So here I am in Tamba. So like i said i am stuck here till the 3rd. So new years eve will be spent away from site like planned, just not saraya with aaron. Sounds like we might go camp by the river for the night and have a good time there. But thats tomorrow and this is today. I guess my perpetual sitting around for the last 5 days was getting to me and i was going a little stir crazy. So even when I'm in kédougou i dont go for rides a whole lot but ill get biking in at least. Down to the boutique, the market, or the CTC. So this sitting around doing absolutely nothing was driving me crazy. So basically i got a good case of just being really really pent up. looking back on it i get this way when i dont have an outlet to go running or biking or something. Someway of blowing off stress. So i borrow a bike from the rack of bikes thats here in the regional house. Not the best bike in the world but the back brakes worked and the gears kinda worked after a min or two of peddling. The guard here is really nice and I've been drinking tea with him while I've been sitting around watching movies or fiddling with my GIS program. Incidentally thats not acutely going all that well as a few problems cropped up with the instructions. Thats a different story though. So im trying to get this 'loaner' bike travel worthy and the guard who ive kinda befriended just takes over and does it for me. I like messing around with bikes but he seemed perfectly willing to just go to town on it. So hes making tea as well as helping me and i get a little shot glass of tea before i head off.
yeah thats how tea is done here. So its not english tea or iced tea like they have in the states. Its chinese green tea i think the box said. Although it said this its really strong so im a little skeptical, ill have a look at the box next time. But the way drinking tea works here is that you are served the first glass of tea, there are three, in a little shot glass with a bunch of foam on top. Now the foam is very important and the maker goes to quite a bit of length to make sure there is a good head of foam in each shot glass for all three doses of tea. This is done by pouring about a shot glass worth of the tea back and forth between the two glasses from a decent height. Once that is done and a nice head of foam is on each glass the preparer tries it and then fills the cup up and you drink. Its a good time killer as they usually cook the tea over charcoal. But this is done three times with the same batch of tea with lots of sugar. So over the course of the three glasses you end up getting weaker and weaker tea. Its good though and everyone here loves it. yea so its also kinda impolite to drink one cup of tea and then leave. Generally if you start drinking tea you should stick around for all three, but two sometimes is ok. But yea i figured id explain that as i drink a lot of tea. Being the local celeb i pretty much get the first or second glass when theres a group every time. its neat.
But yea that was a tangent. So i kinda break the rules and leave after the first glass, but the guard understood as i wanted to get my ride in before dark. And so i take off on my ride. I heard from one of the volunteers here that if you just head north on the main road you leave tamba pretty quick and are out in the country side again. I figured that would be my best bet and head off that way. it takes me about 40 min to get out to a little town called Thiawor or something like that. THe road out there was interesting. IT started out quite big and well traveled but narrowed down adn became more like a big trail then a road. It was neat though and i was able to enjoy the countryside rather then the small confines of the tamba regional house as nice as that is. So from there i go 20min further north from there which has the road deteriorate even more but still very accessible. After another 20min i decide to stop and turn around as i dont really feel like getting stuck out in the bush in the dark like i have done in the past. Right before i head back i stop and have a drink of water and relax a little and just take in the surroundings. Dead quite minus a few birds calling. It was great it made a wonderful change from Tamba which is considerably bigger then kédougou and a lot louder. The quite was nice and well worth the ride. So the ride back was nice also very relaxing minus the wonderful senegalese driver who look at me like im crazy as theyre rolling up the wrong side of the road/trail(in donkey/horse charets of course, saw one car only, very nice.
But yea in tamba thats the highlight so far really, which is a little bit of a letdown but i am stuck here so not a lot of high expectations. And considering i had pretty much sat around the house minus going to the internet a few times i was very relieved to have an activity to occupy my time, especially something i like. Well hopefully my new years eve will be better and ill be able to report back on that in a day or so.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
stuck in tamba
so yea we were in touch with the safety and security coordinator and i guess were stuck here till the 3rd. Not fun but i guess some guns were stolen form the military and theyre trying to track them down. Ill hopefully be back soon, keep you informed
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Rioting Good Christmas
12/25
So im sitting here in Tamba's movie room on watching a great B movie classic, Army of Darkness. Wow what a movie. Well any way this is my christmas entry as it is x-mas. So some interesting things happening here in senegal. Lets start from the beginning shall we.
So on the 22rd shelia came into kédougou for xmas and everything seems normal in town. Thomas tells us that the student youth in the town hold a meeting that evening to plan a march to protest the lack of jobs in the region and this combined with the fact that the students in the schools were striking because the teachers were striking because they hadn't been paid. So this was supposed to be a peaceful march Thomas's host sister had informed him when he specifically asked if they were going to burn things. So yeah that ought to get you thinking about how this ends up!
