on my street are big on running hugs. One or two might see me turn from the main road and two seconds later there is a stamped of fifteen children running straight at me yelling "Sali naa ta, Sali naa ta" Sali came! Sali came! When they get to me the first one slams into my legs and hugs them with all their might. The rest dance around waiting for their turn to hug. At first, I was convinced they were doing this because they thought I would give them candy or money. But now, after almost one year, and not having given out a single dalasi or piece of candy, i've realized that because I'm nice to them, they are genuinely excited to see me. My favorite hugger is one three-ish year old boy who always runs and hugs with too much momentum and knocks himself down off my legs every time. Never learns, and I hope he never does.

At this point my Mandinka has plateaued, it's not bad...it's not good, but at least I'm still trying. My host father notices this so every time I greet him and say a complete sentence he starts clapping and dancing about proclaiming that I am a Mandinka genius. Every time. It usually goes like this. I'll go through all of the greetings with him and then I'll say something like "the sun is very hot today", or "yes, I am from school. the children were very bad" and then he starts with the praising. "Ohhhhhh Sali can hear mandinka now! Very good Sali, very good!"

The first few months at site, I was terrified of one of the renters. Her name is Mata, short for Fatoumata. She's a college student, gorgeous, but also very very scary. I was convinced that she hated me. Usually when this happens I take the defense and avoid the person at all costs. This is difficult when living in the same compound in a culture where it is incredibly rude not to greet someone for at least 5 minutes whenever you see them. So, I would greet Mata, she would usually ignore me or mutter something under her breath. I'm not sure what changed but I knew I had cracked her hard bitchy shell when one day she walked up to me and put an orange in my lap, and walked away without saying a word.

I’ve found something that scares me more than scorpion horses or large primates. The Koncoran. I’m sure I’ve mentioned them before and I’ve always left situations involving them increadibly anxiety ridden, but at each encounter I find new reasons to add to my fear. Koncorans are men dressed in costume made of either strips of bark or shredded rice bags and covered from head to toe. Sometimes there are other men with them to keep the Koncoran under control (you begin to understand my fear now?) and lots of small boys chasing them around, banging on bedongs and dancing. The Koncorans are supposedly possessed by spirits. Ok…And they make you pay them money to pass them on the street. The costume doesn’t scare me, the possibility that they may be eating the bark on their costume and therefore tripping doesn’t scare me, but the fact that they are unaccountable for their actions (due to spirit possession) does scare me. And did I mention they are usually wielding one or more machetes and banging them together while chasing people around? Koncorans are pretty common in Brikama, being a Mandinka village. When I see them I usually turn around and go the other way, praying that he doesn’t notice the toubab sneaking down the street, hiding behind trees. Easy target. I’m usually successful in my avoidance of the Koncorans but a few weeks ago, not so much. We were on our monthly Brikama to Sanyang Beach bike ride. Kelsey, Josh, Lucia, Sam, Katie, and I were riding our bikes down the road that leads to Sanyang. It was a beautiful day. Hot, steaming hot, but still beautiful. We had an Ipod and speakers in my basket and were bike dancing our way to the beach to Biggie Smalls when I began noticing a couple of odd things. An old topless woman laughing at us and pointing down the road, a gigantic group of small boys dancing on the side of the road….and then I saw them. Not one, but two Koncorans in full get-up. Four machetes between the two of them. They look up and see six toubabs riding their way looking especially vulnerable and fragile with our mandatory peace corps helmets on. I saw money signs in their crazed eyes. I screeched to a halt and hid behind Kelsey who was telling me a story about how she heard that if you try and run from them than they’ll throw their machete at you. I’d do pretty much anything to avoid a large rusty knife thrown at me. As I’m ready to flee and leave my friends to deal with this on their own, the first less scary Koncoran who was dressed in a lovely pastel colored shredded rice bag, waved at us and motioned that he’s letting us pass. I should have realized, it’s never that easy here. As we’re riding past the first Koncoran, the second, scarier one dressed in Senegalese style of all red, blocks our way and starts lumbering towards me, slapping his two machetes together. The koncoran behind us turns around and blocks us in and starts doing the same thing. We were trapped. Now, one thing you should know is that most volunteers avoid giving out money for two reasons. First, if we gave it to everyone who asked we’d be broke within one day of being paid. Secondly, I think we like to try and avoid the classic toubab stereotype of just throwing money and candy at people. Thank you tourists. That being said we were all still in that mindset and even considering the situation, we were reluctant to give the Koncoran money. The children were all yelling that he wouldn’t let us pass until we paid him. “M mang kodo le soto.” I don’t have money we were yelling at him. They started clanging their machetes together in an even more threatening way, if that’s possible. I was on the verge of panicking when Katie gave in and threw 25 dalasi at one of them. He picked it up and looked at the bill, looked at his partner, and looked at us for a long time. After what felt like forever he pointed his machete at us, and then down the road. We just stood there confused. Is he letting us pass? Or is he going to throw his rusty machete at me if we try and go? He did it again and we still just stood there. I guess he got tired of the stupid Peace Corps volunteers he had been wasting his time on because he and his fellow Koncoran walked past us and started back toward Brikama. We were free! We made it to the beach, had the best day ever, and as we were dance-biking our way back, a gelly passed us. There were maybe 15 men on top of it drumming and dancing, two of which were our Koncoran friends, wind blowing through their costumes, looking a little muppet-babyish, and probably laughing at our nerdy helmets all the way home. A few days after this incident, I was talking to Sarjo, one of the Gambian staff members about Koncorans: Me: So the Koncorans, do they hurt people? Sarjo: [looking stoic and austere as usual] oh, sometimes. But the ones you need to look out for are the flying koncorans. Me; WHAT?! They fly too? Do they actually fly or just pretend? Are you messing with me Sarjo? Sarjo: [now giggling] yes, they fly. They only come at night and while normal koncorans come out whenever, these flying ones have to be invited to your village. They will put a curse on certain compounds and they will hurt you if you are outside. Me: Uhhhh....ok...How will I know when they are coming? Sarjo: Everyone in your village will know and your host mother will tell you. Me: WHAT IF I DON’T UNDERSTAND MY HOST MOTHER?! And now, for the past week, there has been a Koncoran camped out across the street. The boys that will be taken into the bush for circumcision have been gathered in the compound across the street and a Koncoran has been placed there to protect them. I think? Anyway, I have to say that falling asleep every night to the sound of clapping machetes and a shrieking koncoran is absolutely no fun. And its given new inspiration to my Larium dreams…

The dreaded staff meeting. I'm always super positive going into them, thinking that there is no way it will go longer than an hour. Maybe even hour and a half tops and I'll be able to make it home for lunch with the family. Then three hours later I'm staring daggers at the teachers arguing about which side of the board the date belongs, or why there are required exam dates, or where they end of the year teachers gathering should be, or what kinds of braids the girls should have in their hair... If there was anything productive for interesting discussed in these meetings than of course I wouldn’t be wasting my time writing poems about bumsters, but sadly that isn't so. I present to you Ode To The Bumsters:

Back in PST we learned about you

At once I almost packed my bags and said I was through

Men who wear fishnet tank-tops and flex for me?

No thank you, I'll stick with my boyfriend back in NC

I remember the first time I spotted one of your kind

It was at a secluded beach my friends and I did find

You were squatting and thrusting, cartwheeling and logrolling

No doubt preparing for the tourist season's toubab-scouting.

It only took moments for you to notice us laying there

We blink and suddenly there were twenty of you, before we could even prepare

You call us 'white lady, beautiful butterfly, and African queen'?

And then ask us if we need help figuring out this Gambian Scene

"No no" we say "just please leave us alone"

"Come on boss lady, it's nice to be nice!" you moan.

You started doing more pushups until you’re tired of being ignored

And then decided to sit behind us and quietly stare for more time than I ever thought you could afford.

But bumster, despite your annoying tendencies I truly do respect you

After being turned down you will still throw out pick up lines until your face is blue

Your confidence and persistence is something to be admired

You work so hard, it even makes the donkeys tired

My one piece of advice is to keep it up boys

Because you never know, next time you call me snowflake, my heart might just be yours.

Trish: Good things come to those who wait right? Was so bored at school, I thought about leaving early. I didnt, and at the end of the day, I had the honor of explaining maxi-pads to 10th graders when they kept calling them biscuits...why the school got a shipment of always maxi-pads, I'll never know.

Lily: And I'm never eating again. I just broke a chair. Granted it was child sized but still even my mom sits on it without breaking it.

Casey: Gambian Typo of the month: under the heading guidelines of a leader...a leader should be good and thrustworthy

Dylan: I worked my ass off today scrubbing viruses off computers, but then got a package and now have a hammock with a built in mosquito net hanging in my backyard. I believe in the queen's English they would call such a set-up the tits...

Lily: Just witnessed first-hand the panic two chameleons up our neem tree can cause. Think shill screams and panicked prancing around the compound. Probably the funniest thing I have seen in a while...at least since I broke the chair.

Julie: Shit! guess who just fell down my pit latrine?! MY CAT!

Julie: AND I JUST FISHED HER OUT WITH A ROPE!

Julie: Now she's just another cat who has been bathed in pantene- pro-v

Casey: Rachelle says virgin mary fabric is in the Brikama market, and I REALLY want some. I have a jesus wrap skirt that is begging for a complimentary top.

Julie: Alright, I just took a picture of students washing a teachers clothes. Cruel and unusual punishment? Never.

Casey: The woman next to me is giving her son juice out of a gin bottle with the lable peeled off. Horray for recycling?

Lily: School starts tomorrow. A bunch of teachers just rolled up on horse-cart so I know I wont be the only one tomorrow, always nice.

Casey: My neighbor just gave me her baby to "keep in my house while she cooks lunch." Should I give her a temporary snake or spider tattoo? You're never too young for a tramp stamp.

Nathan: My dearest ember, the road has been fraught with many perils from fiendish demost wrought with rampant hooks to loveless demons and their develish shots of destruction, yet I prevail. Try as they will, chronos nor Zeus will stand between myself and freedom from this prison. Once again my voice will utter your name in more than a whisper. Desire has left my words parched from depth so worry not. Ring the heavens for so we will have the sky as our playground. Hold fast as my breath cometh.

Samantha: Is it wrong to eat mustard for dinner?

Abby: Came home today to find two topless old women, one of them my grandma, spooning in the shade cast by the front of my house. Oh, Africa.

Casey: I'm at school. The kids have their wood-carvings. The girl next to me is sanding the Jewlbrew label onto a board. A+

Me: George just told me that Joseph Gordon Levitt looks like a rhesus monkey.

Eileen: NO monkey can wear a cardigan sweater that well. I rest my case.

The West African Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST) is an annul event held in Dakar, Senegal. Peace Corps Volunteers from all over West Africa travel to Dakar, the largest and most developed city in West Africa, to play softball and party for 5 days. It’s kind of like a spring break for adults who have been living isolated from people like them for months and months and then thrown into a crowd of 250 other volunteers and ex-pats. Then shove ten drink tickets into their hands per night and I’m sure you can imagine the shenanigans that go on. The day we left we woke up at 5:00 am to catch the first ferry across the river. We successfully got across after the ferry and found the bus that we had rented to take us there….but one very important thing was missing…the driver. Turns out he was on the next ferry, so we sat there in the dirty, crowded Barra car-park for two hours listening to the Wolof speaking volunteers yell at him on the phone and bitching about how nice it would have been to sleep until the sun came up. He FINALLY showed up and after thirty minutes of maneuvering the bus around gellys in the carpark we were off! We reached the Gambia-Senegal border thirty minutes later (what a gigantic country we live it) and girls selling peanuts and oranges immediately bumrushed our bus and began climbing in. We eventually got them off, somehow managing to greatly offend them. As we were sitting there on the bus waiting for the customs officers to finish their tea and start looking at our passports, we were having a stare-off with the girls. They started yelling insults in Wolof at us and the Wolof volunteers started yelling obscene things back. I began to get nervous when one of the girls took her orange peeling mini-machete and slid it across her throat in a throat-slitting gesture and then pointed at us. Apparently the “smiling coast” nickname for Gambia doesn’t apply to the border. We started driving into Senegal and very soon the road got worse, and worse, and worse, and then unimaginably worse. We were going so slow that I could have easily out-walked the bus. The road had 1 foot deep pits all over it, among other things, and we had 7 hours to go on this mess…trying not to hit our heads on the ceiling the whole way. I’ve heard that Senegal keeps this certain road this way for political reasons but COME ON!!! At that rate, Gambians could walk into Senegal faster. Anyway, after 16 hours of travel total, which would have been the equivalent of a 3 hour trip on a highway in America, we were there. It was 9pm and we were exhausted. We checked into the hostel and passed out. The next day we decided to see Dakar. No games were scheduled for the day and registration wasn’t until 6 so we set off to see the city. First of all, I would like to say how surprisingly city-like Dakar actually was. After being in a country that has almost no buildings taller than two stories, it was overwhelming to see skyscrapers, paved roads, restaurants, streetlights, and so on. But just when I would begin to forget I was still in West Africa my cab would get stuck behind a donkey-cart. I was with seven other volunteers and the first thing we decided to go see was the mall. Yes, Dakar has a mall. We got a cab there, walked in and just stood there staring for five minutes. I could hear murmurs from my friends; “It’s so shiny”, “look at all of the white people”, “what are those moving stairs?” and “I’m scared, lets go home.” After we got over the initial shock and hesitantly stepped onto the escalator, we went crazy. We ran into the Apple store and got to play with the new iPad, which none of us had gotten to see yet. We went into a pet store where I found a real gigantic monster bunny that has given me nightmares ever since. There was a candy store, and a supermarket with rows and rows of ice-cream. My strategy for my time at the mall was to walk as slowly as possible so that I wouldn’t run into one of the many overly clean glass walls. After the mall we walked down the Corniche to the statue. Apparently during the day the Corniche is perfectly safe, overlooking the extraordinarily creative pickpockets that roam it. I hear that one of their tactics involves tugging at your pant leg to distract you while the other pickpocket takes your things. I practiced this on unsuspecting friends the throughout the day. They didn’t find it as funny as my accomplice and I did. We were also told not to step foot on the Corniche after the sun went down if we wanted to avoid being stabbed. But aside from that, the road was absolutely beautiful. Cliffs, beaches, gigantic elaborate mosques, palm trees, surfers, and sidewalks the whole way down. During the walk Casey decided that since some of Senegal is above us that it is kindof like Canada, and the Casamance below us is like Mexico so the rest of the trip she called Senegal Canagal, and the Casamance Caxico and only spoke in a Canadian accent, yelling “round-abut!!” whenever she saw a round-about on the road. I will say that the statue was pretty impressive, but so wrong in every way. I was surprised how bare the woman’s legs were, and that the man was holding the baby. Anyone who has even spent one week in West Africa would realize how culturally inappropriate it is. I won’t go on a rant about it, but I totally agree with the Senegalese people on that statue. After we left the statue we went to what ended up being my favorite part of the trip. Trampolines on the beach…what a brilliant idea. We paid 500 cfa (about 1 dollar) to jump on extra bouncy trampolines for fifteen minutes. A friend who got there a couple minutes after we had started jumping said that it was hilarious to see 5 grown people (us) jumping across from 5 ten year olds, it being obvious that we were having much more fun. We then went to the American club which was open to us during WAIST, and to all Senegalese volunteers all of the time (those lucky bastards) which had a gigantic clean swimming pool, a bar, a grill, hot showers, it was amazing. We spent a lot of out time there in-between games. That night we went to a bar downtown for PC Senegal’s open-mike night. It turned out to be one gigantic Senegal inside-joke and no fun for us. I heard that Kelsey and Josh snuck on stage and sang The Gambia national anthem so at least we got to represent a little bit. After the first thirty minutes all of the volunteers from Mali, Gambia, and Cape Verde became bored with the jokes we didn’t understand and ended up outside drinking Gazelles. Gazelle is the Senegalese equivalent to Jewlbrew, but a hundred times better. The softball games started the next day. Each country had an A team and a B team. A was somewhat competitive and had to remain sober and follow the rules. I avoided being on this team like the plague, and thank God they didn’t want me. I ended up on the sloppy B team. It’s tradition for teams to dress up in costume for their games so throughout the tournament we played teams dressed like German boys in lederhosen and drinking beer out of glass mugs on the field, cows with gigantic udders, and Space Corps. We were the bumster-zombies so before the tournament began we walked down the street to practice our Thriller dance in private to surprise the other teams. We did the Thriller zombie dance, or as much of it as we knew collectively with bumster moves thrown in, like the thrusting push-ups and squat-thrusts. What we didn’t realize was that we were on the edge of a college campus and people inside the classrooms were watching the whole time. Eh, at least they got a good show. And by the way, our performance before every game was a hit. The other teams loved it, especially the drunk ones. Our pep-talk from our team manager went like this “no matter what happens, if you see a ball coming your way, just cover your face, I don’t want any of you getting knocked out in this game” and that’s how good we were. After the second day of playing we gave up and made an agreement with the other teams that kickball was more fun, so that’s what we did. Watching the softball, and even playing, was super fun, even for an anti-sports fan like myself…though, I think the beer helped. Every night there was a different party at a different location sponsored by a different organization. The first night it was put on by the Marines at their compound. There was a date auction for charity that night. We auctioned off Steve-o and ended up buying him back for 30,000 cfa. I think the mustache he grew especially for this event increased his worth by a good 20,000 cfa. The Marine house reminded me of every party I hated in college, but turned out to be a lot of fun. I loved the DJ’s name: DJ Sex. Creative right? The next night was a party at Club Oceanic. It was right on the ocean with a great view and was hosted by Peace Corps Senegal. This party was absolutely ridiculous. George had made me promise before I left that at some point I would stand on a bar and yell “Spring Break Oh- Eleven!!” at the top of my lungs and George, let me tell you, it didn’t happen standing on a bar, I’m far too classy for that…but does a wall count?? I will not go into the messy details of that evening, I’ll save those stories for when you’re older, but I will say that I’m surprised that we all turned up to the games the next day in one piece…more or less. The next day B team was out of the tournament so we hung out at the pool all day, trying to move as little as possible. At some point we went to Nice Cream downtown to get ice cream. By this point I had developed a cold that I’m sure was exacerbated by the fact that I had been drinking and not sleeping for four days straight. So I was pretty sad that I was actually able to eat real ice cream for the first time in 8 months, but not able to taste it. I got the “Obama” flavor, chocolate with chocolate cookies, and giggled the whole time I was eating it. That night, the last night, there was a party at the American Club. We had all ran out of money due to a conversion rate that turned out to definitely not be in our favor, so we had to resort back to the gin packets that someone was smart enough to smuggle in from Gambia. We danced the night away pretending that we wouldn’t have to wake up in three hours for that hellish ride back home, but alas 5:30 am came early and once again we found ourselves bouncing our way back to The Gambia. This was perhaps the worst travel day I’ve ever experienced in all my years. Not only was I sick, but also hungover and exceptionally sleep deprived…and the sun was really really damn hot that day. But coming back only took ten hours. I got home and threw my road gifts at my family, told them my body was not well, locked myself in my house, and slept for 14 hours straight without waking up once. Dakar, you almost killed me, but you were totally worth it. See you again soon, I’m sure.

