Video by the rotunda at GPI and Disclaimer to Dan's family

This is a video we took on Ruco’s sweet camera that converts strait to youtube mode. It’s us outside our rooms in the rotunda of the Gambian Pastoral Institute where we were for the first week. I hope to make a video with my own camera of my training village hut and post it back up here in 65 days. Call if ya want to talk (but USE A PHONE CARD, because it’s going to be expensive). Also I feel I have to write another message:

*DISCLAIMER: To all of Dan’s friends and family who have received this blog website, realize all bad language and gross stories are of my own personal opinion and have no correlation to Dan what so ever. He is a stand up guy, just realize that language and graphic stories will not be filtered in the following blogs.*

Here's a pic of our group

The Runs are Not Much Fun

*Disclaimer: The following post contains reference to bodily functions and could be perceived as unpleasant to most readers. Also please take into consideration high amounts of dark humor and sarcasm were used in light of the current mood*

I’m sitting here now on the tile floor of my room at the Gambian Pastoral Institute as mosquitoes tare me apart. The sounds of never ending car honking and crickets seep through the window. My roommate Tim and the others have just finished dinner, another helping of extra chewy bread and rice, and have gone to lay out by the rotunda. We leave Wednesday for the start of what I’ve been calling, “Peace Corps Boot-camp”. This several month training takes place in alternation between Tendaba and my training village where I will be learning the language of Mandinka. In my small village will be only two other trainees: Katie and Amanda, but I’ll get to see the rest during the day at Tendaba. I sadly most likely won’t be able to post another post on this website until my return from training around mid April when I will be sworn (god willing we all maintain good health and pass our tests) as a Peace Corps volunteer. Because of this lack of internet access I won’t be able to return your messages but leave me some and I’ll try and respond to all of them when I can. I’m thinking if I ever get free time I may mail an entry to Eric to post for me but we’ll see. If you would like to get a hold of me I purchased a cell phone here, I can’t call out internationally but you can call in. I have e-mailed my Brother, Mom, and Shari that number if you’d like it. Not quite sure how well it’s going to work, or how and when you’ll be able to get through, but stay patient, keep trying, and I’ll get the call eventually (I just hope I’ll be able to answer it). I sit now waiting for it to ring.

Well now that we’ve gotten some technicalities out of the way let me tell you how I’m doing. I’d like to start off though with a quote from last night which made me laugh, *Travis commenting on the leftovers from Olivia’s food* “Olivia how can you do that.” “Do what? I wasn’t that hungry” “Don’t you realize there are children starving in Afri… in… well here.” Things have been down lately in our group of trainees I’ve noticed, it seems like every day I hear the doubts and homesickness of different people. I’ve begun even questioning it myself. It seems like days go by and we’re extremely stoked for what’s too come and then there are days when all we can do is think about quitting… and it’s only been a week. Two years just seems like an exponentially impossible task, but I’ve decided to take it day by day. As the title suggest I have come down with a pretty nasty case of diarrhea, I think I’ve gone almost 8 times today and I feel drained and pale. It seems some of the others have come down with it too. I don’t even believe it’s from a parasite but just the stress and introduction of a new diet. Today we got a big medical lesson on how to self treat ourselves for dysentery, malaria, and other diseases. We have a little book (“Where there is no doctor”) which tells us the prescription and dosage to treat most things. Along with the book we have a shit-ton of pills for all the different maladies along with thermometers and mosquito nets.

Speaking of mosquito’s I moved outside to the rotunda to hang with, Zack, Travis, Dan, Tim, Tara, and Harinder… they all say hi by the way, but yea the mosquitoes are eating me alive, and I have a coat and long pants on too (they head strait for the neck). It’s so amazing how one second (a few seconds ago) I can feeling like utter shit and then go outside and feel so much better. The people here it seems all have a tendency of make us laugh just when we need it, I think we all hold each other together and it’s going to be very hard without most of them at the training village. Tim’s singing and playing on his guitar (He’s freaking amazing) and Harinder (a PCV of two years who we’ll be replacing) is telling jokes about kids playing Frisbee with machetes. I’d like to apologize for my rambling, but this may be the last post for a bit so I’ve decided to make it a little meaty. We got a security training fieldtrip where were taken to an open taxi station too watch people pickpocket in front of us… those kids are damn good.