So the 23rd rolls round and i go into the CTC to go to the internet cafe with Shelia. We take off and head down the main road thats right outside the regional house and runs into town. We take off down the road and i can see 3 big plumes of smoke up off in near distance. Its not that unfamiliar here as lots of people burn their scrub grass and fields here quite regularly. So we keep going on down the road and thinking that this was normal until we start seeing lots of youngish students in the streets. again not that unheard of as the students do strike and they were this day. So we keep going until we come around a gentle turn in the road and are confronted with a large mob of students burning tires and the house next to the christian school, the car next to it and were in the process of setting more fires to the brush next to the road we were on. It was at this point that we decide that its best to turn around and head to the other Cyber on the other side of town. So we take off and head back, passing the military base where it is clear the troops are mustering to take care of the situation.
We get to the other cyber fine not passing anything looking remotely violent or threatening. We find out at this point at the cyber that the president of guinea has died and the government has taken control of the country and suspended the constitution. good times. I manage to get off my email to my trees for the future counterpart who wanted to know about my counterparts field and what had worked from the last year and what hadn't. Unfortunately the day before a 1/8th of my counterparts field here in kédougou was burned by accident, yay cigarette butts. So that kinda gives me a significant amount of work to do now as everything that was there needs to be replanted. But more on how ill have lots of work in a little bit.
So we make it back to the CTC fine after this as the power gets cut to the entire town and we leave the cyber. When we get back we let everyone know to stay away from town and stay put in the CTC as gun shots are being heard now from the CTC. So basically we end up staying there for the rest of the day as we kinda figure its not safe to be wandering round the town in all this. So we chill at the CTC not really having any news of what all was going on. We play catch in preparation for the west african invitational softball tournament in the field that peace corps owns behind our regional house. All the while we were doing this there were gun shots off in the distance and three big plumes of black smoke coming up from the center of town.
So after a while we head back to the kitchen hut and talk to some of the guards/workers that are at the center for news. It starts to trickle in now that some serious shit is going on in town. Rumors of the prefecture, and the prefecture's house as well as the tribunal and the governors office being burned makes us a little cautious. We let our safety and security coordinator know about what all is going on at this point and receive text's from the list server about the situation in Kédougou. Its now that we start making day bags in case we have to make a run to get out of town. We realize that we need to consolidate everyone in the here at the CTC in case we do need to leave and its now that we find out that one of the volunteers in the city is unaccounted for and not answering her phone. It turns out that she had gone to tamba and was safe but we don't find that out until we send one of the guards to go to her house to try and find her. By the time all this is sorted out it actually works out that he went out to look for her as he came back with a lot of information.
So when the guard got back this is what he had to say. The market had been attacked by the rioters, the police had killed one of the student rioters, marital law had been declared because all of the big government buildings had been burned, that the red berets had been flown in to help restore order, and that the road in from tamba had been shut down. So at this point no one is leaving the CTC even to go to the boutique down the road. So basically we spend the day talking to the guards and the workers who are building a new common area at the regional house getting info and just trying to keep light hearted. So another guard comes back in after going out to asses the situation with more news. The police station has been burned now and unofficially there are 4 deaths. All the while this is going on, steve wood out in togué has his family from america with him and was supposed to come back into town to leave that day. welcome to senegal!
To keep busy i decide to clean/orginize the bike shed which is kinda a mess from lots of use. In doing this i feel a lot better about being locked up in the CTC. While in the process of doing this i come across a box trunk that had gotten wet and who's contents were now completely moldy minus a few well protected/sealed items. This trunk was the old trunk that had all the board games in it until it got wet and moldy. Of the pieces that didn't get destroyed, was the pieces, cards, and instructions for risk. Being the macho dudes that we are, we all thought what a great idea it would be to make a map and spend our captivity playing risk. So that then takes priority, making the board and getting ready for dinner. I run back to my house right before the curfew thats been imposed by the military is implemented to grab a few things i need for the night, and am soo roundly criticized for being a wus and for being afraid and not spending the day there. This of course is all the while my family and brothers and sisters were at the riots in support of it. whatever i leave and head back to the CTC for dinner and a interesting night. Before dinner we come up with a shit hits the fan plan of action of how we would sneak out the back of the CTC and take our bikes down to the river to escape to dindefelo if really needed.
But nothing happened that night, minus matt beating the crap out of us in risk. The military had pickup trucks rolling around all night with three dudes in the back with m-16's and flack jackets ready for trouble. The next morning after talking to the guards, we find out that pretty much every brigade in eastern senegal was in fact in Kédougou. Also, and more importantly, the rioters had pretty much done a number on every government building in the town. So our friends and contacts at eaux et foret had their office burned out as well as, we think, the wulla naffa NGO who are partnered with USAID had a car at least and at worst their building torched. Their building is attached to eaux et foret so we kinda assumed it got hit as well. But none of this happened at night time, this was all at the end of the day the day before, so everything was pretty much calmed down by the curfew.
So we decide that we should go out and asses the damage from the night before as we were curious and were also wondering if there was still a risk. So we decide upon splitting up into smaller groups so its not a group of 6 white people walking around gawking at the damage. So i go with matt and shelia up the bandafassi road and try to go past the military camp and can see the two road blocks on the road on the way to the base. Were waved away from the street so as to miss the base where we had found out that all the families of the police and government were being protected there. while we were skirting around the camp we saw some guys sitting in trees, they were snipers protecting the base and the families there. We end up over by the cyber we ended up going to the day before, which is owned by the uncle of Matt's host family. it turns out that he has a nice garden that has potential for some ag/fo stuff and i go there a lot so potential.