For the past few weeks at assembly teachers have been telling students “you know what, it’s ok if you’re not so good at school…your time to shine is coming soon” and last week it arrived. Inter-house. A track and field competition where they break the schools up into houses to compete against one another. I was placed in the Red House, aka Danger House, aka Fire House. These are names I had no part in coming up with, though I wish I had. There was also the Green House that had all of the smart kids so it was doomed from the beginning, the Blue House, and the Yellow House. I didn’t hear this until the end of the week, but Yellow House refers to itself as ‘Yellow Fever’…not insensitive or inappropriate at all.

Each house went out to fields around Brikama all week to find the best athletes to compete against the other houses on Friday. I usually spent the entire day sitting under a tree, eating wanjo icees and peanuts with all of the girls who didn’t want to run. Their excuse being that they were trying to get fat and if they ran then they would stay skinny. Imagine that excuse trying to work in America.

I was amazed by some of those kids. They were not only fast as hell, but they were running and jumping barefoot, and some of the girls were doing it with knee length skirts on. I had been warned by another volunteer that inter-house is just an excuse for the girls to dress incredibly scandalously and not get in trouble. The beginning of the first day I was confused by what this volunteer mean. All of the girls were wearing their uniforms…but then came their turn to run. They all took off their uniforms and underneath they had on their “running clothes” which consisted of mini-skirts, spandex shorts (above the knee!!) and see-through halter tops. Since all of the teachers are men, and probably wouldn’t say anything to the girls I took it upon myself by following them around and asking them where the rest of their skirts were…needless to say, they didn’t think it was funny.

Mr. Nyassi was in charge of the Red House. Right before the long jump practice he made every single person move to stand behind the jumpers because “some of the girls forgot to take their underwear today.” The long jump was probably the most fun to watch. The students would line up and run and jump one after another after another. From where I was sitting, I could see through a gap in the students watching. One Gambian teenager after another went flying by.

For the high jump practice, Mr. Nyassi ran around yelling “if you have short legs, don’t waste our time” at all of the shorter students lined up with high hopes of making it over that stick. Dreams dashed.

So after a whole week of this, the competition finally arrived. It was scheduled to begin at 3:00, but keeping with the Gambian way, it didn’t actually start until 5:00. Katie had come over that day and we made tee shirts to support my house. Turns out, the way Gambians support their house is to spend all of your savings on a tight, western-style dress, from the Sera-Kunda market, which matches not only all of your friends dresses, but also your house color. You also need high-heels that sink into the sand so that you can’t walk…and oh yeah, new hair. I’ll keep this in mind for next year.

They had rented a PA system (ahhh, so that’s where the budget for teaching aids went!) and put one of the teachers on it. Never a good idea when he especially loves the sound of his own voice. All of the female runners had their new hair. The Red Cross club had made a stretcher out of corrugated tin and two branches and when carrying it from place to place they never walked, only ran….cutest thing in the world.

So the Red House didn’t win, we took second place to the Yellow House, which by he way had way more students who looked like they were older than twenty than we did. But it’s ok, next year yellow fever better watch out. I’m going to be force feeding those Red House kids protein bars alllll summer. Prepare for the FIRE…house.

I returned to Brikama from my few weeks in Kombo determined to find more work to occupy my time. I had the idea to go up to a huge nature reserve located right outside of Brikama, and basically just walk in and ask for work, so that is what I did. Kelsey, a health volunteer who just moved to Brikama from the provinces, and I rode our bikes up the road to where I had seen the sign before. Having no idea how far off the road this place was, we were not so pleasantly surprised to have to ride another thirty minutes in a foot of sand. We finally arrived, panting and sweaty. I spent forever trying to explain to the staff why I was there and asking who I should speak to. They just ignored me and kept trying to make Kelsey and I pay the 350 dalasi for a half-day tour. Eventually we get in and were led to the owner who was sitting under a bantaba surrounded by people, obviously very busy. I introduced myself and told him why I as there. He said he was really busy but he wanted to talk and for me to just hang out and he would find me later. I didn't see him again that day, but the rest of the day provided well worth the trip out there. S we hung out for a while, watching the tourists take pictures of the baboons running around. More and more baboons started showing up to have their look at the tourists. I think they might like having their picture taken more than Gambians do. Those of you who know me understand that monkeys, especially large violent ones, make me pretty uncomfortable. As I'm starting to get worked up Kelsey leans into me and whispers "is this safe? I mean I always thought baboons were dangerous?" At that moment a tour guide walks up, mistaking us for paying tourists and began to tell us about the history of the place, etc. We listened politely as he told us about the "indigenous" people, having no idea that we actually live and work with them. But I prefer to call them Gambians. Kelsey surprised him by asking if it's safe for so many baboons to be loose around people...in perfect Mandinka. He laughed and told us that we are safe as long as the number of people outnumber the baboons and then promptly led us through the woods where the three of us were surrounded by baboons and outnumbered tenfold. The tour guide sensed my anxiety about being in a forest surrounded by thirty gigantic, angry, probably hungry baboons and told me just to ignore them. I told him that was difficult to do when there was a male, who came up to my shoulders, practically stepping on my heels. We emerged from the woods and were put into a canoe made out of a carved tree trunk. While we were waiting for more tourists to fill up the boat the employee already in the boat started telling us scary baboon stories from the bush, too crude to be repeated, but scary enough to make me not want to get out of the boat. Kelsey started asking if the baboons glaring at us on the shore of the river could swim. The tour guide said "not too well." So anyway, we got a beautiful boat ride, checked out the mangrove flats and oyster villages, birds, monitor lizards, and then were taken on a nature walk and palm wine tasting. So I didn't end up getting to to talk to the owner that day but I'd say it ended up being an excellent day. We got to see all of that awesome stuff AND we weren't eaten by baboons, success!

I finally got in touch with the owner and made the long bike ride back up there a few days ago. He asked me for help on a project that they started last year and want to continue again this year. It's called Wide Open Walls Gambia and it's absolutely brilliant. I am so so so excited to be able to be a part of it. Here are some websites with more info on the project:

Wide Open Walls Facebook Page

WOW Blog

I haven't told a scary spider story in quite a while so I think its about that time again. So I usually try and avoid shining lights on my walls at night to stop myself from seeing the spiders I know are there. I do realize that they are usually there, but I like to pretend that if I don't see them, then they aren't there. One night, pretty recently, I had been sitting outside chatting with my neighbors, and decided to come to read. As I walked into my house with my flashlight, I accidentally illuminated the opposite wall. And there...I saw...not one, but TWO of the biggest scorpion-horse spiders I've seen yet. I started hyperventilating, my eyes roaming around looking for something to kill them. All the while thinking about how fast they run and how high up on the wall they are so that to kill them I'd have to stand right under them so that when I swatted at them with my Haviana, it would be pretty likely that they would fall on me and get tangled in my hair, my worst nightmare (literally, my worst nightmare...thank you methloquin.) So I rationalized two against one, completely unfair and I went to get my neighbors Ousman and Mr. Kanteh to kill them. They went inside and went at the spiders with my broom. I hid outside behind Fatou the whole time while they all laughed at me, something I will remember the next time I see one of them running through the compound because they saw a frog. Mr. Kanteh came out of my house with the two dead spiders in the palm of his hand. Before I could thank him, he saw me hiding behind Fatou, paralyzed with fear, and decided to chase me around with the dead spiders. Evil, pure evil. He chased me around in circles for a while until I ran back into my house and slammed the door, refusing to open it again. I could hear them all laughing at what had happened, re-enacting me being chased. Later on I could STILL hear them laughing about it so I yelled out "big spiders are scarier than little frogs!!" yeah, I know. Not too good, but I haven't successfully been witty in Mandinka yet and I doubt I ever will. But that statement just made them laugh even harder. Its ok Mr. Kanteh, Ousman, Fatou, Aminata, and Mata...watch your backs, there are many frogs in my back yard with your names all over them.

Mr. Kanteh is one of the other renters in my compound. He works for the World Food Program and assumes that I know a lot more about Environment and Health issues than I actually do. Despite the fact that he enjoys torturing me, he is a very nice guy. I gave him my number so that he could get in touch with me if he ever had a WFP project he wanted me to help with. In the past I would hear him yelling my name and he wouldn't stop until I came outside, and then he would invite me to his food-bowl to eat lunch or dinner. Now that he has my number, twice a day I get a text that says "Sali, lunch/dinner is here. come eat." and he only lives two doors away in the compound.

One afternoon last week, I was sitting on my floor in my house gazing at an ad I found in a magazine and taped to my wall. It was a Gucci perfume ad featuring the gorgeous James Franco climbing out of a pool, soaking wet, staring intensely into the camera. So as I'm looking back at him, just as intensely I got a text from George. Something along the lines of "I'm snowed in at the hotel with your hunky boyfriend James Franco." My heart stopped. Then it started again and I wished that I could text George back (damn you Africell!!) to tell him to give James a kiss for me. I think so far, I haven't wanted to be home as much as I had in that moment.

Cold season has arrived here in the Gambia. That means about a month and a half of amazing weather. It never actually gets cold. Maybe 65-70 at night and 80-90 during the day. So just in case you were wondering I've come up with a few ways to blend in with the locals during cold season:

1)You MUST act like it is at most thirty degrees outside. Rub your hands together, breathe into them, stamp your feet, shiver, and clutch yourself at all times.

2) Winter wear here is pretty easy. It consists of normal Gambian wear with one small addition. A Spiffy, 80's style, brightly colored windbreaker. It should be zipped up all the way to the chin.

3) Most importantly, you have to begin every conversation with "it's too cold today' or something similar, but then also bring up the weather at least every two minutes in your conversation.

Although this sounds ridiculous, I have found myself doing these things with the teachers every morning at school. If anyone has a sweet windbreaker laying around, bright purple preferably, send it over!!

We made it! Our three month challenge ended at the beginning of December. Mid-month we came back into Kombo for one week of In-service training (IST) to share our war stories, learn how to deal with problems we've come across at site, and become reacquainted with civilization (kind of.) Everyone was looking a little thinner, a bit more tan, and immensely more dirty. I could tell that those who had been residing deep in the bush for the past 3 months were finding it particularly difficult to make full sentences in English, and make fun of them I did.

The day before IST began Rachel the VSO had her going away party at the Bakau Beach Guesthouse. One of her VSO friends, who I had only briefly met once before, invited me to a beach party that night at his friends house. I was reluctant at first because I barely knew the guy who invited me, but I also had never even met the person whose house this party was at. But then he mentioned free booze and food and I just couldn't say no...That night I rallied Lily, Erin, and Katie to come with me. After spending an hour trying to comprehend the VSO's french-Canadian accented directions over the phone, we finally found the house, excuse me, I mean gigantic mansion in the tourist district. He told us to ask the guard to lead us down to the party on the beach so we followed this guard around the side of the mansion, through tiny Harry Potter doors, across the backyard (with grass!!) and the backyards of the neighbors houses. As we walked down there were putt-putt courses and infinity pools on either side of us. We all stared, mouths open for a few minutes and then walked on. We climbed down the cliffs and over boulders. The party was fun, but getting there was the best part. We ate grilled fish, drank many coconut flavore drinks, and spent a few hours trying to explain to a few backpackers why anyone would want to live the way we do. We got back to the transit house at 4am and three very short hours later, the first day of IST was in full swing.

First, I would like to share my two favorite quotes from IST with you:

*This is the peace corps medical officer's 4 "It's" for surviving The Gambia:

"Don't get BitDon't get Lit

Don't do ITDon't eat Shit"

Looks like I'm dead...

*The second was in a lovely powerpoint presentation given by an Agriculture-Forestry volunteer :

"If The Gambia were a Disney movie it would be all of the sad parts from Bambi and The Lion King...and also be narrated by birds."

IST was tedious and long, but also incredibly helpful. Six, seven hour days in a row was just enough time to pass a stomach virus around to almost the entire group. So not only did I spend most of training surfing the waves of nausea that overcame me every fifteen minutes, I also had a majorly infected earlobe that was swollen to twice its normal size (thank you 2 dalasi earrings) and an infected cut on my calf as well. I guess my luck of miraculously making it through rainy season without an infected cut couldn't last forever.

The middle 2 days of IST was the counterpart workshop. Our Gambian counterparts came in from our sites all over the country to participate in some of our training sessions. My favorite part was during a discussion on alternative discipline when Ian presented a few sayings and asked us whether they were true or false, totally expecting everyone to say false. Nope, we got a few "TRUES" from the counterparts and the awkwardness ensued. Here were the sayings: "spare the rod, spoil the child" and "the cane is the only language students understand."

The last session of IST was called Ask Sarjo Anything. In this session we finally cleared up that yes, "ninkinako" does in fact mean dragon and that we hadn't heard wrong when about a month ago we heard our families talking about a dragon in the coastal village of Gunjur that ripped the roof off some of the huts there. I learned why my brother was washing his hands in the Tobaski ram's blood and why Gambians are so terrified of owls (witches.) We also learned about cheating spouses, marabous and their curses, tranquilizing that crazy guy in Brikamabah, and why some men have really really long pinkie nails (to show that their jobs don't involve physical labor.) Muhammed Touray, our Assistant Program Director told us that he used to have a long pinkie nail which he referred to as his "pet" and also talked to?!?! I kid you not.

