The Great Sock Fiasco

Here's an update of highlights from the summer, I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything. Don't forget to check out the previous blog of my story about the St. Louis trip. Enjoy.

A few weeks after the Jazz Festival it came time in my village to host a Gamo, a huge reading of then entire Koran. People stay up all night reading together around the mosque with food coming even into the late hours… at least for the adults. For the younger generations it’s the biggest party all year. Youth from all over the region come to hang out and chat. Also, for some strange reason, this is the best chance for any of them to get some. Every one is at the mosque with the blaring loudspeakers and commotion making it very easy for couples to slips off into the shadows. I found it all oddly ironic that nothing made people hornier than the thought of everyone getting together to read a holy book with directions on how to live your life more holy, that's how you know it's a really amazing book. I guess it's the same thing with Church though, if you want to pick up girls, get involved in a youth group I mean man, those kids clean up. But I don’t want to sound insensitive, I’m just bitter as you well know from two blog entries ago; my walls are thin and I’m just a guy trying to get some sleep. As sleep slowly proved an impossibility I awkwardly made my way to the swarm of people at 3 in the morning surrounding the mosque. Thankfully as the night went on most of the guys my age had gone off to hang out at their places and chat so I joined a few and we all chatted till people started to pass out on the porches of the compounds near the mosque.

Weeks would pass as school closed for the summer until after Ramadan and the great sock fiasco would come. Since I’ve lived in Jiboro my host sister Siby has been helping me out a ton and washing my clothes as I am completely incompetent. Since coming to Jiboro though a day not a day has gone by that she hasn’t busted my balls about something. A few months back I had left a few of my soccer socks accidentally in my laundry, which is not culturally appropriate, like underwear, for your sister to wash. I apologized thoroughly and explained that it was an accident and I’d wash them on my own but she said, “no, no, no, really don’t worry about it, I’ll wash them. I don’t mind.” “Well are you sure??? Ok then thank you a ton!” When that load of wash came back she said she didn’t have time to take care of the socks now but would another day, so I didn’t worry about it. Weeks went by and every day I would go to the field to train with out socks. The boys would tell me everyday, like I didn’t know, “Demba, really you need to wear socks when you play look how cut up your legs are getting!” Till finally I went to Siby and explained, “Look don’t worry about it, I really need these socks. I’m completely capable of washing them on my own, thank you. Where did you put the socks so I can wash them?” “No, no, no, I just haven’t gotten to it yet but I’ll do it.” “Alright then but I really need them.” Several more weeks went by till finally, one day extremely sick and hallucinating with fever before I was about to go on vacation for a few weeks I needed these socks.

The night before I had been rolling in bed, freezing and half dreaming/half hallucinating. I was on a battlefield, bullets flying from everywhere with no real concentrating of fighting. I was being carried on to a stretcher and taken through the war torn plains to get medical attention. I screamed at the men carrying me, “Damnit don’t take me to that fucking rebel clinic! I want to go to a real American military hospital not a dilapidated, unsupplied, local clinic!!!! Nooooo!! I want to go to an American facility!” and I woke up in a pool of sweat. Still dazed that day I needed those socks, this wasn’t the day I wanted to get them back but I had no choice, I was traveling. “Siby, seriously, today is the day, I really need those socks” She ignored me for a few minutes until I finally got a confession out of her. She had lost the socks, every single pair of the only soccer socks I had brought to the country, gone. In the end though they were just socks, I was more upset that I trusted her as responsible to watch my things and I had already had a few situations of other people wearing the stuff they took of mine drying. She said she felt very bad and that I should talk to my host mother kotu-fatou.

I went to talked to her and she sighed and explained to me, from what I could translate, that they had been thrown by two of the trouble maker kids in my compound, into a pile that was to be burned and not seeing them they were lit on fire. This made me feel better as no one was really to blame, kids are kids, and they are just socks. It sucks but what can you do. This was the same kid who a minute after me giving him a kiddy shovel to play with took it and threw it down the pit latrine never to be seen again. Relieved a little that my trust had not been betrayed in my host sister I apologized and needed to sit down as I wasn’t feeling well. At this time all the boys were coming back from practice at the field and my good friend Malong came and sat down to tell me how training went. Then I start to explain the situation with these stupid kids who destroyed my good football socks when I look down. Malong was wearing my socks. I start to freak out, seriously what the fuck, he just sat there and listened to my entire story about my socks being destroyed thinking he’d get away with it. The screaming commenced, “Malong explain to me where you got these socks” he ignores me and starts walk away, “Where did you get those socks!? You know they were mine, you’ve seen me wear them” He responded, “Lika gave them to me” “Where does Lika live! He’s a thief and I’m going to have a little chat with him! *random curses*” A crowd begins form. “Malong where did he get these socks, explain it to me!” “No. Don’t go to his house!” and he starts to run of in fast Mandinka that I didn’t understand being sick and angry. The forestry worker who lives in my compound and is a complete and utter tool walks over. In a attempt to be the intermediary he begins in English, “Alright, alright, everyone calm down. First off you need to know two things about Demba (me)…. First he is selfish, and secondly he is immoral.” I snap. “IMMORAL!!!! IMMORAL!!! I am immoral? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!!?!? I swear if you say one more fucking word I rip the tounge directly out of your prick fucking mouth. I have been called many things in my life, but the last of which would be immoral.” He smartly walks away as Malang sister begins to to call me selfish and explain in madinka that if I were to just lend people my things this would never be a problem. “Hold up, hold up, I’m completely confused. So what you’re saying is that no one would have to steal my things if I just let everyone borrow them. I must have this mistaken are you serious?” She shakes her head yes. Wow I don’t understand this place at all and what does Malong have to do with this, he said Lika had them. I dragged Malong away from the crowd and into my house so he could calmly explain to me the truth.

He would go onto explain that hanging around the compound one day Lika and him had seen several pairs of my nice socks in the burn pile. They had assumed I didn’t want them anymore and took them as their own. This confused me considering it was Lika and him who had told me to wear socks in the first place at the field and asked what had happened to my nice socks… after of course I told them they were being washed. In the end they had made up this bogus explanation in their heads that I had legitimately thrown out my socks to validate them taking it and not asking; because they knew, if they were to go up to my door and say, “Hey Demba, you threw some really nice socks into the burn pile do you really not want them?” I would say, “Oh my, why thank you guys so much, no I never put them there but thank you for bringing them back” or if I had indeed thrown them there then, “Of course, go ahead I didn’t need them any more” This would be if they had the assumption that I was a typical rich white person who throws out perfectly good socks just because they get dirty. “Look Malang,” I began, “all you had to do was ask, you knew they were my socks, but I realize I shouldn’t have made a scene. I’m sick, and not feeling well, not to mention you’re a friend. Just return the socks and tell Lika to bring his back too and we’ll forget about it.” In the end if I had understood a cultural attitude in the Gambia this could have been handled differently. The truth of it is that yes they knew they were my socks, and yea they should of asked, but their excuse allowed them deniability. How then did I turn into the bad guy with a swarm of people, it was my shit of course that got stolen, yet I was selfish and immoral. In actually in the Gambia it is just far far worse to call someone out on stealing or to call them a thief in public than it is to actually steal to begin with. I know it sounds counterproductive the fact that it makes it easier of an environment to “borrow things permanently”. The shame though, of everyone knowing Malong had taken the socks with out asking, made me the criminal. Malong and Lika ended up returning my socks, we forgave eachother, and the situation blew over as an ignorant American who doesn’t understand how things work. To solve it the Gambian way I would have to either say it in public jokingly and lightheartedly that you had permanently borrowed my things and later they would bring it back or take them aside privately, still not calling them out as a thief, and saying “You have my stuff, I need it back.”

Later I would have a similar experience when I would find my athletic shorts missing, thinking they had just got misplaced I’d forget about it, but on the football field one day I would see it on another player. Now these were DEFFINITLY my shorts, I mean they still had my initials on them from summer camp as a kid. I told him after the game, “Lamin, (yes the same Lamin from blog entries at the start of my service, another “good friend” in village) I know those are my shorts *he laughs*. If you could just return them to me when you’re done with them that would be great. Thanks man, no worries.” I decided this time I was going to try it the Gambian way. He responded, “Oh, uhhh, I’ll explain to you where I got the shorts later.” “Ok”. Later came and he explained, “These are the shorts my brother in sweeden gave me, they are not your shorts.” Laughingly I say, “haha look Lamin, of course they are my shorts, they say my name in them… see S.S.. Lamin I know they’re my shorts, don’t worry about it, just return them when you get a chance.” I gave him a few days and after no show I went to his house at night to chat. It really was a nice evening, another friend from my compound was there and we watched American rap videos on his iPod touch (don’t ask me how he procured this). He bought eggs and soda for all three of us along with egg sandwiches, we ate till we were full and laughing and chatted with the family till it got late. In west African custom he walked me half way back to my home and on the way I mentioned calmly again, “Don’t think I forgot, when you get a chance I really would like my shorts back.” “My cousin gave them to me.” “Is that the story you’re sticking with? I will get my shorts back, they are my shorts, I think it would be better if you did it the easy way.” He laughed, and we said our goodbyes.

