Leaving The Gambia...

So we leave The Gambia tomorrow for Dakar to catch our 3am flight to JFK. This alone is mind-blowing and rather unsettling, being that I've lived here for the past 2 years - the longest I've been in one place since High School.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is Set Settal (Clean the Nation Day) in The Gambia, which means that no transport is allowed to run between 9am and 1pm. This is rather problematic, since we now have to cross the River Gambia via a ferry and reach the Senegalese border before 9am so we can make it to Dakar on time. Only 2 ferries will cross the river tomorrow. The first ferry crosses at 7am, and the crossing takes an hour and 20 minutes, meaning that we'll arrive on the North Bank at 8:20, giving us 40 minutes to reach the border. Not possible.

Our boss is letting us borrow his car (which has diplomatic plates and can therefore travel even during Set Settal) and a Peace Corps driver has volunteered to drive us from the PC hostel, cross the ferry, and to the border, providing that we pay for gas, oil, and the cost of the ferry, etc. So as long we catch one of the 2 ferries, we'll be fine. However, there's likely to be a huge line, so we're leaving the Peace Corps hostel at 4am tomorrow morn to make sure we get on the first ferry. If we miss that first ferry and can't catch the second one, we won't be able to make it to the border in time before 9am, and will have to wait til 1pm to start our journey - which is risky because the trip to Dakar sometimes takes more than 12 hours...

I absolutely cannot miss that flight - I paid for the damn thing twice!! Good thing we all have safe travel Jujus...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

So in the end I decided not to remain in South Africa, obviously. Although I have to admit it was a pretty attractive option at the time.

I made it back to the Gambia in one piece, despite a little detour on the way home to Cape Verde due to the Dakar airport being closed from a "strike." It must not have been much of a strike, because the airport re-opened after about 2 hours, and we were back on our way to Dakar.

Unfortunately for me, I was passed out during the announcement that we would be bypassing Dakar. I woke up at about 2am or so, and looked up at the screen to see the plane icon out in the middle of the Atlantic, and freaked out because I thought I had failed to get off at Dakar and was now on my way back to the US!!

As the title of the entry suggests, I'm back down in Kombo now, celebrating a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend!! We kicked everything off on Wednesday night with a belated karaoke birthday party, and continued the fun at a massive grilling party at Rodney's on Thursday. Our goal was to grill 60 full chickens in one day for the Thanksgiving Dinner that we were to have at the Ambassador's Residence. It was a pretty ridiculous affair - the grill was really HOT and really SMOKEY, and we had to quarter all the chickens, so all told Beth, Nick, and I grilled up 240 pieces! But we managed to finish the last one with about 10 minutes to spare! The other crew baked 20 pumpkin pies.

The actual Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. All the Embassy staff and Peace Corps were invited to the Ambassador's Residence, which is a gorgeous mansion that sits on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. The food was fantastic, and to top the whole night off, we had the prettiest sunset I've seen in the Gambia (see above). Perfect.

Friday we had a ceremony to celebrate Peace Corps' 40th Anniversary in the Gambia. It was a really well done affair, with some great speeches that were both inspirational and touching. It was nice to be appreciated, and to be reminded that we are actually doing good work here, and making a difference in people's lives. It's easy to forget that sometimes...

That night we had a party at the Julbrew factory (with unlimited free beer - Thanks Mr. Mauss!!) to celebrate the occasion. And we wound everything down with the All Volunteer meeting on Saturday. It was a great, American style holiday weekend. Exactly what we all needed. Wish I could have been there with you all, but this wasn't a bad substitute. I'll miss you at Christmas.

-Rob

Not Coming Back.

Y'ello!!

Just wanted to let you all know that I will not be returning to The Gambia, as I have decided to remain here in South Africa and 'volunteer' to be on safari for the next year...

Granted, after spending the past year in the Gambia, any halfway decent place would seem like paradise in comparison, but still, I'm completely blown away by the beauty here. The variety of landscapes and terrain is unbelievable; rolling hills, jagged mountains, beautifully sculpted beaches and bays, sprawling grasslands, and pretty much everything in between. It's like a smaller, African version of the US, just with more beauty packed into a smaller area.

We're now at the safari place just outside Kruger in the northeast corner of the country. It's our second day and we've been on two game drives and one bush walk. The lodge itself is beautiful - unbelievably nice, and I can't think of anything further removed from my hut in village. Not sure how I'm going to be able to go back after this... The animal viewing has been absolutely ridiculous. Dad and I were thinking we'd be looking through binoculars at animals a couple hundred yards away; but literally 20 minutes into our first drive yesterday evening we spot a full-grown male leopard squatting under a tree maybe 20 feet away. And as we watch, he leaps up to chase an impala he had been stalking. Crazy. And a bit later we turn the corner and come face to face with a bull elephant in the middle of the path. It is surreal to be that close to something so big. The animals don't seem to care that we're literally in their face - supposedly the ranger can tell when the animal is irritated, and then we leave. But we've seen giraffes, cape buffaloes, kudus, nyalas, impalas, bushbucks, waterbucks, wildebeast, a hippo, etc etc. No lions yet, but we've got lots more time. The bush environment and flora is very similar to the Gambia, makes you realize what it could be like there if people hadn't killed all the animals...

Cape Town was equally impressive - it might be the first big city I actually could see myself living in. It had the small city feel to it, mainly because most of the people (ie poor blacks) live outside the main city in basically shantytowns, but it means the downtown is small and walkable (and i'm sure expensive as hell). If you can brave the freezing water, the beaches are gorgeous, and the backdrop - with Table Mountain essentially rising out of the ocean - is phenomenal. And the whole Cape peninsula is filled with amazing scenery. As you drive along the coast, it seems every turn opens into another white sand beach strewn with granite boulders and backed by verdant hills. We ate very well - the food in Cape Town was amazing - tons of variety, and I'm trying to make up for the past year of white rice and oil. Weather was perfect too - exactly what I needed - nice and cool, breezy, dry - nice jeans and fleece weather. I had forgotten how nice it was to have to dress warmly and be cold. Oh, and we managaed to survive Dad having to drive on the left side of the road for 5 days - we had some close calls, but nothing too scary.

Hopefully that's enough to convince you to leave your jobs and homes to come here... if you need more encouragement, just let me know. I'll be waiting for you at the airport.

Peace,
Rob

Letter to Maggie

This letter from Rob was written in mid-June and arrived nearly one month later in Hawaii...



Greetings from your long-lost brother!! My writing (or lack thereof) has been incredibly appalling as of late. It's funny; they say that you'll have all this free time to read and write letters in the Peace Corps, but I've found I'm just as busy here as I was back in the US. Granted, it’s most likely a function of my wanting to be busy, but still… To be honest, if I didn’t keep myself constantly busy, I would probably lose my mind over here. Besides work, there’s not a whole lot to do for entertainment, so I’ve been pouring myself into my work- not only to keep busy, but because I find it very interesting and satisfying. I also think there’s a lot of potential to improve the lives of the people here- if only you can get them to stop drinking ataya and do something…

Life here has been overall very good; I’ve got a great host family, my village is in a good location with some motivated people and interesting surroundings, I’ve made some really good friends among the Peace Corps volunteers in country, and I’ve learned a TON. In terms of self-awareness and realization of my strengths and weaknesses and personality alone, my experience here has been invaluable. This is not to say I like everything I’ve seen in myself, if anything, I almost feel like I’ve become a less compassionate person – or at least I’ve come to understand the realities of life in most of the world. Life here in the Gambia has given me true perspective, and now the dreamer/optimist in me has been partially replaced by the realist. As you’ve pointed out numerous times, I suppose I stand to gain quite a bit by this change – we’ll see..

I wish I could give you a brief, broad-sweeping picture of my life here, but that would be impossible. The best I can hope for is that you’re reading the blog, which should give you a general idea of what I’ve been up to. To really get a feel for the Gambia, and Africa in general, you’ll have to come visit, which I really hope you’ll do. I think you’d really enjoy learning a whole new way of life, and being truly immersed in a different culture.

The rainy season officially started on the 13th of June with a light shower at night, accompanied by one of the most amazing lightning storms I’ve ever seen: chain lightning arcing across the ground-sky interface, encompassing my whole field of vision. For a brief second, it became almost daylight, then total darkness. Very cool. I stood out in the rain until well past midnight, watching the display, only to come inside my house to find my new thatch roof leaking – right over my bed. Luckily it was only a light rain, so I didn’t get too wet, but I’ll need to do some repair work before the real rains come. Unfortunately, the rains brought the humidity with them, so not only is it 105-110 degrees during the day, but the air is almost dripping with moisture. I am literally covered in my own sweat from when I wake up till sunset. Granted, I’ve discovered my tolerance for heat is rather lacking, (my body is much better adapted to cold weather – I belong in the mountains), but it really fucking sucks on some days. When the rains finally do become consistent, it’ll cool down – or so they say – but the past month has been pretty heinous. Suffice it to say that you do NOT want to come here from April to October. I have dreams of cold beer, mountain streams, powder days at Alta, wool hats, and the crisp air of fall… I can’t even bring myself to look at the Powder Magazine I have in my house. I think my next destination in the journey of life will be Alaska, New Zealand, Greenland, or Antarctica. And now that this wonderful thing called Global Warming is screwing everything up, I think the lowest latitude location I would even consider buying land at lies somewhere around Montana! Okay, the heat isn’t all that bad here, I can go swimming in the river on really hot days, and taking 2-3 bucket baths a day helps a lot, but some days it’s all I can think about.