Speaking of Muhammed Touray, he is probably my favorite staff member. He sleeps all of the time, but during our trainings he can always be counted on to wake up and add a completely relevant bit of important information on the Gambian Education system. One day during IST, he came in late and headed straight to the table that had bread and chocolate left over from breakfast. We all watched as he made himself a sandwich, grinning ear to ear, obviously so excited, and then we watched him teach a session, writing on the board with only his left hand because he was holding his food with his right hand...he's not left handed. More times than I can count, I remember someone elbowing me during an IST session and nodding in Touray's direction, who would be sitting there doubled over laughing at nothing, or giggling in his sleep AND he lives in Brikama so I get the occasional random phone call or visit from him which I always look forward to.

Christmas was a few days later. We woke up, ate pancakes, set off fireworks with our terrified house manager Modou, and then went down to the beach to bumster watch all afternoon. I left in the late afternoon alone and was chased around by a Konkoran with a machete for a good fifteen minutes. All in all, a good day.

I have to add this in here, I am presently at site writing this, sitting in front of my house on a prayer mat with my "husband" Muhammed, my neighbors 2 year old son who has finally gotten used to me enough to stop screaming whenever he sees me. But what has made this the best day ever is that the bitik across the street must have just gotten a few new Boyz II Men cassette tapes and they have been playing them at top volume nonstop all day, and all of the men who sit outside of the bitik all day, everyday, drinking attaya are all singing along at the top of their lungs. I love that the people here have no shame when it comes to their singing voices, young or old, male or female, if they know the words to a song (or even don't know the words) they want to make sure you know that.

Imagine having one word shouted in your face day after day, every time you leave your house. A word that reminds you of how different you are from everyone else in your community. A word that literally means 'white person" or 'outsider'. That word...is Toubab (sounds like two-bob). I've been told that it's not to be taken offensively, that they are just making an observation and stating it out loud (which was a complete understatement), and I believe it, BUT it could possibly be the most annoying thing I have ever come across. No, it definitely is.

Since I am toubab-ed more times a day than I am greeted like a normal person I have had ample opportunity to analyze this trend and have come to find that there are actually nine different ways to be toubabed. Welcome to my life...

The Shy Toubab: The wide-eyed child timidly watches you pass by and waits until you are about ten feet past to whisper toubab, just loud enough so that you barely hear it, and then looks away like it wasn't them when you turn around.

The Stealthy Toubab: You hear it being shouted from somewhere beside you, or is it behind you, or in that tree?? You'll never know because when you look around, there is no one to be seen.

The Team Toubab: A group of 5 children or more make an effort to chant 'toubab toubab toubab' in unison. There is usually some kind of dance accompaniment and occasionally clapping.

The 'Bob' Toubab: A rare gem, this one. The last syllable is overly emphasized resulting in you hearing only 'Bob...Bob!...BOB!!'

The Toubab-Minti Combo: Not only are you called toubab, but apparently they also expect you to give them candy, known as mintis here. I would love to meet and then strangle that toubab who came here and went around The Gambia handing out minties to the children. The sounds of "Toubab!! Any minti!?!" haunts my dreams.

The Grown Toubab: Perhaps the most rude of them all, This is when any person over the age of ten calls you a toubab. BUT, when an old man sticks his head in your gelly and looks you in the eye and calls you a toubab, being a bitch back (in Mandinka no less) is a sure way to impress and humor the entire gelly.

The Persistent Toubab: As you walk toward a child...and then away from the child, they shout toubab over and over and over and over, with a persistence you would kill to have, until you are far from earshot. Even then, knowing that there is still some kid about a mile behind you still yelling toubab.

The Deep-Winded Toubab: They see you approaching from a mile away (even in the dark, because yes, we glow) you see a deep breath being drawn, and it begins. "Toooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuubbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb"

It lasts for 5+ minutes, and you walk by wondering maybe if you should go back and get some advice on lung strength...

The Handsy Toubab: As they are yelling, they also run after you grabbing at anything they can, your bicycle, hands, and clothes...until you stop short and start grabbing at their clothes and hands, stunning them into submission. The small victories are what matter.

Most Gambians don't eat lunch until mid afternoon, in my families case, 3:30. So normally around noon I begin to get hungry and have to get a snack. The other day I walked to the bitik to get bread and bitik-chocolate (kind of like nutella but not nearly as good). Here they pronounce chocolate with a ridiculous french-ish accent "shho-co-lot" which I feel like an idiot saying (of all things,right?) so I usually don't say it that way and they eventually guess what it is I want when I repeat it over and over and point. This day, no such luck. I asked for bread and chocolate, he looked at me strangely and repeated back "bread and chocolate" in his best American accent. He squinted at me, head tilted sideways, a look that I get a million times a day here that doesn't even strike me as abnormal anymore, and reaches under the counter and pulls out a loaf of bread an a bag of charcoal. "Here you go, bread and chocolate" he said.

I have a friend in Brikama named Rachel, a VSO from Australia. She's incredibly funny, quirky, and so much fun. Last weekend she invited me to go into Kombo with her for a VSO Hanukkah party and of course I went. We walked up to the party and I met the awesome mix of 2 Canadian Jews who were hosting the party, a girl from Norway and her three guy friends who were visiting who had names that sounded like they belonged to cavemen, many many Brits, and one who was sweating profusely who had just flown in that day from Moscow. After I met all of the people whose names I couldn't pronounce, I turned around and there was a GIANT table of food just sitting there. Let me give you some background information before I continue. I don't want to generalize because I haven't met all of the VSOs, just a handful, but from what I have seen VSOs generally live in nice houses, comparatively speaking, with electricity, motorbikes, and many more accommodations than most Peace Corps have, and they get paid by normal standards, unlike us. So of course I see a table of pizza, chips, liquor, cake, fruit, and tons of other things I haven't seen and much less eaten in months. I started stalking the table, circling it, wondering why it was being ignored by everyone else around me. The rest of the evening I had to struggle to contain my excitement that I was eating something other than rice and fish. We did some Hanukkah stuff, lit the menorah, ate potato latkes, drank Jewish wine, and ate jelly doughnuts and then left for Senegambia. The bar we went to didn't have karaoke which disappointed the VSOs deeply. Their solution? Make the house band play songs that they know while they sing into the microphone. I have never heard so many renditions of that horrible song "Who the Fuck is Alice" in my life.

Tourist season has arrived. The sex trade is in full swing on the coast and I think the raging hormones of the bumsters and the aging European women must be in the air. Men who have known me for 3 of the almost 6 months I have been here, who have previously been nothing but polite, have gone absolutely insane. My counterpart has taken to using metaphors that involve us kissing, my 18 year old host brother has started taking every opportunity to tell me how beautiful I am that day, and I get "hey boss lady, what is your nice name???!" more times a day than I get normal greetings. Even small ten year old boys will shout out "I looooveee youuuu" as I zoom past on my bike. I never could have guessed how much more difficult my life would be here due to an annual influx of old European women.

Entertainment for me here comes in many forms. Whether it is laying on my floor listening to NPR podcasts for 5 hours straight, or sitting with my neighbors at night in the dark listening to them talk only understanding maybe one out of every ten words, or spending hours writing my blogs out by hand so I can go to the Internet cafe and speedily type it out so i don't end up spending a fortune on internet. So my sister Mama has this friend who is maybe 5 or 6, and is absolutely terrified of me. He will peak his head into the compound, see me, and then refuse to come in until I go into my house, and if I come out while he is in the compound he will freeze, eyes wide, start screaming, and run away. I normally humor him and stay in my house when he comes around but on one particularly boring day I saw him come out and I decide not to go into my house. He ran away and I looked over at Mama and put a finger to my lips and say "shhhh" as we creep up to the compound door. She understood what I was trying to do and started giggling. She went outside the door and yelled at her friend that Sali-toubab has gone inside, she wont come out. Come back! I peeked through the door and could see him inching back , still obviously terrified. I started second guessing myself "Maybe this is too much, maybe I shouldn't scare him, this might make him scared of white people for the rest of his life....screw it, I'm gonna do it." When he got to the doorway I jumped out, yelled "BOO!!!" and watched as he spun on his heel and starting running down the street faster than I ever thought a 5 year old could run, looking over his shoulder to make sure the scary toubab wasn't chasing him. Mama and I collapsed on the ground giggling for the rest of the afternoon.

Thanksgiving was at the Peace Corps medical officer's house and it was maybe the best Thanksgiving I could have hoped for here. Most of the 100 volunteers in the country came out of the bush to celebrate and had an amazing time. The PCMO Mike has nice house with a huge backyard where we ate ourselves sick and hung out all day. The next day was the annual tradition of PC vs the American Embassy beach volleyball game. The American embassy bought out the beach bar so I'm blaming our loss on that. Yes, we lost, but yes, some of us were also drunk. I won't name any names. That night was the peace corps open mike night at Sinatra's where we listened to songs and poems about sex, the disappointment of finding your texting inbox full and not receiving that last text, love, the apparante in Farrafini, and a Gambian themed remix of the Mountain Goat's song "This Year" with the incredibly appropriate lyric "I'm going to make it through this year if it kills me", and one magic trick. Overall a really great holiday.

So I've told my host family all about my boyfriend at home,George. Mama has even "talked" to him on the phone a few times. I'll leave you with a conversation I had with my host mother about George that we had about a month ago just as an example of one of my many failed attempts at the Mandinkan language. Keep in mind, this was all spoken in Mandinka:

Her: Sali, you have a boyfriend in America right?

Me: Yes, his name is George. I told you about him.

Her: But you want to meet a Gambian husband while you are here?

Me: Oh...no.

Her: What, you do not like black men?

Me: No! I mean yes, I mean I like black man, [pausing trying to think of how to explain to her that I don;t dislike black men, but I'm in a relationship, something they don't really seem to get]

Her: Oh, so you do want a Gambian husband!

Me: NO! George would not like.

Her: George does not like black men?

Me:NO! George does not want ME to like black man, George does not want me to like white man. George does not want me to like ANY man.

Her: Oh, ok. George does not like black man.

At that point I give up. Thinking I would clear this up later after I took a look in my language book to be able to say what I needed to say. Of course I forgot, and the next day George called me and I sat on my porch and talked to him with Mama sitting on the ground watching me, as usual. I hung up and she says in Mandinka "That was George?" I say yes,and then she says "Oh yes, George does not like black man."

So now my host family thinks my boyfriend hates black people but for some reason they aren't offended and think its funny, and I'm too tired to correct them. Should be interesting if he ever comes to visit...

In every other part of the world this Muslim holiday is known as Eid Al Adha, but here in The Gambia, the holiday of the ram is called Tobaski. To sum up the holiday in the words of my host mother "you eat lots of meat...lots of meat, and then you put on a pretty dress." This story doesn't actually start on Tobaski, but two days before. That night Kane and Samantha had Ian, Chris, and I over for Americanized Domoda (domoda minus the palm oil and strange animal parts and added vegetables) and drinks. You would think that by now I would have learned that beer, vodka, and tequila is NOT GOOD FOR ME. Especially here. The only beer available is Jewlbrew and it's alcohol percent varies from bottle to bottle, the vodka is cheaper than anything you could find in the US, and the tequila was American, but when mixed with warm devita...not particularly good. So after many jewlbrews, a few shots, and a couple mixed drinks I was feeling great! For about fifteen minutes. The next morning, the day before Tobaski, I woke up, chugged some water and immediately threw up in Kane's toilet (thank god he is one of the few volunteers with an actual toilet and not a pit latrine) and then sat for a while trying to muster the strength to face what I knew would be one of the worst travel experiences I've had here yet. Keep in mind that the day before Tobaski is kind of like the day before Thanksgiving in America, but without the reliable and efficient transportation system. Everyone was trying to get somewhere else...including hungover me. So I left alone, walked down to the main road to get a gelly to Westfield. As I'm walking in the hot African sun, I pass a garbage dump on the side of the road, pause taking a few deep breaths, considering going back to Kane's house to cry in fetal position for the rest of the day, but then regained the little composure I could and kept on. I found a gelly going to Westfield fairly easily and mistakenly thought that maybe things that day wouldn't be so bad. Oh no...no, no, no.

We pulled over at the police station to pick up some cops who obnoxiously pile into the car, with of course the creepiest of the bunch practically sitting on my lap. From the moment he got in I could see him staring at me from the corner of my eye and could hear him talking about me to his police friends in Mandinka. He initiated conversation with me and since he was a police officer in uniform I couldn't just completely ignore him, like I usually would. Our conversation was as follows:

Him: Hello pretty lady. How are you this morning?

Me: Awesome

Him: What is your name? Where do you stay?

Me: Salimata, Brikama.

Him: Oh, Sali, you live alone there?

Me: No I live with a family, a big family...lots of brothers.

Him: Mmhhmm. And are you married?

Me: Yes, he is American, he lives with me too.

--You'd think this would slow his game a bit, but NO. Gambian men should be given awards for their persistence.

Him: So can I come visit you sometime? (Extremely loaded question with many underlying meanings)

Me: (Turning around and looking at him in the face) NO! Absolutely not!

Him: Why not? Why don't you want me to come visit you in Brikama Sali?

Me: Well, first of all I don't think my husband would be very happy if you did, and anyway, my family doesn't allow me to have visitors.

Him: so you live alone? Does your husband live in your house? where in Brikama do you stay?

I was becoming furious at this point so I turned my whole body away from him, or as much as the packed gelly would allow, maybe one inch, and started responding to all of his questions with "yes" not paying attention to him anymore.

When we finally arrived in Westfield, after the longest fifteen minutes of my life, I dove out of the gelly to get away from the creepy cop and took a look around at the madness. There were maybe ten times as many people in the car-park area, not to mention the goats and rams EVERYWHERE. Everyone wants to bring home a ram for Tobaski. Even if they are being sold in their home village, they will travel and buy one somewhere else to be able to bring it home. I looked around and there were goats on top of the gellys, people walking around holding the goats back legs and wheeling them like wheel-barrows, people shoving rams into the trunks of taxis by the horns, and the smell of goat shit....the overwhelming smell of shit about knocked me off my feet.

I walked over to where the Brikama gellys normally are, and usually there are maybe at most 15-20 people waiting for a gelly to come along. Not that day, there was a crowd of maybe 100 people or more waiting/jumping into any car that was going in the direction of Brikama. I wont lie, I was terrified. Every gelly that passed the crowd was already full and every time one would stop it had maybe 3 open seats at most and people would have to push and shove their way into the car. After seven failed attempts at getting into a car, and more than an hour later, I saw one coming and thought to myself "Caroline, if you don't get into this one, you are NEVER going to get home...you will be stuck in Westfield hungover, FOREVER." This thought must have scared some courage into me. I turned bookbag around to the front, knowing I was going to fling myself into a crowd of packed people with a few pickpockets mixed in. The gelly comes rolling up slowing down, but passes where I am standing. I started running next to it, holding onto the window and banging on the door. The apparante was just hanging out the window giggling at me and at the ridiculousness of Westfield. At that moment, running alongside and kind of hanging from the car, we made eye-contact and I knew exactly what he was thinking "toubab car ornament." The car finally stopped and although I had been standing right in front of the door, I was shoved from the side by an old woman who jumped into the car with the sprite of a twenty year old girl. As I'm being pushed from all sides, I'm muttering "Oh no she didnt" under my breath, I take a look at the apparante who is still watching me and laughing, raise my eyebrows with a look that says "watch this" and manage to jump over an old blind man and a few small children, successfully stealing the last available seat in the car. We pulled off and I was finally on my way home. A few minutes later the apparante leaned over towards me and said "now you are a real Gambian."

The rest of that day was a blur. I got home an hour and a half later, told my family that my stomach was sick and laid in bed sweating the rest of the day. The next morning was Tobaski. I woke up excited and jumped out of bed and put on my new Tobaski complet (shout out to my tailor Baboucar at Uprising Unisex Salon, the dress is amazing!) put on full make up and went outside. Apparently, they don't get dressed up until night time, something I was obviously not aware of, so my mother and sisters were sitting around in either just bras or topless. Oh well, I paid good money for this outfit, ten dollars to be exact, so I decided to leave it on and wear it all day. I walked to the Tobaski prayers with my father and brother Sulleyman. It was in a huge field about ten minutes from my house. Here are some of the pictures I took. Absolutely incredible:

When we got home, it was time to slaughter the ram, and I'll warn you, these pictures are pretty graphic, but come on! Man up, and take a look!

