Site Visit and Miny Toubabia

The day had finally arrived, I was driving to the site where I would work for the next two years. Alex and Katie were dropped off before me with the look of shear fear in their eyes as the peace corps SUV drove off in a cloud of dust. Driving down to my site I was nervous but actually more excited than anything else, for some reason I had a feeling that I was meant to go to this particular village, though even know I haven’t found out why. We had trouble finding my compound so we first stopped at the health clinic where I was going to do some of my work, to ask for directions. This wasn’t any normal clinic though, as soon as we stepped into the gated hospital we could tell this was different. Walking though the buildings, the men’s ward, women’s ward, children’s ward, maternity ward, and even a dentistry unit being built I realized this was nicer than some inner city clinics! The entire place was pimped out with large solar panels, powering the entire facility with electricity, and what more, to my amazement, the glory of a flush toilet (with TP for that matter)! The first time I sat down with my counterpart and the Dutch women who headed the clinic they uncapped an ice cold bottle of coke for me. “American’s love their Coke”, she said, and I was in to much sheer happiness to tell her I was a Pepsi fan. This place was not like Kiang at all, and may very well be the only green area of the Gambia, with an abundance of fruit like something out of a movie. Mango trees everywhere, Baobabs, and to what I’d find out later would be an Orange tree in my back yard… yes… that’s right… fresh, squeezed orange juice. I was in heaven. If that wasn’t enough we then got to witness my house; my compound is rather large and from the outside it’s like any African housing, shops very close as well as easy access to a pump. Opening the door to my house though (though it’s still mud brick and a tin roof I’ve upgraded my residence from hut to house, though some would still consider it a hut I guess) it was a freaking mansion. Easily more than 3 times the size of my dorm room of which I lived comfortably in for 4 years. The house was brand new with green floors and even the nice rice bag ceiling to protect me from falling woody debris from the supports.

Did I mention my backyard had an orange tree??? And plenty of room for Maringa planting (there I said it, so all you Ag-fo’s can leave me alone), as well as my Wal-Mart watermelon and cantaloupe… is it racist to plant watermelon in the Gambia??? Just curious. Ironically it grows super well here, as well as other warm soil plants. The people here are all very nice especially my host family and counter part who have been more than amazing! Not to mention the hospital has been so kind to me in my first days here. They’ve lent me a bed to sleep on till I buy some things in Kombo. The people overall in the village go out of their way to be kind, but maybe it’s that I’m new and I have come from the Bronx. It’s also nice to know that several compounds in the village get Senegalese satellite television and watch all the live football games… oh yes. You should see it, it’s really odd to see African tin roof compounds with satellite dishes and color tvs. This place is so perfect that I’m severely nervous of the terrible secret this village must hold. Maybe they sacrifice people every month or have secret Nazi youth meetings, what ever it is I’ll get to the bottom of it. I played soccer with the kids for the first time too the other day. I was nervous if I played shitty the first day they’d never let me play with them again. They have some big tournaments in the rainy season playing other villages and I really hope to get on the team. The men here are much better than those in Kiang where I was the local Pele, now I’m just a toubab who can play, but I guess they assume I’d be good just cause white guys from England come all the time and are pretty good. The entire American soccer community’s positive perception rests souly on my shoulders.

On the last day before I had to head out to Kombo for swear in the most proud moment since I’ve been here occurred. We were negotiating payment of rent, food, and laundry and my counterparts brother went into a long speech where he explained that they went through the long peace corps volunteer application to bring me here and that they felt it was their responsibility to take care of me; that I was part of the family, part of this community, and I shouldn’t worry about those things. It made me feel such a sense of responsibility that I have to this community to leave it better than I found it, and to give all the time, experience, and passion I process. It’s kind of daunting now that I think about it. Either way I definitely plan on sneaking a few bags of rice, jimbo, and oil, whenever I can to help pay my way. My next post I hope to talk about swear in, which is going to be the sickest party this side of the Atlantic. Every peace corps volunteer in county’s coming to the capital for it. I love you all, keep reading, writing, and calling. Oh and on a side note, I just found out Amanda’s puppy is still alive… though it’s probably better off dead than to be an animal in west Africa.

Fire in the Sky, the last days of Kaiaf

Training village has finally come to an end and we have all departed for our site visits. I’m currently in the woman’s ward of a decked out solar hospital in my permanent site, random I know, but I’ll go into that later. I’m sure you’re probably wondering by the title of this post what happened so I’ll go strait into the story. A long time a go, in a distant land there lived a knight and a dragon or something….

So the last week in training village went rather smoothly actually. The whole group got together in Medina (the wolof village between Kaiaf and Serra Samba) to visit a baker who could make pizza, they were really huge calzones though. Language was still a struggle but I made some amazing advances in that department the last two weeks. My LCF (language and cultural facilitator) says I should do fine on the test if I don’t stress but I’m still worried. God willing the next post will be talking about finally being able to swear in having passed the language test, but right now I’m pretty nervous. Looking back on it though if any of you came and visited me here you’d probably think I was fluent, but I’m honestly not even remotely close. *cross your fingers for me or I’ll probably be home in a few weeks lol* In the last post I mentioned about swear in how the head director of all the peace corps, aka the head honcho, is coming to The Gambia; and that our entire ceremony will be taking place on live Gambia TV (which sounds amazing but if you actually knew the viewing population of the one Gambian tv station you’d laugh). Regardless I am being asked to say a Hebrew prayer for the Jewish volunteers in the Gambia, which I’m pretty sure is only me but I guess I’m enough of a Jew for the whole country. If only you could witness the Jew-fro I’m currently sporting in all it’s glory. I’m going to get my ass lynched. Not to mention I am going to be singing the national anthem on television and have decided to do the Whitney Hueston super bowl version.