The drama in my personal life thus far is enough to fill a small book, but I’ll give you a quick rundown, since it’s pretty entertaining and rather amusing. It all started after Christmas when Sharon and I began seriously dating. Now, this was my first mistake: serious relationships and Peace Corps service in West Africa go together about as well as a hangover and a 6 hour bush taxi ride. Being that there isn’t really a good place to meet up in Kombo, and the fact that I was officially on 3 month challenge, (not allowed to leave site) we wanted to meet up in our respective villages. Now, in this culture, it’s highly inappropriate for a man and a woman to sleep in the same house together if they are not married. Naturally, this was going to present a problem when she came to visit. So, I decided to tell my village that she was my wife. Unfortunately, I had already told the village a month prior that I wasn’t married, and in fact, did not want a wife for the time being. However, the cultural expectation here is that a man of my age would have a wife, so for me to come back from Kombo one day and tell my family that I was married, wasn’t a problem at all. The whole thing started out as a one small lie, but it kept growing and growing: they asked about the ceremony, where it was, (I said it was in a church in Fajara – praying that there was really a church there!) what we ate, and all about how we met, even going so far as to tell them that both our parents approved the marriage. Keep in mind that all this effort was just to have her come visit me in village. When she finally did come, several weeks later, it was absurd. There was lots of screaming, dancing, drumming on pots and pans, and a never-ending string of people coming to see the Toubab’s wife! All we wanted was to be left alone, but that would have been culturally inappropriate, so we walked through the whole village, greeting all the compounds. And whenever we were in the house hanging out, a small boy or girl would invariably come by, or my family would ask us to come out and chat. After about 5 days, she left and returned back to site. This spawned another endless series of questions that continues to this day: “where is your wife?” “where’s your baby?” “is your wife pregnant yet?” And when I would say no, they would look at me with a very confused expression and ask “why not?” I told them we weren’t ready yet, and they just shook their heads in disbelief.

Now, this would present nothing more than a minor annoyance in my daily life if we hadn’t broken up about 3 weeks ago. I have to make up stories about why she’s not here with me. This could be something I could easily deal with, but I’ve kinda started dating another Peace Corps volunteer… As you can imagine, if she came to visit and my whole village was asking where my wife was, it probably wouldn’t go over too well with her, not to mention the cultural taboos that I would be breaking! I seriously thought about telling my village that she died, but then I’d have to go into mourning and all that, not to mention that she’s coming next month for mail run. Problematic either way. I finally settled on the divorce option – my village already thinks I’m crazy, so they’ll chalk up my rapid marriage and divorce as just another crazy Toubab thing. Nonetheless, I was still very nervous about telling yet another lie, especially to the headmaster and teachers at the school, who are educated and worldly enough to know something was up. So, 2 days ago, I very nervously told the headmaster the whole story – that she wasn’t my wife, and why I had lied to everyone (in the interest of cultural sensitivity). He took the news amazingly well, and suggested I should simply say that we were too busy to see each other. Hesitatingly, I then told him about my desire to possibly have another girl come visit. He laughed, said he understood, then we discussed all sorts of stories I could weave about why we were divorced!! He suggested saying either our parents or the Peace Corps didn’t approve of the marriage, saying it was just too difficult to be together here. I’m going to Kombo in a couple weeks, and when I come back I’ll tell my family that we divorced. I’m not sure what excuse to use yet, but I have lots of time. And then, when and if Beth decides to visit, I’ll simply say that she is only my friend. Something I should have done if the first place. I no longer care what the village thinks of my actions- part of why I’m here is to educate Gambians about American culture, and dating is part of that. Ah, drama, can’t even escape it in a small village in West Africa.

Despite the oppressive heat and drama, life continues to go well. I’ve been helping Lamin, my host father, to prepare his fields for planting when the real rains finally come. I brought back a bunch of fruit tree seedlings from Kombo to plant in my garden, backyard, and around the compound, so we’ve been busy digging transplant holes, constructing tree guards for the seedlings, and transplanting all of the trees. The only fruit trees my family has are mangos, which all fruit at the same time, producing a bunch of mangos for a month, then nothing for the rest of the year. I’ve planted a jackfruit, 3 avocados, 2 Indian blackberry, 1 almond, and 4 citrus trees. Once they are all producing fruit, my family should be able to eat fruit year round. Another project I have planned for the rainy season is to work with Lamin and a few other farmers to introduce the “three sisters” method of agriculture that the Native Americans have been practicing for thousands of years. Instead of planting only rows of corn in a field, one plants a climbing pole bean next to the corn stalks, which then climb up the corn stalks, and provides much needed nitrogen to the corn; then you plant squash between the rows of corn, which spreads across the ground with its long vines, blocking out weeds and retaining soil moisture. Thus, the symbiotic relationship benefits all three crops, and the farmer will not only have increased yield for each crop, but will produce 3 times as much food on the same amount of land. Alright, that’s enough geeking out over work for one letter- you can see the other projects for yourself when you come!

Okay, I’m running out of room… remember, as long as you can sit back and say, with great satisfaction, “life is good!” then you are happy, and in the end that’s all that matters. Your happiness will be sure to rub off on other people, and in your own small way, make their lives that much better.

Sunday, May 20th, 2007 (arrived June 22nd)
The first of the rains arrived today! Albeit, a very light, short rain, but nonetheless, the rainy season has arrived! Unfortunately, the rains also brought the humidity – sweat is dripping down my body as I simply sit at the desk. The Gambians don’t seem to mind however. I’m pretty sure they have genetic tolerances to heat that those of us from European descent do not. The rain is early this year – which promises to be a good thing for the farmers, as the rainy season’s been getting shorter over the past few decades. It remains to be seen however, whether or not this is just a freak incident, or if more will follow. Typically, the rains don’t start until the 2nd or 3rd of June, and don’t really get cracking until mid’June, when the planting usually takes place.

As I’m sure you’ve realized by now from our conversations, life here is an unending roller coaster of emotions: one hour you’re having a great time, the next: you’re hating everything about this God-forsaken semi-desert strip of sand along a muddy river. I expected these ups and downs to phase out as I settled in to life here, but I’ve come to realize there isn’t ever going to be any true “settling in”. This is due, mostly, to my own choosing – I’ve found I don’t really enjoy simply sitting around “chatting”, especially on the backless wooden benches everyone sits on here. (I’ve been meaning to ask other volunteers how they sit on those things, as they absolutely kill my lower back if I have to sit for more than 15 – 20 minutes). Consequently, I don’t really fit into the culture here – I’m either always working, riding my bike to other villages for work, fiddling with my garden and tree nursery (Page 2) or reading. As I said, this is by my choice mainly, and I’m fully comfortable with my lifestyle, it’s just not what I had pictured the romanticized “living among the locals”, life to be like. This is not to say I don’t interact with people – on the contrary – I can’t ESCAPE them, but my leisure time I view as my own, and it’s spent doing my own thing. I think people in my community have come to understand me, however, and I no longer have 20 little pairs of eyes watching me whenever I work in my garden – thank God.
( From Page 3 of letter)
Actually, now that I’ve managed to unload all that on you (and as a result, probably worry you to death1), I feel much better. The temperature has also dropped a little bit (maybe it will rain again and I’ve found that my moods are inversely related to the temperature. High temperatures equal angry, depressed Rob, cool temperatures equal happy Rob. Never fails. I still haven’t a clue as to what I want to do after Peace Corps is over – there has been no magical inspirational moment yet, and I’ve stopped holding my breath for it. What I do know is that I will NEVER, under any circumstances, live in a hot climate. I simply cannot stand the heat – especially at night. I think my body is naturally hotter than most people’s, as it seems to bother me more than most. Other than friends and family, cold is what I miss most. I now no longer think twice about walking around the compound with my shirt off. My staple dress is a pair of flip-flops (now that my Charo” are out of commission) and one of the 2 pairs of nylon Columbia shorts I got from you Dad. Nothing else. My clothes are constantly dirt covered and culturally inappropriate, but I REFUSE to wear anything else – too DAMN HOT!!!

Whenever I think of something that I might like to do after Peace Corps is over, I write it down on a piece of paper for later perusing. So far I have: going back to school for a Master’s or PhD, maybe in environmental issues, maybe in alternative energy, ie solar power, etc, the Earth Institute at Columbia University: going back to Alta Lodge: getting an around the world plane ticket: a biking/climbing trip across Africa or Asia: med school: some sort of skiing adventure during the winter followed by the summer working in Antarica (to make up for my missed winter) : and who knows what else…..
(Page 4 of letter
I finished TaiPan last night, (the semi-sequel to Shogun) what a good read! It kept me up too late many nights and helped me get through the brutal 3 – 5:00 PM sweat fest that inevitably comes every day. The BBC on my short wave has also been an invaluable companion; especially while I’m cooking breakfast or working in the garden, or filling polypots. I’m stuck in a remote village in West Africa and I am more knowledgeable in world affairs than when I had the Internet, TV, radio, and newspapers.

Speaking of breakfast – mango season is in full swing! I eat at least 3 a day, and they are constantly falling to the ground with dull thuds, sparking a race between goat, sheep and child as to who can reach it first. I think 15 must fall every day in our compound alone! Due to all the mango eating, the last thing I want in the morning is a sugary bowl of oatmeal (and because I’d been eating it every day for 5 months) so I’ve been cooking eggs every morning that I buy from the poultry project at the school. The eggs are never more than a day old, the tomatoes are from my garden, and the onions and amaranth ( like a tropical spinach) are from local gardens. It makes quite the tasty breakfast – with a cup of tea, of course.
(Page 5 of letter)
My work and projects continue to go exceptionally well, and I am ever thankful that I have so much to do – it makes the days much more enjoyable, and they pass quickly. Time here passes differently than at home, the days go by slowly ( sorry for the sloppy writing, my cat is rubbing itself on my pen). But the weeks and months seem to fly by: it’s hard to believe I have almost been here 8 months! Tree nurseries and tree planting have been my main focus of work – specifically with the tree nursery competition at area schools. We’ve planted 1000 trees at the Jali school alone, and I’m working closely with 2 other schools in my area. I also helped start a nursery for livestock fodder-producing trees at ITC – the livestock center in Keneba, and have my own personal tree nursery for fruit trees and other popular species to plant in compounds. Lamin and I are going to plant cashews around the perimeter of peanut and coos field to act as a windbreak (protecting the soil from wind erosion) and to produce the nuts, which he can then sell – for considerably more than peanuts. We’re also doing the same around the compound. In the middle, interplanted with the crops we’re going to plant Acacia albida, which is an excellent tree for soil enrichment, in that it drops its leaves right before the rains and they act as fertilizer (since it’s a nitrogen – fixing tree). The pods also are fantastic for livestock fodder – which adds more fertilizer since the animals sit and wait under the tree for the pods to fall, all the while depositing manure under the tree. We’re e also going to graft a few different mango varieties onto his trees so their mango season can be extended, and I’m going to transplant 2 avocados and a jackfruit into the compound as well. Assuming all goes well, they should have fresh fruit for half the year!
(Page 6 of letter)
I’ve laid the necessary political and paper groundwork for the village to start a woodlot in an abandoned field near the village, so the women won’t have to walk 5 km. To get firewood. The Department of Forestry is going to supply the fencing materials and seedlings, and we already got the seeds to be planted. Not it’s up to the community to do the work they said they would….