In conclusion it’s been months… he still has my shorts and short of me making a scene (doing it the American way) or going black ops and stealing them back my self I will never see those shorts again. He’s a clever kid, I tried it the Gambian way, it didn’t work. And it is my opinion and mine along, as culturally insensitive as this may sound, that this system ends up encouraging everyone to take everyone else’s things and only really harms people who actually have nice things, which is probably why it’s not a problem. If this situation was with a normal moral Gambian and not a punk little trouble maker with a shady reputation in town, unlike Malong, I would have received my things back in the normal local fashion, though maybe with the articles not in perfect condition. None the less, I believe you come to a point here where in the first year you let everything go. You label it as cultural sensitivity. The pedantic way people may talk to you, or a stolen sock or two, you’re the outsider and so you make a decision to just let it go, this is a new culture. Come your second year of service you wake up and find out, wait a second, some of those times people were being legitimately condescending or insulting to you; but hell there are assholes all around the world. Though at a certain point, you shuffle through the things, from your youth and from your experience, that you found to be the write and wrong way of doing things and some of those things won’t line up with other cultures but this is what defines your beliefs and your identity. There are things you may decide cross-cultural boundaries and are not cool where ever you are. For instance I come from an east coast American way of life, where if you don’t like someone, you tell them or just keep it too yourself. If you like someone, you let it known. And if someone steals your things, you either decide to let them get away with it or you don’t. I come from the belief that talking slander behind someone’s back is far, far worse than calling them those same things directly to their face; the complete opposite of Gambian methodology. I feel you’re not going to like everyone in this world and if they ask you should tell them the truth or don’t mention it to anyone. The Gambian culture has different ways of dealing with things and I understand that. Even so, to this day I would rather that a man call me an immoral infidel to my face (and deal with the consequences), than to go around and tell everyone in the village but me that he thinks I’m immoral. This is a very passive-aggressive society that for very positive reasons avoids confrontation at all costs, because of this though gossip is indirectly encouraged and calling someone out which would be typical in America is here far worse than then the initial crime.

On a different note, the rains have come again in full force. Actually it’s been terrible for the crops with such a large amount of rain with little break. Communities all over the country have fell victim to weakly built houses and flooding any many families have had to leave. Actually just the other day I was at Lamin’s house helping the family move all of their belongings to another house while they fix the roof that started to crack and collapse. One morning a sinkhole dropped out under the porch of the compound next door to me. Turns out about 30 years ago there was a well built in that spot that everyone had forgot about then they built the porch halfway over it. The well then dropped out about ~5ft down (not sure exactly but lets just say taller than you haha). A little girl even sprained her ankle bad falling in it thinking it was a shallow puddle instead of an old well that filled with brown-red water thru the night. Realize this was the most interesting thing that’s happened in the village in awhile so the whole community was standing around it watching a few small boys use buckets to take out the water best they could, even though it was pouring down rain completely negating their work, I think they just wanted to jump in the well. To make matters worse I found out that when they built the health clinic and hooked it to solar they had paid to run an electrical wire from there to the mosque on the other side of town which coincidentally ran right through this, soon to be found, old well. So the bottom was like 5ft but the wire was running across the middle of it about 3ft down and when it was filled with murky water the kids kept poking the hole with the business end of a shovel to see how deep it was. Thankfully they never split that wire or I would have been treating electrical shocks all morning. Recently I took part in a Football/Aids Education camp for young boys. It was set up like Take Your Daughter’s To work except with football and guys. Other than having to spend the week in an incredibly shady hotel room (which is saying a lot considering I live in a flea infested hut) playing camp councilor to kids who ranged from 12-29 (thank you Gambian NGOs for doing such a great job at keeping it in a tight age bracket) it went very well. I gave my communication lecture again which I’m getting incredibly good at and helped out with the coaching; I even somehow ended up being the adult male reprehensive for the lecture on healthy relationships, feel free to laugh.

A few quick snidbits before I call it an entry I was watching GRTS (Gambian news station) and they reported arresting 16 terrorists, 4 Gambian, the rest Senegalese, who were plotting an attack to destabilize the Gambian government. The only crime in this country is the petty kind so any violence to begin with is strange; what was stranger was that it was in the village right next to mine. Good to know. Also, I’ve had a few creepy run ins with a certain symbol popping up in my village, which is both humorous and creepy. One of the boys who used to work in the clinic went off and joined the Army. Back from training for Ramadan my host wife (my host brother’s wife, I think I’ve explained this) ironing his fatigues and I picked up the hat to look at it when I noticed a swastika on the underside of the bill. I explained what the symbol meant and how it was very strange to find it here in Africa on a military uniform. I know Dino (yes that’s his name, but it’s way better than the other kid in my village: Dodo) didn’t draw it but still I wouldn’t want to fight and god forbid die wearing that symbol as they were just as oppressively racist as they were anti-semetic. Then, 3 days later I was walking my site mate back to the main road and stopped at a shop to return some bottles when she laughed and told me I should look at something. 4 cute kids in my village were pushing a cart of several yellow bedongs (water containers) to fetch water. Each bedong had a large red swastika painted on the front. Obviously they’ve expanded the Nazi youth fan club to little ol’ Jiboro. I think it’s a big step that they’re accepting black people now. I’m actually quite pleased. Mauritania recently evacuated all of it’s Peace Corps Volunteers and we got 3 of the refugees wanting to complete their service. Also the new group of Education volunteers will be swearing in soon (and again I did an encore of the foni bike trip but in western region, we’re getting 4 new volunteers) and they’ve decided that they will be sending all of the people who were scheduled to go to Mauritanian and instead send them here, to the smallest country in Africa. Come November it’s going to get a little crowded in this place. Here comes the drama.

I was giving an impromptu wound care demonstration for the parents of all the pain in the butt kids in my compound who refuse to wear shoes, and yet wound them selves on a daily basis because of it, then the next day not wear shoes again. I used a boy Trodor (I like to refer to him as Trogdor the Burnanator) who’s big toe was cut up, as an example. I explained that he needs to start wearing shoes and stop putting his toe on the ground right after I just cleaned it, “Kana banko ma I seinkumba kuwo kola! Dukare” Please, I said, Don’t touch the ground after washing your big toe! Then, out of nowhere, I hear mockingly, in a high pitched voice behind me, “kana banko ma, kana banko ma, kana banko ma” A completely healthy middle aged woman was standing right behind me making fun of my accent. I look back at here giving her the death stare and in Mandinka ask, “What is wrong with you? Are you an adult?” She looked at me like, of course! What a stupid question. I went on, “Because where I’m from only children stand behind someone and repeat everything they say.” She walked away seemingly undisturbed. I mean seriously, If people want to make fun of me while I’m attempting to save their children’s future welfare what really is the point? But I carry onward. Trodor in the meantime had run off like a typical kid to go play in the mud. I sigh and look at him and his mother again. “Wash it, and call me when he’s ready” 10 minutes later, Trodor, completely naked and dripping wet from a full bath, walks into my house. Well at least they went above and beyond, though I really only meant to rewash the toe. I carried him back to his place so he wouldn’t, again, walk on the dirt and get the toe dirty and I bandaged it up. His mother thanked me and said she would keep it clean from then on.

…. The next day he was running around in the mud again, bandaid hanging off his toe. “TRODOR!!! Where are your shoes!?!?” and I watch him run off with a big smile on his face. I look at his mother. She shrugs a, “what can ya do”. Oh well, until tomorrow inshallah. “Domanding, demanding”

Good, finally you guys are updated. 7 and ½ Months to go.

St. Louis Jazz

I won’t even begin to apologize, I have a lot to catch up on, but I’ll make it as entertaining as I can. Stay with me and I’ll tell you the story of my trip to St. Louis then stayed tuned in the next few days when I post a recap of the summer.

Late spring I was involved in a Take Your Daughter’s to Work Weekend which I mentioned in the previous blog entry. It went very well and to this day I feel like if I contributed anything to this country my entire peace corps service it was helping out those few days, my little piece of the take your daughter’s to work weekend. I put on my regular course of communication, problem solving, and creative thinking but I added a competition at the end where using household items/things you could buy at village shops five teams competed to build the largest free standing structure with the materials given. These materials included: a large amount of magazines, paper clips, seran wrap, string, and other random things that they were able to choose in turn with the other groups. It was amazing to see the ideas they came up with and to see their minds being given the chance for the first time in their educational career to think out side the box and be given an obstical that involved multiple different answers. As I’ve explained before this is severely hindered in a strict lecture classroom where the kids are truly frightened into asking any questions, especially the majority of Gambian girls who would die before raising their hands. There’s a DVD taped by the Gambian Television network of the event flying around somewhere, I’ll try and get a copy.

After Take Your Daughter’s to Work I set off with a few friends to northern Senegal to a little island city on the Mauritanian border, the original St. Louis. The ride up had typical west African travel complications. We were told the day before we would be able to catch a car from Barra (the village on the other side of the river in the Gambia) strait to St. Louis but I sensed that was typical bullshit. “Yea we can get you a car to anywhere in Africa from there if you wanted, no problem, we’ll see you tomorrow morning.” … yea for a price. After a minute talking to the car park manager in person we just walked away and headed for the border at the village of Karang where, after some heated negotiations got a car that would take us strait to St. Louis (pronounced san-Louie). In the cramped station wagon we spent the next ten hours traveling through the full heart of Senegal. Gigantic groves of Baobab trees and small Sahel villages turned into scattered acacia trees to rolling dunes of sand. Donkeys and horses gave way to herds of camels and broken down cars; towns of kids running around or working in the fields turned to ghost town of newly built suburbs where people hid in their houses from the mid days heat. We past the center of west African Islam the city of Touba where the most famous of Senegalese Imams stay and pray at the largest mosque in the country, a beautiful Taj Mahal esk structure that towers over the contrarily juxtaposed urban poverty of the city. Falling in and out of sleep in a daze of my cramping back and neck and exhaustion from the baking car’s interior; but there it stood in the distance, floating in the middle of the sea, two islands of asphalt surrounded by the cobalt mouth of the Senegal River, what better home could there be for the African seeds of Jazz.

