The Oath and Drunken Debauchery (Swear in and the Party)

The day has finally come as my training group cleans to go to our swearing in ceremony at the U.S. ambassadors place. Nerves are high and we all cram into the peace corps van decked out in African attire. A weird vibe was in the air and the streets were crowded with school children. It turns out the president of Guinea-Bassau was in town to meet with Yaya Jammeh (the Gambian President), so all the roads were closed and we were forced to take a sandy back street. This is the first time an entire training class has wore only African outfits and the stares from the people on the streets were looks of pure confusion. Toubab? Arab? Albino Gambians? You get mad street cred here though if you wear African clothing. Getting to the coast the Ambassador’s residence should be on MTV Cribs, it is so so beautiful. Over looking the beach and Atlantic Ocean the view is breathtaking, and for the first time in a long time I was able to enjoy ACTUAL GRASS under my feet. I went out of my way to go to the bathroom there; after shitting in a pit latrine for the past 2 months a beautiful porcelain thrown is like heaven. Though we have toilets here in the captial, this was a super nice one. With real soap and a TV in the waiting room! We took tons of pictures (though I won’t be able to post them until next time I’m in the capital because I forgot my cord). The program began as any Gambian events do, with prayer. Babucarr my LCF (language and cultural facilitator) said an Islamic prayer, Ruco went up and said a Christian prayer, and I went up… on national tv… and said the shahechianu and oseh shalom. Then the big moment came that I was so nervous for at the start, my singing of the national anthem. I go up to the podium, start singing, and pretty much butcher every high note like something out of a comedy movie. Parts I didn’t even sing because I had started to high. I felt like I was going to die, cameras in my face, all of the Gambia watching, The ambassador, 100 staring peace corps volunteers, the peace corps director from DC... needless to say it was a disaster. The most embarrassing moment of my life, in retrospect I’d like to think some great wisdom came from an experience like that, at the very least it put my feet back on the ground, lord knows I need that. But the show went on, and I tried to smile. The head of the Peace Corps in DC said a nice speech, taking stories from his experience in the first year the peace corps was started, he had gone to India. Our skit went like a charm and everyone got a huge kick out of our singing and my Gambian drum beat played on an old water canister. I was going to go sit down by the beach for a little bit and let everything just float past me when I ran into a few of the other volunteers. I told them how I was pretty distraught over the entire national anthem debacle. It turns out though, by some miracle, there had been a problem in the microphone right at the beginning and with everyone else singing the national anthem along with me they could barely hear me; and if they could they couldn’t distinguish me from the others…sigh… thank god! After talking to some people and realizing absolutely no one could even hear me through the speakers I felt a million times better. Even though I’m going to take a lot of flak for the end of our skit where I was suppose to say thank you in all the Gambian PC languages, “Ali abaraka (mandinka), Jerejeff, ning uhhhhhhhh, uhhhhhhhhh, uhhhhhh, oh yea! Jarama! (pulaar)” The blunder got a laugh though so it was worth it. The food I was told wasn’t as good as previous years but to us it was still an orgasm in our mouths and we scarfed down like we had been starving for the past two months… well we sort of had. Earlier in the ceremony we had said an oath, the same used by those going into the armed forces, to defend and protect the united states of America from enemies both foreign and domestic. Later they gave us a piece of paper with that same oath on it and our social security numbers and we were asked to sign it. Dan signed his name as “tits-magee”. I found it funny. Tits-magee and the rest of the bunch then took a PC car back to GPI to get ready for the Julbrew party. If you didn’t read my last post let me explain what a Julbrew party is again. To make it brief there’s only one brewery in the Gambia, and considering their main consumer of their product is peace corps volunteers (we pretty much keep their brewery in buisness) so they throw us about 4 parties a year all the booze you can drink. Mix that with recently graduated 20 something year olds living in a foreign country and the mental rigors of being at site (loneliness, isolation, and horniness) makes for a complete mess of drunken debauchery. Partial nudity, drunkenness, bad pickup-lines and tasteless toasts, screaming in 5 different languages, ass slapping, boys kissing girls, hot girls kissing girls, pissing in the bushes, people then passing out in those same bushes, the interrogations of the new trainees and grind dancing to old 90s songs. It was great. I need to get this shit on film, I could make enough money to buy a motorbike. I love this country. Thankfully we got our own private deck to have our party inside the brewery and far away from the scornful looks of devout Gambians. The best part of the evening was the volunteers who were outing themselves as Jews to me all evening, “I’m so glad you had the courage to say those prayers, I’m also Jewish” even non Jews were glad I did it. Supposedly I’m suppose to hang out with a few of them tonight for Passover but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. The pinnacle of the party was a large group picture of all the guys with our shirts off (supposedly a Julbrew party tradition, but I think it was just a strange excuse to be homo-erotic and/or have a large amount of black-mail material for eventual peace corps drama). After that the party was pretty much beaten till it was dead, I decided it would probably be smart to start thinking of how in the world I was going to finagle myself a taxi drunk in the middle of west Africa then get back to GPI. Most of the party was trying to move outside the brewery to a Gambian club but that had bad idea written all over it. So tits-magee aka Rambo (since no one knows you here sometimes people like to be funny and just tell all the villagers their name is “Rambo” or “Mr. T” or “The Rock”), Olivia, Katie, and a few others decided to all get a cab back together. We got back without any trouble, though a few of our group members decided they love to live on the wild side and stayed out till the morning. That morning we awoke to realize that we were now peace corps volunteers, in all our glory, and thus, had to find our own damn breakfast… sigh. I’m not sure when the next time I’ll be able to post a blog entry but definitely in 2 weeks or so when I’m able to come back to the capital to get paid. Tomorrow starts 3 month challenge, a requirement to remain in your village for 3 months and get to know people. I think it’s more of a “recommendation” than a “rule” but we’ll see how it goes. My mental sanity will always come first but more importantly being able to stay in contact with all of you, my family in friends. With everything that’s happened I really want to keep in contact with you all. A new adventure begins tomorrow, I hear it’s scary as hell to watch that peace corps vehicle drive away into the dust; but I am ready for anything. I have a few minor goals I hope to accomplish in the next few months up to the rainy season. Prepare my garden in the back yard to farm a few good fruits: watermelon, cantaloupe etc. Secondly I’ve bought some blue paint and have decided to paint my house Mediterranean style (blue windows and doors on a white mud brick house). On top of that I hope to start putting the data from the hospital into a computer, maybe teach a little English and IT, play lots of soccer, and read a few good books. To all my more frequent readers I hope you are enjoying my posts, and feel free to send me e-mails or letters with your comments, I know my grammar is f-ed though so don’t bother commenting on that. Stay tuned in two weeks to the next exciting installment :-P. Next post will be a good one too with my first weeks of three month challenge, grant it I survive it to tell the tale.