I’m still trying to write a grant seeking funding to install wells in the women’s garden in Jali. Why the garden was ever built without wells is beyond my comprehension, but it
is essentially a useless, fenced in area now. Unfortunately , the man I’m writing the grant with, is never in village, so the work hasn’t progressed very much.

I spend a considerable amount of time at the school in Jali, working in the nursery and discussing other possible projects. We secured funding to expand the poultry project there to 100 laying hens, which will provide even more money for the school. We’re also going to plant a mango, cashew and citrus orchard in the school‘s abandoned field to generate even more income. Luckily, the headmaster at the school is an incredibly motivated, forward thinking man and without him all these projects would fail. It’s very refreshing to meet such a Gambian – most simply aren’t educated enough or don’t see the point of working to improve the community.

I’ve also got seven live-fencing projects established which will be out planted during the rains. The idea is essentially to plant a large number of closely spaced thorny bushes around the area to be fenced, eliminating the need to cut down trees for fencing. We’re trying a couple different species to see which will work best.
(Page 7 of letter)
My garden, despite a myriad number of setbacks is coming along rather well. I harvested a bunch of cucumbers in April and the tomatoes are now finally ready. Granted, the amount of work I put into it, in NO WAY was reproduced in harvest amounts, but I’ve enjoyed the work immensely. I’ve begun work on my rainy season nursery and will have butternut squash, tomato, pumpkin, okra, bitter tomatoes, eggplant, watermelon, cassava, green pepper, and zucchini. Well, at least that’s the plan. I’m hoping all the termites, ants, lizards and birds that have wreaked havoc on my garden have plenty other things to eat when the rains come, and will therefore leave my poor garden alone! I’ve also got mango, mandarin oranges, pomegranate, jackfruit, pigeon pea, moringa, and Indian blackberry trees planted for food and fruit production. Within 3 – 5 years my family should be living it up!
Monday, May 21
So, my mood has completely reversed since yesterday, ha ha, and life is good again! Today was a lot cooler, probably putting me in a better mood as opposed to the stickiness of yesterday. This morning I had a nice ride to Tankular to visit the Chief of Kiang West to get his signature for our village’s wood lot project. It’s actually a pretty scenic bike ride through the forest, takes about 40 min. (15 km) and I had the pleasure of watching as an immense wart hog trampled through the undergrowth upon my arrival. Which reminds me – yesterday morning I went to the forest to cut poles to make a new garden door (termites ate my old one). Along the way, I spooked a HUGE troop of baboons that were hanging out along the path. It was like watching a stampede of monkeys – the speed with which they hurtle along the ground is amazing! There must have been at least 200+ baboons in the trees and a couple of the big ones stared me down until I was about 100 feet away. (Page 8 of letter)
Tuesday May 22nd, 2007 – 8:30 AM
Well, the mail run truck is probably going to show up in the next couple of hours, so I want to finish this letter before they come. Your letters are usually filled with a bunch of questions about life here, so I’ll try to answer them now.

My village is, as far as I can tell, 100% Muslim and yes, I’ve had many people ask me to convert to the Muslim faith – every day almost, I am asked to come to the mosque and pray. They don’t have the same ideas of religious tolerance here – in their eyes, if one isn’t Muslim, then they’re wrong.

The moringa tree does produce edible leaves that are very nutritious, and can be dried and pounded into powder form to be sprinkled on top of food. In fact, Nick and I plan to work with the National Nutrition Agency to promote the use of moringa leaves in this area. The seeds also have uses in traditional medicine.

Peanuts are planted every year – and it used to be a huge export crop from the Gambia, but the global price of peanuts crashed some 20 years ago, leading to the poverty the Gambia now faces. It’s still exported but the farmers no longer get much money for it.
(Page 9 of letter
They do use a few spices in their cooking, mainly salt, MSG, pepper, onions and oil. The sauce and rice combination is very similar to Indian food; it just doesn’t taste nearly as good. I don’t think they can afford any other spices really. They are definitely open to other tastes, on the few times I’ve given them part of my breakfast, they’re enjoyed it, but I still think they prefer their own cooking. There are some fat Gambians, - but they’re almost always, well off - you can tell by their clothes, or the fact that they’re driving a vehicle. Obviously, the Gambians are in real trouble if they ever become sedentary, because their diet is very unhealthy – all the salt, MSG and oil.

My family definitely thinks yoga is a bit strange – they usually watch me while I do it, so I’ve started to close my curtain to block out the stares.

Jali’s size. I really don’t know because I get very conflicting answers, 1000 – 3000, but I think 3000 is way too high. There are about 60 family compounds, and 5 male surnames: predominantly Drammeh (me) Samatee, Diba, Dafee, and Dabo are also somewhat popular. Men marry between 25-30, usually, women 13 – 18 in village, older in Kombo.

I’m not sure what they teach in the schools, I don’t usually spend much time in the classrooms at school, but I do know that little knowledge is retained, due to their teaching methods, which involve writing a long paragraph on the board and having the students copy it down. It’s in English, usually, so many don’t understand what they’re even writing. (Page 10)

My garden produced about 20 cucumbers, and the tomatoes are now finally ready – I pick 5 – 6 a day to eat. The pumpkins are growing nicely, and they should be ready soon. I harvested my moringa trees a couple times and Bintou, (one of Rob’s two mother’s) made a tasty green sauce with it. The green ? sauce is my favorite, and can be made with any leafy green: moringa, baobab, or amaranth, and is mixed with pounded peanut, onion, hot pepper, MSG, and palm oil. But, yeah, the garden harvest was pretty sad.

The Gambians don’t eat vegetables in the same way we do – they are all pounded and mixed together to form a sauce, so there’s never the enjoyment of tasting the different flavors and textures. Onion is the most common, by far, followed by sorrel leaves, amaranth leaves, okra, tomatoes, baobab leaves, pumpkin, etc. They don’t use many vegetables however, mostly oil, rice and peanuts and fish (if we’re lucky). Hopefully the fishing rod will come today and we can start eating lots of good fish!!! The fish in village gets trucked in every day all the way from Kombo, and while tasty, is small and very bony.

It sounds like things are going very well back at home: bridge, golf, and fishing – Dad, congrats on winning the tournament!! That’s really impressive to have won at all 3 clubs. Thanks for all your notes of encouragement – they help a lot, especially when I’m feeling down. I’m glad you have had a lot of time to spend with the family – it’s definitely what I miss the most – and I can’t wait for you all to come visit!!



Note from Barb ----Rob’s address is:
Rob Tidmore, PCV
US Peace Corps
PO Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa
The PC truck delivers the mail the 4th Friday of every month. Letters are best to receive, they arrive in country in around 10 days and will be held for the truck. . An air mail letter costs about $1.00. He can get e mail, but please limit it to personal correspondence, because he has a limited amount of time he can use the computer when he is in Banjul. The e mail address is robtidmore@alum.bucknell.edu

Best Weekend Ever!

I head back to village tomorrow after what were six incredible days of good living in Kombo.

The trip down to Kombo started off rather rough Friday morning, with a 4:20am wake up from the school's night watchman who had come to inform me that the gele-gele was early, and if I wanted to catch it, I had better hurry to the pick-up. It took me about 5 minutes to even realize what was going on, and that this man actually did have a reason to be waking me up at such an ungodly hour.

The early departure paid off with an early arrival in Kombo, giving me plenty of time to buy yet another pair of sandals to replace the THREE pairs that I had broken in the past three weeks. Needless to say, my feet are a bit sore now, and I still haven't found a decent pair of sandals here. Nick and I started off our weekend with style - beers in hand before noon, followed an afternoon lounging in hammocks at the beach. Friday
night we had drinks at Fausto's beautiful apartment (complete with marble tiles, granite counter tops, leather couches, plasma TV, surround sound, and nice artwork - almost as nice as my hut), and then went out bar hopping and dancing till 5:30am.

After the 'morning fog' was chased away by a couple cups of coffee, we walked to the beach to meet up with another friend, Tom, who had recently purchased a sailboat despite his lack of sailing knowledge. He offered to let us take it out before he himself had even set sail on it, and even gave us a ride to the marina in his sweet, old, canvas top Land Rover Discovery. Now, keep in mind that our typical transportation involves taking 3 different cramped, hot geles to get to the same spot, and you get an idea of how nice this was. After Tom introduced us to the harbor master, he wished us luck and drove back to spend time with his visiting friends, but not before going to buy us gas for the outboard. Unbelievably nice guy. We spent about half an hour getting the boat all ready to set sail while waiting for Fausto to arrive with the beer and fishing rods. While rigging the boat, we ran into three other toubabs in the marina, and ended up chatting with them over lunch.

Catching Up...