So I just realized you can chew the Pepto-Bismol instead of sucking on it as Travis and Dan laugh at me for it, damn this shit’s nasty. I’m really glad I wrote this post, somewhere between the cold tile floor and the guitar I’ve found a small optimism; but that’s Africa for you, it seems it just kills you some days and eats you away and others it rekindles a fire and light inside all of us that keeps you going. There’s going to be some bad days, and some good days in the weeks of training to come, but I’ll take it a day at a time. Humor’s seeming to be my greatest strength lately so I’ll keep going, at the very least to keep the other’s laughing.


*Tonight (Feb 11th) we lost one of our group members and I just wanted to write something about it*
Nikki, have a safe trip home, don’t fall asleep in Dakar that place is a shit-hole (not that I know, I’m just assuming). You better send us a few care packages and come and visit (+ work on your Mandinka when you’re bored). Take care of yourself, we will all miss you very much and I hope that when ever you feel uninspired you remember the passion you had to take the leap of faith too Africa, because it was that leap that was something special.

DC, the Blue Screen of Death, Liberia and The Gambia: Pretty much nothing like Ohio

In Dulles I got to check some e-mail before we left for the Belgium capital. Ruco let me borrow his gift card to use the internet… worst decision EVER! But anyway we’ll get back to that later… Oh and I met Marceo Balboa in the Dulles airpost... a blessing upon our trip.

Belguim, pretty much has absolutely nothing to offer the world. We touched down early in Brussels at around 6:35am only to have three of our volunteers padded down. Really though the flight was quite nice, I got very lucky. First off they gave all the Peace Corps volunteers aisle seats so that we would have a comfortable flight, we were spread out over the entire plane. I got the window-side aisle and the passenger intending to take up that window seat never showed, so I got the whole row to my self which was actually super amazing after the Dulles computer debacle. While I’m on the subject I guess I should explain what happened.

So Ruco helped get me on the internet to check my e-mail one last time. Minutes into checking my e-mail I catch the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” virus, the one where your computer shuts down every ten minutes to the blue screen. So I was extremely pissed off that I was going to have to lug around a useless laptop through The Gambia. Thankfully though in Belgium it seems to have worked for a little bit of time in the Airport but maybe that’s just a fluke, hopefully not.

So when you think Belgium what comes to mind? Waffles… well I tried these so called “famous” waffles myself. I went up to the counter and first asked, “Do you guys take the great American dollar?” She laughed and proceeded to explain the “Euro supremacy”. Then I went for the kill, “alright so can I get one of your world famous waffles?” She handed me the most pathetic thing I have ever seen next to Anna Nicole Smith. It was about the size of my palm and wrapped in plastic. “This is the amazing Belgium waffle!?!?” “uhhhhhhh yes” “Look can you just tell me where the nearest IHOP is” *she looked confused*. A nice gentleman then came up and told me that yea he was very unimpressed too since this was his first time in country. I took it back to my group and we proceeded to poke fun at this waffle and all took turns taking pictures with it (I’ll post them when I can). We must have laughed at the patheticness of this waffle for 10 minutes, then, not wanting my 3 euros to go to waste decided to eat it. Actually, it was really good lol. I guess their waffles are more along the lines of a breakfast pastry or Danish than what we know as an “American waffle”. It’s really sugary but good.