Stepping out of the car sore and tired from the long days ride as the sun was slowly swallowed by the Atlantic we walked through the busy square streets of towering French colonial apartments. The laundry that draped over the balconies was being taken in for the night as the cool salty breeze relieved us. We found a small hostel in the heart of the old city with the help of a nice Mauritanian peace corps volunteer who we had met at W.A.I.S.T. and put our things down for the night. With the sun gone the yellow glow of street lamps littered a crowded street. The smell of smoky fish in the air and the sound of light guitar and heavy drum beats from the local bars. This place truly is the New Orleans of west Africa and why wouldn’t it be, New Orleans was created here in the streets of Saint Louis from that heart beat of an Senegalese drum with French and Wolof in the air. New Orleans just put the spark of the American spirit as icing on the cake of modern jazz.

We spent the night strolling the streets and popping our heads in little hotel bars and clubs where white tourists crammed into packed rooms and local kids packed the streets peeking heads through windows and open doorways awing musicians who 10 years prior were where they are. Music has and will always be the soul of this place and every year it opens it self around this time opens itself up to this festival, if we can manage to weed through the tourist clouds. The next day we took our time, the cold breath of the sea blanketing us from the peering sun, walking around French coffee shops and little art bungalows of local sculptors and painters, munching on cheap 500cefa benichin, a oily testament to truly great Wolof rice cooking. Somewhere along the way the girls in my group stumbled into a beautiful home and pool, which was just now having the finishes touches put on it. They charmed the man who owned it into giving us a thorough tour. It had the rugged feel of a New York loft apartment mixed with cultural nuances of west Africa and the filling of an expensively modern mansion. We’re talking showers with 53 settings and music, huge plasma televisions, and themed rooms (the morocco room, the African safari room, French room etc.). Somehow, the girls in typical fashion managed to score us a ticket to his housewarming party in a few days which would be littered with the cultured Dakarian elite, French imports, and hired jazz performers. Score.

The rest of our group arrived the next day which made about 8 of us grungy peace corps volunteers and the girls, knowing this, spent the day trying to buy clothes that were classy enough to be seen at this party. Eugene, Alex, and I went walking through the market in search of good food and a bit of trouble. Didn’t find any trouble but we came back to the hostel that afternoon with our stomachs full of Moroccan dishes. After all getting some egg sandwiches from a corner shop we got on the nicest clothes we had in our backpacks and headed over to the party. My mouth dropped as we walked through the door. Live music around a pool, people having intellectual conversations about development or the economy, eating salmon (yes, salmon, alhumdililiah), and sipping on aged French wine. There we are, dressed unhelpingly down, strait out of our sandy Gambian villages and now we’re eating escargot and talking politics… talk about a culture shock. We were the life of the party, turns out the party needed nothing else then a bunch of strangely-eccentric Peace Corps Volunteers. Everyone one was laughing, listening to music, and if we hadn’t go drunk of the wine or brandy we definitely were after the Champaign. It was the most fun I had had since coming to Africa but it wouldn’t of been the same if it didn’t have the pretence of living a year in my quaint border village. The eclecticness of it all, the good, the bad, the poor and the rich, the tourist hotels and grass root huts; a wise man could make an interesting anecdote on the dualism of life, but I will leave that for the more judicious.

Saturday would come and we went to eat at a nice Vietnamese restaurant that overlooked the river and Mauritania. From the other bank of the river we could see how true the saying was for them that the grass is greener on the other side. The Senegalese side was flourishing with the city of St. Louis complimenting the vast expansiveness of the Sahara on the other side, sand blowing in the ocean’s breeze. From years of desertification the dunes of the Sahara have finally begun it’s decent across the Senegal River. That day a group of French university students on vacation filled our hostel, an exquisitely multi-ligual Italian man had befriended Jenni and helped us charm the a ticket lady into getting us a group rate, with the French students, into the huge staple jazz concert of the festival. For the same cost it took us to drive to St. Louis we watched an enchanting old-school American jazz singer who sung some of Gershwin’s classic compositions and spoke what sounded like flawless French. Then after an intermission we watched an amazingly talented French jazz accordion player and his band. I know, jazz accordion?? Seriously, but it was fantastic. That then evolved into a duet with famous local Kora player (a characteristically Sene-gambian stringed instrument) mixed with one of the most amazing drum solos I have ever seen live. So no it wasn’t any Coltrain or Miles and the whole week I didn’t hear one trumpet but somehow it was still thickly classic jazz. That didn’t stop me though from yelling, “FREE BIRD!!!” between songs. I truly hope someone got it.

The next day we headed back to the Gambia and were back by late afternoon. The car dropped us off and at customs I realized I forgot the brand new coat that had just been sent in a care package to me. I dropped my stuff, told people to watch my bags then ran off towards Senegal to catch the car. I must have looked hysterical, then I must have looked even more hysterical as I tripped on a rock in a big crowd of punk kids and badly cut up my palms on shards of broken glass and stones. I laid there motionless and closed my eyes trying to blank out the thunder of laughter, mind you laughter not, “Oh my are you ok son?!?”. Time though was of the essence and out of a motionless slumber I jumped up, blood draining down my arm, and ran towards the car park. A man came up to me saying, “You forgot you thing right? Come with me the driver is waiting for you.” Which sounded to me like he had actually talked to the man and knew the situation, It would be quite the contrary. We get to the car park and I wipe the blood off on my already sweaty shirt. After running around for 10 minutes people giving me completely opposite advice I locate the car, and my coat. Relieved I jump back on this mans bike who I begin thanking for quote, “going so far out of your way to help me get my coat back and not charging me”. This is where I found out he really didn’t even know the driver, he just took a guess from me running that I had forgot something in the car, he then proceeded to tell me I should pay him 1000cefa (a crazy amount of money for the short trip) for him helping me, I then proceeded to tell him to go fuck himself and calmly explained (seriously completely calm, the adrenaline that had proceeded my freak out run and fall had worn off) that he never mentioned a price when he had picked me up and instead ran with the rouse that he sort of new the driver and had, as he definitely said, had heard from the driver and been told of the predicament. I ended up throwing him 20 dalasis, with coins, to get out of my face, twice the amount of a typical ride to the car park and back and went through customs. It was a rocky ferry ride in the darkness of night as I cleaned my wound with anything I could find in peoples backpacks, which ended up being hand sanitizer and we were back over the river in Banjul.

The Love Shack Next Door

I know it’s been awhile since my last entry (do I say that every time?). Mom keeps saying I should make these into a book… I think I’d end up getting sued some how (if a publisher could even get past the copious grammatical errors). It’s been a difficult month or so and I’m just trying to get through it. I know I’m going into my second year here but I’m still not close enough to my close of service (COS) to stop coping with things, so I just live day by day, maybe I can take a life lesson from that one day when I’m older and wiser; though I do know I should start thinking about my plans, grad school maybe, work, either way I should probably get on some letters of recommendations. This is why I haven’t returned the letters etc, but I promise they’re on their way. Also I should probably start trying to find a time to go to Dakar or the capital here and try and take the GREs. Eugene (Data) is studying right now to take the MCATs here and it sounds as if it’s a living hell, not the test as much as trying to wrap your head around it living in a third world country in a little hut where you go each day just trying to fight back the gag reflex to get a few calories more of spicy rice down your esophagus. But he’s still studying, somehow. Supposedly test scores are greatly reduced when taken in the peace corps, still, I shouldn’t keep avoiding them. Anyways I’m done rambling I swear, shall I continue?

Since just after the first rainy season there’s been talk in my compound about a few “extensions” that they wanted to put on the house. Our house is really set up like a long thin strip of double rooms going away from the road along with three other strip buildings encircling a few logs the old men used to sit on back in the old days, this is Jarjukunda, this is the compound. My place is the closest to the road and I’m right next door to my counterpart and host brother Elbou. There is though another room connected to my place and not to Elbou’s. It was being used as a closet for storage, originally to set up a small shop, which it’s not used for now but that’s for later. Talk was high after the rainy season about these “extensions” to our strip of houses to make them a few yards thicker. People talk a lot here and even with the brick building I really didn’t expect it to happen while I was here. Any construction here in the Gambia needs to be completed before the rains though if it’s going to happen, everyone will say, “samaa sitaa” literally this means rain sharp-time but comes out to mean, “the rain ain’t gonna wait for no one so hurry up and finish this work before we have to start planting and the rain destroys all the mud bricks”. The first drizzle came last Wednesday (the 13^th of may) and the boys started working double time, they may actually end up pulling this whole thing off in the end. I’ve been helping them move the bricks we made last fall, loading them in a truck, and taking them to the house, then going back to making more bricks with a little more cement than mud which is expensive but stronger.

Along with updates to the girth of the house I got a pleasant surprise coming home from the clinic one day. I ride my bike back around mid day, the sun beating down on my head as the days start to get more unbearable, then pull into the compound to find a few of my host sisters watching GRTS (the one Gambian television station, we pronounce it “grits”). We’ve always had a tv in my counterpart’s place for the big football games and news every now and then when we have foil (gasoline); the TV was funning but something was missing, there was no distinctive buzz of a generator in the background. Walking into the back I see a brand new, and fairly large, solar panel fixed to the corrugate roof of the house and a set of two huge batteries and a power converter. I heard Elbou say something about it but once again never figured it’d happen. I tried not to ask to many questions but I just couldn’t help myself. We ended up borrowing the panel from the clinic as it was collecting dust in storage for a while. My jaw drops. I just may have power for the next year of my service. There is a god.