Well, IST (that's In Service Training) is officially over, and as usual, it was about half useful. The highlight was definitely getting to go out and harvest honey. We didn't use a smoker (as a little experiment) so the air all around us was filled with swarming bees, it was rather eerie. It sounded like they were all inside the suit (which they weren't of course, but it took a bit of getting used to). We had another good session on fruit tree grafting where we learned the tongue and groove method (for mango, avocado, cola, etc) and the T-budding method (for citrus). Introducing grafted varieties in the villages has the potential to extend the fruiting season by several months, which would dramatically improve nutrition. Alex, Matt, Cam, and I are trying out a bunch of really interesting trees and plants at site. I'm taking Indian Blackberry, Avocado, and Almond seedlings back to site with me, as well as 2 ducks (for a small-scale breeding program that I want to introduce to my family) and a cat (more of a rat and lizard killing machine to rid my garden of the pests). Should make for a very interesting gele ride back to site. I have no idea how I'm going to transport all of it! I collected some good seeds as well to take back and plant - improved cassava, almond, Acacia albida, some new beans, pigeon peas, acacia nilotica, mesquite, and a bunch of others. I'm excited to get back and get everything planted, should keep me entertained for a couple months at least!

Preserving My Sanity with Work

I've been really, really busy in village, which is a good thing. I think, honestly, that it's the only thing that keeps me sane. If I had time to sit and think, I would start to wax sentimental and dwell on all the things I'm missing here - friends, family, good food, skiing, cool weather, interesting conversations, etc. You get the basic idea. Fortunately, I LOVE my work. I am absolutely fascinated by all the different uses for trees, and the myriad advantages that trees bring to the people and the surrounding environment. It's also very fulfilling to think that the trees I plant, and the changes they make to the local environment and the benefit to the villagers will be around for hundreds of years (assuming no bush fires kill them, that is)... I don't know how well I've described my work on the blog, so I'll give you a basic summary here. I'm officially an AgroForestry volunteer, which essentially involves incorporating trees and bushes into agriculture and animal husbandry practices to make the whole process more sustainable and provide better crop yields with minimal damage to the surrounding environment. Sorry, that was quite the unintended mouthful. Basically I work with farmers to plant trees in their fields and in the village to protect the soil from erosion, provide essential nutrients to the soil, to help alleviate malnourishment, and to generate income for what would otherwise be subsistence farmers.

My projects are extremely varied, and provide a good mix of good old-fashioned, gettin' your hands-dirty manual labor, advisory roles, education of the local people, and working with bigger NGOs. I've been incredibly fortunate to have such an abundance of work at my site. It seems the vast majority of volunteers struggle with finding projects to work on. Whether my good fortune is a function of my location or simply my burning desire to work as hard as possible, is yet unknown. I get real pleasure just gazing over my massive garden, and watching the plants and trees grow and thrive, despite all the challenges they face. To be honest, the West African Sahel (the semi-desert area of Africa south of the Sahara) is a hell of place to be practicing any sort of intensive agricultural practices. The soil is completely degraded (it's little more than sand), the area receives about 3 months of rain, the pests are voracious and impossible to kill with organic practices, and things are only getting worse with increasing deforestation and overpopulation pressures.

Daily Life in Jali

Dear Mom & Dad, Feb 25th, 2007 (arrived March 2nd)

Well, hopefully by now, you’ve received all 52 pages of that last monstrosity. Not entirely sure what came over me, but as you have seen I got a little carried away in my retelling. Who knows, maybe I’ll have to make a book about this experience when I get back- put together from the many pages of letters I think you’re going to receive over the next 2 years.

So, now almost 7 weeks have gone by since I finished training, and it feels like I just got here. I wonder if time will always pass this quickly, or if this is just a function of my recent arrival and attempts at adjusting to Jali. Things continue to go very well, although this does vary considerably from one hour to another. I’m really enjoying my freedom here, I can essentially do whatever I want, but as you know, in my case this involves working- a lot. I’ve got more projects then I know what to do with, and every day it seems I agree to help one more person build a Mud stove or start a dry season garden. Speaking of which, my garden is essentially finished, all I need to do is transplant my nursery when the time comes, and sow the rest of the bed after I return from my visit to Sharon.

My house now is about completed, I still have some shelving to build and some maps to hang, and a desk I want to build, but you won’t even recognize it from the first set of pictures, when you come to visit. I’ve painted it, put up curtains and door-hangings, I’ve constructed a nice little kitchen area, and my backyard is looking really good- Lots of growing going on out there. Just so you know, the packages you sent have been great- the maps were wonderful + beautiful, the yoga book, while cheesy, is actually really good and I practice Yoga every day (I run on the others). The hummus is delicious, and the protein powder makes a nice edition to my oatmeal in the mornings. All the vitamins, toothpaste, and Burtis Bees and batteries you sent were great too. I have yet to receive the package with the battery charger and towel, but I’m assuming that will come next mail run.

We’ll have to discuss your visit somewhere over the next couple months. I’m excited to end 3 months-challenge, so I can start exploring African-Gambia doesn’t have much to offer in terms of sightseeing, or hiking, or really, anything for that matter, we can talk about it over the phone, but if you two want, we can spend a couple days in Gambia, and then travel to another much more interesting piece of Africa. Anyway, that’s a ways from now, so we can discuss it then.
In the meantime, I have to figure out who will water my garden while I’m gone for only 3 days, to visit Sharon. (I’m not supposed to spend the night outside of site- but if they think they can treat me like a child in tat respect, then I’ll just have to sneak around their backs like a child would do). I think of you two a lot, every day, and I can’t help wondering what you are doing, or what you are eating for dinner. Ahh, good food. Can’t wait for my garden to be ready. Tell everyone I said hello, and apologize for my lack of corresponding to anyone other than you, but until I get caught up with my writing to you, I won’t be sending any other letters out-52 pages is plenty I think. Enough chit- chat, time to get back to my long narration…. Actually , I think I’ll run you through a typical day for me in Jali first.

7:15 to 7:30 AM- Wake up to the sounds of donkeys braying, rooster crowing, goats and sheet making whatever God awful noise it is they make and women pounding rice or coos. I’ve tried on occasion to sleep in, but noise or guilt always rouses me before 8 AM. Morning here during the cool season are really pleasant and cool. The sun rises around 7:10 AM and doesn’t truly become “hot” until around 9:30 AM.

7:45 to 9:00 AM- Greet my family and then go for a run/do push-ups and sit-ups or do yoga. If I’m doing yoga, there are usually one curious pair of eyes peeking in wondering what the hell I’m doing. Sometimes Binki, my one armed aunt brings cassava or sweet potato from her garden for a morning snack.

9:00 to 10:00 AM- After the morning exercise I sweep my home and take a bucket bath, loving the cold, refreshing water. Then I listen to BBC on the shortwave and cook breakfast and drink my tea or coffee or “African Bush Tea” made from the leaves of the siisiila naamo ( mosquito grass) with some other goodness thrown in to vary it a bit.

10:00 to 10:30 AM-Water my nursery bed, seed boxes, backyard garden, papaya tree and main garden. After watering I consolidate and empty all my bidongs ( essentially old 5 gallon plastic vegetable oil containers with a lid and a handle) into my bath bucket or drinking water bucket so they are ready to be re-filled.

10:30 to 11:00 AM- Pump water and carry it back to my house. Currently, I need 6 bidongs a day for drinking, bathing and watering my garden which means 3 trips to the pump ( I carry one in each hand to balance)- its about 200 yards away, and I can just make it to my doorstep before my fingers give out. Right now, I’m only using a third of my garden’s available space. I’ve planned 1 and a half small beds and have my compost pit for water. I’m waiting to plant the rest until after I visit Sharon. I don’t want my host mothers to have to carry all that water. I’m estimating that I’m going to need to pump and carry between 14 and 16 bidongs a day when my garden reaches full capacity- that’s 70 to 80 gallons of water. I ‘m hoping that my family will help a bit, of course, since they’ll be eating the food too, but who knows. I think, however, that its fairly safe to say I won’t be needing to do any pushups soon.

11:00 to 3:00 PM-I’ll usually do any number of projects during this time, but I try to do my physical work now, as it gets really damn hot around 2:30. On days I go to the bush, I’ll leave around 9AM and come back around 2:30 PM.

3:00 to 3:30 PM –Lunch- almost always rice but sometimes coos ( not cous-cous) with some sort of sauce- peanut sauce, green leaf sauce or onion oil sauce. It tastes really good, but is usually lacking protein.

3:30 to 6:00 PM- Again, usually work on a number of projects: writing, fixing up the house, going for a “stroll” through the village, visiting the school, making a mud stove, etc.

6:30 to 7:00 PM-Water my garden again, and if needed, fetch more water. Sweep house again- it loves to collect dust, and grass seeds fall all the time. Sunset at 7ish.
7:00 to 9:30 PM- Bathe and enjoy the now-cool air, eat a pre-dinner snack-usually a can of sardine ( which have become my protein staple- and they’re delicious) and an orange or grapefruit from Nick’s family’s orchard in Janneh Kunda.

7:30 to 8:00 PM- Hang out with my family on the bantaba, look at the stars, chat, read.

8:30 PM- Dinner, always rice with a sauce.

8:30 to 10:00 PM Hang out with family more, chat, read, etc.

10:00 PM- Go inside my house, write in journal, read, or sleep –usually asleep by 11:00 PM.

Nick and I had decided long before, that we would go to the beach immediately after dropping off our things at the PC transit house. Sharon had arrived that morning, and it was absolutely wonderful to see her again. After laughing quietly to ourselves at the throng of people sprawled out in front of the TV, the three of us set off for the beach. The waves were terrible for bodysurfing, but the water felt absolutely amazing after the long journey. That night we each had a double order of Cassava and beans from a small restaurant around the corner from the PC house and COLD beer. Delicious. Over the next few days the three of us avoided the Stodge (PC transit house)as much as possible. The atmosphere there is rather strange. The TV is on 24 hours a day and the majority of people simply plunk themselves down in front of it and spend the day on one of the couches. I also had the feeling that some of the other volunteers didn’t think we should be there, since we were supposed to be on “3 month challenge.” Anyway, it worked out well. Sharon and I stayed at a friend’s place in Kombo, and Nick stayed at a nice house his Caradian friends were housesitting.