So after stopping in there and making sure he was ok and his shop hadn't been looted we moved on down the road. Its down this road that the police station, hospital, and tribunal were on. So we come to the police station first. Shell of a building totally burned out, 5 cars burned out over 5 motorcycles burned out. It was really something else seeing it like that, i bike past it alot, almost everyday. We basically walk past to check it out but it looks calm there. We keep going down the road and come to the hospital. A couple lines of riot police are standing in the entryway to the hospital, with hundreds of rocks scattered in front of it where they had fallen from being thrown. We go in and talk to the head Dr. there so as to asses what was going on.
So as it turns out that one of the students that was killed was being held there and the families of the Dr.s and the hospital itself. So when we get in there the head Dr. says that they are going to have a meeting to settle whether or not they were going to shut the hospital or not. So we kept on walking down the street and get a call from michelle, the volunteer who was in tamba saying that she had come back to Kédougou and was at her house. So Matt tells her to stay there and that we would come and get her. As we keep walking we get to the main cross roads in town where the courthouse is and next to the burned out courthouse in the street where we need to go to get michelle is a large crowd of students facing down with the police. We skirt round it but as we start going around into the surrounding houses the cops cut and run and the military comes in. So now they are standing off against the students.
So nothing really happens, i guess they disperse, we book it into the neighborhood next to the street passing the busted up post office. It wasn't burned out though, just doors, windows, and large western union sign all busted up. So we make it to michelle's house and get her and instead of going back the way we came, we shoot down to the river to skirt round all the trouble. This works great and we make it back to the CTC just fine. When we get back we kinda hang out a bit and Steve Wood and his family show up having gotten a ride from a local. We hang out for a while and around lunch time everything seems pretty calm so i ask if i can go back to my house to grab a bag. I take off and get to my house and watch a little TV with my fam about all this. They all agree with the striking, maybe not the destroying but the reason behind it yes. I kinda bust their cops a little as they burned a bunch of our work partners and the courthouse has all the records of everything for the city. Also rumor has it they stole the money that was sent down to Kédougou for paying the people up at the sabodella mines. so thats a little ify.
But they make me lunch and after that i start making a bag when i get a call saying we are all leaving because the country director said we should leave the city. So i pack my bag and head back to the CTC and by this time everyone else is getting ready to leave. The country directors adopted son helped us arrange our rides. So two sept places show up in about 20min. So once thomas is back from his house getting things, we load up and head out. So its kinda a light hearted car ride, very uneventful, but we do end up passing 10 truck loads of troops and equipment heading in the opposite direction. But we get to tamba and the regional house to a nice x-mas eve dinner the tamba volunteers had made.
So today has been a pretty chill day, just sitting around watching movies. Army of darkness, dr. strangelove, a bunch of the rome series, and some of the bourne identity. Right now im sitting in a hotel next to the tamba regional house on some nice wireless. So yea getting ready for x-mas dinner away from home in rather odd circumstances. Hope no one else has anything even remotely close to this type of an x-mas experience. Merry Christmas from lovely west africa, weve got riots, coups and all sorts of fun!
Oh yeah nothing stolen, so its all good!
So im sitting here in Tamba's movie room on watching a great B movie classic, Army of Darkness. Wow what a movie. Well any way this is my christmas entry as it is x-mas. So some interesting things happening here in senegal. Lets start from the beginning shall we.
So on the 22rd shelia came into kédougou for xmas and everything seems normal in town. Thomas tells us that the student youth in the town hold a meeting that evening to plan a march to protest the lack of jobs in the region and this combined with the fact that the students in the schools were striking because the teachers were striking because they hadn't been paid. So this was supposed to be a peaceful march Thomas's host sister had informed him when he specifically asked if they were going to burn things. So yeah that ought to get you thinking about how this ends up!
So the 23rd rolls round and i go into the CTC to go to the internet cafe with Shelia. We take off and head down the main road thats right outside the regional house and runs into town. We take off down the road and i can see 3 big plumes of smoke up off in near distance. Its not that unfamiliar here as lots of people burn their scrub grass and fields here quite regularly. So we keep going on down the road and thinking that this was normal until we start seeing lots of youngish students in the streets. again not that unheard of as the students do strike and they were this day. So we keep going until we come around a gentle turn in the road and are confronted with a large mob of students burning tires and the house next to the christian school, the car next to it and were in the process of setting more fires to the brush next to the road we were on. It was at this point that we decide that its best to turn around and head to the other Cyber on the other side of town. So we take off and head back, passing the military base where it is clear the troops are mustering to take care of the situation.
We get to the other cyber fine not passing anything looking remotely violent or threatening. We find out at this point at the cyber that the president of guinea has died and the government has taken control of the country and suspended the constitution. good times. I manage to get off my email to my trees for the future counterpart who wanted to know about my counterparts field and what had worked from the last year and what hadn't. Unfortunately the day before a 1/8th of my counterparts field here in kédougou was burned by accident, yay cigarette butts. So that kinda gives me a significant amount of work to do now as everything that was there needs to be replanted. But more on how ill have lots of work in a little bit.