Two days later we’d get a call from his brother, the head of the clinic. He had been planning on trying to sell the panels and wasn’t so happy his little brother pulled a quick one on him. It was a good attempt, lord knows I tried it with my parents, if you just go and do something it’s harder for them to say, “no” after the fact. Thing is big bro didn’t care how much of a pain in the ass it was to take it all down again; it was going to come down. We enjoyed it for another few days till a mechanic came and I was carefully trying to navigate the corrugate roof and detach the panel; making very sure I was stepping on a wooden bracing strut of the roof and not the incredibly thin metal of which I would fall right through into the house, most likely in great pain. I cried a little inside as they carted the panel away in a wheelbarrow, my counter part wasn’t as taken aback by it all as I. He had expected the trick he pulled on his brother to either work or not; he hadn’t grown up with electricity his entire life. Look, maybe I should clarify this now, I have no problem with my living conditions, I have no problem with the candles, it actually makes life far more interesting with a romantic, I live in the African bush, kind of feel, and shitting in a hole is actually not remotely as bad as it sounds, it’s actually nicer in some ways. When push comes to shove though, if I get the chance to have electricity I sure as hell am not going to be some hippy peace corps volunteer who turns it down. I’m not that masochistic. I got over it, and a week or so later I actually heard down the rumor mill we may get another chance at the panel, but I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s easier just to accept a situation than be teased with something more for even a little bit more of high life.

There are many little things that drive a peace corps volunteer over the edge. The stress of life, the struggle to walk through the muddy water that is trying to make projects happen here or for people to even just get up and help themselves, the ridiculous drama of living in Real World The Gambia, and that’s not even including the drugs. No, not heroine or acid, I’m talking the legally prescribed compulsory malaria treatment we are all rigidly kept on. I’m no doctor, even if I feel I have enough experience watching House and ER to sell it, but a medication whose side effects include everything from rage and depression to suicide and whose maximum duration is said to be no more that a few months doesn’t seem like the greatest thing to put on an already strained PCV. As the months have gone by I’ve been on the medication for over a year. I take Lariam every Wednesday, every Thursday consequently then ends up being the worst day of my life. I turn into the incredible hulk of the Gambia minus the huge pectorals. I really should just start locking myself in my house those days, and yes I know you’re asking, “Steven why don’t you just get them to change your meds!?!?” Well first off I’m not getting put on Doxy, I just won’t be taking anti-biotics everyday for the next year, I love only taking a pill once a week. Secondly, there’s no way the U.S. government is going to pull a few extra Benjamin’s out of their pockets to put me on the good stuff, the malorone. So on top of everything this Thursday comes and I became completely content in finishing watching my copy of the Pianist and wallowing in self-pity for the rest of the day, but nooooooooooo. I get a call from my site mate saying that a friend from north-bank had decided to throw in the towel with peace corps and find a much more fulfilling job back in the states with his beautiful fiancé. Personally I do not remotely blame him. I’m then forced then, as not a complete asshole, to throw a few clothes in a bag and head up to Fajara to send him off in style.

I try and take a deep breath, I do the old count to ten bull shit when really throwing crap off a couple story building would do just the trick. Then I hop on a car up to the capital. I came mere milliseconds, a good ten times, from breaking my fist in a few wannabe bumpster’s faces. After waiting an hour or so getting in some ridiculous argument with a border policeman about how much money peace corps volunteers make and him strongly hinting, like I wasn’t born speaking English and didn’t pick up on it, that I was secretly a C.I.A. agent. Seriously, I wish. You’d think if they thought about it long enough they’d figure out that the people living in the Gambia don’t even want to be there, so why on earth would it be worth it for the united states government to waste preciously trained intelligence agents on one of the smallest, most stable, peaceful, and natural resource free countries in the whole of Africa. Trying desperately to not pop a vain in my neck I’m saved miraculously by an almost full gilly heading to Birkama. I hop in and greet my host brother, one of the nicest teachers at the school, my villages Alkalo, and my host-aunt. Pretty much the last people in the country to deserve the shit storm that is Demba “the hulk” Jarju. I put on my headphones in an great effort to just calm down for a second as the car moves up the road.

If you’ve been keeping up with my entries you’d know that the road was under-construction but which was just completed recently. The president himself came the day it was opened with a convoy of about a hundred cars sporting party colors, his characteristic stretch hummer, an ambulance or two from his clinic, a few personnel carriers full of troops and two giant trucks with large 10 meter long artillery guns on the back. I would have had a great picture on my camera of the president in his car but I got pushed by one of the men living in the Alkalo’s compound who was running like 16yr old school girl trying to get a glimpse of one of the Beatles. The convoy ended up hitting a young Manjako girl who was quickly rushed in the ambulances supposedly to the president’s private clinic in Banjul. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the convoy’s fault. This is a newly completed international highway, whether the cars were going to fast or not it’s still a highway, not a new gravel playground for the children of the village. Back in the hulk I was trying to sooth my mind with some easy listening classics on my iPod. It didn’t help. A minute later we were screeching to a stop. It’s a brand new highway, how the fuck are we stuck in a traffic jam. Looking out the window I saw a ‘grits’ news team interviewing the passengers of the cars to get opinions/compliments on the new road. “So sir, how do you see the new road?”, the anchor said. Most of the interviewees were taking this time to get on TV and sport their APRC pride (the presidents political party, color green, I forget what it stands for but it’s resembles a sort of labor party) and presidential thanks, “Thank you so much to our great, kind, and generous, president for granting the poor people of the Gambia a new road” I’m about to lose it. I put away my iPod. “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!!! I’m in a hurry and trying to get to the capital and all of you are just wasting my time trying to get on tv. IT’S A GRAVEL ROAD!!! It’s not even finished yet!” I walk up to my driver who’s waiting in line to be interviewed and give him the old, ‘uhhhh could we get going’ look. With a huge smile on his face he’s looks back at me with the ‘uhhhh I’m going to be on TV, it can wait’ look. Construction trucks were passing by on the auxiliary dirt road and I walk up to the cars apprentice and with a look of, ‘seriously don’t fuck with me today’ on my face I ask him for my money back. “Kid, I’m just going to hitch a ride to the next junction where I can catch a taxi to Birkama, just give me my money so I can go.” I pleaded. “No really we’re going to be leaving soon soon, just wait.” He responded. Damnit. Pacing back and forth I pick my head up to see a red LED lit on one of the GRTS cameras. Well what do you know, I was on national television in the background of the interviews the entire time. I’m so getting fired. Thankfully I guess no administration saw it, or just got a good laugh out of it. I guess the look on my face was enough to get them out of the interview line and into the car because we left shortly after. My hands were shaking but thankfully the closest I came to the hulk was slamming the window on the nose of a pain in the ass car park punk in Birkama. I got past the pit pocketing danger zone at the Westfield car park and hopped into a taxi going down the pipe line. Being white and living this country you deal with people talking shit to you on a daily basis but today I jut wasn’t having it. I only had a D50 on me for the 5 dalasi taxi ride and the lady in front of me started going off on me like I didn’t understand here obvious shit talking “What kind of white man doesn’t have change? Are you serious, the nerve of these fucking white men, they should all go home.” I clench my bag with a death grip and get out of the cab. I walk up to Omar’s Peace Corps Kitchen not saying a word to the 7 PCVs sitting down outside, shaking and about ready for my very sanity to just snap; thank the lord for those delicious cheese steaks Omar makes, they’re angelic. That and a few hours of ping pong and drinking at the happy hour bar and I was back in business. The next morning I went back to village a little bit more refreshed with my goodbyes to my friend heading home said. We’ll all miss ya bro.

You may be asking yourself, “Well after reading most of his blogs we know what Steven does on a daily basis during the day between bullshitting at the clinic or helping out at the school but what’s going on at night? Hell is there a night life in little African villages?” Yes, definitely, and let me assure you I stayed far far away from it living in my sheltered little hut chatting with the older, elderly community for as long as possible… till you end up going to play cards with a few of the boys at the chiefs compound and catch your previously innocent younger host sister making out in the shadows by a pile of cement bricks. For quite sometime my good friends in village have been trying to set me up with girls but do to the copious amounts of complications involved with something like that I avoid it entirely; no matter what, having the color of skin that I have alone carries to many false connotations and ignorant stereotypes which would make it impossible anyways. That and it would likely completely ruin the rapport I have worked to gain for the past year with work. Problem is that if you don’t date than you’re considered a racist, “What so you don’t like the beautiful (which they are) black women here?” but if you do than you’re just another colonialist slave driver stealing their women… you really just can’t win. Still, I was curious, I come from a scientific background and need data, I mean just how does dating work here anyways? Around this time my good friend Malong, (which literally translated means “I don’t know”, he’s a great guy and either way it’s better than my other friend who people call, Jongkong, which means ‘the place you go to take a shit’) was in the previously mentioned dumps, though metaphorically, in regards to his love life. I posed the idea, “Malong, how bout this, I’ll be your wing man a few nights and help you score a few hot ladies in return for you showing me how this whole thing works here. I’ll hook ‘em in with the American accent. You’ll be making second base before Friday! (I then had to explain bases)” “You have all these systems, that’s why you American men are so dangerous with the ladies.” He replied “I’ll take that as you’re in Maverick (I went on to explain the glory that is Top Gun)”.