Our ram. Look at those eyes, I think he knows whats up.

Watching the butchering of a testicle.

Mama going at something with a machete.

Cookin!

After watching and helping with the butchering process, actually eating the ram, which I had previously been excited about after not having eaten red meat in months, became seriously unappetizing. I did manage to try goat liver and lung, which as it turns out are both as disgusting as they sound. I sat around with my family the rest of the day chatting with visitors and eating ram. They finally all got dressed up in the evening. Fake hair, purple eyebrows, and more sequins than you can imagine. Brikama became a town of African princess barbie dolls before my very eyes.I love this picture of my neighbors Fatu and Oussman. They sat there posing Gambian style (unsmiling and not touching) and at the last moment they both grinned really big and Fatu threw her arm around her husbands shoulders. Love it.

My host father and Mama

My sister, Mariama on the right, and her friends.

Another day of eating nothing but ram and I was hoping to wake up and have some satoo for breakfast (rice, milk, peanuts and sugar...tastes like oatmeal, its great) but no. As I come around the corner to join my family for breakfast they hand me a piece of bread and a cup of tea and I looked over Mama to see what we would be eating and what do I find? No, not a big bowl of steaming delicious satoo, but a gigantic GOAT HEAD on a platter!! I froze, fighting the urge to run away, and started to slowly approach the head. I crouched down between Mama and Abduli and started chewing on my bread, trying to think of how to get out of this one. I have eaten many things I didn't want since coming here to please my host mother. Whole fish, plassas, unidentifiable meat, you name it, but this was my breaking point. There was no way 3 day old, cold goat brains were going anywhere near my mouth. My host mother noticed I wasn't eating any of the goat and she looked at me and said "Sali, domo!" Sali, eat! I just looked at her and said "Mmmmm" and hid behind my cup of tea. A few minutes later I can see her getting agitated (not eating their food can be taken as an insult) and she asks me why I'm not eating. A million things run through my head at this point. How can I tell her that I don't like goat head without offending her? Should I lie and tell her I'm sick? But then I'll have to act sick the rest of the day. Should I tell her I'm already full? No, I thought. I'm through trying to please this woman. I'm going to tell her the truth, even if it makes her mad. I put my tea down, looked her in the eye and said "Katu, m mang hani"....I told her I wasn't eating the goat "because, I am scared."

*Cheese (or any other food besides rice and fish)- Since I would have to travel an hour to get it and it costs about half of my living allowance each month and I have no way to refrigerate, fake circle cheese has been my saving grace. It never goes bad, probably doesn't even contain anything dairy related in it, but it's about as close as I'm going to get to real cheese here.

*Real Pillows- Looking back, this is one of the things that tops my list of things I should have brought. "Pillows" in this country are just cylinders of foam that leave your neck at a 90 degree angle. It's actually the one thing that has taken my attention away from the stifling heat. I have found that jumping on the "pillow" does decrease its height by 1 inch for every hour of jumping. It's starting to look more like a real pillow now, although as it gets flatter it also becomes more rock-like.

*Sidewalks- Nope, no sidewalks here. Walking in ankle deep sand/mud (depending on the season) is no fun at all...but I have decided that it will give me some killer legs by the time I leave.

*ICE- or even anything cold for that matter, drinking nalgene after nalgene of 100 degree water everyday can get pretty old so on particularly hot days I walk to the car-park where the little girls walk around selling bags of filtered water in bowls on their heads for 2D each AND I have figured out that if I get there early in the day they are still partially frozen and it is absolutely glorious.

*Silence- not much of a solution for this, but those few moments a day where there aren't children screaming, drumming, prayer calls blaring, roosters and donkeys and goats being louder than I ever thought they could, rice being pounded...I appreciate it so much more than I ever have before.

*Money that doesn't make my hands smell like fish-And you thought American money was dirty. Most of the time Gambian bills are so dirty I cannot tell whether it is a 5, a 10, 25, 50 or 100...which has surprisingly never worked out in my favor because Gambians can always seen to tell what kind of bill it is. This is one of the rare times I will give my immune system a rest and pull out the hand sanitizer and sanitize away.

*Using contractions and still being understood - There's nothing like throwing out a good "can't" or "don't" ...but they do not understand!! I do take full advantage of this though when some asshole refuses to slow down their Mandinka, knowing full well that I don't understand. When I finally do catch on to what they are saying I respond in English with as many contractions and as much slang as possible.

*Liquor that comes in a bottle- While I do miss this bottled form, I do not know what liquor in packet form hasn't caught on in the US. It's so fun! Nothing classier than hiding in a bar bathroom in Senegambia with a newly bought coke, emptying a very convenient packet of five dalasi whiskey into it.

*Being dry- I hate you humidity. After my bucket bath every night I dump baby powder all over my body which keeps me dry for a good 15 minutes before I'm sweating like usual again.

*Wounds that take only a week or two to heal (instead of months)- But because they take so long to heal...and maybe also because my bicycle hates me, I have cuts and scrapes all over my legs and feet. But you know, I think they give me character. Maybe even make me look scrappy? Hey, anything to look more tough next to Gambian women, who I'm sure could take any man in the Gambia, much less me.

*Petting cute cats/dogs without the worry of getting ringworm, rabies, etc etc- Instead I've taken to petting them with the tip of my pointer finger and then again, scrubbing it furiously with hand sanitizer.

*Movies- not a single movie theater in the country, and I refuse to venture back into a video club anytime in the near future. I have a neighbor who has a generator which she turns on at night and sometimes I walk over to her house to watch the Brazilian soap operas that they show on the Gambian TV station. My favorite? Dos Caras de Ana (The Two Sides of Ana).

A few nights ago, there was chicken in our food-bowl. Unheard of! Chicken?? Just when I was starting to get used to the fish with the scales still on. The fish that REALLY tastes like fish with the bones that are impossible to pick out so you just have to eat them... yes, just when I was getting used to THAT, I got chicken! It was probably the highlight of my week, but if I had known what I know now it would have made my month.

Ever since they day of the chicken food-bowl I have been able to sleep past 5:30 am. As I sat pondering my newly acquired ability to sleep like a normal person, I realized...the rooster, the one who loves to climb into the branch of the mango tree that practically goes into my window, hasn't been there crowing at the top of it's lungs from 5:30am on through the whole day, and instead of plotting ways to kill it without my family noticing, I have been able to get a decent amount of sleep.

Could it be?? Yes, I have yet to see him since, I THINK WE ATE HIM!!!!!!!

I win evil rooster, I WIN!!

I had never realized what a strange holiday Halloween is until trying to explain it to my neighbors who had never heard of Halloween. Samantha and I traveled half way up the country in two days, stopping overnight at lilys where we missed the donky cart to her village from the main road, and had to literally walk a third of the way across Gambia (width, but still...) and hung out with some Wolofs. Akon anyone?? We then traveled further on to JanjanburyHere are just a few pictures from the trip up, Lily's site, and Halloween night:

Baobab Tree

Rice...lots and lots of rice

The beginning of the long walk down to Jimbala, Lily's village.

NorthBank road

I think Lily might be a bit of a secret hoarder...look at all of that food in her trunk!

Lily's sisters pounding coos

This lovely reminder was painted on a hut at the lodge where we stayed.

Our delicious Halloween foodbowls. Here we have chicken yassa at the bottom and the red one is Benichin . Tasted much better than it looks.

Team name: Jaweayata Baakes (aka the Very Evils)

Watermelon jack-o-lantern.

Kane as Juan.

Samantha as Zombie Apparante

Bakaray (our simi-manly Gambian bartender) as Binta, the seductress. He was the only Gambian who dressed up. He definitely cleared up any questions I might have had on Gambian's opinions of crossdressing.

The Facebook

Lily and Erin as Alice in wonderland and dirty laundry

Walking to the bar as some Gambian yelled "you guys look FREAAAAKKKYY" at us. Whitney then told us that it was ok, her students tell her that everyday when she gets to school.

I dont know who told gambian men that jelly shoes were good for soccer, but a very cruel someone did, so they all wear them all of the time. It was the reason we decided to be footballers for Halloween.

Stretching before the big game...aka the walk to the bar.

Whitney and Katie as a ewe and ram. Anatomically correct!

So I've told you all plenty about my life here in The Gambia, but there is one part that I have yet to really illuminate and that is my work. May sound boring, stop reading now if you want, but like everything else here, it is anything but boring.

First of all, if you're wondering what my school decided to do about solving the tree-devil problem, here are the brilliant solutions they came up with:

1)All girls are advised to cover their heads at school with a scarf, if they don't already

2) Children are asked to stay after school to pray in the front if they can.

3)Each student is required to give 10 dalasi for a marabou to come and "cleanse" the school

4) They also bought some kind of purple liquid in a water bottle to sprinkle on the girls while they are possessed. What it's supposed to do, I'm not sure...

And they wonder why it's still happening...

Last week they brought another possessed girl into the office I was sitting on, threw the purple devil water onto her hair and held her down while she screamed. She calmed down after a while but then all of the teachers had to leave to teach and I was left alone in this tiny office with this girl. By the time the teachers left she had resorted to sitting on the ground, hugging her knees, rocking, with her head scarf covering her face...old lady in "The Others"-ish. I sat as far away from her as possible, which was only like 4 feet away, peeking at her from behind my book, trying not to pee myself from being so scared. The teachers came back eventually and sent her home, but I think that hour of my life has scarred me forever.

So, being one of the three female staff members at my school, I spend most of my time sitting in an office with a bunch on young male soccer-obsessed Gambian teachers listening to them talk/argue about Gambian footbal. I throw in the occasional comment, that for a while had them believing I knew something about football. But now, I'm pretty sure they are onto me. They also assume that I don't speak much Mandinka, and I have yet to correct them because listening to them when they think I cannot understand them is more fun. I guess eventually I'll have to tell them...or maybe not.

Every Monday and Friday morning before class starts there is an assembly. They line all 1,000 students up by class, in the sun, not moving, facing us, and we sit on benches in the shade, facing them. There is usually one teacher each week who has to give the hour long assembly speech. I guess the point is to inspire the children to be better students, but no one listens. They just stare at me with their mouths open. I sit there and look around until I lock eye contact with one who doesn't look away and then have stare-offs. Some of the topics of the teacher's speeches have been: not having older friends because they will make you smoke cigarettes, the school motto (who knew we even had one??), blindness, the fact that smoking marijuana will make your face fat, if their parents don't iron their uniforms than their parents don't love them (this was said literally word for word)...I could tell you more but my focus on these speeches is usually interrupted when the first student faints. Yes, they start dropping like flies if the teachers are really getting into their talk and they are standing there longer than an hour. And this happens EVERY WEEK. I think when its my turn, my assembly speech will be on the importance of not locking your knees to avoid fainting.

The school uniforms are lavender checkered button up shirts and lavender skirts/shorts. Yea, I thought it was a joke too...they look too damn cute though.

Science club meeting. But check out those sweet

uniforms!!

I think my new biggest enemy in The Gambia may be Mr. Ceesay. He is one of the teachers at my school who, on the first day of work asked me to sponsor his son who wants to go to America to become a doctor. I played dumb because I wasnt completely sure that he was really asking me to do that, but looking back he totally was. Later, I guess just to make sure that he would never have my respect, he called me a "white lady" and a "toubab" to my face in a staff meeting. At the time I was so mad that I couldn't say anything, luckily a few teachers had my back and told him that he was being unprofessional, disrespectful, and that that my name isn't toubab etc etc...but I really wish I had thought of something at the time to put him in his place. Ever since that first day I have just ignored him whenever he approaches me because all he ever has to talk about it money. But no, me completely ignoring him doesn't deter him. He just finds someone near me and talks to them loudly about how he needs medicine or new clothes but its too expensive and he wishes he could get some money from someone...and then looks over and stares at me. I should start asking him to sponsor Alice, who is at Carolina working on her PhD, so she can become a doctor. Or ask him for money so I can have some new dresses made, or money for a plane ticket back to America.

So I have two counterparts. One is Mr. Gomez, who is the main teacher I have been working with. The other is Mr Nyassi, the head of the science department who I have been working on science club with. The other day I met with Mr. Nyassi to discuss experiments for that days meeting and I sat down at his desk to wait for him to finish teaching and I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. Yes, my friends, it was yet another goddamn spider. This time though, it was in a petri dish, but it was one of the biggest I've seen so far. Oh, and guess where he found it...under a desk. A DESK! So I had to sit at that desk for the rest of the day, praying that it wouldn't lift the lid off of the dish...which it was clearly capable of.Mr. Nyassi and his new friend

I finally got fed up not doing anything, and have been working really hard at coming up with sustainable project ideas and starting to put them to work. It's been harder than I thought. The Peace Corps staff wasn't kidding when they said that things happen slower here. Every step I take forward I come across ten new problems that have to be worked out. Some days have been incredibly frustrating. The school already has a bunch of great programs and ideas in action, but they need help improving them, and when I try and talk to the head person about it, my ideas are all shot down because no one wants to work more or harder than they have to. But slowly I am making progress. These are the ideas and projects I have been working on so far:

--Math and Science Peer Tutoring program. Math and science are definitely the biggest challenges for students here and teachers usually cannot stay after to tutor them because they have jobs where they work second shift at other schools so my solution to this was to train the smartest students in the areas of math and science and have them stay after and tutor the students who are struggling. I have gotten so far as training the tutors. Mr. Gomez and I have come across quite a few problems so far, problems that I would have never imagined coming up, which I wont go into here, but together we have been able to work around them as best we can.

I think this program, which has been named Students Teaching Students Association (named by the tutors), will after a few terms, be a great program for the school that many students will be able to benefit from.

--I have been working with Mr. Nyassi to make the science club stronger. Before, he was basically just lecturing over things that they didn't have enough time to talk about in class. I'm trying to develop experiments that relate to things they have talked about in class, which is harder said and done taking into consideration that they have no lab, no electricity, no running water, no funds to work with, I've also been trying to plan field trips to places like the butcher shop, the MRC- british medical research center, or the Makasuta wildlife reserve.

--Mr. Gomez and I came up with the idea of making a science experiment manual using only local resources and maybe having it distributed to other schools. We haven't started on this one yet, it's been done before, but he says that he has some new ideas for a better manual. I think this idea has a lot of potential, but we'll see what happens.

--I've also been trying to make a teaching aid closet for the science teachers. I have yet to see a teacher using any kind of teaching aid at this school, the walls are bare concrete and they don't really even have the materials to make them if they wanted to. So I've talked the principal into using some of their funds to buy materials, but he told me I would have to go to the market to try and price everything. Yes, excellent idea, send the toubab who is usually charged triple for everything...and that's if I can even find it. I cant wait. The teaching aids I have made so far took hours. Try drawing an amoeba on a shitty piece of paper with an almost dried up dry-erase marker and then find it crumpled up under a desk the next day and welcome to my life.

Abby: Just spent the last hour convincing Gambians that there are no roads in the sky for planes to travel on...I wish I'd made up an elaborate lie about the mechanisms and history of skyways.

Trish: I've started talking to the frogs in my backyard

Abby: Race. First person to text me back with translation of "big African trouser" gets a cold coke the next time we are in Kombo

Jessica: Some of the topics grouped together in the English course syllable my principal gave me: space travel, bumsters, and sports.

Jessica: I cant wait to teach about the former footballer who becomes a prostitute on mars.

Mr. Gomez (my counterpart): Hi, how was your trip to the peace corps office. I will not be able to make it tomorrow becos I was to relax and take my drugs, we will get in touch, bye for now

Abby: Got scratchy finger from my neighbor and colleague...for real??

[A few days later...]

Abby:Dude, the scratchy finger guy came over with a sure fire way for me to accept his advances. He asked why my big stomach was going away. Oh. my. god.

Jay: A hilarious turn of events occurred when I meant to say "I served lunch for peace corps" and it came out "I served peace corps for lunch"

Samantha: I can feel my skin burning already. I must be getting close to the church...

Samantha: Church was church-like. I'm not saved, maybe next time.

Trish: Got invited to a wedding, the man's wife had come. So I went...she's a Swiss toubab! The whole party circled up when we met. I think it blew their minds that 2 toubabs from toubabadoo couldn't speak to each-other!

Mr. Gomez: Hi! How is the cool

Abby: PMS at home means Chipotle and dairy queen. PMS in Kombo means ice cream and oreos. PMS in village means and entire can of baked beans.