OK off topic but the bathrooms in Belgium are rather pathetic also. People are insanely private and every stall is a concreted out room. That whole “foot tapping” incident on capitol hill would have never happened in Belgium. America has left it’s stamp on Belgium society though… just as graffiti in the stalls such as, “Korn” and “Snoop Dogg rules”. There were others though, “but plug” (notice the lack of the second t, stupid Belgium) and “Everton FC is awesome”

What I tell you now you might not believe, because in my wildest dreams I really had no desire to ever go to this particular West African country (which has been made famous by the movie “Blood Diamond”, well that area anyways). When we got on the plane to flight to what we thought would be Dakar, Senegal then a short jump to Banjul turned out to be a flight to the southern edge of west Africa to an old American country known as Liberia. That’s right, turns out one of the Brussels Airways planes died down there and they need spare parts quick, so we flew strait to Monrovia. Flying in through the clouds we were immediately stunned by the lush jungle, dirt roads, and crashing waves of the Liberian coast. Landing you could see the mountains in the background… but no landing strip. The runway turned out to be only paved thing in miles, and the “air control tower” had a thatch roof, and realize we were in the main airport. You could see a large number of troops mobilizing into a jumbo jet to go who knows, and a ground staff that was comprised mostly of teenage boys and girls it seemed. We ended up being stranded, there, in that hot sweaty airplane, in Liberia, for three hours; and to make things worse there was a group of giggling Irish high schoolers right behind my seat who I wanted to punch. Thankfully though after a lot of arguing we were able to get the parts off, refuel and start our trip back up to Banjul.

The airport was hectic but we all thankfully got our bags, as soon as we pulled away from the Airport in our rickety old van we saw them turn the power out at the national airport and the crew leave to their homes via flashlight. We were in Africa, in one of the poorest countries in the world. The poverty in some areas is overwhelming immediately (once you leave the tourist section where rich European women come to have secret African husbands). Signs on the road read, “Thank President Jammeh for his cure for HIV/Aids” and “Africacell, only 1 cent a minute”. We were all incredibly nervous, our minds raced with uneasiness and anxiety for what we had got ourselves into. Though thankfully I fell right asleep.

Trainings started, we received Rabies shots today and interviewed with our program leaders for projects we’d be interested in and our “tolerance level”. Every minute I stay here though I think my anxiety fades more and more, and a passion and excitement takes over… thank god, because we all I think were MORE than nervous the last few days. I believe there is niche for me here, and there is definitely something great my training class can offer to the corps. My class will be replacing another crew which has been here the two years, and they are counting on us all to pass language and cultural training, and that alone sometimes keeps you going. When you know that if you give up, another volunteers 2 year program may end up dissolving. Well I have to go, I hope to post this tonight when we go to Peace Corps HQ. We’ll all be purchasing cells at the end of training I think and will be able to receive calls from the US on them (it’s to expensive for us to call there). It doesn’t work all the time but sometimes you can get through for a few minutes or awhile depending. I love you all… Jared quit raiding my room for stuff Jared!

Day Fula

Day two of staging has ended. The people I will be in training with are all incredible, even after only knowing them for 48 hours I feel so confident that no matter the entirety of the shit we will be getting into, we’ll be able to get through it all. I seem to always be so blessed with these great groups of people when I’m on trips. Most of the group is around my age of 23, we have no elderly volunteers (so I don’t have to room with grandpa thank god! Actually the conversation of elderly volunteers came up and I think it was said great, “Can’t trust them driving a car, so send them out to West Africa, they’ll be fine”. We do have a married couple who are our age and very nice. We were talking about risk factors today and the husband quickly spoke up, “STDs!”… the wife immediately followed with, “How the hell do you plan on getting an STD?”. It pretty funny.

Last night we all got dinner at some Thai restaurant; for some reason all these people insist on experiencing new and exciting ethnic food, regardless of my persuasions to enjoy good old American food while you still can. Needless to say I really don’t like Thai, I thought it was utter shit lol, but the conversation was great. We were planning our expedition to Timbuktu, and our “Gambian Junk Yard Wars” competition to build the best boat. The greatest part about it, is if your boat sinks… you fall into the Gambia River and immediately exposed to Schistosomiasis, it’s the risk factor that makes the competition exciting. There’s a reason why I hear Gambians don’t swim in the water, Crocs, Hippos (which kill more people in Africa than snakes and crocs), and Schisto (which we were explained with one phrase, “Trust me, you just don’t want to get it”).