So we make it back to the CTC fine after this as the power gets cut to the entire town and we leave the cyber. When we get back we let everyone know to stay away from town and stay put in the CTC as gun shots are being heard now from the CTC. So basically we end up staying there for the rest of the day as we kinda figure its not safe to be wandering round the town in all this. So we chill at the CTC not really having any news of what all was going on. We play catch in preparation for the west african invitational softball tournament in the field that peace corps owns behind our regional house. All the while we were doing this there were gun shots off in the distance and three big plumes of black smoke coming up from the center of town.
So after a while we head back to the kitchen hut and talk to some of the guards/workers that are at the center for news. It starts to trickle in now that some serious shit is going on in town. Rumors of the prefecture, and the prefecture's house as well as the tribunal and the governors office being burned makes us a little cautious. We let our safety and security coordinator know about what all is going on at this point and receive text's from the list server about the situation in Kédougou. Its now that we start making day bags in case we have to make a run to get out of town. We realize that we need to consolidate everyone in the here at the CTC in case we do need to leave and its now that we find out that one of the volunteers in the city is unaccounted for and not answering her phone. It turns out that she had gone to tamba and was safe but we don't find that out until we send one of the guards to go to her house to try and find her. By the time all this is sorted out it actually works out that he went out to look for her as he came back with a lot of information.
So when the guard got back this is what he had to say. The market had been attacked by the rioters, the police had killed one of the student rioters, marital law had been declared because all of the big government buildings had been burned, that the red berets had been flown in to help restore order, and that the road in from tamba had been shut down. So at this point no one is leaving the CTC even to go to the boutique down the road. So basically we spend the day talking to the guards and the workers who are building a new common area at the regional house getting info and just trying to keep light hearted. So another guard comes back in after going out to asses the situation with more news. The police station has been burned now and unofficially there are 4 deaths. All the while this is going on, steve wood out in togué has his family from america with him and was supposed to come back into town to leave that day. welcome to senegal!
To keep busy i decide to clean/orginize the bike shed which is kinda a mess from lots of use. In doing this i feel a lot better about being locked up in the CTC. While in the process of doing this i come across a box trunk that had gotten wet and who's contents were now completely moldy minus a few well protected/sealed items. This trunk was the old trunk that had all the board games in it until it got wet and moldy. Of the pieces that didn't get destroyed, was the pieces, cards, and instructions for risk. Being the macho dudes that we are, we all thought what a great idea it would be to make a map and spend our captivity playing risk. So that then takes priority, making the board and getting ready for dinner. I run back to my house right before the curfew thats been imposed by the military is implemented to grab a few things i need for the night, and am soo roundly criticized for being a wus and for being afraid and not spending the day there. This of course is all the while my family and brothers and sisters were at the riots in support of it. whatever i leave and head back to the CTC for dinner and a interesting night. Before dinner we come up with a shit hits the fan plan of action of how we would sneak out the back of the CTC and take our bikes down to the river to escape to dindefelo if really needed.
But nothing happened that night, minus matt beating the crap out of us in risk. The military had pickup trucks rolling around all night with three dudes in the back with m-16's and flack jackets ready for trouble. The next morning after talking to the guards, we find out that pretty much every brigade in eastern senegal was in fact in Kédougou. Also, and more importantly, the rioters had pretty much done a number on every government building in the town. So our friends and contacts at eaux et foret had their office burned out as well as, we think, the wulla naffa NGO who are partnered with USAID had a car at least and at worst their building torched. Their building is attached to eaux et foret so we kinda assumed it got hit as well. But none of this happened at night time, this was all at the end of the day the day before, so everything was pretty much calmed down by the curfew.
So we decide that we should go out and asses the damage from the night before as we were curious and were also wondering if there was still a risk. So we decide upon splitting up into smaller groups so its not a group of 6 white people walking around gawking at the damage. So i go with matt and shelia up the bandafassi road and try to go past the military camp and can see the two road blocks on the road on the way to the base. Were waved away from the street so as to miss the base where we had found out that all the families of the police and government were being protected there. while we were skirting around the camp we saw some guys sitting in trees, they were snipers protecting the base and the families there. We end up over by the cyber we ended up going to the day before, which is owned by the uncle of Matt's host family. it turns out that he has a nice garden that has potential for some ag/fo stuff and i go there a lot so potential.
So after stopping in there and making sure he was ok and his shop hadn't been looted we moved on down the road. Its down this road that the police station, hospital, and tribunal were on. So we come to the police station first. Shell of a building totally burned out, 5 cars burned out over 5 motorcycles burned out. It was really something else seeing it like that, i bike past it alot, almost everyday. We basically walk past to check it out but it looks calm there. We keep going down the road and come to the hospital. A couple lines of riot police are standing in the entryway to the hospital, with hundreds of rocks scattered in front of it where they had fallen from being thrown. We go in and talk to the head Dr. there so as to asses what was going on.