Samantha: New costume idea! Zombie apparentie...I fell off the top of the gelly and was then run over by a donkey cart! Thoughts?

Samantha: and I figure if I get enough I can start trying to collect passe from everyone in the form of alcohol...

TobaskiRAM: WIN free tobaski Rams from Africell, recharge D100 card everyday and get the chance to win daily rams for free!!

Abby: Handwriting practice today featured writing this sentence ten times: I am tall and black.

Jay: Right now I am reading a feminine oriented mystery. Dry times call for desperate measures!

Abby: I got a package from my aunt yesterday that was awesome in almost every way, but also slightly bewildering...in that it contained 2 gravy packets...one chicken and one brown. I wonder if she knows I've never used those in America, and have rare opportunity to do so in Africa...she is from Kentucky though, so gravy is a necessary part of her life.

Dylan: I just watched a lady wrap a sandwich in a [piece of paper with a] labeled diagram of a vagina.

Julie: Girl, I just saw a naked lady walking amongst the people while waiting for a ride in Westfield

Casey: Oh man, old singing beggar just got trumped by old blind singing beggar. That's embarassing.

Me: Nothing like a good old fashioned beg-off to start your day.

Casey: Too true. Who wants to actually get on the gelly when you can stand behind the coin clankers crowding around the door for a chance at 3 Dalasi.

Abby: I'm checking lesson plans and schemes of work today...Favorite quote: "skripple on the slap" Oh Africa...

Jessica: I just realized I'd be way more excited about family bonding if we ate cookies four times a day instead of drinking attaya. I love cookies.

Dylan: Maybe Larium does have an effect on the brain. I just had a train of thought that ended with me gazing into the sky wondering, with the slowed speed of news here, if space aliens destroyed Jupiter and we saw it wink out from here, if we could find out what happened before those aliens came for Earth. Then there was a really cool, really long shooting star!

Me: Nice! But once you start seeing those aliens let me know. I will be on the first gelly to your village to bring you back to Dr. Mike.

Dylan: Much appreciated! The doxy-mobile offers nonstop service.

Abby: I just got this text from I have no idea who...U are A fren, an advisor, a colleague dat aspire to many youth, a person hu love humanity at heart, a person hu alwas wana c his o her colleagues prospering. More over u are d best out of d rest. have a pleasant nite.

Casey: Reading the science lab safety rules. #3: No horse in the laboratory.

Me: One of the science teachers found a giant spider UNDER HIS DESK and has decided to leave it in a jar in the office I'm in all day.

Jay: Dont hate on the arachnate.

Last Thursday I agreed to accompany my host mother to a naming ceremony in the nearby village of Yundum. Now, up to this point, the only other naming ceremony I have attended had been my own, which only lasted about 2 hours... ohhh little did I know. So naming ceremonies are a celebration of a newborn baby where it is named and prayed over by the community. There is always lots of dancing and delicious food and people usually give the family gifts and money for the baby. A family will spend as much, if not more, than they can afford on these lavish celebrations. My host mother had told me the day before that we would leave by 10am. So by 2 pm we were on our way. My host mother, younger sister Mama (8), and I caught a gely to Yundum, about 30 minutes away. We arrived and I spent about an hour and a half greeting people. They are always surprised when a toubab speaks their language so I was getting "a mandinka ka moy" (she mandinka does hear aka you speak mandinka) left and right and was feeling quite flattered and brilliant. Then some random evil woman came up and decided that she wants to test my Mandinka. I kept up with her for a good three minutes, throwing back appropriate answers and responses in Mandinka. But then she began talking too fast, using too many word fusions for anyone who has been "studying" the language for not even 4 months to understand. The same thoughts as always were running through my head...did she just say monkey, or spoon?...what the hell does hakilidiyaa mean??...shes making word up now, I know it!! and while I am thinking and processing this jumble of unfamiliar syllables she announces to everyone that I, in-fact, cannot hear Mandinka. It's funny how that works here, usually greeting someone correctly is enough for them to be impressed, but for others, the first time you say something incorrect or are confused they brush you off as just another toubab who cannot speak the language.

So after the greetings I was brought into the families house to eat. They sat my host mother, Mama, and I down on the floor and brought out a food bowl. I had low expectations for the food, guessing it would probably be the same disgusting rice, fish, and palm oil that everyone here seems to love, but NO!!! She took off the lid of the bowl and I swear its contents were glowing with a chorus of angels singing from through the corrugated tin above our heads. It was chakrey, probably my favorite local food, one that I am sure I will miss when I leave here but I do not get it often because for some reason, Gambians do not feel that dairy is important in their diet at all. It is very simple, just homemade plain yogurt with a pile of coos in the middle, but it is absolutely amazing (something that cannot be said for most things here). So I ate more chakrey than any person should ever consume in one sitting, impressing my host mother who likes to tell me that her plan is to make me so fat that my mother wont recognize me when I go back to America. Being fat is a good thing here, but it still horrifies me every-time she says it. Her plan isn't working so far, but if she starts feeding me chakrey everyday, its a definite possibility. We then sat around in a room with about twenty people and watched a bollywood movie dubbed over in German. After that they put in a 2 hour long VHS of Jelibah in concert ( he is a famous Mandinkan Kora player who lives in Brikama next to Samantha) which was pretty entertaining...and then they put in another one, and then yet another. During the videos I would look around the room, everyone was gazing at me, not the TV, to see my reaction to their idol, Jelibah...so I tried my best to look pleasantly entertained for FOUR HOURS. So around 9pm my host mother decided it is FINALLY time to go home and as we're leaving and feeling relieved, a young guy wearing Western clothes approaches. He greets my host mother and picks up Mama and swings her around, obviously someone very close to the family. He is introduced as my host mothers son, which means he is either her actual son or her nephew on her sisters side, yes its confusing. Their family systems are completely different. Your mother's sister is also your mother, but your fathers sister is your aunt. Your fathers brother is also your father but your mothers brother is your uncle...and this is the easy differences to understand. So anyway, then comes the inevitable being hit on by my creepy brother/uncle/cousin/ etc, where they tell me that that they love me in Mandinka and ask if I will become one of their wives. I usually play dumb and act like I don't know what they are saying, but there is ALWAYS someone there to translate it (but never when there is something that i need and do not know the word for it) and then make me as uncomfortable as possible. That's when I usually pull the George card and tell them that my boyfriend back home in America probably wouldn't like it if I got married, but he could be my second boyfriend, they usually start giggling and I walk away before they have the chance to actually agree to it.

We walked back out to the main road to catch a Gely back to Brikama. I'm not usually scared on the gelys, no matter how much they look like they might break in half if they go over 15 mph, but this ride was terrifying. I was packed into the seat right next to the door that kept opening whenever we went over a bump. I think Mama was just as scared for me as I was, she was sitting on her mothers lap with a firm grip on my arm so I wouldn't fall out of the Gely. We finally made it home, but not before I agreed to go to Pirang the next day after school to meet my host mothers extended family. So The next day, when I came home from work around 1pm, we caught another gely and began the horrible ride to Pirang. It an incredibly hot day, my feet were right over something under the car that was making my sandals melt, but I couldn't move my legs because gelys are built for the comfort of passengers who are all under 4 ft tall, AND I had Mama on my lap, and a stranger pressed on one side of me who was literally dripping sweat on my arm. When we arrived in Pirang an hour later, I threw Mama out of the gely and basically dove out myself. We walked to my grandmothers compound. She looked like she was 115, but was probably 60. Of course, she was sitting there topless. So we sat on her porch for the next 8 hours greeting family member after family member, neighbor after neighbor, random person after random person, and whoever else decided to come by. My favorite part of the day was whenever some local village kid would come by and toubab me or ask for a minti, my host grandmother would jump down from the porch, topless and all, hunched over, and chase them around the compound with her cane raised in the air. The second best part of the day was that someone decided to let Mama drink attaya, the drink of Gambia, a very potent, strong green tea that has about an equal amount of water as sugar and is full of caffeine. They do this very rarely but when they do it is hilarious. Usually fairly quiet, she turns into a whirlwind of Mandinka chatter. I sat there and watched her literally run around in circles for half an hour, all the while talking a mile a minute in Mandinka, knowing completely that I had no clue what she was saying. I think that day in Pirang alone, I received 7 confessions of love and marriage proposals...all from relatives. Once we finally get back to the Brikama car park late that night, my host mother decided that she wanted to catch a gely home instead of the 30ish minute walk in the dark. Now she speaks less English than I do Mandinka, but she did know how to say “take care of your bag” in English. I was confused by what she meant but I soon found out why she said that. To get into a gely to Sera Kunda that late at night we had to fight our way into a gely. Every time one would pull into the car park, the crowd of people trying to get to Sera Kunda would all be pushing and shoving to get into that one gely. Once again Mama is in her mothers arms, but holding onto my arm yelling "Sali! Sali" with a look of worry on her face that was too cute for words. The three of us finally battle our way into a gely and get dropped off on our street. Thinking about the fact that I was actually surprised that my cell phone and wallet were still in my purse, I promised myself that I will NEVER go into the Brikama carpark at night ever again.As we were walking down our street, I remembered that I was out of bleach to put into my drinking water. So we stopped at a bitik. I do not know the Mandinka word for bleach, Mama and my host mother do not speak any English, so it made for an interesting time trying to explain to the bitik owner what I needed. I couldn't tell them that I put bleach in my water or they would probably think I was crazy, so the words that I knew to explain it were: it comes in a bottle, for washing clothes. They of course had no idea what it was that I wanted so the store owner let me come back behind the counter to look for what I wanted, something no bitik owner would have ever let me do, but my host mother can be pretty intimidating. So I go back there, rustle around, with everyone watching and couldn't find bleach anywhere. But then, as I stand up, I see a gorgeous poster of bleach on the bitik wall. I ran over to the poster and shouted "ning! ning! N lafita ning!" this! this! I want this! so I got my bleach and the three of us happily walked home, me the happiest of all after surviving two days of intense cultural immersion...surviving with nothing worse than a common cold from sharing food bowls with collectively around 30 people and a few new fiancees.

A few days ago I was sitting on my porch, chatting with Ida, my 22 year old neighbor who just happens to be a Gambian college student, and also a feminist. Out of nowhere she looks over at me and says ''You know, people in Brikama say that there are devils that live in that giant baobab tree at your school and they come out once a year and attack the girls in your school. Usually just the fair-skinned ones. The girls will fall down at school and start screaming and then they are fine, but the devils follow them home and only the girl can see them." She pauses and looks over at me. I'm sitting there with my mouth wide open, staring at her, thinking 'where the hell did that come from?? Is she trying to scare me?' I ask her if she believes that's it's really "devils" making these girls have fits or if she thinks it could possibly be something else, like ohhhh say...maybe they don't want to be at school and they are faking it? And this girl, one of the most educated women in the Gambia, tells me that she thinks it is real. One example of how superstitious Gambians can be.

The day before yesterday, I went to school, completely haven forgotten about the conversation which can be attributed to my unbelievable lack of memory. I wandered into a random office, as usual, to find a teacher to talk to. There is not really much for me to do at work because I am currently in my three month challenge and will be for 2 more months. This means that I am not supposed to leave Brikama so I can build relationships in my community and get to know my workplace. We are also advised not to start any big projects. SO I have been going to school and talking to the teachers, trying to learn how the school works, attending meetings, and sometimes observing them teach. Its been really hard for me to go there every day with nothing to do, I have been feeling unproductive, although I know that my future work cannot really start until I have the trust and respect of the teachers I will be working with. So sitting around just talking has been my work so far. Anyway, the day before yesterday, tired of feeling useless I walked up to every teacher I saw and told them all that I would be sitting in the office, doing nothing, willing to help anyone make teaching aids if they come. After sitting in the office for about 2 hours alone, teacher and teaching aid-less, Mr. Gomez (my counterpart) walked in bearing construction paper and a few mostly dried-out, black dry erase markers. I was fairly sure the only reason he came was because he felt sorry for me sitting in there alone, but I didn't care, I was THRILLED to finally have something to contribute and so excited to get something/anything done!! He sat down and we started drawing a frog diagram together. Twenty minutes later and right in the midst of telling him the importance of making the teaching-aid hands on and interactive for the students, his ears perk up and he says "do you hear that?" Side note: Gambians have superb hearing, something I will always be jealous of. I didn't hear anything, of course. But he got up, looking concerned, and started walking to the door with me following behind. We walked out and I hear it. A girl screaming at the top of her lungs. We were on the third floor of the block building so we're leaning over looking into the courtyard-ish area to see what was going on. The screaming and sobbing got louder and louder and I see a teacher and three male students carrying out a girl student who looked like she was having a seizure, thrashing around, limbs flailing, eyes wide open, and most shocking of all...knees revealed. They carried her into the principals office and shut the door. Mr. Gomez and I just stood there staring for a few moments and then he asked me if I knew what was going on. I told him yes, but he went ahead and told me the same story Ida had told me a few days ago, but that it had started the day before. I had been at home sick that day so I had no idea and no one had bothered to tell me. The muffled screaming continued out of the principals office but the teachers resumed teaching and we went back into the office to keep working. Not even five minutes pass, and it happens again, I see students running to see what's going on and it's another girl. Same screaming and thrashing fits. Teachers were carrying her into the principals office also. By this point I think that the female students started getting really scared and started running toward the gate to leave. Chaos ensued. Students running around everywhere. The principal came out of his office and told all of the girls to go home, but for the boys to stay. So girls AND boys all start running home, so he ended up closing school altogether for the day. As the students were leaving in a huge stampede, another girl falls to the ground and starts convulsing. The teachers run out and grab her and pull her into the principals office too. I stayed after with all of the teachers. I could see the girls in the office laid out on the floor clawing at it, still screaming, kicking, and flailing about. The principal called the town Imam who came and saw the girls, I wasn't allowed in the room, but they are all open air rooms with holes cut out of the cement for air ventilation and I could see him in some kind of exorcism-like stance, arm outstretched, palm out, eyes closed, face turned away, muttering something...that ended up not working. He came out and was talking to the teachers in Wolof, another local language. I asked the woman next to me what he was saying and she said that from watching their behavior, he thinks that some are faking but he isn't sure about all of them. Since there are no ambulances here, a few taxi drivers were called and came to take the girls to the health clinic, where I am told they received shots...for who knows what. Again they had to be carried by 3 grown men into the taxi because the kicking still wasn't letting up. Can you imagine being that cab driver who has to take the possessed girl to the health clinic? No thank you.

Whether or not these 'devils' are real, I don't know...they were pretty convincing and everyone around me is taking it seriously. I'm nervous that all of the girls are going to stop coming to my school or that Kabafita will get a bad reputation. My host mother already transfered out Mariama, my host sister, to another school nearby. School was canceled for the rest of the week and there is a meeting tonight for the community to I suppose to discuss devil irradiation strategies. I hope they figure something out. I would love to get back to my teaching aids.

It figures that the first time I start to do something meaningful and productive, I am interupted by possessed children...this is the best job ever.

Just a couple more, for your pleasure:

Abby: This is a paraphrased passage from a teachers manual. What!?...Two dudes were traveling down a muddy road. Coming around a bend they met a lovely girl in an ultra mini skirt and a half shirt, unable to cross the intersection. One lifted her into his arms and carried her over the mud. When they reached the mosque that night, one said, we don't go near females. Especially young and lovely ones. Its dangerous. Why did you do that? The other says, I left the girl there. Am I still carrying her?

Julie: All students are taking a break in the day for a faculty meeting, but we are really just roasting corn while students run wild.

Julie: I even had to sign a paper agreeing that this is a faculty meeting! I have already had 2 cobs of corn!

Lily: O my god. I think the mosque moved the speaker to my roof. When it started I jumped about 3 feet in the air. Its so loud

Jessica: I just put in School of Rock... I hate being the one who picks the movie at the stodge [PC transit house] because people just walk in and out for two hours judging your choice

Responses to a text I sent out telling everyone that my neighbor told me that there are ghost devils that live in a tree in my school that come out and attack the fair skinned girls once a year...and that I was screwed because I am literally the fairest of them all, being the only white person in a school of 1400. So since my life was about to turn into a made for TV horror movie, the only question left is what should the title be?? These were some of the responses:

Dylan: Sweaty Sheets

Samantha: `Toubab and the Kabafita Curse` a story of a strong minded young woman and her peppy friends who came to Brikama to teach science and math, but who soon realized Kabafita was about to teach them a lesson of their own that they would soon not forget...and I think it will have an underlying moral story about how you should always sponsor young Gambian doctors to go to America. This is obv the only way to break the curse that the ghost puts on you.

