photos!

I have figured out how to put photos up from Fara Fenni... so now there are four new ones. Hope you enjoy:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69931133@N00/

life as a process

Of course, as time passes, more things begin to take shape. It’s a process that reminds me of getting night vision after spending time in a brightly lit room. Things look very different once you have taken the time to let yourself settle down and get your bearings. I suppose this is an admission, to myself at least, that I was overly anxious to be finished with the moving-in process and onto what is next. Now I see that it takes time, and even if this were an American city I would still be figuring out the best grocery stores and hardware stores, not to mention growing a group of friends. So, I suppose I should allow time to take its course here, and have faith that good things will happen if I let them.
Work is certainly picking up – I have another school to work with now, and I am tackling actual problems at the high school, and it generally feels like there are things for me to do. I have met with all the major players in town – representatives at least – and I think I have a good feeling for who is interested in playing ball any time soon. The new school I am working with is supported by the Anglican mission, in a relationship I don’t yet fully understand. They are a small school with only nine total classes (but nearly 450 students), and have resources behind them for things like a computer lab. They even have a separate generator for it, and nine working computers. It’s very promising, and hopefully I can figure out how to clear the last hurdles to get the lab functioning.
I am also getting to know the community a bit better, and have been playing basketball with some kids / young adults at a youth center. I just realized I am old enough so that males who seem like kids to me might object to being called that. Oh well, it had to happen sometime.
Other details from the past week… went on a quick trip to Kalagi, which is on the south bank, about twenty kilometers, and more than an hour’s travel, west of Bambako (my training village). I got to hang out with three other volunteers and a German undergraduate who is volunteering with a Catholic mission. I even have some pictures that I am going to try to upload. I also visited another IT volunteer in Soma, and saw some of his problems. It was fun to work together, and good to see another set of issues from the ones I run into every day up here. Other than that, it’s been a lot of groundnut (peanut) paste sandwiches and sweaty cooking as Ramadan grinds toward an end.
I’m going to a party on Georgetown Island this weekend – a combination of Halloween and send-off for the environment group that departs at the end of next month. We will be celebrating on a boat on the mighty River Gambia, and hopefully there will be much fun and hilarity involved. It doesn’t quite feel like Halloween here, no trees are losing their leaves and the temperature is stuck at hot, but hopefully a big group of volunteers getting together will provide the ambience. Or at least an interesting day trip…
Love to all, Zac

Busy Beaver

At the end of another week, I am busier and more full of comings and goings than I thought I would be. Last weekend I went to Pakalinding to visit Woman, and then on to Bambako to see my host family there, the villagers, and the new trainees. We rode there in a gele-gele (passenger bus thing), with our bikes on the top of the vehicle, and then came back on them. It was a great day, gorgeous nighttime ride back – we took longer than we thought and spent most of the ride under a full moon.
Sunday there were a couple of other visitors in Pakalinding, and the three volunteers who lived there gathered us all up for a great dinner – lentil soup, cucumber salad, bread, and some wine. It was great to hang out with everyone and have a good dinner. I came home Monday morning feeling refreshed, recharged, ready to take on this challenge with a new assertiveness.
The week has been good – one of the guys who had been in Pakalinding swung through town and helped me with my bike; he got all the kinks worked back out and it’s a pleasure to ride again. And I have been busy digging up work for myself. The senior secondary school (like high school) has some problems with the internet connection that I am helping to iron out. There is a small junior high school in town that is affiliated with the Anglican church which has some computers and wants me to work with them to get a program going. And there are other things going on.
Besides all that, I think I am getting better at not doing too much. Taking care of myself, getting my health in order, and making a life here. It’s a good project, and one that I am enjoying more and more. Besides the heat, which turned up a level of intensity for five days or so earlier this week, I am very happy. And the heat is only a problem when I don’t take steps to manage it, when I don’t factor it in correctly. Well, that and sleeping can be a problem sometimes when going to bed is a sweaty affair. But, that’s one of the tasks I live with, and it’s just life.
Tomorrow I am going on a whirlwind trip to Kalagi, hopefully coming back on Sunday. Then next weekend I am planning to go to Jangjang Burre / Georgetown for a boat party for Halloween. So there should be some fun on the way, and enough moving around to keep me from being bored. And then Ramadan ends the next week, which will be a relief to my peanut butter supply.
Things are good, I feel like I am making progress in the right directions, almost in spite of myself at times, and I enjoy a lot of the hours and days tremendously. And some others of them are there to cut the sweetness, like pickles at sugar on snow…

