Adventures in Living

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Pictures

I created a flickr account as I couldn't get blogger to respond earlier. So the images are there. At some point, if I have oodles of time and the internet in this country speeds up to modem speed, I may try to move over here. the address:
http://flickr.com/photos/69931133@N00/

Here's what I wrote about the pics:
"here are pictures of some trainees: Nancy, Ernie, Harry, Chris and Sarah, plus Leanne and Taylor with some local boys. We saw them at a crocodile pond, and I have included a picture of one of the beasts. I have also included a picture of my Mandinka teacher and the class studying (wrapping up actually). And one of the other language teachers, Babucar. Hope you enjoy!"

email

So a friend emailed me a list of questions rapid fire that I tried to respond to in kind. I thought they were good general questions, so here's the exchange:

--- On Tue 07/12, <> wrote:
From: [mailto: i.mantell@utoronto.ca]
To: zac@myway.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 20:16:03 -0400
Subject: Re: The STP

Zac!

How is it? Are you hot and sweaty? Is your pooper okay? Are you like a
movie-star, turning heads wherever you go? Do you think that you could get
fluent in Mandinka over two years, I mean truly fluent? Are people friendly to
you? How do they feel about America? Do they follow internal American
politics? Do they watch soap operas? Are there white people handing out
condoms on every street corner? Will you be able to get any meaningful work
done? What would it be like to be a woman there? Are they religious? Are they
literate? Do girls get to go to school? Do girls play sports? Are you
lonely? Are you spending a lot of time with the other PC volunteers? Do you
feel like you've made a mistake? Can you sleep through the night? Are you on
anti-maleria medication? Who colonized The Gambia? The French? The
Portuguese? ???

Okay, I'm questioned-out for now.

I can't wait for the answers....

Le Banane

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I wrote:
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Wowsers! So many questions, so little time. The skinny: tomorrow I go up-country to training village for eight weeks of intensive language and technical / boring PC training, and may not get back to the internet for that whole time. It is hot and sweaty, but I am not bothered by it now. My pooper has had one day of relatively minor badness but is otherwise fine. I think I can get good at Mandinka but probably not truly fluent in two years. The next eight weeks and then the first three months at my site will be the key to that. The people are very friendly, they like America as an idea and like Americans for their money. The PC has been here a long time and has done some good things, so that helps. I am not like a movie-star, but I have only been in the main urban area thus far. They don't really follow internal American politics - I am not sure many people follow internal Gambian politics. I don't think many watch soap operas as TV's are still luxury goods here, and power is intermittent at best. Last night it lasted through the night for the first time, and most of the time it dies some time in the evening. No, no white people handing out condoms on street corners. HIV hasn't really become an issue yet here, mostly for cultural reasons I think. I have no idea how much meaningful computer work I will do, but I am very hopeful about being able to get into a community and learn and teach something. Who knows what. Less than 35% of people are literate, but education is becoming increasingly valuable. Women's roles are in the midst of a big change - primary education is free for girls, and the government attempts to buy them textbooks - the boys have to pay - but it is a Muslim society and women are realistically second class citizens in many ways. I have met a number of strong women already, who are making money and have real jobs here in the Kombo (near the capital) region, and have heard that women do the majority of the work - unsuprisingly - and keep the country going. I am not at all lonely yet as I have been with other trainees - we don't get to be volunteers until after training, with swearing in on Sept 16. I never feel like I've made a mistake - I miss people at home, but this feels incredibly RIGHT and I love it here. I am taking Doxycycline (anti-malarial) and doing fine on it. I slept through the night last night for the first time, but I love the nighttime here and don't even mind not sleeping 'cause I'm hot or for whatever reason. The British colonized The Gambia.

Whew.

[...]

Love,
Z

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

News

So yesterday "they" told us that we won't have internet access for the next eight weeks of training as we go up the river to our training villages for cultural immersion and technical training. It's a bit crazy to think that I will be away from the "world" for so long, but at the same time, I don't really miss it when I am doing it. That's how I know that I am having fun, getting into the experience. I try to spend as much time involved in what I am doing, learning, and hopefully taking care of my fellow trainees a little bit, so that I don't miss my friends back home to a distracting degree, or worry about things beyond my control.

I love it here - maybe I will try to say that every post, so that I can have a mantra when times are tough. I am trying to design plans for writing posts when I don't have internet access (on my laptop which will hopefully hold up for a while), and come up with ideas of what to do when I start to feel useless in three or six or nine or however many months. This experience is completely going to be about what I put into it, and right now I have a lot of energy and desire, so I am trying to figure out ways to harness that, turn it into something good that I can hopefully save and draw on later.

This evening after dinner I went to a new supermarket with some friends - it's pretty much a real super market, with a lot of western products and all sorts of stuff from China and Thailand and probably a slew of other places. It reminded me of Lima, how much it imitated the developed world in it's style, while the rest of the country was struggling with so much less.