Marnie: Native Haunting?

Abby: Scary Movie TWO-bob!!

Lily: Toubab Row? a not so clever play on sorority row

and my favorite...Jessica: The Tourtured Toubab

Abby: Have you ever heard a Gambian fart?

Abby:I was just sitting here in the dark thinking about how Ive never heard a Gambian fart! What are you doing?

Dylan: The med unit will issue you a product similar to GoldBond if you ask on the refill request form...and its TINGLEICIOUS!!!

Abby: Someone stole my friends bike. In response, he said `I will go to the maribou and he will not urinate for 3 days. Then he will die.` The Gambian justice system at its best.

Dylan: What would you do right now for a BigMac, a large fries, Heinz ketchup, and an ice filled soda so huge and with such a wide straw that you can take great frozen tongue biting gulps between handfuls of crisp-sweet-salty-savory fries...and now I'm really hungry.

Me: What would I do? I would probably walk all the way to your village and STRANGLE you for making me think of such things!

Julie: Went on my daily 2 hour bike ride this evening only to get soaked half way through- imagine the show I put on crossing into town in a sheer tee and shorts stuck to the tops of my ghostly thighs-particularly as school lets out.

**sorry for weird punctuation, or lack of punctuation. I am on a french computer where everything is moved around...it took me ten minutes to find the @ sign, after that i just gave up...if i couldn't find it, its just not going to be there.

Adjusting to a new site over the first few weeks inevitably put us in some uncomfortable, and looking back, pretty funny situations. Here are just a few of the texts I received from my fellow volunteers over the first two weeks at site that kept me laughing, and therefore sane...

Julie [some time around midnight]: I am going to be the one that dies on the pit latrine during a thunder and lightning rain storm, but I cant hold it anymore!

Abby: Dude, all of our language and culture training was a sham. I just saw an ancient woman, whose lived in the Gambia her whole life, swipe a baby's butt clean with her RIGHT hand.

Me: So I went to the neighbors house last night to charge my phone and I ended up watching Mexican soap operas while they fed me almonds and coconut...who would have thought.

Julie: Sounds delicious! I, on the other hand, go to the small comium power plant, a 3 man operation, where each wears an orange vest, brews attaya, and asks about my husband- whose name changes each time I visit. All part of the fun!

Leah: So desperate for protein that you stuff boiled eggs in your mouth like you're at a hot-dog eating contest? Try this! I found out that liquid magi (MSG) and boiled eggs are as close to a mouths orgasm as you can get!

Julie: My principal demands that all students be at school by 9 tomorrow with their knives! Forget the zero tolerance policy. Tomorrow we will harvest the school farm of course.

Samantha [after telling me she has been sick]: I'm on the gele gele. Such a pain...but at least I feel ok with being this far from a bathroom lol. Africa makes you appreciate the small things.

Julie: That's right, I have been on a gele gele for close to an hour now with my knees hanging out the back door, and the apprentice on the back ladder, only releasing my grip now to text as we sit at a check point!

Me: I just walked out into my pit latrine and a frog jumped onto my head!

Lucia: The question is-did the frog try and kiss you and hope for a visa to America??

Julie [referring to the bottle of coke she was saving for a special occasion]: Enough! I am drinking this coke hot, although I kind of feel like the kind of alcoholic we learned about in training who sits alone in the dark of their hut and drinks!

Julie: We have stopped the school day to go to the school farm to save it from monkeys!

Julie: Grab your knives!

Julie: And I just managed to send the last message about knives not only to Abby, but to Alpha too!! [Alpha the stoic, never cracks a smile, PC staff member in charge of our security]

So I left work today, and wandered around Brikama in the rain trying to find the internet cafe in which I am sitting now. The internet is annoyingly slow and I have nothing to do but try not to make eye contact with all of the teenage boys sitting in here singing along to whatever reggae song is blaring on the radio and grinning creepily at me. Yes! I finally made it to Brikama and it's been ok so far. I guess I knew that I would be confused, lost, and overwhelmed again, like I was when I first arrived in The Gambia, but I didn't think about how having so much more free time would make those feelings that much more intense. I have more time right now than I know what to do with. SO here I am. In an internet cafe with all the time in the world to tell you a few of the hilarious stories from training. Here goes...

When I first arrived at Dibba Kunda, my new home in Madiana, I spoke enough Mandinka to greet the family...and that is it. They, on the other hand, spoke absolutely NO English. I walked into the compound and the first thing that happened was Caddy, my youngest sister, took one look at me, eyes widened, and she started screaming. Yes, she was scared of me. Maybe terrified is the right word. Next my host father pulled a plastic chair out of the house and sat me down in it. The family, along with about 30 children sat across from me and stared....and stared, and stared, and stared. This went on for about 2 hours, no exaggeration. No speaking, just wide-eyes staring. So what would anyone do when they have so much attention on them, but entertain. So entertain I did. I started to cry. Yes, cry. It was my first of many "what the hell am I doing here" moments I would have...but this time I just happened to be making a first impression on about 40 people who would come to know me as the strangest person they had ever known.

The night of the world cup, Julie, Trish, Abby, Dylan, and I decided to try and get into the video club to watch the game. We pay 5D to get into this "video club" which was no more than a small tv set with a poorly working satellite, in a dark sauna-like cave packed with about 35 sweaty Gambians lined up on benches. Although we only saw about 10 minutes total of the game due to a torrential rain storm...and even though I had to run to Abby's hut to use her pit latrine every ten minutes due to a recent fight between my GI system and the local food, it was totally worth it. Gambians LOVE football and they LOVE taunting each other. So as I said before, there was a huge storm outside (just a sprinkle by Gambian standards), it was getting dark and I was starting to worry. I had waited too long for the rain to stop to walk home, and by then it had gotten dark. Walking home in the dark is never an option here. So I'm sitting there flipping out, wondering how I will get home, and some random man comes into the video club yelling my name and telling me to go outside. I walk outside and my host mother is standing there barefooted, with her skirt tied up around her knees, with the biggest umbrella I have ever seen, tisking and shaking her head at me. She had come into the village looking for me, found me at the video club, and gave me one of those looks that made me feel like I was in high school again, and had just been caught sneaking out. The entire way back, we are walking in mud up to our calves, water rushing down the flooded streets, and she has one of my hands because its so dark that the only time anything is visible is during the giant flashes of lightning. Why one of those lightning bolts didn't hit the car sized umbrella my host mother had over our heads? who knows. After this my host family decided I wasn't allowed to stay out past 7pm...and I was perfectly fine with it.

We had language class everyday on Babboucar's front porch, but for lunch everyday we met up with the other Mandinka language group in Madiana under a gigantic mango tree behind Bakarey's compound. Even at the slightest breeze, 10 or so mangoes would fall out of the tree and slam onto the ground. We decided after the first day that lunch would have to be eaten with our bike helmets on.

Part of training was in an EcoLodge in a neighboring village called Yuna. The ecolodge was great. It had running water, electricity at night, food that didn't make us sick, fans over our beds, and the best of all...a pool. I would fantasize about swimming in that pool whenever we were in Madiana sweating our asses off allllll day long. There was one catch though. The pool had GIANT swimming cockroaches the size of your thumb. And not only were they speedy swimmers, they would swim right to you and bite a chunk out of your arm/leg/ass. Eventually we would have one person sitting on the edge of the pool keeping a lookout for the roaches to warn when one was coming near...not that I was ever fast enough to get away. I guess there's always a price to pay.

I was sitting in the front yard of my compound with my sisters one day when I met Madiana's number 1 rapper!! (according to him). He was wearing a cutoff bumster tank (mesh colors of the Gambian flag) which ended right below his chest. I had no idea what he was saying, but it seemed to rhyme so I told him it was good and I really liked his style. Then he asked me for a record deal.

One morning I woke up and walked to class and noticed a different air around the village. The children were all subdued and I wasn't toubabed even once! As the day went on I started noticing swollen, pink, bleary eyes. And this was the beginning of the Madiana Pink Eye Endimic of '10. I would venture to say that every child in my village had pink eye and had no problems grabbing at me with their little disgusting infected hands. A few weeks later, when the sticky eye lids went away and I still hadn't gotten the pink eye, I KNEW, for once in my life, I could say that I really, truly lucked out.

Every morning my host father would bring me an entire loaf of bread with either butter or mayo for breakfast. One guess as to which one I always hoped for in the morning. If I was lucky I would also get a cold boiled potato..yum. So along with that he would also bring me a thermos of tea with about a pound of sugar. I swear a Gambian would trade their baby for a bag of sugar of equal weight...they LOVE sugar. So, I would always give back half of the bread and most of the sugar because the last thing I want to leave here with is diabetes. After about 2 weeks of this my host father called my language teacher over one day and told him that he thought something was wrong with me because I wasn't eating all of the bread and using all of the sugar. This was just the beginning of our relationship. Almost everything I did made him think I was sick. By the time I left I think he was finally starting to realize that I was not sick...just weird.

One day Julie, another trainee in Madiana, said she saw a bus full of white tourists driving through village in bucket seats, taking pictures of the children and throwing out candy at them. Julie said that she froze up in confusion as they drove by but then started running after the bus yelling "I FELL OUT, COME BACK!! I FELL OUT!!"

The medical training we had was pretty impressive. They showed us pictures of scary worm parasites, ridiculous skin infections, swollen limbs, rashes, that other volunteers had contracted. They taught us about malaria and schiztomiosis for hours on end. We learned more than we could ever want to know about our poop. But one day topped it all. First, we all had to stand around a table and practice making a malaria blood smear slide (for the future when we are in village and think we have malaria but cannot get to the medical office). All 16 of us stood around the table eying the gleaming razors, cotton balls, and each other. I'm not scared of blood or razors or needles or what have you, but that was not a fun experience by any means. Right after that we had the peace corps "sex-talk" which again, included more statistics and pictures that I never would have ever wanted to see. Then, as if we hadn't been humiliated enough since we arrived, they made us get up one at a time and practice putting a condom on a gigantic black prosthetic penis. Awesome.

One of the days I was sick of falling off my bike, I decided to walk to class. On the way back home a nice young man named decided to keep me company the entire way back. He told me that his name was Sinney but everyone around this neighborhood knew him as "Diamond"....really Diamond.

So the weekly malaria prophylaxis has given me the scariest, most vivid dreams of my life. I would have them the three nights after I take the medicine. They are always dreams that take place where I am in real life, usually in my bed, in my hut, under my mosquito net. So how scary is this: I would dream that I would wake up and see a little African girl standing in my doorway just staring at me and then I would ask her who she was. The other dream is me seeing a little black baby crawling into my bed. I would finally "wake up" standing outside of my bed flipping out, and the only way I would be able to tell that it wasn't a dream was that it was too dark to be able to see anything in the room. Buuuuut I guess having mentally scarring dreams is better than contracting malaria right??

From the first day on I noticed two things here that you see everywhere in America, but NEVER together. Children + knives. Everywhere. Everywhere I would look I would see some toddler, who can barely walk, wielding a gigantic machete. I would cringe, look the other way and see a 5 year old running around with a knife in her mouth. I would go home and see my youngest sister sucking on a razor or Bodo peeling a mango with a dull rusty knife. I have yet to see one of the children impaled by one of their many knives so I still think it's pretty funny. I was thinking of making a picture book while I'm here entitled "Children With Knives". Thoughts??

For the rest of my life, I will never take for granted waking up or falling asleep to silence. Every night here I fall asleep to the sounds of rats crawling around in my ceiling, crying babies, frogs, crickets, and the neighbors staticky radio that is turned up way too loud. Every morning I wake up to roosters, the 5:30am prayer calls, donkeys, and the ever soothing sound of the women pounding rice right outside of my window.

If you have been reading my blog I'm sure you have figured out that I have a natural, healthy fear of spiders in the US, which is amplified here by the size of Gambian spiders...and the fact that they are EVERYWHERE. So I have many Caroline vs. Gambian Spider stories, but I will limit myself to boring you with only two:

The second night in training village I had eaten dinner around 9pm with my family and decided to go back into my hut. I open the door with my flashlight and begin to enter. I see something the size of a shoe go scurrying across the floor. I didn't see where it went so I took a deep breath and considered sleeping outside in a tree far far from whatever it was I saw crawling across my floor, but decided that I should just forget what I saw and run to my bed and tuck myself into my mosquito net as tight as I could get it. As I walk back in...I see it...creeping out of the shadows. I shine my light on it and it starts running RIGHT. AT. ME. I had heard about these demon spiders before. Some of you may know them as camel spiders. Apparently, in Iraq they chew on American soldiers toes while they are sleeping at night. Whether or not this is true, I didn't care at the moment. I had a kitten sized spider chasing me in circles around my hut!!! I finally let the fear of it crawling up my leg go and I stop, let it catch up, and stomp the shit out of it. I couldn't even clean it up that night, I was still so scared of it. I later learned that it wasn't actually chasing me, but it was chasing my shadow to get out of the light. At the time, knowing the word for spider (talingo) would have made all the difference in my new families opinion of my sanity, or lack there of. But still to this day, I'm sure they are talking about that crazy toubab who lived with them, who they once saw running in circles around her hut for no reason.

The other time didn't actually involve a spider. Again it was pitch black outside. I was walking into my hut with my host aunt, Ami. This time training was coming to a close and Ami knew well enough the way I react when I see a spider. So we are walking up the stairs and at the same moment we both see it...something streak across my screen door. I literally jump into her arms. She is laughing and tells me she will take care of the talingo. I run away listening to her going to town on it with her sandal. I hear a long silence and Ami says " that was not a spider". I walk over and there laid a smashed salamander. Oh the guilt.

One of my favorite parts of every day was when I would come home in the afternoon and I would wait outside with my host sisters for their mother to come home from working in the bush all day. She would bring us THE most amazing fruit called folee. They are tiny ping pong sized fruit that you peel and eat. They taste like war-heads. Really sweet on the outside and super sour on the inside. We would sit outside and watch the sun set eating the folee...me spitting the pits at the children (which they loved btw).

I have found that relationships here in The Gambia between the genders, are something completely different. It's impossible to be only friendly with a man of the same age without giving him the wrong idea. I learned my lesson within the first month. Babboucarr, a 25ish year old, living in my language teacher's host compound (his name is also Baboucarr) would follow me around the village, so I would humor him and talk to him. No flirting, nothing, just talking. After about 2 weeks of this I get a knock at my door one night, open it, and find Baboucarr standing there. He professed his love for me, told me that he wanted to come with me whenever I left for Yuna, etc, etc, etc. He then asked me if he could come into my hut (gasp!). In Gambia, this is their form of asking to have sex. I just looked at him, slammed the door in his face, and went back to bed...but then I had to sit in language class for the rest of training with him staring at me the entire time...

Women praying outside of the Mosque on Koriteh (the holiday marking the last day of Ramadan)

Inside the mosque. This was about 30 minutes before the Koriteh prayers began, the entire Mosque filled completely with the men inside and the women outside.

Washing before praying.

Modu, the transit house manager's, sons in their matching Koriteh clothes.

View of Bakau from a tower in a hotel.

Football on the beach

The fishing boats coming in.

The fishing market.

Bridge through the marsh to the beach in Bakau.

The morning we were supposed to leave for site, we all got up at 5:45am and loaded our bags into different peace corps trucks, hugged goodbye and left for our three month challenge. I was so excited, nervous, and happy to get away from the Stodge, to get to Brikama, to unpack all of my things, to meet my new host family, we took the hour trip down the road and arrived at my new compound. Little did I know...

As we walked in I noticed how gorgeous it was. The last visit had been so short, stressful, and rainy, I don't think I took the time to look around me. This time I did. Gambians aren't known for their appreciation of ascetics. Most compounds look like a dirty pile of rusted corrugated tin, mud blocks, dirty chickens and goats running around, maybe a thatch roof, and usually a trash pile very close by. You get the not-so-pleasant picture. Luckily my new compound is beautiful. There is a real wall surrounding their compound, not just a bunch of twigs tied together, and its painted! There are mango, banana, cashew, and orange trees inside of the compound and a few small beds of corn and other plants I didnt recognize. They have actually planted FLOWERS and bushes, unheard of!! The only people here that I have seen that plant flowers in their compounds are the Rastafarians.