Any dating that’s done in the village is done at night. A village will completely change at night, it may be small town Kansas in the day but when the sun goes down it’s Vegas. During the day women will wear only wrap skirts (now shirts may come on and off but boobs don’t have the same single meaning like in America) but at night women feel comfortable enough to break a few cultural conservations and break out the tight ass-hugging blue jeans and shirts girls would wear out clubbing back in the states. Everything changes at night. Even a couple that is “dating”, if you could call it that, during the day are just friends, they’re not boyfriend and girlfriend as an American would know it really until night. When it comes to ‘getting it on’ if you think about the make up of an African village it gets sort of tricky. Most families sleep in the same room or more than likely share it with another brother etc so you can see the complications. There is usually that one friend of yours in village though that has his own place, he’s the go to guy. Girls rarely have their own place so the guy, if his friend is nice, will usually let his buddies “make use of his room” when he needs to borrow it for a little bit and that’s if you’re lucky and don’t have to use some random place in the woods or from what I hear the old nursery school; but lets not get ahead of ourselves. In village dating the wingman is utterly necessary as I soon learned becoming one for my friend. The wingman will have very polite and culturally acceptable conversation with the girl the friend is interested in, someone to pass messages along as an intermediary (even though everyone knows what you’re doing), which was my job. Then after the family realizes they’re just having a normal conversation he will invite her to go outside and chat another time, usually in a dark area where the friend just so happens to be waiting, in our case I brought her out to an old tire where my friend was sitting then made my self scarce. There were several other encounters and I’m pretty sure it never went anywhere but it was an interesting nonetheless. Most of the time, when it’s not me holding my friend back as a terrible wingman though he would just go on a double date with another one of his friends to chat with two girls together each picking one.

In America people would usually go to a bar to pick up a girl, or some party which involved most likely copious amounts of drinking. Drinking in a way may make the whole awkward dating process quite a bit more easier. In a Muslim country though getting a girl drunk hoping she’s start to dig you ain’t gonna work. Instead, on almost a monthly basis, young men will organize a DJ to come with big speakers and have a Disco. This is where people come to strut their stuff, put on some of their good cologne or perfume (which they call, “spray”) to impress the opposite sex, or go to score some cheap weed to get them through the hot African days, usually from some sketchy Rasta guy who hide in the corner of the disco hut selling. Usually there’s a cover of like 10-25 dalasis (50cents to a dollar, which actually I find expensive) or for a decent performer will be up to D50-100. People are usually sweating there asses off singing along to their favorite Jamaican hits till 5 in the morning. I’m back in my house trying to go to sleep by like one.

Previously my room had the luxury of being mildly isolated from the rest of the compound. My bedroom had the nice buffer of the room I use to put my bike, trash, and my cat’s litter box. That buffer room was on the other side of my host brother’s place and my room was only adjacent to a storage closet that was originally built as a local shop. There’s about 40 shops in the general vicinity, they realized location wasn’t that greatest spot. Recently though a few extended families kicked my host brother Adama out of his place as they moved in. Needing a place for Adama and his friends who frequent it they offered him the closet, which mind you is just as big as my room. A few days later it was a fully functional bachelor pad. I learned very quickly how thin the walls really were. Adama just so happens to have an amazing stereo set he hooks to a car battery, instantly I was back in college, banging on the wall, “I’m trying to freaking sleep damnit, Adama turn that shit down!” Thankfully I had brought a foghorn back from America… you never know when it’ll come in handy and let me tell you it fixes the problem instantly, I fully recommend purchasing one. So the music stopped. The next day I barge in, which is something all the guys do around here mind you, his house is a chill spot, and I burst in on a local NGO worker with quite the attractive young woman (I won’t name names but I urge all of you to continue to support Christian Children’s Fund, believe it or not their food at programs here are the bomb, spared no expense thank you). “Well, welllllllll, helllllllooooooooooo, how are you both. Whelp, just looking for Adama, I guess I’ll be on my way. You guys just continue what you’re doing.” I said as obnoxiously as possible.

IT training at the hospital has gotten fairly monotonous. You have no idea the extreme frustration it is to watch someone struggle to move a mouse further on the screen when they ran out of mouse pad and you just continue to tell your self, ‘be nice, be nice, take a deep breath, try not to sound belittling’, no offence mom but it’s scarily reminiscent of trying to show you where the power button of our first desktop computer was. So to take a break and take a deep breath from IT for a bit I came back to the school. Trying to get all the things settled for a “Take our daughter’s to work weekend” I had started helping with I overheard some teachers planning there next science lesson. “Seriously, Shley, you need to let me come in and help out with a lesson someday.” I told the 8^th grade science teacher. “Alright sure, tomorrow we’re going to talk about microscopes any ideas?” The next morning I ganked a very old mirror microscope from the clinic that wasn’t being used, remnants of a failed lab project I tried to set up 6 months prior. Now it would be going to a much better purpose. The kids at the schools here almost never get an opportunity to do anything hands on in the classroom, it’s listen, repeat, memorize, go home. Being able to look at even things as simple as sand and seeing how it looks under a microscope, or the compound eye of an ant, the inner veins of a mango leaf, and the edge of a human hair; I’d like to think I saw a short twinkle in their eyes as they got a chance to see science in a different way. But who knows, it was only one day.

I had received a call bored one day at the clinic a few weeks ago asking in I had any girls at the school I taught at that were exceptional students who’d be willing to take part in a women in the work force shadowing experience they were calling, “Take your daughter’s to work weekend”. It sounded like a great opportunity sponsored by peace corps sponsorship along with assistance from a local women’s NGO. I jumped on my bike and ran to the school to see if the principle had anyone in mind, there was only a week till the program. He did have a few girls in mind and along with a few teachers we picked three to represent our school. The program would eventually be postponed for a few weeks (the girls were devastated) but I got a call and it had been rescheduled. It was my job to visit the girls parents and see if they had any questions about the weekend and make sure that they were supportive parents planning on pushing their daughter to further their education. In the money’s mind it would be a complete waste of money to let a girl come to a weekend focused on encouraging them to further their education and go onto the work force if, like the majority of parents around here, the next week keep her home from school because the wives were busy and someone needed to cook lunch; Or worse, just not caring about their child’s education at all. I road my bike to the three neighboring villages to talk to these parents all of which strangely were absent of father’s which was sad, two dead, one away at work. All of these girls though had been nominated because of how well they were doing at school and it was really great to see examples of a few decent parents who are tough on their kids when it comes to their education and appreciate how important an education… even for their girls… is.

Well with the good comes the long list of failed programs I have to update you on sadly. This is the main reason I haven’t updated my blog in so long. To be quite honest, recently, absolutely nothing that interesting has happened, and with frustrations with work, malaria meds, and the mid-service crisis I’ve just been getting by. with my health insurance policy I developed for my village it turns out the game my village was playing trying to get out of paying and instead trying to get sponsored from the land of the white people was lost. The the program is suppose to assist the community in being responsible for their own health care, the money is there, but in the end they’d rather just hold onto the money and take the risk with out insurance. It’s the same in America with insurance and a lot of people don’t purchase it, who can blame them. I’m still in the process of trying to sign up people up on an individual basis at least, so that even if a lot of people don’t sign up now maybe one day they will want it and have the access to highly affordable and reliable health insurance at their local clinic. This is a huge step for the development of my community here, but in the end if they’re not ready for it, they’re not ready. Both my bosses are still encouraging me to stay motivated with the project and to continue to initiate it, these days though motivation is running low. In a week I’m taking a break, a short vacation to go up to St. Louis, the original capital of Senegal on the border with Mauritania, for the Annual African Jazz Festival. I’m super excited and right before it my training group will all be meeting, by the pool in the president’s village, to celebrate being in our final year of service. Till the next time. Oh and check out this artical published in the New York Times about the Gambia: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/world/africa/21gambia.html?_r=1

Above is a picture of one of my friends "Lamin" in village with a Jesus shirt which I found hilarious. After I told him what it was and that he prob shouldn't be wearing a shirt with a giant jesus fish around village he agreed and I haven't seen him wearing it since. Even better today I saw a dude with a giant israeli flag on his shirt that said in both hebrew and english, "Israeli Solidarity Day". That may be better than the burning Osama Bin Ladin shirt I saw. Oh and saw a kid at my clinic wearing a university of Cincinnati shirt too, I was like, "GO BEARCATS!" he gave me an odd look.

The joys of ping pong and beer

Before you yell at me, I know it’s been awhile since my last entry and I apologize to all my dear friends and family, dukare kana-n lipa (please don’t beat me). Where did I leave off anyways? Man it must have been a month or so ago. Dakar was fun, and I could tell the story but I think it would be easier for you to just go to blogster, type in: Spring Break Cancun, then just substitute anything that says Mexico with Senegal. Literally the spring break for Peace Corps volunteers from all over Africa; from Mali to Mauritania. Softball for 3 days getting banged up and bruised to win a few games for the glory of PC The Gambia then drinking away the pain of ripping all the skin off my left shin sliding into second… twice (though the second time I was going into third). Bloody Mary’s were the preferred morning coffee substitute and every night was a different theme party. First night we were all out bar hopping Dakar and I ended up in some place called the Viking; a nice little Loft esk bar that reminded me of downtown Kent. One party was at the Marine Barracks (pretty much a military frat house, w/ping pong table I might add), one at a rented out ocean front club which had a really diabolically treacherous set of stairs for drunk people, and the last was a classy ball after an even classier (and just as fucking expensive) banquet, where it just so happens I won two free tickets to “Magic Land” in Dakar (go me!). I want to thoroughly thank all the American Embassy workers for opening up your homes to all of us rather eccentric PCVs… you have no idea how much it meant to us to sit down and have a home cooked meal then watch the daily show and play xbox; heaven to a volunteer. It was as close as any of us were going to get to home until end of service.

