Don't Mess With Texas

It’s been awhile since my last entry and for this I apologize. I’d also like to extend my deepest thanks to those who have sent the care packages which have, sometimes literally, kept me alive the past month as food is definitely becoming a problem for me. On that account I will again offer an apology for my lack of promptness in returning letters, there are no excuses, but please be patient, they will come.

Now that the necessities have been taken care of let me quickly update you on what I have been up to. Since getting back from Fajara for two long weeks of IST (inter service training) we were all completely drained. Most of the time going to the office and staying at the stodge are relaxing and refreshing… staying there for two weeks on the other hand turned the place into “Real World: Fajara edition”. To much silly drama then is usually necessary, but our group is close and we made it through unscathed. My birthday was mostly uneventful; we were taken out to eat at a Chinese restaurant in town by the country director Mike. He was recently quoted in the global peace corps magazine asking Condoleezza Rice about the upcoming food crisis in the region and it’s effect on the Corps. After dinner a few of us decided to crash a UN housewarming party: free booze, nice home, women with European accents, how could we refuse.

Coming back to village was difficult after actually eating well in the capital for two strait weeks but it was nice to see everyone. It’s weird and very humbling to realize you have a little nook in the world where, whether you’ve been gone for two days or two months, every one in the village, “missed you long time” and greets like you’ve been gone far too long. I was also greeted by a package that came on mail run the day after I arrived. There was no address and no name, the old box that looked like it had been reused several times, had a message that read, “Cincinnati, HELLZ YEA!”. I was confused, it could only have been sent through someone in the Peace Corps who knows the mail run system. I opened it slowly, maybe it had trace amounts of anthrax, or maybe it was the Cincinnati riots in a to-go bag or worse, Marge Shot, God help us. To my surprise though I found some Cincinnati loving in the form of seven cans of Skyline Chili, I cried a single man tear of joy. Somewhere in the Gambia, I had a guardian angel.

The Annual Jiboro Kuta and Jiboro Koto football tournament has started and that has been the talk of the town. I’m playing for a local club in my compound with a few boys I know from the town team. The team’s called ‘Babylon’, don’t worry I’ve already relished the irony. In training for the tournament I was invited to practice with a professional team in Birkama, a 30 minute bush taxi ride from me. They want me to come back and I would more than love to play with them but it’s difficult to get up there that often for practice, good group of guys though.

The rains have been pouring almost every other day lately and the place is littered with green. I’ve been helping my host family and team weed their farms. Work wise I’ve put on a Nyme cream presentation (which I’m proud to say I did at least partially in Mandinka even with the copious amounts of translators at my disposal). Nyme cream if you’re not familiar was developed by a Mauritanian PCV which uses leaves from the nyme tree along with water, oil, and soap, to create a natural mosquito repellent. The women’s groups at the skill center were amazingly supportive. Almost 40 of the older women came to learn and I was even given a proposal by the local Christian Children’s fund chapter to come and teach it again.

Recently I’ve been taking things a day at a time. Relaxing and taking time to hang out with my host family and neighbors. This ended in me getting punched in the eye; so I’ve come to the conclusion I should just go about my own damn business. In retrospect always remember that when horsing around with host sisters never, by any means, trust their “extensive” karate training. Needless to say it was lacking in the depth perception department and now, for the second time in my peace corps service, I have a black eye… in the other eye this time to even things out. The day after I thus decided maybe today would be a good day to take a little bike ride. The new bikes came in and I had been aching to muddy this shiny new thing up a bit. Up till recently I believed my closest site mate was Katie, 10k up the main road from me but it turns out I have an even closer site mate only 4k away and another one 5k from her, problem is they are along what I previously considered a, “treacherous” bush roads in the middle of nowhere which occasionally and often unknowingly likes to veer across the southern border with Senegal. In spite of this fact I decided today was the day I would set sail on the wings of fortune, go forth onto a new adventure, and attempt to locate my nearest site mate’s villages. “Dr. Livingston I presume?” After making it 4k to the village I then quickly bent north too my other site mate because frankly, with the few conversations we had had, I felt she was an utter bitch, and thus went onward on my heroic quest through the green forests of southern Gambia. I’m really lucky my region is amazingly beautiful and the muddy road and quaint little villages and rice fields along the way only heightened the experience. I made it there and back that afternoon and it seemed for that moment the riggers of village life faded just a little.

That night, in celebration of my recent victory in learning the back roads of the Gambia I decided to use the rest of the juice in my laptop to watch a bootleg copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Being enthralled with watching Indy kick serious Nazi ass with merely his whip and cunning wit I didn’t catch word till the morning that the Alkala’s (the chief/mayor of sorts) brother had died in the night… probably around the time when the “grail cult dudes with fezzes” had been chasing Dr. Jones through Venice. I did later wonder why when I went to lock my door at the end of the night my compound was strangely empty. I’ve been to way to many funerals since being here, more recently one of the TB patients at our clinic, a very nice man I had watched a few football games with, who passed right before IST. It doesn’t feel like they get any easier either. Thankfully though, my life is never with out a pinch of humor. The Imam, the religious leader of the area, gave what I could only assume was an immensely inspirational speech in a prophetic tone that is almost unheard of in the public speaking class I teach at the school. I only picked up a few sentences, something about “when it’s your time there’s no medicine the white doctors can give you that will save you”, added references to the Quran’s goodness and saving grace, and I thought something on the subject of begging and immorality. Then in the corner of my eye I noticed a familiar symbol. The flag of the great state of Texas was being displayed prominently on the shirt of an avid listener with the words, “Don’t MESS with Texas” splayed across the front. I couldn’t help but let out a short snicker through piercing stares. I’ve described Gambian funerals before so I won’t go into details again but later as we all sat in the cemetery praying over the loss of this man, a loud “Ribbit, Ribbit!” “Ribbit, Ribbit!” emanated from my pocket. The croaking was the ring tone for the two consecutive texts I so aptly received in the middle of the ceremony and an embarrassed grin streaked across my face.

I guess the last event recently occurring in my life has been the absolutely random arrival of an older American woman who was a peace corps volunteer 20 years ago in the village of Bakau. She had made arrangements during her service to have a young girl transported to Shriner’s Burn Center in Boston for the severe burns she had suffered in a house fire. Now she says she is doing fine and living in America but 20 years later the woman wanted to return to the Gambia to see her family with the retired American volunteer. Her village just happened to be about 1 and a half kilometers north of me. I was just sitting at my desk, minding my own business when she came, the nursing staff at the peace corps office had given my name as the closest volunteer to the girls village. I gave an impromptu tour of our hospitals facilities and the village when she informed me that her son would be coming in a week or so to “hang out” in village and would probably be stopping by to hang out with me. Flash to present day. The woman has returned home to America and now I’m left with a young California hippy in his freshman year of college loitering the streets of my village. Being a freshman is a forgivable sin, but by no means is being from California forgivable. Not to mention being a guitar playing hippy… sigh. I guess if I wanted to run away from hippies though the peace corps was a dreadful idea. Honestly I don’t see this mysterious kid very often and in the end I doubt he considers himself a hippy, I occasionally spot here him coming from the “toubab alarms”; dozens of children chanting, “TOUBAB! TOUBAB! TOUBAB!”, alerting me of his presence. I can’t help but think of challenging him to a duel at noon in the center of town. There’s only room for one white man in this village!