So as it turns out that one of the students that was killed was being held there and the families of the Dr.s and the hospital itself. So when we get in there the head Dr. says that they are going to have a meeting to settle whether or not they were going to shut the hospital or not. So we kept on walking down the street and get a call from michelle, the volunteer who was in tamba saying that she had come back to Kédougou and was at her house. So Matt tells her to stay there and that we would come and get her. As we keep walking we get to the main cross roads in town where the courthouse is and next to the burned out courthouse in the street where we need to go to get michelle is a large crowd of students facing down with the police. We skirt round it but as we start going around into the surrounding houses the cops cut and run and the military comes in. So now they are standing off against the students.
So nothing really happens, i guess they disperse, we book it into the neighborhood next to the street passing the busted up post office. It wasn't burned out though, just doors, windows, and large western union sign all busted up. So we make it to michelle's house and get her and instead of going back the way we came, we shoot down to the river to skirt round all the trouble. This works great and we make it back to the CTC just fine. When we get back we kinda hang out a bit and Steve Wood and his family show up having gotten a ride from a local. We hang out for a while and around lunch time everything seems pretty calm so i ask if i can go back to my house to grab a bag. I take off and get to my house and watch a little TV with my fam about all this. They all agree with the striking, maybe not the destroying but the reason behind it yes. I kinda bust their cops a little as they burned a bunch of our work partners and the courthouse has all the records of everything for the city. Also rumor has it they stole the money that was sent down to Kédougou for paying the people up at the sabodella mines. so thats a little ify.
But they make me lunch and after that i start making a bag when i get a call saying we are all leaving because the country director said we should leave the city. So i pack my bag and head back to the CTC and by this time everyone else is getting ready to leave. The country directors adopted son helped us arrange our rides. So two sept places show up in about 20min. So once thomas is back from his house getting things, we load up and head out. So its kinda a light hearted car ride, very uneventful, but we do end up passing 10 truck loads of troops and equipment heading in the opposite direction. But we get to tamba and the regional house to a nice x-mas eve dinner the tamba volunteers had made.
So today has been a pretty chill day, just sitting around watching movies. Army of darkness, dr. strangelove, a bunch of the rome series, and some of the bourne identity. Right now im sitting in a hotel next to the tamba regional house on some nice wireless. So yea getting ready for x-mas dinner away from home in rather odd circumstances. Hope no one else has anything even remotely close to this type of an x-mas experience. Merry Christmas from lovely west africa, weve got riots, coups and all sorts of fun!
Oh yeah nothing stolen, so its all good!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
12/19
12/19
So I've started my gardens. Today I was getting ready to go to the center to say hello to a friend of mine who came in to Kédougou from Kafori and yelled at me from the road, when my aunt started asking me when i was going to make the garden i had been talking about for the past couple of days. Understandable as i had bought the fencing material for the plot and just needed to get to work on preparing the ground. So i had really been dragging my feet on this and her busting my chops kinda got me motivated. So i said i was going to do it today and that i was going to the center to get tools, which i then did. So i chilled at the center for a little bit and got to see Dan and Willie come in with the Peace Corps land-cruiser. Dan had with him a puppy that had been rescued from his douche. kinda disgusting but he was evidently OK and is doing fine now. He has been adopted by Hayes out in Bandafassi. But yea also with the Peace Corps car came a new stove. Very important for our regional house as we've a reputation to uphold with our cooking abilities. Well Matt's really but we all chip in. But its nice to have that and some other spare parts for bikes and the like.
So yeah anyway I borrow the pick and shovel from the center and head back to my house to start my garden. My brother Mamadou helped me with this and is probably as much mine as it is his. The kids a tank. So basically we had to turn up the soil to mix it up and then toss in some manure. So this involves picking the soil in the desired shape, which is a hell of a lot harder then it sounds as the ground is ubber hard and requires some muscle. Enter my brother who pretty much does this type of work for a side job. He was the guy who made a bunch of the bricks for my hut. So i try to pick with the pick from the center and get about three strikes in and the handle just snaps in two. Nice borrowed pick busted. Luckily, my bro Mamadou does this when hes not at school and has a nice pick we can use. So once we had mixed up the soil with the pick, the cows that pretty much wake me up every day come into play. Yay cow poop! So i thought that there'd be maybe half a gardens worth in their stye, if thats the right word. Wrong. We were able to get enough for two of the plots and then we stopped cause it was the hot part of the day, and boy could you tell. Ok so basically we dumped the manure on the plot and then double dug it into the soil. This involves digging a trench about 1.5ft-2ft down and depositing it at the back of the plot and then filling in the trench from the soil right next to it and then digging a trench where it had been. Continue this till you get to the end where you fill in the last trench with the soil you took out of the first trench. it works pretty well and mixes in manure and the soil in general.