Next thing I know we went strait from shot gunning miller lights to heading back to our home away from home in the Gambia. I slept through half the ride, thank god, and woke up just in time to see our driver do a drug deal a few villages before the border. I mean look I don’t know jack shit about drugs or dealing, but I severely doubt this 20 something year old boy was giving the driver all that Senegalese cefa for a little baggy of sugar; which the way people drink tea here wouldn’t be enough for a forth of a glass. I headed right back to site the next day to get to my first Village Insurance Committee meeting. If you read the last blog entry you’d know that the majority of my work these days is developing and getting out all the kinks in creating a village insurance policy. I set up all the chairs that afternoon, bought some tea, sugar, and attaya to brew for the meeting. Got all my papers in order then waited for people to arrive. And I waited. One came, I began to pace, two more arrived and we waited and the sun began to set over the mosque just in time for 5 o’ clock prayer. “This isn’t going to work today, why don’t we try again next week? I’ll let everyone know.” My chairman Modou said. I spent the week furthering the writing my policy and bylaws and researching how the hell to write any of those (thank you Eric so much for all your help!). Next week came and I went through the whole process again, waiting, pacing; Modou showed up and again we postponed. I wrote a brilliant, tear jerking, preamble to the village insurance committee constitution and waited for the third meeting to start. This time I didn’t bother pacing. God bless Modou too for working his ass off to try and get the “elected, responsible, members of the community” to come to the meeting. He even wrecked his bike once just trying to get to everyone’s house and remind them about it, that’s what we spent the fourth failed meeting doing, fixing up his bike. Meeting five and six came and this time I didn’t bother pacing… no one showed, and asked about it later by a third party they knew the time and date, things just came up... welcome to African development work.



I went with Modou to talk to the village Alkalo. I reminded him this was an amazing opportunity to take huge steps in developing the village and increasing the health of all it’s citizens. He agreed but resided in the statement, “look people are just lazy around here, it’s a good idea and I can account for sending people from your committee to do things in another village during the morning of the last meeting but other than that just keep trying.” I went to the capital to talk with Mike the CD who as I have said is an amazing business mind. We both ended up agreeing that it would have been a miracle anyways to get 10 totally committed people but at least, if I’ve found a few, I should try and pull it off with them… which if this 7th try doesn’t work I plan on doing. (update as I was typing this, had 7th meeting and a miraculous 4 people showed up, that’s 40%!!! Huge steps! But we rescheduled for next Sunday and 8th time is a charm).



In the weeks of trying to cope with setbacks in work and daily trials of living as a white man in a Gambian village I started helping my Drama and English group get there symposium, which we had got funding from CCF for, up and running. We practiced their play that discussed going to the hospitals before going to local medicine men for their malaria treatment. We had a set of amazing speakers lined up, one actually being a former presidential candidate of the socialist party in the country who would be concluding our assembly, along with a few great health workers from the capital to talk about STIs. I should have known really that this was a disaster waiting to happen by now, but I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I truly believed it, so I lived the lie and got super excited for the opportunity to truly motivate the children to work harder in school and live healthier. The program got off to the expected late African start, which wasn’t a problem because it gave me time to climb a mango tree and finish reconnecting the speaker system. Once at least the first couple speakers arrived we introduced the symposium to the raging mob of 400 or so students. We had to stop for a teacher and I to take some of the peer leaders (older “responsible” students like hall monitors) aside and give them a bigger pep talk on doing their job controlling the mob. I don’t think it really got through because after about 5 minutes of it being a tad less crazy they went back to the Gambian rendition of lord of the flies, older students beating younger students to ill effect in the noise department. The introductions continued and I began to start the speech I wipped up the day before as a truck from the department of education pulled up. All the teachers quietly got up and went to receive their paychecks. I’d only seen it a few times but their not shitting you when they say they drop everything to pick up those pay checks, but who could blame them. They urged me still to continue with my speech:

“Good morning and welcome ladies, gentleman, and distinguished guests. I’d like to thank all our guests for taking time out of their busy schedules to come down to Jiboro and endow our teachers and students with their great wisdom and experience. I am the United States Peace Corps Volunteer who has been stationed in this village for the past year to assist in the health and community development of the area. I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with some skilled older teachers and promising new ones and I thank them for their patience with me through the months.

The world it seems is growing significantly more hostile every day; wars and assignations occur and ignorance and indifference has become a plague on our society. Listening to the news you would fear it’s spiraling out of control. It’s ironic in a way to think that we’ve had the key to heal are breaking world the entire time. What are the weapons we use to fight ignorance and intolerance? What is the ammunition we use to fight indifference? … What is it if not education? The way we spark the passion of our youths and focus it with the knowledge of our elders. If you can’t at least point a man’s country out on a map, how can you hope to understand him? Education is that key, and our teachers have the opportunity to harness it. Think now of every dilemma the Gambia faces today. It could be argued that every single one of them can be fixed through the education of our youths, every one of them, and I challenge you to embrace this idea. Education destroys ignorance; it disbands stereotypes and teaches tolerance for all races, religions, tribes, and cultures. Education develops communities and economies, it helps us to yield more crops from our fields and work the land more efficiently. Education brings awareness to the importance of our environment and insures better health for our future. The development of our youths allows the Gambia to develop it self; and to forge from it’s own strong faith and culture a country to be proud to call your own and to raise your kids.

What does it take to develop a child into a leader for the future anyways? Children that can grow up to learn from and assist the already great leaders in the country, but bring about new ideas and inspiration for developing it further. We need to put an importance on critical thinking and on problem solving so that no matter what trials our children face, they have the tools, the discipline, and the creativity to fix it. It takes the patience of our teachers, to guide their students, but to also make an environment that relishes new ideas and courage. A Student that can be granted not only new knowledge from the books but the inspiration to write their own; because school is not only on learning facts but on learning how to learn.

For our teachers, I pray that you take great insight and tolerance from our guests and learn from their extensive experience. To our parents, it’s up to you to put a focus on education for our youths, encourage and push them to work harder, for it is you that decides if education is important to our families. For our students, take heed today and open yourself to new ideas; enjoy yourselves, but take advantage of this opportunity to learn something new. Allow your minds to concentrate and to absorb as much as possible, as only the mind of a child can; but allow your hearts to forever wonder in search of your dreams. Do this with patience, with confidence, and with passion. You’ll find that the world has a way of conspiring to help everyone achieve their dreams; it’s the determination we show, and our ability to learn and listen to our hearts that guides us along the way.”

You could almost here the woosh of the information going into and then unimpedidly out of the children’s ears. The talking continued as I tried desperately to hear my own voice through the speaker, “ahem. Uhhh, ok, uhh, yea I’ll now pass the mic to our next speaker from Bafrow. Alright quiet down please students she has some very important information to tell you. Peer leaders if you could please start doing your job!”


The speakers continued but during breaks I tried to get some of the older students together so maybe they could have a private Q&A with the health speakers where they’d be more comfortable asking tough questions. The teachers though did a surprisingly brilliant job at deflecting that attempt. I was next on the lecture schedule and I had planned a talk on Student-centered teaching methods and increasing student participation. The teachers who were really the focus of the lecture had gone on crowd control duty and I found no point in giving a lecture that would be used completely as a time filler as the mic too was failing and regardless the ones listening couldn’t understand it (as with the other lectures today) so I conceded. Pissed and defeated I made a few smart ass remarks to the teachers still at the guests table then walked over to the kitchen to try and nab some of the already cooked benichin (a really great oil based rice meal). Turns out one of the wolof teachers was also hiding out there and we shared an entire family bowl and a half of it for ourselves… mmm since when has being defeated tasted so good.

After lunch and prayer the lower grades went home and the symposium actually turned on the brighter side for a bit. The mature students were avidly listening and the speaker from a neighboring village spoke slowly and clearly. Our afternoon speakers were still AWAL and never ended up showing. A few weeks later I would find myself at the Peace Corps Security Officer’s desk looking over some Gambian news articles regarding recent “incidents” in the country (which I’m not sure I’m at liberty to discuss currently). Who’s face do I see smiling back at me in handcuffs on the front page than our AWAL honored guest speaker, who was currently considered an enemy of the state. I guess that’s a good enough excuse for skipping out on an important symposium for kids, I guess. I’m not positive of the date but either that day or the day after the symposium he was taken into custody where he still is now. Oh west Africa, how you never cease to amaze me. I love this place.