So anyways after all the conversations we’ve had we’re all openly scared shitless I think; but with that deeply confident, maybe it’s a fear of the unknown. As one of my group members mentioned, “It’s like taking a blind leap of faith off a cliff and hoping the drop isn’t to deep”. With all the anxiety though we really do have an amazing training class that I think is going to bring a very new and uniquely strong spirit to The Gambia. Tomorrow we wake up extremely early to get our Yellow Fever shots and start taking are Malaria meds (which I hear give you some wicked hallucinations and scary vivid dreams). After that we shit around the airport till our flight at 5:30 to Brussels, then we’re actually off to Dakar where we’ve been instructed definitely not get off the plane, and then we hop off to Banjul. 98 PCVs are already in country. During Training I’ve been told we’ll have a lot access to phone and internet, but once we’re sworn in that will be very limited.

Tonight the 17 of us went out to eat at this truly inspiring Italian restaurant down the street (ironically right next to the Thai restaurant and to right the really great Mexican restaurant we ate for lunch). Just talking and laughing with them for some reason I just can’t stop smiling, as nervous as I am. Tomorrow begins the big adventure of traveling to the Gambia and I pray all our luggage gets there. Goodnight all.

Pre-Orientation

So I’m here in the Hilton now waiting to leave for Orientation. This hotel is WAY TOO NICE, it's like teasing me with amenities. The shower head looks like something on a nuclear submarine. Mom left, after putting her best efforts into significantly embarrassing me. I’m literally checking into the hotel trying to be professional and she’s taking pictures of me!!! The Ethiopian attendant just smiled for the camera, bless heart. Mom then proceeded to leave hidden messages all around the room saying, “I love you”, “I’m so proud” etc. left everywhere: under the phone, near my stuff, in the bathroom. Thankfully my roommate hasn’t got here yet and I believe I have located all of them (I love you mom thanks for coming down, and thanks Shari for going to IHOP 3 times with us J) This weekend was really fun, first off thank you Eric for showing all my friends around DC, and thank you guys who drove all the way down here to see me, I love you all. It was also great to see all of you family and friends. Downtown Alexandria is actually really beautiful, it has a real ‘old town’ New Orleans feel I think. That night we all took the metro down to GW to see the town. We also checked out the zoo Sunday.

Well I’m sorry to cut this short but I’m going to leave for orientation soon but I want to update you all on a basic time line for the next few weeks. Orientation (staging as we call it) will be here at the Hilton. Wednesday we’ll all wake up and get the first round of shots then go to meet our United flight to Brussels around 5:30. We’ll get to Brussels around 7:30 (Belgium time) and have a layover for 4 hours where I plan on eating a Belgium waffle and hoping it doesn’t suck. Then it’s off to Banjul, The Gambia on Air Brussels, we should get there around 6 in the afternoon. For the first week I’ll be staying at the Gambia Pastoral Institute just outside of Banjul. I’ll be staying with a roommate from our program. On the 12^th we move up country out east to Tendaba Camp, a rustic tourist camp, located near the training village; though sometime while at the training village I will be assigned a host family where I will stay in my own “room/house” until signing in. This single room dwelling is constructed with local materials. I will take part in a “community-based Training” (CBT) “activities that are centered on formalized language learning, the host family experience, and assigned technical and cultural exercises emphasizing community involvement.” There I’ll be with 3-4 other volunteers doing intensive cultural immersion. I’ll more details about what I’ll be doing at each location after orientation.

I hope to put another post up after orientation right before I leave for Brussels but if not, thank you all for your warm wishes and please do not feel discouraged if I’m not able to contact you often, realize the mail can come anywhere from 1 to 2 times a month and I won’t know the internet availability I will have until I get there. Take care all.