So we stop for lunch at the hot part of the day and agree to come back at 4 to finish up the last plot which hadn't even been started. So i eat with my brother like usual in my room and then decide to take a nap as I'm kinda tired after my tiny bit of work from the morning. So i nap for about an hour and am woken up at about 20 till 4 by my dad yelling at my 5 year old brothers who are knocking on my door bothering me. So i forgot i had a pullar lesson at 4 so it actually worked out as i was able to go to it on time. But when i stick my head out my door and look at the garden there's the cart that was used to take my bags from the center to the house tipped up dumping a bunch of cow poop on the ground next to the gardens. so yea I've got a lot of cow poop right now. I think my brother knows where to get it too so its basically readably accessible manure for free! Very cool. Also sitting next to the cart is the broken pick with a new handle that has been clearly cut from a tree 'en bruce' (see previous entry for thoughts on procuring things 'en bruce'). So double cool.
So i head off to my pullar lesson which is cool, learn about egol verbs which are verbs that mean that the action is being done to you. Also how adding orgol in place of ugol, agol,and egol to the end of verbs means that you happened to do the verb or by chance you did the verb. So kinda neat to learn that. Also got roped into coming and drinking with our tutor tomorrow evening. He just moved here and doesn't have a lot of friends, but is a really nice guy. I've gone and drank tea with him before and he's a chill guy. So yea were doing that tomorrow/today as ill probably post this tomorrow. But yea so after class i go to Hassana's Hendrick's agriculture shop for a watering can and some seeds. He's the adopted son of the country director, who's family Im living with at the moment, and is in fact Hassana's extended family as well. So i pick up the watering can, some onion seeds and tomato seeds, and i know I'm not getting ripped off as he's family.
When I get back to the house I immediately get to work on the last of the three plots. Oh yea the dimensions of these are roughly 2m40cm long(the length of the crentin, woven fence that I bought ) by 1m width. So I have three of them in a row right now with a mound of soil in between them as a barrier. So i just get started on the last one by myself and Mamadou rolls by after I've picked half of the plot and finishes it up. Once thats done we work with the pile of poop. So basically the poop need to be broken up so it can be applied to the soil. So we've got a rice bag and some sticks for this. I start using the busted handle of the pick i broke thinking that its the perfect job for a busted pick handle. Of course it breaks again and i resort to the tools Mamadou gives me. But we get this all beaten up and it is pretty good for mixing in with the soil and we double dig it in. By this time we've got a peanut gallery. Basically all the little kids from the neighborhood are there watching the toubob work. But they were actually really eager to help and i got them working on the poop beating and we were able to spread some more manure on top of the other two plots.
So while all this is going on it starting to get dark and my uncle and host dad come over to watch and offer advice as my dads a big time farmer and my uncles been around it all his life. So once my uncle and dad see the work I've done they remember that when Chris Hendrick was living with them in Dindafelo 20 yrs. ago, he did a garden as well and they got food out of the deal. so basically i was offered the area right next to my three plots for three more to grow more food. So once that area is cleared out, as its a hell of a lot dirtier then the area i was using for the first three ill have a proper garden to look after. And yes the family will be able to get some good eatin out of it! But i think that thats a ways down the road as it'll probably be able to be prepared when my douche is done, who knows when that'll be done. So yea productive day and ill be able use all sorts of neat techniques in the garden to try out, as there's a bunch of natural insecticides and fertilizers i want to try out. Also with the three other plot i might try to do a pepiniere for around the compound. Options options options!
But i need to get back in touch with ethan and do some interneting so ill update again later when I've got something exciting to report, who knows maybe ill talk to some of you before then.
So I've started my gardens. Today I was getting ready to go to the center to say hello to a friend of mine who came in to Kédougou from Kafori and yelled at me from the road, when my aunt started asking me when i was going to make the garden i had been talking about for the past couple of days. Understandable as i had bought the fencing material for the plot and just needed to get to work on preparing the ground. So i had really been dragging my feet on this and her busting my chops kinda got me motivated. So i said i was going to do it today and that i was going to the center to get tools, which i then did. So i chilled at the center for a little bit and got to see Dan and Willie come in with the Peace Corps land-cruiser. Dan had with him a puppy that had been rescued from his douche. kinda disgusting but he was evidently OK and is doing fine now. He has been adopted by Hayes out in Bandafassi. But yea also with the Peace Corps car came a new stove. Very important for our regional house as we've a reputation to uphold with our cooking abilities. Well Matt's really but we all chip in. But its nice to have that and some other spare parts for bikes and the like.
So yeah anyway I borrow the pick and shovel from the center and head back to my house to start my garden. My brother Mamadou helped me with this and is probably as much mine as it is his. The kids a tank. So basically we had to turn up the soil to mix it up and then toss in some manure. So this involves picking the soil in the desired shape, which is a hell of a lot harder then it sounds as the ground is ubber hard and requires some muscle. Enter my brother who pretty much does this type of work for a side job. He was the guy who made a bunch of the bricks for my hut. So i try to pick with the pick from the center and get about three strikes in and the handle just snaps in two. Nice borrowed pick busted. Luckily, my bro Mamadou does this when hes not at school and has a nice pick we can use. So once we had mixed up the soil with the pick, the cows that pretty much wake me up every day come into play. Yay cow poop! So i thought that there'd be maybe half a gardens worth in their stye, if thats the right word. Wrong. We were able to get enough for two of the plots and then we stopped cause it was the hot part of the day, and boy could you tell. Ok so basically we dumped the manure on the plot and then double dug it into the soil. This involves digging a trench about 1.5ft-2ft down and depositing it at the back of the plot and then filling in the trench from the soil right next to it and then digging a trench where it had been. Continue this till you get to the end where you fill in the last trench with the soil you took out of the first trench. it works pretty well and mixes in manure and the soil in general.