Needless to say I took a few days to get my head strait in the capital. I instantly began enjoying the Stodge’s new make over. The couches were re-oriented to face the two broken televisions and DVD player. The bookcase were moved to another room to form a cubical around the two work computers, and in the next room, to my surprise, was a very nicely built Ping Pong table. Wow, my life is complete. A small ping pong cult was already being formed and challenges made throughout the country to figure out who were the best among us. As I’ve mentioned before I’m ridiculously competitive, in everything, and ping pong was no exception. Tournaments were planned and the bop, bop, sound of the ball against newly cut wood filled the halls of the transit house. Praise the lord for ping pong and beer. And thus, I promise, this will conclude the typical PC mid-service crisis; nothing’s harder or more rewarding than trying to jump back on that horse with renewed vigor but that’s what I’m going to do! I should probably lay off the beer a bit though, cause I sure as hell am not giving up ping pong. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

p.s. on a side note I just met a gambia PCV who ate baby west african manatee meat in her village, no i'm not shitting you, how crazy is that. you can see pictures at http://maggiegambia.blogspot.com/

Awakening the Muse

I would like to assure my family and friends that actually I’ve been very healthy the past month, knock on wood. WAIST is coming up soon (the softball tournament in Dakar, Senegal) so everyone is excited for that. Even more than excitement for Dakar is my groups realization that we have now officially been in the Gambia one year. Many things are associated with this mark but most of them include an epiphany of sorts. A realization that wow, you’ve made it a year, and for the most part in tact; and hell, I’ve carved out quite a niche for myself in my little village. So now I know which people are super fun to hang out with, and on the contrary the people and areas I should definitely stay away from. People know me and my language ability has gotten to a pretty decent level; not fluent by any means but I can get around enough to crack jokes, yell at assholes, and get the job done. We start to feel comfortable with our surrounding knowing what makes us happy and what provokes a PCVs rage and reaching that hump is encouraging, soothing and yet deeply scary.

We’re called upon as “veterans” now even though we really don’t feel like we’re experts on anything. This epiphany shows it self in the maturation of the peace corps volunteer, it’s the realization of what being a peace corps volunteer really is… a muse. One whose greatest accomplishments will go unnoticed and any praise or recognition will be given to others to bathe in. Your most meaningful projects will not be known and yet your failures exploited. It sounds terrible, but the epiphany is realizing how beautiful of a thing that really is. The fact that your real jobs as a peace corps volunteer is to plant that idea into the minds of the receptive, and to be the inspiration in a place where people have long accepted their circumstances. Hell yes that’s ridiculously frustrating, but yea, that’s our job, and like it or not you got a year and a month or so left. Integration’s as good as it’s going to get, so now all you can do is buckle down and make sure by the time you leave, something, anything, ends up being sustainable.

Lately I’ve taken up a role helping out the Drama and English Society at the school; a club that was created by a few teachers to enhance the noticeably poor English ability of the students along with giving them the chance to compete in a regional Drama competition. Now I’m no actor but I think I’m eccentric enough of an individual to fake my way into actually knowing what I’m talking about, my English is probably no better than there’s now that I think about. I helped do a mock play with the teachers the first few weeks. Tuesday we’d work on English and Thursdays were drama day. A week or so passed and I decided to do a lesson on getting into your part. I had all the students name some emotions on the board and say a simple sentence like, “I’m going to visit my friend today.” using different emotions. Needless to say after some prodding we had 4 adjectives to work with. In retrospect I probably should have worked on public speaking first because no one really wanted to get up and give an example. I’m really a terrible drama teacher. As the activity failed miserably I sat everyone down and asked them to try and remember a time when they felt one of these emotions, so that they could tap into that when they were acting later. I told some story about when I felt happy, scoring some goal for my soccer team in college, then I asked for one of the other teachers to tell a similar story about an emotion. No one volunteered. “Well Mr. Jatta, do you remember anytime you were happy? You are married right?” “Yes.” “So why don’t you tell me when you first fell for your lovely wife?” … probably a bad question. “Actually I’m divorced.” “Well that would be a great example of the opposite emotion I guess then.” I said under my breath. I called it a day after that one.

The thing about falling though is learning to pick yourself up again I’m told, so next week I schemed and thought about a more interactive drama activity. The other teachers decided that was a great day not to show up but I didn’t let it stop me. “Alright kids, today we will be role-playing, improving if you will. I want us all to make a mock restaurant.” I took volunteers for cooks, waiters, management, customers, and bus boys. I had one boy assigned to management take care of making sure his restaurant ran correctly and I took the customers outside. I gave each of them a more specific character, some were taking a girl out on their first date, others were rowdy soccer players coming off a winning game, the rest then were families and friends with specific quarks. Go. It was amazing to watch, the week before they were scared to even volunteer for the exercise but today they were getting into it, yelling at waiters that the food was bad, causing trouble, ordering desert…beautiful. Most were getting into it but I walked up to the two who were suppose to be on their first date, the girl was reading a book and the boy had put headphones in his ears. “I guess the date’s not going so well? Did you at least pull the chair out for the girl? Or was she trying to get a piece of salad out of her teeth?” I then also got bored, and proceeded to, with the help of one of the students, hold up the restaurant and steal all the cash before they were able to negotiate food for both of us.

Kulios or naming ceremonies as they’re known in English are big events here in the Gambia. It’s a bar-mitzvah and baptism all wrapped into one event for a baby a week or so old, who will never remember the amount of money spent by their parents for this one event. Jammeh-kunda, the compound that Katie my site mate is staying at, invited me to their kulio. I have to say, I have not been to a bigger kulio, wedding, or even funeral since being here, and let me tell you I’ve been to too many. The amount of people who came packed all three neighboring compounds as well as the Jammeh’s. Lunch had 5 courses and dinner had another 3. Hanging out with the family all day was exhausting. I sat in a group of about a dozen intimidating elders all waiting for their shot to test my Mandinka skills (and they weren’t even Mandinkas! Most were Jolas!) and see if I was just another tourist full of shit and African naivety. I guess I passed their test because I had them all laughing and making fun of each other in 15 minutes. I had been talking to a broad shouldered elder in all white for awhile as people gathered to pray for the new born child. As other men sat down they would start talking about, “the white man” this or “the white man” that, and the old man laughed when I told the two men I could clearly hear what they were saying and that, “their mother must have done a shity job in raising them when their kids don’t greet”. They quickly apologized. I then proceeded to go into my whole “you’re all spitting on Martin Luther King Jr.’s grave” speech. This argument in Mandinka that I’ve had many many times is where I explain that I don’t like when people lump me in some category with other white people and that you can’t call Europe “Toubabadou” (the land of white people) when I have actually never even been there not to mention I’m America and by NO MEANS European. Then I go on to explain how MLK fought his entire life so that people would judge men, “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”, I then pound my chest in display that I am my own person. Throw in a few shots that my people were actually enslaved by Africans on this continent and then I conclude with the whole, “only uncivilized people, naive, ignorant people, judge another man by the color of ones skin”… game, set, match.

All the men around me nod in agreement and even take a few shots at the man who didn’t greet me for making them all look bad. That’s right, this is one toubab who knows how to defend himself. “You can’t just talk crap about people who you think don’t understand you and get away with it, you never know who’s listening.” The man in white said to him very fatherly. He looked at me, “Demba are you ready?” “yes? For what?” and the broad-shouldered elder stood and grabbed the microphone. “As the Imam of this village I hereby commence this naming ceremony. Those of you who don’t understand Mandinka can have someone translate for them. Many of you, who speak many languages have come. The Jolas, Mandinkas, Manjakos, Fulas, and Wolofs. Even people from far off lands have come, and yet we have all come for the same purpose. To bless this child with a life of peace, so that he may be a light to our community and to his country, and bring honor to us all. We all are one, we have all come for one purpose, White, brown, or black, to take care of each other…” Another man sitting near taps me and waves, pointing at the microphone, “This is your speech Demba. Do you hear?” The imam goes on, and in powerful fashion delivers the speech I had just given to the young man sitting behind us on an old tire.

Typically at these events a Griot of sorts is hired. Their job is to introduce any person who walks into the event, very loudly, and very obnoxiously, to literally berate and embarrass them into giving money for the child. Other kulios have women sing weird songs about you being cheap and having diarrhea. This man though, I have to say, was a natural. He was so good at his job a few strangers asked me if I knew if he was crazy or not. I mean this guy was good, hell thank god he didn’t come over to me ‘cause I would have hocked everything in my pockets just to get him to leave me alone. He followed this poor woman around for 15 minutes till she gave him a few dalasi coins. Good work sir. Actually turns out he was a tad crazy, but I’m glad to see the Gambia is a equal opportunity employer.

The party raged on into dusk until the moon climbed high in the sky. The family hired a DJ who came all the way from Senegal to entertain the kids all night. Most of the adults had left to go home or went to seek the quieter solace of chats in neighboring houses. The kids came though, from here and wide, un-supervised, and Katie and I were stuck in the middle of it. A mosh pit of trouble and chaos the kids began having the time of their life, and later a few of the adults even joined. Sitting on the side though I decided to mess with the kids a bit and pulled out the whole light up thumb magic trick I like. I soon began to draw a pretty big crowd as I pulled a light out of kid’s ears, swallowed it then farted it out. Clapped my hands and made it appear then blew it out with the wind. I had them believing it, the audience was mine! Kids began to actually get kind of scared. “Wait a second? Maybe this isn’t a trick? He’s not a sorcerer is he? Uhhh mommy?” Ok now they were pretty freaked and I didn’t do anything to show them it was just a trick with a cheap LED light and a plastic thumb. This wasn’t my village anyways haha, but none the less sooner or later they were going to figure out the trick if they were crafty enough, so I put the thumb away and decided it was about time for bed. An hour later I’m on the floor trying to ignore the blaring sound system of the party when all the kids cheered followed by, “Barak, Obama, Barak, Obama, Barak!” It was beautiful. Gotta love American soft diplomacy. I don’t know how these kids learned this song but they knew every word, and if I wasn’t half a sleep I probably would have ran out and chanted, “YES WE CAN! AND WE WILL!”