It is definitely one of the strangest Christmases I’ve ever had, and despite all the tacky, but fun, decorations at the Stodge, it did not feel like Christmas whatsoever. That being said, we all had a really great time. A bunch of us AgFo volunteers went out to dinner on Christmas Eve to a tourist bar renowned in Peace Corps circles for their good steaks and cheap beer. The steaks were indeed delicious, and the beer was plentiful and cold, but it was no match for Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding. Ahh well, I’ll be eating my fill of that in 2 years or so. Sharon and I had a wonderful time together, played a lot of cards, went for walks on the beach and had a really nice Christmas dinner at our friend’s apartment. The time flew by, and before we knew it, we had to say goodbye again and go back to our sites, on opposite sides of the river.

Seeing Nick’s garden in his backyard really inspired me, so I immediately set to work building my own garden set up. Unfortunately, my backyard is about a quarter the size of Nick’s, so I had to search for other opportunities. Initially, I dug a bed in the small fenced-in garden abutting my house. The soil here is extremely compacted, hard as a rock, and it took a lot of work just to dig the one bed. Because the soil is so hard, and water retention such an important asset to a garden, a technique called “double –digging” is used to improve plants and penetration and the beds water retaining abilities. This involves digging down approximately 12 inches to the bottom of the topsoil, and setting it aside for later use in the compost. Then the topsoil is placed back in the bed, so the soil sits below the surface of the surrounding earth. Unfortunately, due to poor planning on my part, I realized that the bed would receive almost no sunlight, due to its proximity to two mango trees. Unabashed, I decided to use the bed as a nursery from which my ever-expanding hypothetical garden would be launched. Now all I needed was a suitable, fenced-in area in which to put it.

Locating such an area turned out to be rather difficult. Jali is littered with the skeletal remains of what once must have been a substantial number of gardens. Old dilapidated fences can be found all over the village, protecting what are now barren patches of land with a few scattered grasses. Unfortunately, all the fences were just that, dilapidated, and couldn’t possibly keep out the roaming herds of hungry sheep and goats. Initally, I thought of fixing up the fence that encircles my family’s “kajkajo” ( essentially a mini field for growing cassava and corn during the rainy season). However, once I began to actually begin the repair process, I quickly realized that it would be 3 months before I had the fence in a condition that would allow me to plant my garden. After a number of discussions with Lamin and Fatoumata , it was decided that Fatoumata and I would fence off one corner of the field that still had a decent outer fence. This meant that we only had to build two sides of the fence. Now, I use “only “ her rather subjectively, because, as you are to find out, it took a LOT of work to make that fence.

Monday Feb. 19th, 2007
So, as you can see, I got a little ambitious once again with my letter writing, and am unable to finish my narration in time for mail run, which comes tomorrow. The fact is, I’ve been INCREDIBLY busy- I know almost every other volunteer will shake their heads in disbelief ( as they already have several times), but I ‘ve gotten a ridiculous number of projects I’m working on. This is not a bad thing, mind you, I find that staying busy makes like much more enjoyable here- it gives me a purpose and a drive. This is not something to be taken lightly, its very easy to get caught up in feeling of hopelessness or be overwhelmed by how much needs to be done here- especially when you are plunked down in a foreign village and are told to find your own work.

I have also decided to abandon the narrative at this point, for several reasons. 1. I’ve been too busy to keep it up. 2. I’ve been writing the daily happenings in my journal.
3. Perhaps, most importantly, now that I’ve somewhat adjusted to village life, and have settled in for the “3 month challenge” pretty much the same things happen every day. I live in a small African village 25 km from the main road, and not a lot goes on out here that would really interest you all enough to keep a narrative going. Instead, I’ll just highlight the more interesting bits, and give you a general overview of what I’ve been up to. Hopefully, this will also take the burden off of Mom’s typing.

Of all the projects I’m working on, the garden is by far the most time-consuming, requiring a minimum of 3 hours of work every day. I got a little carried away--- at the start I wasn’t planning on having such an extensive garden. However, when my host father, Lamin, marked out a rather large area for the garden, I couldn’t resist the thought of all the veggies I would be eating and enthusiastically agreed. The area is about 30 ft. x 25 ft., and as I mentioned earlier, had a fence on 2 sides, so I had to build the other two. It was initially going to be a joint project between Fatoumata and me , but once she realized that I was fully capable of doing the work ( yes the whole stigma that Toubabs cannot do manual labor still persists to this day, even though I’ve shown them many times that I know what I’m doing) it quickly became my project, as Fatoumata busied herself with other work. To be honest, I didn’t mind, it gave me the opportunity to have a project of my own and gave me a little peace and quiet. I would turn the shortwave on the BBC and build fence all day.

Being that Jali doesn’t have anything remotely resembling a hardware store , I had to build the fence from materials in the bush. The first step was to get fence posts. Over the course of 2 days I cut about 60 eight ft. fence posts from “wooro” trees, ( yes, the same on whose leaves make good emergency TP), and carried them back from the bush on my head ( just like the Gambians). I had a very sore neck for a couple days afterward since my neck is not used to carrying all that weight, but I had to try it. It certainly is easier that carrying them in your arms if you have to walk a long way. Trust me, I tried that, first, and my arms gave out after a kilometer. Once I had all my fence posts, I dug the post-holes with a metal rock bar and my hands, and sunk the posts so there was about one foot between each pole. That took another couple days. I headed back into the bush to cart “tomboo “ branches to use for cross pieces. They are very straight, very long, flexible, and very strong and excellent cross bars. In order to tie the cross pieces to the fence posts I needed to make a bunch of rope. Lamin and I went back to the bush and found a number of “farm” shrubs that Gambians use to make rope. We cut the long central branch at the base, stripped off the extra branches and leaves, then split it in two from the top. Once it was split, we were able to pull off the outer bark. Once we had enough long strips of the bark, we tied them in balls and brought them back to soak in water overnight. The next day, Lamin and I tied up the fence- 2 crosspieces on top, 2 on bottom, so that the woo or gap between the 2 crosspieces on top and bottom, through which to run semi thorny branches called “barumbaram” : The barumbaram turned out to be rather difficult to find, and somewhat difficult to carry from the bush, so after several trips, I switched to harvesting mosquito grass-“ suusuula naamo.” It’s made for much easier harvesting and carrying, but because it didn’t have any thorns, I had to use a lot more of it to make an impenetrable barriers. The harvesting and threading of the branches took 2 or 3 days, and there was once more step yet. Lamin informed me that I needed to surround the outside of the fence with “tomborng “ a very thorny, very difficult bush, to prevent goats from damaging the fence. I spent another 2 days, harvesting tomborong and very carefully carrying it back on my head- and not once did I escape harvesting tomborong without some sort of injury. The thorns are both curved and straight and make handling very difficult.

The fence alone took 8 days to build, and then I had to plan out where to site the beds and compost pits to make the best use of the space. Then I spent another week digging all the beds, and setting aside the dirt to use in compost. I also collected about 4 fifty kilograms rice bags or cow manure that I pounded into powder with a large mortar and pestle, to spread over the beds as fertilizer. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Now that everything is ready, and all the beds are planted I have the pleasure of working the damn thing- morning and evening. Between the 6 beds, the compost pit, the trees and nursery in my backyard, plus bathing water and drinking water, I need to pump and haul 14 bidongs a day. Bidongs are 5 gallon containers for carrying oil. That’s 70 gallons every day! It’s exhausting, and eats up three hours every day, plus all the maintenance I have to do: building shade structures, fixing the plants from the nursery, and replanting. It’s becoming a little taxing, but when I start eating some of the goodness I’ve planted, it’ll be worth it. Here’s what I have to look forward to: Roma tomatoes, carrots, red onions, lettuce, big-slicing tomatoes, green peppers, sugar snap peas, eggplant, okra, pumpkin, cucumber, green beans, sorrel leaves, maringa leaves ( basically like a ridiculously vitamin, mineral, and protein packed into mini-spinach leaf), melons, fresh beans, basil and garlic. Needless to say, my food bowl is going to be rocking here soon!!

I’m working on a orchard project at the Jali Lower Basic school. The Headmaster and I are setting up a mango orchard, cashew orchard and citrus orchard that will be started from one large tree nursery near the existing garden. This also sets us up nicely for the county-wide tree nursery completion for schools that aims to encourage the growth and care of seedlings that can later be transplanted in the community to try to re-forest the surrounding area, generate income for the schools, and teach the children about the environment. I’m also working with 3 other schools in the surrounding area on their nurseries for the competition. I’m basically supervising the competition for this region. I’ve also started work on a grant to be used for the womens’ garden in Jali. This is currently a semi-fenced-in space that is only used in the rainy season since there’s no access to water. I’m seeking funding to dig 9 wells and re-fence the area so women can garden in the dry season, when many people don’t have work. I’m also looking for funding to fence a proposed fruit orchard nearer the village. This spot already has wells, but needs a fence. So, like I said, busy, but happy.

I’d love to write more but it’s midnight and I’m exhausted. Unfortunately, mail run comes tomorrow, so you’ll have to wait another stinking month to get the next letter. I’ll make the next one more personal- and I’ll tell you all about Sharon’s upcoming visit to Jali- AS MY WIFE! I think I already told you I had to tell everyone she is my wife so I wouldn’t run into trouble having her here- but now it’s becoming this huge event. The arrival of Aliyn’s wife!! It should prove to be VERY interesting…details to come…

Oh, its also starting to heat up too – the afternoon sun is ridiculous now, very, very hot. Time to invest in a solar-powered fan!! I think about you both all the time, and have contemplated calling it quits many times- sometimes it seems like a waste of time being here, but other times I’d rather not be anywhere else. Definitely a roller coaster ride of emotions, luckily mostly on the positive side. “Anger management” is a big issue- its hard sometimes to not let everything get to you- I understand now why parents beat their children here so much. They basically are someone my age with a family of one, two, or three wives, 7 children, no money and no work. They’re pretty damn stressed out. Even I want to kick the kids sometimes ( though I restrain myself). Anyway, LIFE IS GOOD.