I’m rambling again and I apologize, back to Kaiaf. The real excitement happened the last 4 days in village. We were too leave on Wendesday and that past weekend we had all gone to Soma to buy fabric to have our African garb made for swear in. That Sunday Katie got into a huge fight with her host family over payment of her laundry or something, and earlier that day Amanda had got a puppy (4 days later may he rest in peace). So come Monday morning we were all pretty riled up. That afternoon I got on my soccer gear to head to the field like usual and to my shear amazement witnessed a grotesque spectacle that only the horrors of a late night movie could compare to. A large semi-truck full of generators, computers, school supplies, and cricket sets; and hanging on to the back end of the truck a large fat British chap, shirtless, his belly “homer simpson” style hanging over his belt line as he shouted directions on removing a large generator from the truck. The entire village had come to watch… it was a mob. I ironically sat in the background looking from a prospective I would have never thought, that of the local who working for the peace corps knows the importance of sustainability in a community. After being able to make fun of the toubab in Mandinka I left to go home and bathe. It had already turned dark and I was taking off my shirt to bathe when I heard a huge explosion in the distance towards the school. The day before we had joked about how we should call in an air strike (possible napalm) for this village and put it out of it’s misery and I feared our wish had come true. What made me more un-easy was the story I was told a few days ago.

It turns out 3 years ago there had been an armed robbery in Kaiaf by escaped Cassamance rebels from Senegal. They had shot three men and killed a Mauritanian fellow. Why they would rob a broke little shop in Kaiaf I have no idea… the criminals here aren’t exactly the smartest bunch of guys. Another explosion went off directly overhead but this time I spotted the culprit. A large fire works display was being shot off at the school in all it’s brilliance. I threw back on my shirt and ran to the school. It was evening prayer time in the Arab world and my host mother, bless her heart, was completely ignoring the explosions overhead, focused in prayer… that’s faith. A few of the kids I’ve played soccer with in the village ran up to me with the look of terror on their face, “Demba!! What is this!?!? Why is the sky exploding?!? Can this hurt us!?!”. The kids had never seen fire works in their life and who could blame them. Not only was this white man from the UK sending off fireworks shirtless during prayer time but I was soon to find out had no idea how the people were going to use any of these electronics. At the school I got a chance to talk to him. Turns out he was from Sheffield and had once been homeless; coming across some money though had decided to organize a gathering of materials to send to Africa. I tried to tactfully ask why in the world he’d choose Kaiaf to give his things too and he explained how they were his “sister city”. I started to ask him a few questions on how he had planned to teach them how to set up the generator and computer lab, or if he had sponsored an IT teacher to come in and teach the students. He responded with quote, “Well if you could find someone to come here and show ‘em how to do it that’d be a load off our backs.”… sigh. I really don’t blame the man at all, what he did was extraordinarily kind and generous, and lord knows most Amercians won’t lift a hand for the remote let alone Africans. The problem still remains though, that one of the largest problems here in Africa is the lack of sustainability of projects and in turn the reliability of handouts from the western world.

I think in the end both sides our needed. Without donations from westerners wanting a tax break and a healthy conscience there would be no supplies to even teach these people valuble skills. On the other hand without sustainable programs of NGO’s and organizations like the peace corps; oh who am I kidding now other programs are like the peace corps, even NGOs aren’t on the frontlines like us… we’re f-ing badasses ;), nothing would get done and people would rely on handouts. Back to the story, yep there’s more. It was already dark and I had promised my host family a bumping party for my departure. I bought ingredients for pancatoes and the family started cooking. Amanda and Katie brought jolly juice, a type of powdered “gator aid-like” mixture that we’re sure causes cancer and/or can be used as a pesticide. They also brought attaya, a sugar packed green tea, an ESSTENTIAL for any Gambian event. This is where I decided to break out all the stops, I borrowed Bakary’s boombox and started playing some tupac from my iPod and once everyone was there finally showed my family the laptop. We watched an episode of scrubs which like any American show was WAY to raunchy for an African village. The best part was when “The Todd” pranced around in a banana hammock and my host sister’s mouth about dropped to the floor. All in all a successful evening. Two days later we were saying good by, and though I will miss my host family, who was amazing (and I thank them infinitely for giving me the one meal I like everyday) I think we could all agree that it was very easy for me not to tear up that I was leaving the Bronx for good. Hoping in the Peace Corps SUVs we headed off to site visit.

If you were curious to what was going to happen with the computers, the day before I left I set up the generator and made sure the computers were working. A few word of wisdom to anyone who donates a computer, make sure to take off your personal files before donating or people like me will get hours of entertainment reading all your files. Also, another reason I was so nervous about people donating computers and me having to be there to show them how is this very fact: the power voltage here in the Gambia is different from that in the USA, so a common situation is that a school here will get a large donation of computers, hook up the generators, and fry everyone of them in a matter of seconds. Thanks for the donation, I guess it’s the thought that counts. If the school is lucky though they have someone who knows a bit about electronics set up the system and make sure to change the voltage. Thankfully though newer computers compensate for voltage automatically, so it won’t be a problem in a few years. I was able to get a hold of an IT PCV in Birkama whose going to contact his friend in Soma and hopefully if he’s not busy he’ll be able to take a few of those 15 dalasi gilly rides to Kaiaf and teach some IT.