day two with electricity

Here I am, in an air conditioned room, on the internet for the second time in two days. It's almost amazing, what can happen when resources are around.

One thing that I am not sure if I have discussed is foodbowl. This is one of the most important parts of my day in village - twice a day actually. At lunchtime I eat with the other trainees and our language instructor, and at dinner I eat with my host family. We eat from a communal bowl, using our hands. I almost always get rice, with some sort of sauce on it. The lunchtime foodbowl is supplemented by peace corps, and included chicken and some vegetables every day. I LOVE foodbowl, especially since I started my program to put back on some weight that evaporated when I was sick. I have regained six of the fifteen pounds, and will continue to work hard and encourage everyone at lunch to pull together and finish all the rice - a feat we have only accomplished once, when we had a guest at foodbowl with us.

As I am now a professional sweater, and working on my instructor qualification in sweating, I will start sweating at lunchtime almost every day. This is one of the ways I know I am working hard. I also know because I tend to get dirty - I am not as talented as Gambians at eating with my hand - right hand only (if you don't know why, you might not want to). So foodbowl is a lot of fun.

Another highlight of my day in village is bathing - I take three or four baths a day, standing up, pouring water from a bucket. I love bathing. I have a smallish "backyard" space behind my house (which is also very small) in which I have my toilet area - a concrete pad with a hole cut in it. I won't get into a discussion of the best shape of that hole, but it's an important hole in my life. More important is the concrete, and the relative cleanliness this provides for taking my beloved baths. One in the morning, one in the early evening, one before bed, and often times one in the afternoon at some point. I can get four baths from a 12 liter bucket, unless I have to wash underwear. I am not very good at washing my own clothes - and my host sister washes most of them to be honest - so I waste some water. I also think I need another bucket so that I can have a soapy water bucket and a clean water bucket for washing, but that's a topic for another day. Bathing, being wet with water instead of sweat, and cooling off with good old evaporation are all daily doses of heaven. And recently I have come to enjoy fetching water from the pump, so I could even bath more often if I wanted - but I am not sure I could find the time. Hopefully in Fara Fenni my schedule will be a little less full and I can take as many baths as I want. I am probably cleaner here than I was in the States, on the average. Strange how life works.

That's all from me now, more in a few weeks, including pictures ning ala sonta.

back to the land of milk and honey

At least it seems that way from my point of view. I am staying with a volunteer in Brikama, in the Kombo region of Gambia for a few days - to get some idea of what actual volunteers do, I assume - and they have regular electricity, restaurants, and even - gasp! - the internet! So, I have returned to this space to give a bit of an update on my activities, and to write that I will be in a permanent site with fairly regular chances to get online. I will living in a town / city called Fara Fenni, and working for three schools in the area. It's exciting to know what I will be nominally tasked to do for the next two years, but I am not too sure of what it will actually entail, nor how it will work out, so I am trying to keep my expectations to a minimum.

I have been splitting time between Bambakoo - my training village - and Tendaba - where they have all the "trainees" together for technical training and seminars - since I last wrote. Bambakoo is great, I love learning Mandinka and hanging out in the village. Tendaba is okay - there is great variety of food, and more of it available, plus a pool, but there are lots of mosquitos and the schedule isn't as kind as it is in village.

Highlights of the last however many weeks: the first night in village - a little fear and feeling of being overwhelmed by the heat, language barrier, lack of privacy, and general difficulty dealing with the whole situation; naming ceremony - I am now called Sekouba Demba (also written Seekuubaa), and very happily a participant in family life in the Demba compound where I live; my Mandinka has been coming along well and I am able to have some simple conversations beyond just greeting people. Getting together with all the other trainees in Tendaba is a lot of fun, and our group is good without any real problems. All the other IT volunteers from the group are coming down to the Kombo region for their permanent sites, which is good for them, and I am equally glad to not be joining them.

There are a million things that I want to write about - a nighttime bike ride back to my village through the rain, laughing hysterically about the most mundane jokes in Mandinka, the joy of being a little bit accepted by my 19 month old host sister, the delicious taste of foodbowl in the village when I'm about to starve to death, late night chats with my host mother - how cool and badass she is, going out to the rice fields to see the women working, and on and on. It's been a great time thus far, I absolutely love it here, and my time runs a bit short so I will end here from now. I am looking forward to getting back in touch with everyone once I am back down here for a week, and I will be getting a phone as well! So anyone will be able to call me and chat, I hope.

I hope everyone is well, and I have lots of pictures to post when I get a chance! Love to you all,

Zac