There is a tap in the compound!!! which means no more walking a gigantic 30-40 liter bedong on the seat of my bike to the pump about a 10 minute walk away, then having to pump the water for what seems like forever with 15 wild African children jumping around me (sometimes helping me pump if they started to feel sorry for Salimata and her weak arms). I usually ended up soaking wet from the water and sweat, would throw the bedong on the back of my bike and walk all the way back with the bedong falling off my bike every 6ish steps. All for one days worth of water, maybe two if I take a very frugal bucket bath and have no laundry to do. Every now and then my host sister Ami would follow me to the pump and show up right as I was struggling to lift the bedong onto my bike. She would tisk and take the bedong and easily lift it onto her head like it was empty, walk all the way home with it balanced like that, with me wandering behind her dumbfounded.

My hut doesn't have current (electricity), but it looks like it wants to. There are small holes around the bottom of the hut that are in the shape of an outlet, but it isn't wired. The family that owns the compound does have current in their part so we will have to see if I can talk them into charging my phone for me.

So as I'm wandering around my compound in amazement, I walk over to my hut's door, peek in and find that it looks exactly the same as site visit. Termite hills, lack of pit latrine, and all. Alhig, one of the Peace Corps engineers/drivers (who was trained by NASA btw, but that's a whole other story) looks in and tells me that I can't stay and he's taking me back to the Stodge. Around 5 hours later, after dropping Jessica off at her site, and then Dylan off in Bwiam (off the paved highway), we return to the Stodge and here I am, with nothing to do until the rain stops and they can dig my pit latrine.

I feel like I am wasting time here, but looking at the big picture, I have two years in Brikama, and I should probably appreciate a few more days in Kombo with internet and electricity. So call me!! I have absolutely NOTHING to do until maybe Monday but drink beers, take real showers, redesign my blog, and spend hours washing all of the laundry I have put off for the past month.

To be able to hold the title "Peace Corps Volunteer" we all have to participate in a swear-in at the completion of training. In The Gambia, swear-in is held at the American ambassadors big ass mansion beach house (so jealous). The ceremony was really really nice. As tradition, groups of people who have something in common for special events will buy lots of the same fabric and get different outfits made for everyone in the group using the same fabric. These outfits are called asobi. Asobi is worn here for weddings, by women's kaffos (club), for circumsicion ceremony, etc. It's also tradition for the swear in training group to wear asobi. So we sent 3 people from the group to choose and buy the fabric and we went to our respective tailors and got our Asobi made. I felt kind of weird about being dressed the same as 14 other people, but when we were all together in a larger group of people it was nice to feel part of a smaller group who has grown so close in some of the most intense months of our lives.

So anyway, the ceremony was unexpectedly the quickest and most to the point thing we have done since we arrived in The Gambia. In my opinion, the highlight of those few hours was the swear-in song. A horribily horrible, depressing, funeral dirge-like song that our LCFs made up for us to sing in Mandinka at the ceremony. The song had no fixed tempo or pitch making us sound like a bunch of idiots, especially those of us who were trying to clap to it. I was in the back doubled over laughing too hard to sing the entire time. A few important people gave speeches, Samantha did an impressive speech in Mandinka, which was written by Jessica about our struggles and triumphs in training village.

Later that night the real fun began. Most of the volunteers came into town. The last group to swear in cooked massive amounts of food for us including: bush pig, lasagna, feta cheese salad, perogies, stir fry, sushi, chocolate truffles, and muuuuuch more. They also made cashew liquor cocktails, filled a barrel of palm wine, and gave us buckets and buckets of Jewlbrew. So we hung out, drinking and eating and talking to the volunteers we hadn't met yet. They were all incredibly friendly and happy that we were now volunteers and thus complete people (not just the half-person like while training). Eventually, beer bongs were pulled out and flip cup was played in full force with around 30 people. After we ran out of alcohol we left for the Green Mamba a bar across town. And after that we went to a disco named Aquarius, in Senegambia, and danced the night away with flashing lights, lasers, and a fog machine. We finally left around 3am and took a cab back to the Stodge. I can now officially say I have gotten down in The Gambia and it was aweeeesome.

This morning, on the other hand, was absolute hell. I woke up 4 hours after I had gone to sleep to go shopping for our new sites. They took us to a row of shops on the muddiest, smelliest, hottest, most crowded street in all of Africa. So I spent 4 hours wading around in ankle deep mud and bartering with store owners for things like mattresses, cups, chairs, buckets, and prayer mats. For those of you who know how much I dislike shopping, I have to say shopping in an air-conditioned mall is heaven compared to shopping here, and yes I just put shopping and heaven in the same sentence...

Tomorrow we are all taken to our sites for the three month challenge. That means no leaving site for 3 months, and not really working either. We are supposed to be building relationships within our new family and community and learning more about our workplace. Its going to be hard to not jump right into a project at the school but I can see the point in holding off starting anything too soon. It's incredibly important to asses the schools real needs before starting a project, because the Gambians can tell me all day what they want and what they think they need at the school but if its not really needed and it cannot be sustained by the teachers and students after I leave, than I think it's pretty pointless. So as of now I have no clue what I want to do in the school, I have the general idea of improving the quality of math and science education at the school, but as how to go about doing that and through what projects, I'm going to have to take some time to develop an idea.

So this might be my last update for a while unless the Brikama internet cafes surprise me and I can actually post while I am there (which I seriously doubt). So wish me luck, I am about to have a ton of free time so expect lots of letters from me!! Hopefully I will come our of village in 3 months with dreads, wearing a full Gambian complet, speaking superior Mandinka, drinking water straight out of the pump without filtering and bleaching, and having mastered the Mandinka's ridiculous dance moves.

compliments of the wonderful Kim Taylor, my fellow arachnophobe who understands what its like to battle these monster beasts EVERY. DAY.

(keep in mind that the body of this thing is the size of your palm AHHHH!!!)

Training here is set up so that we are not actually living and training in the village that we will be working in for the following two years. I have been living in a small, rural, poor village called Madianna, about an hour gely-gely ride to Brikama which will be my future permanent site where I will work and live for two years.

For every group, as they get close to the end of training, they are sent to their permanent site for 4 days on what they like to call site visit. We are supposedly visiting our site to meet important people, negotiate meals with our new host families, visit the schools we will be working in and meet with our Gambian supervisors and counterparts.

Again, this was the idea...not what actually happens. I was dropped of at my compound and unloaded my trunk and some of my bags. Excited, I walked into my new hut where I will be living for the next two long years, took a look around and almost start crying. There were termite hills on the floor up to my knees, no screens in the windows or doors (and mosquitoes have a serious thing for me), no pit latrine, peeling paint, and mold on the walls. The peace corps staff member, Mohammadu, who was with me walked in right after me. I heard him suck in his breath, pause, and then say..."lets go, you cant stay here." So from there they took me to one of my site mates huts. Luckily, Brikama is huge...ok "huge" , you can still walk from one side to the other in probably less than an hour. But it is the second largest city in the country, so there are actually a number of other volunteers here, whereas other volunteers further upcountry may have to travel as far as 2 hours to see another volunteer. So I was dropped off at this volunteer's hut, she left work to come and let me in, and then had to go back to work. I literally sat on her floor alone and hungry for 5-6 hours with absolutely nothing to do because all of my stuff was still at MY compound. They had given us a small bag of food to bring with us to site because its Ramadan right now and finding food anywhere around the middle of the day is close to impossible. I peeked into the bag to find canned carrots, powdered milk, dry oats, peanut butter, and just when I was loosing hope and about to eat plain peanut butter right out of the jar, I found a can of beans. So then I sat there on the floor and ate a can of cold beans, alone, in the dark missing training village and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. And just when I thought it couldn't get much worse I look over on the wall I was sitting against and guess what was staring back at me...a goddamn scorpion horse monster spider. As I got to know the volunteer with whom I was staying, I learned that she is incredibly awesome, and I probably would have starved, died of boredom, or gotten permanently lost in Brikama during site visit without her, but she has a freakish lack of fear of insects. I think she actually likes them. Bugs here are impossible to avoid but there are SOME things you can do to reduce the amount of them in your living area....like sayyyy knock down webs inside of your house?? She did none of these things. So at night, Samantha (another trainee who had no where to stay during site visit) and I would take turns bucket bathing or using the pit latrine out back behind her hut and then spend an hour afterward recovering from being attacked by cockroaches the size of my fist or worse, the monster spiders. I think the entire visit I only slept maybe 2 or 3 hours because I had to sleep on her floor laying awake thinking about all of the night creatures around me.

Another surprise, which shouldn't have been a surprise because I knew it was coming, was the complete change from a rural village to a more urban city. In Madianna, everyone knew who I was, they knew I wasn't a tourist, that I was living as a member of their community, and I think they might have actually liked me too. Brikama, on the other hand was a completely different story. From the moment I stepped outside of the compound I was yelled at, whistled at by men, approached by strangers begging, or even physically grabbed by children...continuously. The children are the worst. I was walking to the school I will be working at and about 15 kids ran up and started grabbing at my arms, not letting go, mocking me when I spoke Mandinka to them, and generally just being little assholes. It was a huge wake up call. I'm definitely going to have to develop new strategies to deal with these kinds of things. The other volunteers say that you get used to it, you learn ways to deflect and avoid harassment, but now at this point its hard to imagine having to deal with this for the next two years.

So I have about 6 or 7 other volunteers either in Brikama or close enough to visit often. They all got together one of the nights to welcome Samantha and I to Brikama. I had the best meal in country yet, by far. They cooked curry chicken and rice, gave us beer, and COFFEE. It was absolutely amazing. They are all incredibly friendly and hilarious. I am so excited to get to know and learn more about them.

Meeting "important people" in Brikama was a big joke as well. We went to meet the governor, he wasnt there. We went to the police station and met some man who gave us his phone number, I think he was a criminal investigator?? Who the hell knows, but he was so creepy that knowing him makes me feel less safe than before.

I did visit the school I will be working in. Its gigantic and fairly nice, in comparison to other schools i have seen here. My supervisors name is Mr. Daboe. He is the principal at the school and has a pension for purple button up shirts and gold wrist watches, but I know that he is incredibly excited for me to be at his school and I have high hopes for him. My counterpart is a Gambian science teacher in his early 30s named Mr. Gomez (I know, Gomez?? where did that come from??) But he also seems intelligent and eager to work with me.

So as you can see, sitevisit was a series of highs and lows, much like life here in The Gambia. All I am hoping for is that when I return to my hut on September 5th, I dont have to wade through termite hills to get to my non-existent pit latrine.

1) Wonjo Juice- made from boiling hibiscus flowers. Girls usually sometimes sell frozen wonjo on the side of the street which they call icies and they are one of the most delicious things i have ever had (especially good when mixed with Gin, which they sell in packet form here, btw)

2) Tailoring. To get clothes here, you have to do it the old fashioned way. You buy fabric, go to a tailor, tell him what you want, and he makes it. Very fortunately, my host father in training village was a tailor and made things for me for free. The down side is that the usually tailor has something different in mind, and so did my host father. Therefore, all of the dresses I have had made make me look like I own 30 cats...we're talking covered from clavicle to ankle and everything in-between.

3) The beach. Apparently all you have to do to get onto a tourist hotel private beach is buy a drink at their bar and they will let you sit out there all day. But battling the flexing, strutting, "boss-lady" shouting bumsters is annoying as hell.

4) The way Gambians say "thirsty" in English. Kind of like Thuuuuuuursty with a huge emphasis on the uuu. Cannot figure it out.

5) Bartering. Its fun and I'm getting really good at it. The market in Brikama is huge, crowded, muddy, and reeks of rotting fish, but going there once made me feel like a Mandinka genius. I have made sure I know all of the market terms so I was actually able to barter in Mandinka and get a price down to where it was supposed to be (not the toubab price).

6) Bin-bin. So bin-bin are kind of like the equivalent to American lingerie, but completely different. They are strings of beads that sit low on your waist under your clothes. When women walk you can sometimes hear the beads clacking and they supposedly drive the men here wild. That was not my intention, i have been getting harassed enough as it is without the bin-bin mating call so mine are noiseless. But what woman wouldn't get excited about a new kind of jewelry to spend all of her money on??

7) Juu-juus. They are Gambian charms made from the pieces of the Koran that ward off witches, snakes, and the like. I think it is a strange combination of Islam and Animism, which is still very strong among the villagers here. I've been trying to get one for spiders since I got here but its proved pretty difficult considering the Gambians don't really understand why I am afraid of them. Also, the marabous (witch-doctors who make them) freak me the fuck out.

8)Football!! Not that boring American kind. On my site-visit, my site-mate Katie showed me the giant football field in Brikama where they hold huge games. It's only 5 Dalasi (about 20 cent) to get in and she said they sell icies inside. I cant wait to get rowdy with the Gambians!

9) The dancing and drumming, which I have done plenty of since I have been here, and have been laughed at every time. But that's ok...I just tell myself they are laughing WITH me. The drumming almost always on old bright yellow oil jugs which they call bedongs. It's what people usually fetch their water in, also used for drumming, and sitting on. Anytime they feel moved, you will see a woman whip out a bedong from under her and start drumming and random women and children will start dancing away. This can happen any time of the day, anywhere.

10)Greetings. A lot of Americans don't like the way Gambians extensively greet each-other. Every person you see wants to know how the morning is, how your family is, how you are, if you are in peace, how your children are, how is the work, etc etc, and then they may ask you all of the same questions again...and again. One of my language teachers made a good point that changed my opinion on the greetings. He said that people greet each other so often and lengthy primarily to recognize one another as human beings, to kind of take some time out of your day to focus on another person which I do not think we do enough in America. BUT also, I enjoy it because since I greet people a million times a day, I know all of the greetings perfectly and can talk nonstop with someone for 5-7 minutes sounding like a real Mandinka speaker (and again feeling like a genius)

11) Eating. No matter what, if you walk past people eating, they will invite you to come eat with them. Walking around village during lunch time (during the non-Ramadan months) i would have to turn down sometimes 7 or 8 families because I had already eaten, and they do get pretty offended. BUT if I did want to, I could eat with them. Eating food is completely communal here. Gambians eat out of one giant food bowl with their hands. I ate this way every day during training village at lunch with the other trainees and my language teachers and I loved it. Eating with your hands is fun, but much harder than you would think. Gambians do it with grace I have been trying for the past two months, and have failed miserably. But at night, with my family, I usually ate out of my own smaller bowl, next to them eating in their big food bowl. I saw where my little sisters hands had been and i wanted them no where near what I was putting in my mouth...

12) You can tell anyone younger than you to do something and they will do it, no questions asked. Sometimes I would see 4 year olds at the Bitik buying cigarettes for their older brother or father, of course something I have never done...but good to know there is the option.

So I finally have some real time on the internet due to illness so I'm going to tell you all more about what i have been up to. To make a loooong story short(ish) yesterday they had a marathon march (aka death march) planned for us. It is a 20 mile bush hike that has become tradition that the trainees partake in every year as a bonding experience...if that's what you want to call it. So I wake up that morning feeling like I had a cold, but not too bad. I decided I would go ahead with the marathon march because i really didn't want to miss it. So for about the first three hours, i joined the other trainees in wading through the bush, falling into a full well covered in something green and slimy (btw they can be incredibly conspicuous), climbing/ thrown over barbed-wire fences, being yelled at by African women for tromping through her farm plots, and having a bunch of ants bite my feet and then crawl up my pants, all the while feeling like i was going to pass out because little did i know at the time that i had a fever of 102. So about 2 and a half hours later i decide that I absolutely could not go on. We get to a road and they had a peace corps car come and pick me up and they went on. I went back to the lodge where we were staying and fell into a restless sleep, miserable. I woke up with a headache, body ache, high fever, chills, and much more that I'm sure you'd rather not hear about. When the group got back from the hike, my roommates made me call the Peace Corps doctor because all of my symptoms were exactly the same as Malaria symptoms. He sent a car to come and pick me up. 3 hours later the driver John comes speeding up, slams on the brakes, throws me in the car, he is on the phone yelling in some local language. He tells me that he had a flat tire in Brikama and that we only have 45 minutes to get to Banjul before the lab closes. He speeds through the country, swerving around cars, honking and flashing his lights at everyone to get over. So we finally get to the lab to get my blood work done. John basically has to carry me inside. The woman working there was about as pregnant as you can be and had to keep excusing herself to throw up in the back. I was so out of it and confused and had no idea what was going on at that point. I then went from there to the med unit, and then to the PeaceCorps transit house, where I am now. But this morning I feel much better. Basically the doctor thinks that i have some kind of viral or bacterial G.I infection and has me on meds in-case its bacterial. If its viral it just has to run its course. But hey, at least it's not malaria right?? I'm pretty upset that I am here and not back in training village because today and tomorrow are our last two days with our host families before we leave training village for good. I'm hoping they will let me go there tomorrow to say goodbye.