Love to all, Zac

life goes on

Week Four here in Fara Fenni is some how more of the same, and yet, things roll along in their way. There are so many things but none of them stand out... I talked to my parents for the second time, as their lives have slowed down enough to catch hold of them. In fairness, they called me, and it was great to talk to them. Hearing about details of the world back there is always a double edged sword, and it brings into sharp contrast both the things that are not available here and the length of time stretched out in front of me. But, after a bit of melancholy, I came to see what an opportunity that time is, and how many things I can look forward to learning and experiencing in this vastly different setting.
One of the main tasks I work on these days is trying to get a feel for what resources exist here, and who might be willing to share those resources in exchange for my help. So far, I have found three places that have anything going on: the hospital, Karafi (a company who is building roads here), and MRC (a British medical research group). From my recent meetings with them, only the hospital is willing to play ball at this point, and they to a very limited extent. Other than that, I am hoping that I can build on what the high school has. The computer lab there consists of 18 computers, two air conditioners, and a massive generator that consumes 20 liters of diesel every three hours. It’s one of the best computer labs of any school in the country, and hopefully I can figure out some ways to extend its benefits. One of the problems right now is the cost of running the huge generator. It causes the classes to be priced out of a reasonable range for most students. Solutions to this problem are varied, but the first thing that strikes me is that the power company is promising the return of electricity to Fara Fenni within a couple months. I need to make a contact at Nawek – the power utility – in order to evaluate their progress, which certainly is far behind what has been promised, but might get finished in time for next year’s elections. That’s a rumor at least.
I am not sure how much I have written about the border being closed, but it was “supposed” to open up on Monday of this week. It hasn’t opened, and the list of things that are available only through black market channels is getting distressing long. Perhaps the rumors were based on some fact, and it may open soon. The road projects are all stalled, the power project must be as well, and the mouse’s holes in my house are unfixable. And those are just due to cement not being available. I would also like to see the border open just so I can know what Fara Fenni is like at full bore. I first came here a few weeks after it closed, and have only seen the dried up version. And with Ramadan, things are almost like a town in the old west at times during the day.
Speaking of Ramadan, it’s now seven, and the place has emptied for prayers and fast breaking. I feel great not having fasted all day, but the water thing catches up with me, as I don’t like to even carry water around during the day time. I will go home and drink a few liters. Until next time…

Ramadan! It's a party for the whole digestive system

Here I am again in Quantum Associates, the fine purveyor of internet access along the Senegal road in Fara Fenni. My good friend Colleen, who I refer to as Woman most of the time, is up visiting today, and we are taking advantage of the early opening time of the café due to Ramadan. No one eats until sundown, so more could get done during the day. I say could instead of can because very little actually gets done, especially as the day wears on and people are exhausted from hunger and thirst. Woman and I were discussing what seems like a good idea in theory – eating less and valuing food more – turns out to be disastrous in practice because everyone just falls asleep all the time.
Ramadan for me has been about bread. I eat a lot of it. I usually eat a small baguette like piece of bread for breakfast most days, but since Ramadan started, I find myself eating two, or two and a half loaves a day. They eat bread to break the fast, just after seven p.m. prayer, with some tea. I eat bread during the day to keep from losing more weight and floating away in the breeze. Then I have more bread when I get back from work, because they don’t serve me any lunch. Today I took a break from bread, and made some terrible cornmeal and flour pancake disasters for breakfast. I inherited the ingredients from the two volunteers who quit the day I got here (not my fault), and not enough else to make them taste very yummy. But, for lunch we made beans and some sautéed vegetables, which was entirely yummy, and didn’t include rice or bread. And tonight the plan is to go to a restaurant, so no bread all day! A victory of epic proportions.
Besides that, Ramadan is annoying because everyone, EVERYone, asks “are you fasting?” I have decided to alternate my answers daily, so I “fasted” two days so far, and haven’t two others. I really do want to fast at some point, and see how it all is, but I need to get my feet back under me health wise, and do it for the right reasons. Not because every person I might on the street asks about it. And they scold me if I am not, and are incredulous if I say I am. And, to top it off, some people in the compound where I live want me to pray with them if I fast. Which just feels a little further than I am willing to go right now. But, it makes for interesting times.
Ramadan is good as a marker of the passing of time – when it is over, I will have been at site for six weeks, half of our initial “three month challenge” to stay away from the capital region for three months. And it’s good because it’s a way to get another glance into the culture. But mostly so far it has been more another lesson in patience and flexibility. Which is one of the reasons I am here – to have those lessons, so I should appreciate it more than I do.
The other news is slim: my bike is still reeling from the trip to Njaba Kunda, functional but just barely; I have been meeting more people in the area from other international organizations, mostly as a way to build a network for resources and ideas; and the rains haven’t quite ended, as we enjoyed a couple of midweek rainy days that kept the temperatures quite livable.
That’s the news at the moment, hope you are all well, enjoying fall and all that.