Life in village went by; I made a habit in village about bringing different DVDs to the neighboring compound so that everyone could watch. I was thinking, hmmm, what movie would still be good and have eccentric enough characters for even non-English speaking kids to enjoy. You know what, I’ll show them School of Rock everyone likes Jack Black. 10 minutes in, “Demba turn this film off, this is not sweet, we want some war films!” and Malong Ba, the head of the compound turned off the film. Alright I was a tad upset, I had been rocking out to some of the music in it and it seemed like these kids really just thought classic rock was shit, I find that to be heresy. I appreciate plenty of their Jamaican reggae rock with over used laser sound effects and hours of Jeliba playing the Quora that all I ask for is them to at least put up with a little of my music. The next day I showed them Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. They were in ecstasy, “Demba this film is very nice. Very nice!”. What can ya do? Next week we’re watching Platoon.

The next morning at around 6am I hear a cat wailing from across the road, a scream of death and horror. An hour or so later there’s a crying coming from on top my rice bag ceiling as my cat stubbles down through the crack near the wall and falls limping onto the bed in a crash of plaster and dust. His right limb still bleeding and significantly swollen, what the hell just happened? I’ve seen a good amount of animal wounds in my time, and there was no doubt about it, this was definitely an animal trap; the slipknot and wire kind or maybe even a modified mousetrap. Look I’m probably the last one to get all lovey-dovey about my cat, but the little rodent kind of grew on me, and I was pissed. Not to mention the entire day he looked so fucking pathetic. Limping around, crying, licking the wound, crying some more, I may have even seen him frown at me if I didn’t know better. Oye. So I cleaned it up and even made a make shift splint out of knee wrap using Neosporin, still labeled by my home towns animal shelter to my late St. Bernard, Bernie. Don’t ask me why I brought it to Africa, but hell I like to have all bases covered. You never know when you’ll need a fog horn, two different sizes of tweezers, or glow sticks; I just like to have these kinds of things around. You know, for spur of the moment raves and stuff. Anyways I’m happy to report that a week later he’s doing much better, he may have had a little break but the little rascals a fighter, and he had to have gotten out of that trap somehow.

I was invited to come back up to Pete’s site, a soon to be COSing (close of service) volunteer, could show me how to teach and use various lab equipment and identify TB and Malaria and do WBC counts under a microscope. Turns out the power only comes on in the morning and at night so we found ourselves (a few of the volunteers in the village), hanging out in the lab at around 11 o’ clock at night looking through old malaria slides. I saw a dozen or so open vials of what looked like blood over in the corner. “Hey Pete, what’s that for?” “Oh, that’s where they test for HIV, yea I tell them all the time that they need to remember to actually clean up before they’re done with their work but they never listen.” “Are you serious? That’s like 10 or so open vials of suspected HIV/AIDS patients?” If the public only knew. Africa’s all about keeping you on your toes. Well after a few hours staring through a microscope counting cells and searching for rods and crescents, drinking soda and popping Advil to subdue the head aches, I learned all there was time to learn and we headed back to bed.

The Next few days I planed to stay at Somita to chill with Alex and the rest of the guys from my group I went to Dakar with. Guys weekend was relaxed, hanging on the bamboo bed out back, debating passionately the more attractive girls in peace corps, and cooking some REALLY great egg fried rice and chopped beef. We ate well what can I say. We walked to a dried rice field 2-3k towards the river and hung out enjoying the little oasis in the middle of nowhere and that afternoon found our self letting our lunch settle over a game of texas hold-em. CRASH! “What the fuck was that!?” I ask Alex as the sounds of the entire village screaming and the pounding of feet flood our ears. “I don’t know but I’m going to find out” he responds. I race outside the compound and time feezes, the sounds of the radio fade in the distance and all I hear are screams and cries as a car engine revs and dies in the background. A gilly had crashed right in front of the mosque, right outside Dramme-kunda. Everything felt so foggy, but I shouted to Travis who was closest to the house to run and grab the med kit. Jogging closer I started to ask if someone had called Bwiam hospital yet to let them know there was a big wreck. It seemed someone had. I walked up to the van which had skid a ways on it’s right side. Windshield wiper fluid was spraying out the front still and I stuck my head through where the front windshield once was to make sure everyone got out. My breath was taken away from me. The window lay flat, still generally intact with one single broken indentation on the passenger side with a splatter of blood. I curse. Thankfully in the few minutes it had been since I had gotten there all the passengers had been taken out and only the skeletal insides of the van remained. The story could be seen from the inside. The front passenger bench had been ripped from it’s foundation and flung almost through the dash. Blood ran down some of the windows and bags were thrown everywhere. I looked again to make sure it was clear of people and walked around to the back. Black oil ran down the tranny and another blue fluid leaked out from the engine, but as the engine was dead I figured it wasn’t going to blow anytime soon. Then again what do I know about automobile accidents?

I wanted to do something, I needed to do something, I ran to see if any wounds needed to be taken care of. I’m no doctor, but neither was anyone else in the village. It seemed like all the serious cases were taken into a local shop so that they weren’t in the open but there were several woman with severe head injuries just walking around. One of them walked by me and readjusted her head wrap when I saw a large chuck of flesh and blood flap down across her neck. The bleeding had stopped but when I asked her to come to the side so that I could put a bandage on the wound she kept walking. There was a man on the side of the road, obviously in shock and trying to stand. A giant gash ran across the side of his head, like the woman’s, so deep you could see the bone. I started saying something but really no one was listening. I was speaking in broken Mandinka and any English went right over people’s head. I heard once that in sudden moments of excitement or fear people always revert to their native tongue. It seemed like anything I did I just got in the way; which was more frustrating than I could ever express. An older woman, not from the gilly, was running around screaming with a haunting shrill in her voice, “A FAATALE! A FAATALE! I BE BE FAATALE”. At the time I was pissed off, this woman was walking around inciting panic and yelling about how they were all dead. I stopped, put my hands on my knees, took a deep breath, shook my self off and went back to the road. The best thing I could do was just to get out of the way, and get all the children who came to look off the road.

After shooing a few kids off the road I went back to the van. If I couldn’t help anyone I damn sure was going to figure out what the fuck happened. I tried to listen as best I could to the people chatting but it was like fighting through a fog trying to understand the words and think clearly with the adrenaline pumping powerfully through my veins. Something about the axel or the break line, I couldn’t tell. I stopped and stared at the tred marks and the damage. I figured, hell I’ve watched plenty of CSI episodes, I can figure this shit out, I’m American, I can do anything; but my futile effort only helped to alleviate my own anxiety. I walked back towards the house trying to find the rest of the group. Once I found them my hands fell to my knees again, striving to grasp what had happened, and why? Why today? Why here? What happens the next time I have to ride in a gilly? Why wasn’t it the gilly I had come in on? ...It could have been me. I pushed my self up and shook my self off again, fighting the confusion and helplessness. As we walked all I could do was talk, not sure why, it made me feel like I was doing something I guess, running ideas through my head. Walking back into the house I heard the same song that was playing when we left. Symphony X’s 16-minute piece entitled, The Odyssey, recounting the tale of the Iliad in music. But here’s the thing: when we left the song must have been 5 minutes or so in, but by the time we returned the song still had a minute and some remaining. Had it really been only 10 minutes? We never finished that game of poker, I was getting my ass kicked anyways so I was sort of glad. For the next two days though I felt a fuzzy feeling in my gut, this anxiety you just can’t rationalize.

I had another meeting with the community in regards to my insurance proposal. It took them a few hours to show but they showed in full force. Omar a man living in the Alkali’s compound took responsibility to gather all the information regarding the number of compounds and ages and people in each one. We started to take nominations for members of the program I dubbed the VIC, Village Insurance Committee. When I get back from Dakar we will take another vote for the 10 members of the committee including a representative from each of the five regions of the village called ‘cabilos’ (doesn’t it sound like some Italian mob ring?). Overall it’s looking very positive and I’m trying very hard not to jinx it. All I can do is pray that this thing will work. By charging each compound enough to make the insurance committee and clinic sustainable but charging low enough to make it affordable for every member of my village. The next day I did some math, went over it a few times, and if I’m not mistaken this crazy idea just may work with a little luck and cooperation. I took last year’s data on the amount of money it cost the hospital to run: medicines, upkeep, and other expenses. I took the information on the number of patients they had per year and the income they make yearly. Ground out the numbers and after calculating it all out, even with subtracting the entire amount of money that we get from sponsors over seas, the hospital would be doing better than it was. And on the other side, the VIC would have over 450,000 dalasis to work with, more than enough to cover every, and all, of the communities health needs, at least from the amount our clinic charges. With a 17% bubble in case we go over. So that in the end, if we charge 100 dalasis per person per year to be placed on the insurance policy. Which now that I think about it is really set up more like an HMO. That for only about 5 American dollars (100 dalasis), they would be completely covered and the hospital, in a matter of 5 years would not need the assistance of any foreign money to hold it together. I just have to wait for the census to come in so I can get a percentage of members of the insurance policy divided by the average patients per year and I can get a more exact number. Cross your fingers guys and wish me luck. Oh and if any of you knows a thing or two about the insurance/HMO business and or writing legally binding constitutions or insurance policies for the VIC please let me know because I could use all the help I can get. In the mean time, all I can do is crunch a few more numbers and find the muse inside me to sell this idea to a few more villages.