So we stop for lunch at the hot part of the day and agree to come back at 4 to finish up the last plot which hadn't even been started. So i eat with my brother like usual in my room and then decide to take a nap as I'm kinda tired after my tiny bit of work from the morning. So i nap for about an hour and am woken up at about 20 till 4 by my dad yelling at my 5 year old brothers who are knocking on my door bothering me. So i forgot i had a pullar lesson at 4 so it actually worked out as i was able to go to it on time. But when i stick my head out my door and look at the garden there's the cart that was used to take my bags from the center to the house tipped up dumping a bunch of cow poop on the ground next to the gardens. so yea I've got a lot of cow poop right now. I think my brother knows where to get it too so its basically readably accessible manure for free! Very cool. Also sitting next to the cart is the broken pick with a new handle that has been clearly cut from a tree 'en bruce' (see previous entry for thoughts on procuring things 'en bruce'). So double cool.
So i head off to my pullar lesson which is cool, learn about egol verbs which are verbs that mean that the action is being done to you. Also how adding orgol in place of ugol, agol,and egol to the end of verbs means that you happened to do the verb or by chance you did the verb. So kinda neat to learn that. Also got roped into coming and drinking with our tutor tomorrow evening. He just moved here and doesn't have a lot of friends, but is a really nice guy. I've gone and drank tea with him before and he's a chill guy. So yea were doing that tomorrow/today as ill probably post this tomorrow. But yea so after class i go to Hassana's Hendrick's agriculture shop for a watering can and some seeds. He's the adopted son of the country director, who's family Im living with at the moment, and is in fact Hassana's extended family as well. So i pick up the watering can, some onion seeds and tomato seeds, and i know I'm not getting ripped off as he's family.
When I get back to the house I immediately get to work on the last of the three plots. Oh yea the dimensions of these are roughly 2m40cm long(the length of the crentin, woven fence that I bought ) by 1m width. So I have three of them in a row right now with a mound of soil in between them as a barrier. So i just get started on the last one by myself and Mamadou rolls by after I've picked half of the plot and finishes it up. Once thats done we work with the pile of poop. So basically the poop need to be broken up so it can be applied to the soil. So we've got a rice bag and some sticks for this. I start using the busted handle of the pick i broke thinking that its the perfect job for a busted pick handle. Of course it breaks again and i resort to the tools Mamadou gives me. But we get this all beaten up and it is pretty good for mixing in with the soil and we double dig it in. By this time we've got a peanut gallery. Basically all the little kids from the neighborhood are there watching the toubob work. But they were actually really eager to help and i got them working on the poop beating and we were able to spread some more manure on top of the other two plots.
So while all this is going on it starting to get dark and my uncle and host dad come over to watch and offer advice as my dads a big time farmer and my uncles been around it all his life. So once my uncle and dad see the work I've done they remember that when Chris Hendrick was living with them in Dindafelo 20 yrs. ago, he did a garden as well and they got food out of the deal. so basically i was offered the area right next to my three plots for three more to grow more food. So once that area is cleared out, as its a hell of a lot dirtier then the area i was using for the first three ill have a proper garden to look after. And yes the family will be able to get some good eatin out of it! But i think that thats a ways down the road as it'll probably be able to be prepared when my douche is done, who knows when that'll be done. So yea productive day and ill be able use all sorts of neat techniques in the garden to try out, as there's a bunch of natural insecticides and fertilizers i want to try out. Also with the three other plot i might try to do a pepiniere for around the compound. Options options options!
But i need to get back in touch with ethan and do some interneting so ill update again later when I've got something exciting to report, who knows maybe ill talk to some of you before then.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
12/17
12/17
So I've finally moved into my hut. Albeit a month late and i still don't have a douche, but I'm moved in and my room is pretty patron. I've got a a nice bed, a chest, and a little stool my water filter sits on and a bedside table my host family is letting me use. so what has happened since my last update? Quite a bit really, Tabaski has come and gone I got some good pics of the family all dolled up for that, x-mas is next week and I'm in a muslim country, and I'm starting to make some progress with some actual work. So yea I'm really enjoying myself right now.
I've been hanging out with my host brother a lot of the time as he's supposed to go off and work up at one of the mines up by Saraya but hasn't yet been called back about it, so he's just kinda chilling here at the moment. But because of that I've got someone to hang out with pretty much all the time. This of course in between my language lessons, procuring things for my hut, and trying to learn ag/fo stuff from the 10yr old manuals I'm borrowing from the regional house as I've not been given mine yet. Yay PC being on top of things go figure right. Speaking of manuals I've been in touch with trees for the future, as that is who my counterpart works for here in Kédougou. Ive had a few email correspondences with their west african rep who was a PCV here in Kédougou 5 years ago or so. Ill be in touch with him again here in a little bit to coordinate my activities with him and Karumba for the next rainy season.