So anyway, things have been excellent otherwise. My language is really coming along. I can now have a conversation about shopping, tailoring, and few other various things that has no real use in everyday conversation.

I have a new language teacher named Daniel. I knew we would be great friends when on the first day of our class he told me that his 3 favorite things in the world are: 1)eating 2) Dancing and 3) making friends. He wasn't lying either. Within the first few days of him being in Madianna he had proved the first two. Now I didn't witness this, but i would have paid money to have. This is a story Abby, my fellow trainee told me: The first day Daniel was in training village she walked over to his hut to meet him. She said she gets to his compound, walks up, sees his family sitting and drinking tea in one corner of his yard completely ignoring Daniel, and she said she looks over and Daniel has his prayer mat pulled out in front of his front door with a radio blasting African drumming music, and he was just dancing away, running man, arms flapping, feet stomping, huge grin, just dancin.

Daniels religion is also back and forth. He has a Christian name because he converted from Islam a few years back, but isn't a Christian anymore for many reasons that we spend some hours talking about one day. So anyway, he mostly associates himself with the Muslims now, and right now it is Ramadan. That means fasting all day. No eating or drinking or smoking while the sun is up. But every morning, when I come to his hut for language class, I can hear Daniel inside cracking open a can of something. He peaks his head outside and with wide eyes and a loaf of bread in his hand he says "dont let the cat out of the bag". Yes, he is a fake-faster....and i love it.

So my birthday was pretty awesome. Definitely unforgettable. One of the volunteers baked me a chocolate cake and brought it to me and let me tell you, after almost two months with nothing to eat that tastes good, it was heavenly. Daniel decided to throw me a birthday party that night. It turned out to be the most awkward night of my life. First of all, Gambians don't celebrate birthdays...I don't even think they have a word for birthday. We had the party in Jen's, another trainees, compound. Daniel found yogurt, nutri-grain bars, and pineapple juice somewhere (who knows how he got his hands on those) and brought a giant stereo to play reggae music. Daniel and Baboucarr then one by one pull us out of our seats to make us dance, all the while Jen's host family (all 30 of them) are just sitting lined up in a row and watching, I'm sure wondering why we were making such a big deal out of the day I was born. Any other time of year they would have been up out of their seats dancing too, but i think that since its Ramadan they were too tired. So after about an hour of this we all manage to dance Daniel into a deep slumber and we snuck away. But the best birthday present by far was the cheese that the other trainees managed to find and give to me. Cheese is the one main food item that i love that you cannot find ANYWHERE here, but they found some and brought it to me, and it made my week...fake cheese, who would have though.

The next day I was riding my bike home from language class and I was going past this compound and I hear "happy birthday Sali" being shouted out from some random African who i am sure put a lot of effort into learning that English phrase, it made me feel pretty special.

Speaking of being shouted at, one of the most common things that is shouted at me at any time is "toubab". It is probably the one word i hear here more than any other. It literally means white person. Its pretty strange, my teachers have told me that it shouldn't be taken offensively if its being said by someone who doesn't know my name, but if they do know my name they shouldn't call me toubab. But if i am out anywhere other than my training village i will have 30 -40 children chasing me yelling "TOUBAB TOUBAB give me MINTI MINTI, MINTI!!!!" (minti is what they call candy). It can get pretty annoying. I usually just start talking to them in Mandinka "N too manke tubab ti" my name is not toubab, and then tell them to give me a minti. That usually confuses them and they leave me alone. The children here are suuuuper cute, and i feel horrible saying this but they can also be just as annoying.

As for living without electricity I have had to find new ways of entertainment. We stay pretty busy with language class and other training activities, but there are those hours at the beginning and end of the day when i have absolutely nothing to do. One of my main forms on entertainment is watching the lizards that live on my pit latrine wall. They aren't just any normal kind of lizard though, they do push ups. No i havent gone crazy, they really do...and its more fun to watch that you would think. I've also made friends with all of the "nice" bugs that live in my hut, like the giant black centipede which was probably closer related to a snake when taking into account its size. And since i still cant really converse with my host mother, we spend hours sometimes, in silence, sitting out in front of the compound, facing the road watching people come in from their day in the bush and greeting them. My host aunt, Ami who is 15, will sometimes invite me to walk to the Bitik (corner-store) with her sometimes. She usually sneaks away to call her boyfriend while I hang out there with her friends who all think I'm super weird. The rest of the time I am usually playing with my host sisters and the constant group of children that come to our compound whenever I am there. They are hilarious. Its amazing how much fun you can have with a child without saying a single word.

Hey everyone! So right now I am back at the training center at Yuna battling the insane amount of bugs slamming into my computer screen, only to tell you all what I have been up to.

The past few weeks have been great (minus the fact that apparently being in humidity all day makes me super rashy). I have been learning Mandinka nonstop and hanging out with my host family when I'm not in class. They are hilarious. Whenever my host mother and father are gone working in the bush, my "aunt" who is 15, named Mimi, has all of her friends over and dances in the yard...house party Gambian style. Bodo, my 5ish year old (none of them really know how old they are) host sister, loves learning American words. I like to teach her things that make me laugh like "later brah" which she now says whenever I leave the compound. The neighborhood children like to peek in my screen door and windows when I am inside of my hut. I pretend that I don’t see them and then sneak closer and closer to where they are and then I run at them screaming and scare the shit out of them. Hey, I have to take what entertainment I can get. Last week we took a trip up country to Janjanbury to go to a teacher training workshop to see how the teachers are trained here. I personally was more excited about seeing a hippo in the river. We got back and our entire group got sick...most likely from the feral monkeys that were EVERYWHERE including running around on the table stealing our food while we were eating. I can now say that I have punched a monkey.

Another thing, baby goats might just be the cutest things in the world. and they are allllll over my training village. One day, Abby and I were walking down the road after language class and spotted one lonely tiny baby goat in a compound. I felt kind of weird walking in there and asking to play with that families baby goat (and didnt know how to say it in Mandinka anyway) so i didn't. the next day we were walking by and decided that it would be an excellent stress reliever and it was necessary that we got some baby goat playing action. We walked up to a group of children and using our broken Mandinka, managed to tell them "I want baby goat!" "N lafita baaringo" Their eyes brightened and they were off...all 20 of them running after the baby goat and its mother. The goats bolted which resulted in a mad chase through the village. For 20 minutes Aby and watched, chanting " I WANT BABY GOAT" and rolled around on the ground laughing. They finally caught it and brought it to us resulting in 10 minutes of baby goat heaven and my new picture.

I've decided that if I get med-evacuated it will be due to a bicycle accident. I am more clumsy on a bike than I am walking (imagine that). I think to date I have fallen off 6 or 7 times. The most dramatic fall was when I decided to answer my cellphone while I was going downhill. Brilliance at work. I put on my brakes with one hand and next thing I know, I'm flying over my front handlebars and laying on my back with my bike on top of me. Luckily the roads here are like giant sandboxes. As I struggled to get up all of the Gambians within a mile radius come running up yelling "SORRY SORRY SORRY!!! " Yes, I have found time and time since that when you fall down they stand over you yelling sorry at you. By the time I got home that night my family knew alllll about it and now they bring it up at least once in every conversation. It's awesome being reminded everyday.

The rain here is ridiculous. I have never seen rain come down as hard as it does here...and its always unexpected (at least for us toubabs, all of the locals somehow always knows when its going to rain). So I biked to class one day at Baboucars. That day a huge rainstorm came and went. We sat on his porch and watched the children run around playing in the rain and lightning for a few hours and then it stopped and I decided to bike home. The roads here basically turn into one big muddy river after a big rain so biking home was pretty impossible. About halfway home my bike and I got tangled up in a barbed wire fence on the side of the road. Dont ask me how, I was probably lucky that I didnt end up at the bottom of a 4 ft deep mud puddle. So I was standing there helpless, so tangled up that I couldnt move and out of nowhere 4 rastahs appeared,and with their nimble fingers, without a word, untangled me and lifted me and my bike out of the mess and sent me on my way.

Now I know you all know that I am terrified of spiders...that hasnt changed, but the amount of spiders around me at any time has increased by roughly 1000%, and their size as well (they even have a spider that they call scoprion horse-another trainee showed me a video she took of one in her hut and I havent slept a full night since) so here are a few inopportune times I have found spiders crawling on (or too close to) me for your entertainment:

1) During dinner. Where I proceeded flip out and then flick it right onto my host aunts shirt. She was not amused.

2)In the middle of language class...everyday.

3) While playing with the children outside. I freak out and they think its hilarious, pick it off of me, throw it on another child. and then reenact me running around screaming.

4) While using my pit latrine…its pretty hard to jump up and run from a focused squat.

Quotes from my favorite teacher ever: Babboucarr

“I thought that if you belch in front of a Westerner…you die”—right after he told us that he thought that all Americans carry guns all of the time

“I’m having a hard time dropping those kids off”—every morning around our 9am break in reference to using the bathroom

“Can I rub it?” –before erasing the chalkboard

“with the balls…I like it”—referring to a coos breakfast dish

“you are conjugating the bread!!”

“Mandinka sex-beer” –his pronunciation of Mandinka Shakespeare

“4 dudes, same bed, nothing happens”—talking about the close friendships men have in The Gambia

“They can’t take the joke. They are too Francophone. They’re too civilized and intellectual”—referring to the Senegalese sense of humor, or lack there of.

“Is it Jay?? Or Gay?”—Trying to remember the name of another trainee

“Then they fold them into their beauty shapes”—Possibly my favorite thing he has said. Beauty shapes apparently are folded clothes…this was said during a lesson on laundry and tailor terms.

So I've made it 3 weeks! This will probably be the only time I am able to acess internet during training (which lasts until the beginning of september when I will move to my site). There is so much I want to tell you all and only about 15 minutes to do it so here it goes.

I'm staying with a host family in a village near the coast called Madianna. It's been incredibly exciting so far. The people here are friendly, loud, colorful, curious, pushy, inviting, and so welcoming. One of the hardest things for me so far is the fact that I am ALWAYS the center of attention no matter what in my village. PEople always want to know what I am doing and where I am going and those that know me well know that I absolutely hate attention. BUT it looks like it is something I will have to learn to deal with...and Im sure I will.

I am living in a mud hut with two rooms and rats in the ceiling ( I pretend they are kittens at night to give me enough peace of mind to sleep). There is no electricity or running water in pretty much the entire village but it hasnt been too hard to get used to. My bathroom is a 6 ft hole in the ground and I take a bath out of a bucket under the African stars every night. Its pretty great.

I go to language class every day of the week. My language teachers name is Babucar and he looks just like Dave Chapelle and is hilarious. LEarning this language has been another challenge for me so far but its coming slowly. Having no one in my compound that speaks english is a huge motivation to learn the language as well.

The village had a naming ceremony for us the morning after we arrived. My host father is a tailor and he made me a traditional Gambian outfit to wear and keep for the ceremony. Our families choose our names before the ceremony and told the iman beforehand, we had to kneel with a blanket over our heads while he scraped out forehead with a razor to symbolize shaving our heads and announced our names. Mine is Salimatu (Sali) Dibba. Taking a Mandinkan name was strongly recommended so that we could integrate into the village a little easier (although we stand out more than anyone else in the country).

They announced our actual work sites today and mine will be in Brikama, the second largets city in The Gambia. Im so excited to get there! I will be working at an upper basic school (middle school)and working with them to build a better math and science program for their students. I'm near the beach and will have access to internet so I will make sure to update you all when I get there at the beginning of Sept.

I miss you all so much, sorry this is so cluttered but i just wanted to tell you a little bit about what I have been up to. If you call me I have lots of hilarious stories!! 011-220-7880514. Call me anytime and I will def answer unless i am in language class! Fo Naato (until later)!!

Newark airport I have decided is the last place I would ever want to get hurt. I'm sitting at one of those weird cellphone/laptop charging stations at terminal 90 watching a crowd of about 30 people surrounding a woman who just slipped in a puddle of water and slammed her head into the ground. She has been waiting for a paramedic for thirty minutes. Pretty comforting huh?

Anyway, we got to the airport incredibly early and have been playing in the airport for the last 4 hours. We probably will not start boarding until 5. THEN we have an 8 hour flight, a 4 hour layover in Brussels, and then another 8 hour flight to Banjul. So 20 hours...hello Gambia!

Staging was pretty painless. We had looonnng loongg discussions about the Peace Corps. What was expected of us, skits(i know, cringe right?), safety, anxieties and aspirations etc etc. Overall it felt pretty good to be with a group of people who finally understood what I'm feeling, what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it. This morning we went to a government clinic, got our first of many shots (yellow fever)and got our WHO cards. I mailed my cellphone and my social security card which I forgot to leave behind home, and then hopped on a bus for New Jersey...took a little ride on the jersey turnpike (nothing like what I expected from watching bad television, cough cough jersey shore cough) and here we are. Goodbye New Jersey, goodbye America. See you in two years!!

So time has flown by. I have exactly eight days left to say goodbye to everyone I love, pack my life away into two bags, turn the air conditioning all the way up in the house and really really enjoy it, eat lots of American food, wear dresses that do not come down to mid-calf, and party down as much as possible.

I have done pretty much all that I need to do before I go (insurance, car, epipen, appropriate clothes, supplies, apartment, some shots, a ridiculous amount of paperwork, etc...I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the point) That being said, this week should be pretty fun. Playing around Greensboro with George, Claire, and Andrew. Charlotte Tuesday to see Witknee, Mike, Lauren, and DB one last time before I go. Alice and Vahid are coming in-town Friday night. I'm sure once Alice has a couple drinks in her Toto's "Africa" will be the only thing coming out of her mouth all night. And then Katrina and Ali are visiting on Saturday night. I cannot wait to see all of them.

I'm trying my hardest not to let my apprehension of what I'm about to do get in the way of enjoying spending the little time left I have with everyone. It's hard though. I'll be having a great time with someone and then my mind wanders to me leaving and then to how much I am going to miss that person sitting across from me.

Although I am extremely nervous, I'm just as excited. I'm tired of telling people about what I'm going to be doing. I want to get there and do it. I cant wait to learn new languages, skills, meet new people, and even face the challenges that will inevitably come along with living there. I cant wait to tell you all about what I am doing! But your patience is important. I am not sure yet how often I will be able to talk to you all or post. I have no idea yet where I will be placed in The Gambia. Most of the country has no electricity or running water so I will most likely only be able to access internet occasionally. But at least once a month when I come to the capital to get money. There might be a chance that I will work at a school with internet access, which would be great...but who knows.

If you want to write me (please do!!) here is my mailing address for the entire time I am there:

Caroline Stamatakis, PCT*

C/O Peace Corps/ The Gambia

P.O. Box 582

Banjul, The Gambia

West Africa

** the PCT after my name will change to PCV after September 3rd when I am done training and sworn in as an actual volunteer (this is important so that my mail doesnt get mixed up)

From what they told me it can sometimes take more than a month or sometimes two to get letters so make sure to date the letter. I WILL write back!!

June 29th I will be leaving for staging. One month. One month to do the million things to prepare for the next 2 years of my life. I cannot believe its almost here after a year and a half of the frustrations of waiting and working towards this. My excitement has turned to terror. Ok, maybe I'm being dramatic but I have to admit, I have no idea what to expect there. I quit my job last week and took a vacation to NYC with the money I had saved up working/ getting my ass kicked through furniture market and finally have the time to start thinking about what I need to buy before I leave. My first thing crossed off the list? Diva cup...look it up (but be prepared).