For lunch we ate from the communal food bowl for the first time, a fun experience for me as I've done it a half dozen times and didn't feel awkward, but more of a challenge for some of the other trainees. One guy, who will be living in the same training village as I, said he really didn't eat much. We are split up into villages according to language, with Mandinka (my language) being in three villages. Four of us will be in Bambakoo together - two women, two men - and I am really looking forward to it. The fellow who struggled with the food bowl is my biggest concern, as he has been shaking his head and / or turning his nose up at a lot things. He will certainly struggle at the beginning, and can hopefully find himself when he gets down and turn things around. In a way, having made the decision to help him as much as I can is helping me because I have less to worry about personally, and can focus externally. It seems to be making the transition easy.

I love the night time air here, even in the capital where it's full of smells and sounds of the city. Warm, soft, easy air that makes me so glad to be here. I love the morning air as well, and tomorrow I am supposed to be going for a run with a couple people early, so I should head home and sleep.

I hope to write again before we leave.

Cheers!

Sunday, July 10, 2005

The Gambia!!

This country is amazing. Having been here for three days only, it already feels like a while, and I love it. Today was a day off from training, we went to the beach, I got my first run - another trainee likes to run to we went about four and a half miles - and generally hung out and relaxed. It's hot, but not at all unbearable, and it's been pretty mild with rains to keep the edge off.

Americans like to drink beer, perhaps more so in Africa. Last night we got our first exposure to a wide group of volunteers, mostly very nice and positive folks, who we really won't see again for six months - three months of training followed by a three month "challenge" of staying out of the capital region and more or less on our own. It's a little disconcerting, a little sad, and somewhat exciting to think about training and the future and getting to business, or unbusi-ness, or something.

I wish I could write about the green fields, the roadside stands, the easy way people live, how white skin draws attention, how the world Gambians live in is so completely different from the world from which I have come as to boggle the mind, but I haven't the time nor the ability at the moment. It's hot in a way that takes the edge off of labor, prevents the attitudes of more northern places. But also, the social structure keeps individuals from seeing gains from any fierce striving they wish to do on their own behalf, as most tribes functionally require members to distribute the vast majority of material wealth with their families - across a wide cast of extended relations if there is enough to go so far.

I am using a computer at the Peace Corps headquarters, in an air conditioned room, with a crawlingly slow connection. Apparently there is a 8 megabit line for all of The Gambia. Bandwidth in the US is so huge, so nearly free, it is one transition I find myself struggling with more than I expected. Having spent such a percentage of my day online in my former life, I miss connectivity only when confronted with the slim chance of it here, yet the speed prevents me from finding the same feeling of true connection.

There are 18 Peace Corps trainees in my group - all education volunteers - with five total in my program (IT), six or seven in primary teacher training, and the rest science and math teachers. I don't really know what any of us will end up doing, so I will skip explanations. We are a group of ten men and eight women, from a wide spread of states and backgrounds. On Friday we will travel up the river to training villages, for roughly eight weeks of language, cultural, and technical training with host families, alternating with weeks of staying in a central village, all together, studying broader issues and whatever else the Peace Corps wants to try to shove down our throats. The training days will be long - we have only had one full day thus far - but I love working on the language and hopefully can power through the sickness and other issues.

I haven't taken any photos yet, should rectify that soon, but am already in love with the night time, the mornings, and the people. West African cultures are so warm and inclusive, and our trainers - the only Gambians we have spoken to thus far - are all nice and dedicated to making our transitions as smooth as possible. The next six months will be a wonderful ride.

I have friends in the group, guys with whom I know I will get to be real brothers, and hopefully women as well. A part of me thinks that I should use replacement names for them, as they haven't agreed to be discussed on the internet. We will see.

I am a very lucky person, to have lived the life I've had and now to have this experience unfolding before me. In a way, I wish it were possible for every American to come have this chance, to step out of our cultures skin, to feel the rawness of being between cultures, and then be enveloped in the culture of another place. Ah well, if wishes were horses...

Sunday, July 03, 2005

trying to create a tiny bit of space

I depart for my "Staging Event" tomorrow morning, and life has indeed become a tornado of departure and goodbyes and packing and lists and crush crush crush piled on top of a person. I know that by this time two days from now, I will be surrounded by new people, wondering if I forgot or chose not to pack anything "vital" and hopefully on the backside of the emotional overload that life has become.

Yesterday my sister arrived with my nieces - almost eight and fully ten - and they are off to YMCA camp today. In a way, that was my beginning for the adventures that perhaps reach culmination tomorrow. I am just "going off to camp" on steroids. My sister said to me this morning that she can't think of a more well-prepared person to thrive in the Peace Corps experience, and hopefully she is right. I responded "What else would I do now?" - my life has been pointing to this challenge for a while, maybe since Y camp twenty years ago.

The burden of saying goodbyes is nearly over, and it doesn't seem as bad today as it has. I spoke to my brother for the last time until god knows when, and that was in a way the hardest goodbye to say. But it too was just words, just wishes for luck and success. And really, what else can we give each other in parting? Wishes and hopes, and maybe tiny bits of strength from knowing that as alone as life feels sometimes, there are others out there to love and be loved by.

[I'm sure "by" is a terrible way to end a sentence, but I haven't the energy to rework all that to write it properly, and today is a day that I give myself license to use bad grammar. I'll try harder in the future.]