Love you both very, very much!!! Can’t wait to have you over here! Get ready for an eye-opener.

ROB


P.S. Tell everyone I say Hi- especially Maggie, Chris, Stacy, Joe and the kids. I will get around to writing them here someday.

P.P.S. – I got a letter postmarked Jan. 10th and one marked Nov. 17 on the same day when I was in Kombo and Sharon just got a package from October 2005!!! A bit unreliable I’d say! Love you!

(Typing credit must be given to Aunt Paula Severe

Thanksgiving in the Gambia – Letter #4 December 20, 2006 (Part Two)

We had our Swearing-In ceremony on Friday, 2 days before we were scheduled to leave for our sites. The ceremony was to be held at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence, which sits overlooking the beach just south of where we swam everyday. In preparation for the ceremony, all of the guys in our group had been growing mustaches for swearing-in - it has been a PC tradition since the current Ambassador (who himself sports a fine mustache) arrived in country. There was a whole array of mustache styles on display for the big day. Some of us, namely Peter, had grown an impressively large mustache, and had spent the past week trimming the rest of his facial hair into different outrageous styles. He had the “Civil War general” for a few days; which morphed into the “Captain Morgan,” and for Swearing-In, he had just the ridiculously outsized, “Barbershop Quartet” mustache. I myself experimented with a goatee for a couple hours, before deciding to go for the “White trash, ex-professional wrestler/ bounty hunter” look. (All the styles can be seen on my photo website.)

The Ambassador’s residence sat on a small bluff, overlooking the ocean, and was surounded by a beautiful array of exotic plants and flowers. There was a long staircase that ran down to ocean level, and a swimming pool halfway between ocean and house. The ceremony took place on the upper patio- essentially the backyard- that overlooked the ocean. Upon our arrival, we learned that several VIPs, actually all of them, would not be attending the ceremony. Both the Ambassador himself and the PC country Director were away on Emergency leave, and the Gambian government’s Environmental Director was unable to attend. We dubbed it the “Stand-in swearing –in” since all the VIPs had stand-ins to deliver their speeches. Fortunately, the lack of VIPs didn’t affect the food, and after the speeches and oath talking (I swear to defend the U.S. Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic) we got down to business. Honestly, food was probably the reason most people came, particularly the 2nd-year Agro forestry volunteers, who were there for the occasion. After eating ourselves sick, we all headed to the beach to lie in the hammocks and digest the feast

. That evening, the 2nd-year Agfo’s threw us a party @ the Pc transit house. It was quite the party too-I don’t know much they all spent on alcohol, but is must have been a small fortune. We even had a table for beer pong and a table for flip cup (competitive college- drinking games, for the unitiated). After a rocky start, I had been over 2 years since I last played, Nick and I dominated in Pong, but stepped down after 3 consecutive wins, due to the fact that our stomachs were still full from the swearing-in feast.

A bunch of is had decided to go out to a dance club after the party began to wind down. Matt decided it would be a good idea for the 5 of us hanging out in the kitchen to finish the rest of the whiskey and Wanjo before we left for the club. (Wanjo is a sweet red juice made from sorrel flowers). In our drunken states, we all thought it was a good idea too, and no one complained when he added the rest or a bottle of whiskey to the already potent concoction.
We were about halfway to the club, packed into an old, beat up Renault taxi when the first wave of whiskey and wanjo hit. By the time we got to the club, I knew that I was going to be in trouble if I didn’t do something to sober up. Therefore, for the next 3 or 4 hours, I danced as hard as I possibly could to sober up. (It was one of those strangely clairvoyant moments in the midst of a drunken haze.) Those few hours we all spent in the club were easily some of the best I’ve spend on the dance floor. When we arrived, we were essentially the only ones on the dance floor, and we got the DJ to crank out 80’s hits, from Michael Jackson, to Wham! The music progressed to Hip-Hop as the night went on, and by the time we headed back at 3am I was both exhausted and only mildly drunk.

Training is Officially Over (p. 34)
Early Sunday morning, our group of trainees packed up all of our belongings and began to load them into the fleet of PC vehicles waiting to take us to our sites. Training was officially over, and there was a nervous, excited tension in the air. We had all spent the last 2 and a half months together in a strange country, and had grown pretty close. Now it was time to go it alone. I was really excited to get to Jali, and to see my house, but it was sad to leave everyone, particularly Sharon. Knowing that I would see her in a couple weeks for Christmas made the pain a little easier to manage. Peace Corps had effectively brought almost its entire fleet of Land Cruisers and Land Rovers, a totally of 5, and still we had to cram ourselves and all our gear into the vehicle, barely fitting. The vehicles were each going to separate areas of the country, with ours being the only one to take the South Bank Road. Our group rode in relative comfort compared to the vehicle that was headed to Janjanbuch. I believe they had to sit on each other’s laps to make enough room, and their roof rack had 10 feet of gear on it-trunks, gas stoves, and mattresses. Our Land Rover was crowded, but we dumped two people in the first 30 minutes or so, which made things considerably more comfortable. The crew going to Janjanbuch, however, had a 6 hour drive before they dropped-off a single person.

It was interesting going to everyone’s sites and meeting their families, checking out their houses, and driving through the various villages. Mohammadou Bah, a PC language teacher, summed it up nicely; “Well, once you’ve seen a PC house, you’ve seen them all.” He was referring to the fact that they all had white walls; green floors, the exact same windows and doors, and all were essentially the same size. It’s a very standardized housing system, since the houses all have to meet PC specification. Watching everyone’s reactions as the vehicle drove away and they were essentially on their own. I was impressed by how cool and calm everyone looked. It seemed training had prepared us well.

When I arrived in Jali, I was a little surprised, naturally, to see that my house did NOT have a roof!! Again my first response was laughter. I had half assumed that something like this was going to happen. That being said, I was greatly relieved when I saw another Pc vehicle parked under the African Locust Bean tree that abuts my backyard- Mustapha’s truck!! Mustapha, who is in charge of construction and maintenance for Pc, and 2 of his men were here helping my host father with the house. I jumped out of the Land Rover and greeted my family, who had all come out to say hello. Mustapha came up and explained that my father had been too busy with his peanut harvest to work on the house, so he had arrived yesterday to help get things squared away. When I entered the house, I realized that the fence surrounding the backyard was really the only thing that had been fixed. “Oh well”, I thought at least it would give me something to do for the next couple days.

Mustapha and his men had pulled the old grass off the roof, and were in the process of re-cementing the destroyed back wall when I arrived. After unloading my things from the PC vehicle, and saying my goodbyes to Nick and the driver, Sam, they drove off, and I quickly got to down to business. While the cement was drying, the men had erected a support for the back section of the roof, and we started to lay the new grass on the repaired wooden super structure. It was a very quick, efficient procedure, they simply laid a pile of grass on top the wooden structure, unfurled it, so it was spread flat, and tied it into place with Baobab bark rope. When the first layer had covered the lowermost section of the roof, another layer of grass was placed on top, overlapping the layer underneath. In about 4 or 5 hours, we had exhausted out supply of woven grass, but the roof was almost completed, except for the upper quarter, while Lamin (my host father) and 2 of the other men began weaving more grass, Taliboo (the carpenter/mason and I started replacing the old, cracked door frames. Finally, around dusk we called it quits for the day. It was then that Mustaphu excitedly told me that they had killed a crocodile earlier in the day while they were harvesting grass for the roof, and that we would be eating it for dinner. I wasn’t sure exactly whether to be excited or worried, but he assured me that it was “very sweet,” He wasn’t kidding. I had 3 or 4 chunks in my food bowl that night, and they were delicious! It tasted like a cross between fish and steak; essentially very mild, juicy, tender fish. We had it a few times during the next 2 days and I looked forward to every meal.
We worked dawn to dusk for the next 2 days, finishing the roof, re-cementing the interior gap between roof and walls, patching the crakes in the walls, putting screens on the doors, and repainting the walls, floor, and exterior of the house. I slept outside in my bivy sack during the repair process-either the house was too filthy, the roof wasn’t finished, or the floor paint wasn’t completely dry but it was nice and cool, so I slept well. The night before they were supposed to leave, Mustapha locked his keys in the Land Cruiser, so we spent the next hour breaking into the truck, eventually using a red-hot wire to create a groove in the door lock tab so we would pull it up from the outside. The next morning the floor paint was dry, so we went in to inspect our work. It didn’t even look like the same house, the change was dramatic. Satisfied that their work was finished, mustapha and his men left to fix another new volunteer’s house.
The 12 days I spent at site before heading back to Kombo for Christmas absolutely flew by. I was so busy I found myself wondering whether or not I had actually left the fast—powered world of America. They kept warning us in training not to be too ambitious and to go slowly, and had conditioned us to adjust to a slower pace of life, but to this day, I feel I haven’t had a free moment, There is always something to do, some new project to start, or people coming up asking for help with a mud stove, or with a garden. I’m not complaining, whatsoever, I thrice on the activity and the busyness, and wouldn’t want it any other way, but it certainly has made finding time to write, rather difficult.

Peanut Fields (p. 38)
The day Mustapha and his crew left, I headed to the peanut fields to help Lamin with the harvest. He had already brought a load of groundnut hay (essentially the non-nut part of the Peanut plant) back in Mustapha’s truck, and we needed to winnow the remainder before returning with a donkey cart. In the Gambia, there are many phases of harvesting, all of which are labor intensive. First, the peanut plants are pulled from the ground and laid in small piles to dry. After a few days, the small piles are collected and deposited in one large pile. The pile of peanut plants is then hand- threshed to separate the nuts from the plant. Finally, the threshed material is winnowed to separate the nuts from the hay. The Gambians rely on the strong Harmattan winds that blow from the northeast during the dry season to facilitate the winnowing process. Therefore, a certain amount of patience is required, as the winds aren’t totally consistent.