Week two, recap

Here I am trying to make the internet work for me again in Fara Fenni. At some point I hope to find a better place, but for now, this hot, strange spot – weird hours and policies – and its slowness are what I have. I wrote a long post a week ago, and was just able to post it – with the date I wrote it – so there will be two entries today.
Today is Monday, yesterday was the lumo here, and Maalik came down from Njau to go. We went with Wuli, a friend of Stacy and Jade, who were the two volunteers that left the day after I arrived. It was useful to have him there, translating and helping out, but made for a bit of a buffer compared to my first trip there, which was quite overwhelming in its intensity. Anyway, it’s fun to have a friend visit, he got supplies he needed, and I got food for my family’s foodbowl, and some for myself this time. Tonight I cooked pasta with sardines in tomato sauce, was very good as variety and would certainly pass as a good dinner on the river. Maybe not in the finer kitchens of Lakewood, but I am just getting started here.
The past week has been a doozy – the trip to Njaba Kunda started it off with a bang indeed. Actually, the trip there was great: early morning bike ride, a bit cloudy, the road was dry and I made it in two and a half hours, only a bit tired. I got there, cleaned my bike, had a shower, had the meeting I had gone for, saw the computer lab, checked out what needed to happen before we could get to work, and generally was productive. Then I saw the school, which would be a great school but for the absolute lack of maintenance or even seemingly concern about the facility. But, it’s The Gambia, and I am learning that is standard. Depressingly so. But, I hung out, had lunch with a Nigerian who is also a volunteer there – and a good cook, and then also with the principal and some teachers. It had started raining by then, and it continued to rain. I read a book – “The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene – and it rained. All day. At night they turned on the tv (the principal lives on the school grounds, in a house built for him, and there are ten other housing units for teachers, one of which may shelter me at some point), using the solar powered batteries. Wonderful facility. The tv didn’t really get any reception, but the teachers there pretended to watch a Champion’s League match – Ajax and Arsenal, I think – through the static. The book was great, loved it through and through, and want to read more of his stuff.
All that rain wasn’t kind to the road though. I left the next morning before dawn, and once I got to the road, realized it was a complete mess. The section from Njaba Kunda to Minteh Kunda (6km) is likely the worst along that stretch of road, and after I finally got through it, I thought I was done with the worst. Not so lucky. I spent almost four hours slogging through mud and water up to my knees (feet on the pedals) at times, getting mud everywhere on the bike and myself. I got back to Fara Fenni thoroughly exhausted and dehydrated, but I was home. The bike clean up took a long time, and in fact is not really complete, and both front and rear derailuers failed from the abuse, and the chain seized. I have gotten the front gears working again, and the chain is better, but the bike will never be as good again.
After getting cleaned up, I was starving as I hadn’t eaten anything, so I went out and got a meat sandwich at the market. At the time I thought, this is one of those things that I would only do because I am living here, and need the protein. I didn’t need whatever was in that meat, as I found out 12 hours later. I wasn’t so worried – a little stomach bug is something I have dealt with already a few times here – until around noon the next day, when my temperature started going up. I took some Tylenol, but by four o’clock or so, it was 104. I called the Peace Corps medical staff, to see what they thought. I got my least favorite of the nurses, and she said to wait, “and if you feel like it, take Cipro”. Cipro is a very powerful antibiotic that I took in Peru (I was told it was Cipro at least), and it did kill the alien that was in my intestine, along with the rest of my digestive capability. So, her advice to take it “if I want” wasn’t so helpful. I took more Tylenol, drank fluids, hobbled back and forth to the latrine, and eventually lost lucidity. It was a special day. One of the boys who lives in the compound had just come down with malaria, and I was worried that I had too. But, by the morning, my fever had broken, and I was feeling somewhat in control of myself, if not my bowels.
I went to school, told them what had been going on, then decided to keep my planned trip to Pakalinding to see Woman. I rode the bike down to the ferry, and on the way, to add insult to injury of a broken bike, the bolt holding the seat on snapped. I got to the ferry terminal with the seat tied on, and not really support any weight. As I arrived, the ferry left, so I had a long wait that turned fortuitous when one of the other passengers took an interest and got a local boy to find a bolt of the same diameter – the seat was fixed, and better than it had been, since I didn’t have the right size hex wrench to tighten it and it had been more or less loose since I got it. Likely why it broke. I had a great time in Pakalinding, good for the soul, and then came home Saturday evening. That was the week.
Life continues to be interesting; I find my motivation for some things wanes, while my interest in others waxes. I have more doubts about the nature of development work in this country, if it is helpful at all in the larger scheme, and think I would be better as a pure cultural tourist / representative than with any sort of purported work to do. Not that I actually have any work to do in Fara Fenni yet. But theoretically I will be working for someone at some point, and I am not sure if that will be good for much. Probably the answer to this question is patience and humility, something I always need to work on anyway.
Love to all, drop me a line sometime - or call!