When we arrived at the fields, Lamin climbed up the remains of a dead tree that had been buried in the ground, the whole thing shaking wildly with his every movement, I was certain it was going to snap, but it held firmly. He was about 7 feet off the ground when he reached the top, and it was my job to gather the peanut hay and pass it up to him in buckets. At that point, he would wait for the wind to pick up enough speed, and slowly dump the contents of the bucket onto the ground, letting the wind do the sorting, It was a very simple process, but unfortunately, not very efficient, as we had to winnow half the pile again, to remove all the hay. While Lamin and I were winnowing, my two little brothers, Buba and Alagi, both 5, were picking up individual peanuts out of the dirt surrounding the pile and throwing them on top. It was a pretty thankless job, as the lowermost peanuts were constantly being re-buried by dirt. It amazed me that he hadn’t thought of throwing down a couple rice bags to act as a tarp and prevent the dirt from hiding all the nuts. I pointed this out to him and he thought it was a wonderful idea saying that he would do it next year. It made me realize how little value Gambians place on efficiency- it’s all about cost saving measure here. Which, considering it’s one of the poorest countries in the world, is pretty understandable when the winnowing was completed, Amadou (Lamin’s eldest child) and his friend, both 13, began bagging the peanuts in old rice bags. When we finally had bagged all the peanuts, including the several thousand buried in the ground, it was approaching 3 pm, and we hurried back for lunch.

Lamin and I returned to the peanut field 3 or 4 times over the next 2 days to gather up the rest of the peanuts and the leftover hay, and bringing them back to village with a donkey cart he borrowed from a neighbor. He sold the peanuts to a merchant in town, and we dumped the peanut hay in the fenced- in backyard. It would be used to feed his 5 cows during the heart of the dry season, when they would no longer find enough food by foraging. When I wasn’t out working in the fields, I was busy fixing up my house, getting my locally- made bed and mattress (local mattresses are made from the rice bags sewn together and then filled with straw, which I was told was much cooler than the soft, cushy foam mattresses due to the fact that you don’t sink into it.) and unpacking and sorting out all the things I had accumulated since my arrival. I spent considerable time getting my backyard spruced up. I made tree basins for all the moringa trees and the papaya, added cow manure for fertilizer, and pruned and transplanted some of the larger moringa trees. I was starting to feel at home finally, and began to settle into a little morning routine where I would get up and go for a run or do yoga, come back and bathe, and then cook myself a delicious breakfast of oatmeal, that I would spice up with peanut butter, honey or Jam, freshly ground cinnamon and nutmeg, or wheat bran; depending on my mood.
First Projects Chosen

Despite all the busyness and activity, it was strange and sometime difficult, to adjust to a completely none-scheduled life. There was essentially nothing that I had to do, so it took a fair bit of self-motivation and drive, sometimes, to get started on a project. My mood was also extremely varied, and would undergo dramatic swings on a daily, even hourly basis. There were times when all I wanted to do was hide out in my house and not talk to anyone, but then almost invariably, something would happen to make me realize how great it was to be here, and how many possibilities I had for projects and work. Mornings are typically the hardest for me. I usually wake up exhausted, not so much from lack of sleep, (I usually mange to get a good night’s rest) but because adjusting to a new culture, lifestyle, language, and environment is totally draining. Add to that all the exploring on my bike, garden work and morning exercise, and it becomes quite a load on the body. Granted, I wouldn’t want it any other way but it does take me a while to leave the bed most mornings. That being said, compared to me, Gambians hardly sleep at all, and I haven’t been able to figure out how they manage. I’m usually asleep between 10:30 and 11:30, and I get up between 7:00 and 7:30. When I go to sleep, my family is up at first light, pounding rice or coos and Lamin goes to the mosque every morning at 6am when it’s still dark.

During the two weeks before Christmas, I visited the school in Jali twice to meet the headmaster and to see if there were any projects I could assist with. Jali has a Lower basic School, which is essentially like our elementary schools, Grade1-6. The Gambia also has Upper Basic Schools, Grades 7-9, and secondary schools, grades 10-12, but these are much less common then Lower Basic Schools, which usually can be found in most villages and towns. Jali’s school was relatively new and in good condition. The Headmaster, Demba Bojang was very excited about the possibility of our collaboration, and took me on a tour of the school to show me his various projects. Even in our first encounter, I could tell he was a very determined, ambitious, and hard working man. After seeing all the projects he had helped to implement. I knew he was very committed to the school and would be a fantastic counterpart for part of my work in Jali.

The school projects were both numerous and varied. The headmaster had obtained a grant to start a poultry project to generate income for the school. They had purchased 50 commercial layer hens from Senegal, and were selling the eggs to people in the area. It was an impressive se-up, they had the chickens well protected in a small bamboo shack, and had purchased commercial chicken feed from Kombo. The headmaster told me that he even had to use some of his own money at the start to pay for the feed, but since it was for the school, he was happy to do so. The school also had a small goat project, where they bred and fattened goats to sell to the surrounding area. The Headmaster had also implemented a banana plantation some years ago, which was now thriving. The students had their own banana plant, which they were responsible for watering every day, and the banana sales were used to help pay for their book fees. When I arrived they were in the process of starting a school garden so the children would have practical gardening experience, and would reap the benefits by having fresh vegetables in their school lunch. All together, it was an impressive enterprise, and I told the Headmaster I looked forward to working at the school, and helping out in any way that I could. We discussed the possibility of expanding his poultry project to make it more profitable, and talked about starting and Environmental Club for the students. I left the school very excited about the potential there, and promised to return after the Holidays.

On the walk back, I probably greeted about 50 people- a very typical occurrence here, as the school is on the other side of town, During one of the many greetings, I discovered that the man I was talking to was the baker in Jali. I expressed interest in his work, and he invited me to come over that evening to observe. I was very curious to see how bread was made in the Gambia, so I said that I would definitely come. When I arrived at his compound that evening, his family took me over to a semi open-walled hut that was dominated by a huge clay oven, about 7 feet in diameter, and 10 feet tall. It sat on a large mud-brick square, so its door was at waist level, and the roof had a small opening for the chimney. When I arrived, Lamin greeted me enthusiastically and began explaining what he was doing. He had already shaped the dough into individual baguette-esque loaves, and was busy preparing the oven for baking. He had a large fire burning in the middle of the oven, that he said he started at around 4pm. It was not 8pm, so it took a considerably amount of time to heat the oven large oven. While I watched, He carefully pushed the fire to one side of the oven letting the embers continue burning. He then took a mixture of water and dirt, and spread it over the surface of the oven, presumably to keep the bottoms of then loaves from burning. Today, he said he was only baking 40 loaves, because the demand had been low recently. In the candlelit semi-darkness of the hut, he transferred the loaves from his dough making area on one side, to a wooden shelf next to the oven, from where he would lad them into the oven. When he was satisfied the oven was ready, he placed 4 loaves into a wooden baker’s paddle, scored the tops with a razor blade lengthwise, and brushed a thin solution of sugar, water, and yeast on the tops of the bread. Then, with quick, expert hand movements loaded the bread into the far corner of the oven and withdrew the now empty paddle. He placed a piece of wood over the opening while he prepared the next 4 loaves. The whole time I watched, I imagined myself somewhere 5 or 6 hundred years ago, watching the exact same process. Except for his small flashlight that he used to peer into the oven, we may as well have been in Medieval Europe, watching a baker at his craft. It was simply fascinating. While he loaded the remainder of the loaves, he rearranged the ones he had placed earlier with the same quick expert movement, made it all the more impressive by the fact that he only had 3 fingers on his right hand, and 4 in his left. (This is a pretty common problem I’ve noticed among older Gambian men). Lamin was a smallish, thin man, who looked like he was in his late 60s. Because of the heat, he was working with his shirt off, and even at his age, he was still very sinewy, and his small body belied a quiet strength. He started to pull the loaves out, as they were ready, knocking them together and then brushing them with a rag to remove the dirt on the bottom. When they had cooled enough to handle, he broke one in half and handed it to me, the broken and still steaming. It was delicious!! My mind very quickly thought of all the possibilities, fresh baked pizza, with fresh tomatoes from the garden, bean sandwiches, ect. Needless to say, Lamin and I became pretty good friends. I visited him twice a week to chat and watch him bake, He would always give me half a loaf to munch on, and I would buy several loaves for my family, Unfortunately, as I write this Lamin is currently sick, and is staying with his son in Kombo.

Eating peanut butter with my oatmeal every morning quickly exhausted my stockpile of peanut butter I had bought at the Kwinella market, so one day I asked my family if anyone in town sold it. Then said no, but Fatoumata offered to help me make my own the following day. After breakfast, I sat with Lamin and the two of us de-shelled a big bowl of peanuts. After an hour or so, we gave the bowl to Fatoumata, who hand winnowed the shells and the nuts with a big, flat woven basket. Once the nuts and shells were separated, we roasted the peanuts in a big metal pot partly filled with sand over a small workfire. After about 10 or 15 minutes of stirring the peanuts and sand, we removed the nits and allowed them to cool in the basket. Once cooled, I de-husked the peanuts and put them in a peanut grinder that my family had mounted on a small table in the porch. The grinder was, of course, hand powered, so after 20 minutes of good solid cranking, my peanut butter was ready. Most of it had ended up in the bowl, but the grinder had a good layer of peanut butter stuck to it, which I gladly ate off my fingers as I wiped it clean. It was still worm, and delicious!! So, far the next 2 weeks or so, I had my own handmade peanut butter with my oatmeal in the mornings.

Later that day, as I was sitting with my family practicing my ataya brewing skills, one of our neighbors, Baba, came over and quickly said something to Lamin that I couldn’t catch. I didn’t know what was going on, but Lamin and Baba made it clear that they wanted me to go with them. I followed them up the path a ways, and turned the corner to see about 25 men gathered around a water pump. As men NEVER fetch their own water here, I found it pretty unusual that so many men would be gathered around the pump, but it turned our that a man had come from Kombo to fix the pump, which had been broken for about 2 weeks. Watching the procedure, I was amused by how similar the whole operation was to a construction project back in the U.S. There was one man who clearly knew what he was doing, a handful of men working, a bunch of guys “helping,” and another bunch just watching. Pretty much the only thing missing was the beer. I have trouble just standing around whilst people are working, especially here, where everyone assumed that Toubabs don’t do manual labor. Since this Toubab enjoys getting his hands dirty, I was eager to help out, and to prove that I would work just like the rest of them. At first, they resisted, talked about how hard it was, and that I would get my hands dirty. (I get that a lot, to this day) I had trouble reigning in my anger, and insisted that I would help. I had watched for a few minutes and knew what to do. They already had the pump housing off, and were starting to haul up the pipes that led down to the water table. The man from Kombo had diagnosed a problem with the rubber valve at the bottom, the piping was very heavy. It took 5 of us to lift the pipe up (2 with pipe wrenches) while one man operated a clamp that locked the pipe into place. Slowly we began to haul the piping out of the hole unscrewing the 3 meter section and placing them to the side, as they came up. We pulled up and detached 9 of the 3m segments before getting to the pump unit. The repairman replaced the faulty pump with a new one, and we reversed the process, slowly adding pipe and lowering it into the hole. It was a pretty ingenious design, and despite some quibbles between the “chiefs” the whole process went smoothly, and I proved, once again, that yes, Toubabs could work too. Although some people tend to forget it rather quickly.

Knowing that I was only going to be at site for 2 weeks before going to Kombo again for Christmas, I wanted to do a small quick project that I knew would help my family, and get the word out around the village that I was here to help. I decided that building improved cook stoves would be a good start. I talked to Fatoumata and Bintou about it, and they were both were receptive to the idea, They knew what the mud stoves were, but just didn’t know how to make them, and after I explained that the mud stoves use about a third less firewood for cooking, Amadan, my younger brother said he would like to help out, He’s the primary firewood collector for the family, so he had a vested interest in getting the stove built. The stoves are fairly simple to build, and will last several years if made well. Amandon and I went out the following day to collect the necessary materials; Clay from termite mounds, cow dung, and wood ash. We dumped the materials in the backyard, and began pounding the cow dung and termite clay into fine particles that would mix well. After the pounding, we mixed everything with water, and stomped on it with bare feet to mix it. Once it was mixed well, we piled it, and covered the pile with grass, where it would sit for 6 days to allow the mixture to strengthen. We watered the pile every day to prevent the mixture from drying and hardening.

In the meantime, I did some exploring of the surrounding town on my bike, and went Keneba to visit a livestock research facility there, and to try again at MRC. (I had met a health extension worker in Jali from the MRC who gave me the name of the doctor I should consult.) The visit to the livestock facility went really well they were eager to collaborate on a project to grow fodder for their cowherds the second attempt at MRC also went very smoothly. Having the name of the doctor helped immensely- I was taken right to his office. I think he was a little surprised when I opened the door- I don’t think he was expecting to see another Toubab, especially one he didn’t know, He invited me in and we had a nice chat. He said he had been here for 1 year, with his wife and 18 month old daughter, He was from a small town in the southwest of England, but said he was familiar with Harrogate when I told him I lived there for several years. WE talked about MRC, its purpose and service, and vaguely discussed collaboration possibilities, but said he would be eager to see me after the holidays as he was leaving for England the following day. He also said he’d like to have me over for dinner occasionally, which I told him I didn’t think would be a problem. It was very encouraging to get such a positive feedback from both organizations, and it just added to my growing list of project ideas. Our Volunteer Leader during training, who has since completed his service, put it nicely; “The advantages of working in once of the poorest countries in the world, is that there is always something to do.”

As luck would have it, (actually not luck, just poor planning on my part.) the materials for the mud stove constriction weren’t ready until the day I was set to leave for Nick’s site to begin our crazy travel to Kombo- which I’ll discuss a little later. Luckily, I didn’t have to leave until the evening; since he’s only 25 km away- a quick hour plus bike ride. Nonetheless, I got up early that morning, did my yoga, and began work on the mud stove after breakfast, Amadou had the day off from school, and so he and we built the stoves together. Bintou and Fatoumata wanted 2 stoves built, one for cooking rice, and one for cooking the various sauces. After mixing the clay a second time, we formed it into little balls, and formed a ring around each of the three cook stoves, which the pot sits on to prevent them from moving. We then slowly built up a wall of clay around the perimeter of the three stoves insuring that it made a good fit with the pot. While I was supposedly teaching Amadou how to make the stove, I was also learning how to do it myself. I knew the theory behind it, but missed the hands on demonstration during training due to sickness. It took considerably longer than I had expected to build both the stoves. The second one, although larger, took less time as I already had the technique down. By the time we finally finished, it was 4 pm, and my lower back and legs were killing me from all the bending over and squatting. I left instruction with Amdou to cut a hole in one of the sides for firewood after a day, and to keep it covered for 6 days while it dried.

I took a quick bath to wash the fermented cow dung off, threw some clothes into my bad, locked the house, and said goodbye to my family. It took another 15 minutes to get out of Jali, since everyone wanted to know were I was going and how long I was going for. When I finally got on my bike at the edge of the village it was 5:30pm. It starts to get dark around 7 pm, and being that I had never actually been to his site, I was anxious to get moving, The largish pack I was carrying slowed me down a bit, and only made my lower back pain worse, so I stopped in Keneba to throw it on the rack, half expecting it to fall off during the ride. I had also tried unsuccessfully to confirm with Nick that I was actually coming that day- my text messages weren’t going through. I was especially anxious to let them know I was coming because his last message had said that his father wanted to kill a chicken for my arrival, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to miss out on that. I tried again, in Keneba, where I have full service, but the message still wouldn’t go through. (I was out of credit, I just didn’t realize it.) I was pretty frustrated at that point; the sun was sinking fast, my back was sore as hell, I still had 17 km to go. To top it all off, I was probably going to miss out on the chicken. (I pedaled as hard as I could, but had to stop a few time to get directions or confirm I was on the right road, and when I finally got to Janned Kinda it was pitch black. After a bath and dinner, I passed out.

Travel to Kombo
Nick and I woke early the next morning, eager to get started on our adventure trip to Kombo. Nick had found a way for us to cut off the vast majority of the terrible South band road by crossing the Bintang Bolong, that essentially makes our area a peninsula. The first leg of the journey included biking 14 km to Misira, where Nick had arranged for us to leave our bikes with the Alikaloo (village head). Once our bikes were safely secured, we shouldered our packs and walked a few km to the edge of the bolong where we would catch the boat that was to take us across the bolong to a small town called Bintang. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the boat operators to show up. They had been waiting for enough passengers to arrive to make the trip profitable. Transportation here runs on demand, not by schedule. The two operators showed up, checked to make sure they had enough passengers, and then promptly walked off into the bush. They returned in 5 minutes with a small outboard motor that they had presumably stashed in the brush nearby to prevent theft, while the two men were setting up the motor. we began to load the boat. The bolong’s bank was comprised of shippery ankle deep mud that made loading a fun little challenge. Before everyone had brought in preparation for the holidays. There were bags of rice, bags of charcoal, gallons of milk, goats, suitcases, firewood, a couple chickens and containers of oil. Once the gear was haphazardly stowed in the middle of what was essentially and oversized, glorified canoe, (technically called a pirogue.) the 20-odd passengers slipped and slided their way aboard. It took us about 30 minutes to get to Bintang. We had to go up a separate side creek before turning and going down and across the bolong. The ride was very pleasant, nice breeze and good scenery. I wouldn’t help thinking that our alternative as being cramped into an overloaded van while careened crazily down the South Bank road, trying to avoid potholes, but hitting most of them anyway. We were told that there would be a gele-gele waiting in Binang to take us, and the rest of the passengers to Kombo, but when we arrived, there was no gele in sight. Everyone we talked to said that the gele would come, so we simply sat and waited. 10 minutes became an hour, and hour quickly became 2 before we head the distant sound of a diesel approaching. We had followed the advice of several men who we had befriended, and we were waiting for the gele in the middle of town, hoping to get aboard before the rest of the previous gele stopped, it was immediately swarmed by people trying to get on. We tried to explain to the people hanging all over. Nick and I tried to jump aboard, but we wouldn’t fine space on the rear bumper, and ended up chasing the gele down the street, packs slapping our backs. When the driver stopped at the riverside he erupted at the swarming people to wait and let the people get off, which everyone reluctantly did. It quickly became clear that there was plenty of room for everyone, once the other passengers disembarked. I wanted to yell “I told you so” but I didn’t know the equivalent Mandinka phrase. The ride to Kombo went pretty quickly, and smoothly, we had bypassed the vast majority of the bad road. We arrived at the PC transit house around 4:30 pm. We both agreed that it was far better than sitting in that cursed gele on that cursed road.

January 23rd, 2007
So as you can see, I got a little carried away once again, and failed to finish the letter on time. (The Pc mail run comes today, so I have to give this to them today.) Mail run comes once a month; it leaves Kombo on the 18th, and arrives at my site on the 23rd. However, another PC vehicle comes in a week or so to pick up some grass thatch from Lamin to store, in case they need to do an emergency repair during the rainy season. Bush fires have been sweeping across the country-like they do every year- and soon there will be no good grass left, hence the storage.
Things are excellent here, my garden preparation is finally finished, and I’ll plant it in a week. I should have an absolute ton of fresh vegetables when March, April, May rolls around. My host family is very excited about it, as am I. Things with Sharon are going well, despite the month long absence from each other. I’m going to head to her site at the beginning of next week for a few days, which I’m very excited about. The Yoga book you all sent is great, I’m getting much better at it. I either run or do yoga every morning, and can feel myself getting stronger and better in shape after the 2 months hiatus during training. Miss you both. Love you very much!
Rob