On the work front also, well kinda, today i should be working on my garden next to my hut. Ill post pics, but at the moment its rather ambitious as there isn't a whole lot there and I'm not so sure about the soil. I think if i remove a thin top layer, then double dig the soil with a bunch of manure, it should be decent enough. Yay for my host families having cows and a ample supply of cow poop! never thought id say that. But i think the garden will be roughly about 3x8 aprox. I haven't actually measured it but it the length of my hut and about 2-3m out so roughly 2/3x8m. A decent enough size for a little garden to keep me busy and provide a little something for the family and me!
More on the work front, i was rooting around the research section of the regional houses lib and came across a book called the miracle tree. Its all about a tree called 'never die' or Moringa oleifera for those who are scientifically inclined, which i know there are a few of you out there. Basically this tree is badass. You can use it for so much, just google it and check out the results. But i think im going to try and do something with this with my counterpart this coming growing season. I think it'd be interesting to alley crop with it and see how it does in helping out the surrounding crops as well as selling the leaves for fodder or human consumption, because in the market if you go looking for it you better go early in the morning as it'll all be gone by afternoon. I don't think there is a lot being produced at the moment on a carmercial scale, but if some serious farmers were to get interested it would be cool to see the results. So anyway that book that i was reading that got me interested was written by a organization called Church World Service. Well like i said this book is pretty cool and at the back of it it gives a bunch of organizations that use or promote M. olifera. Upon checking out these and getting a few names of interest, one who might actually send me some free seeds to promote the plant, i came across a blurb on the author. Well it turns out he's based out of Dakar for CWS and I'm going to shoot him a line to see if he has any thoughts on working together or something.
Right-o well thats about it for work type stuff. My new camera is here as the new pics on facebook and here(hopefully) indicate. Loving that, thanks so much chris, my host family loves it too. I think i must have taken about 100 pics on tabaski with each and every member of my family. It was cool and I've got lots of photos of my family now which is cool. They love digital cameras here and the pics. So I've taken a lot recently and plan on taking a lot more! Hopefully with x-mas around the corner ill be able to take a few more at a really nice waterfall with a few other people. but X-mas is next week, its kinda weird being away from home in really hot weather for xmas but it'll be different. But like i said there's a nice waterfall thats not too far away that I'm going to try to go to for a little excursion.
While ill do that, Thomas kinda got roped into working a sumer camp type thing for kids on their winter break. They did a similar one while we were site visiting back in October which was evidently a big success hence they are doing it again. So thomas got roped in and is basically roping others into it. I will probably go help him out a bit if I'm in the right mood. This camp thing is in Dindefello which is where all of my host family is from so perhaps ill meet some of them if I do this. My host dad has been wanting to show me the village and the waterfall that is there. So maybe thatll happen. But speaking of my dad, the garden that im trying to start up needs posts to hold up the fencing material i bought and my brother told me that my dad was going to go out 'en bruce' to get them for me. That is soooo not american. This is just land that i guess the government/no one owns and most people just kinda use when they need. Were not talking about hardcore logging or anything like that, but going to get poles/wood material people use for building. Its rather interesting. i saw the same thing when i was riding back from Tjibedji and we went en bruce to get Hayes's post for her douche. Same thing.
So last week i guess, i was hanging out with my brother and a friend of his who is a spanish teacher who has satellite TV. Yeah im roughing it i know, but anyway. We were watching the champions league game between Bayern Munich and Lyon in Lyon. It was a great game, Bayern were up 3-0 inside the first half. I figured the game was over and was ready to leave, but Thierno got some lacherie and cosan. Which is basically ground up cooked corn and sour milk with sugar. Its delicious. So we end up eating that and watching the second period. What a game it turned out to be! Ended up 3-2 with Bayern holding out. But the point was at half time as in all champions league games there was a advertisement for Heineken. Basically these adds consist of places all over the world where people are sitting around watching champions league football drinking Heineken. I think it says something like proudly sponsoring the champions league all over the world. I've never felt more like that then during that game while sitting in Kédougou in the south eastern corner of Senegal. Very appropriate for the worlds game.
So I think I've gotten over the worst of the sickness i was carrying about. I've just got a nice little cold left to show for it. Yea i got a cold in africa go figure. Its gorgeous during the day and cool at night. Perfect in my book but i guess my body thinks otherwise. But hopefully ill finally shake that as well. Right now I'm sitting in my room trying to add a bit of a personal touch. I've got some pics up that people have sent me. So send me pics and ill put them up on my wall. I've also got a few leaves on my wall that some crazy person sent me *cough* sarah *cough*. But i like things that can go up and remind me of home. Like the Obama montage that sarah sent me as well. My family loves that too, all of Africa loves that.
Lots of Africa also washes their clothes in rivers. I got to witness this first hand yesterday as well. Very interesting. The best example i can think of is when we were driving to Tambacunda earlier this week and crossed the Gambia river. There were prob a hundred people all crowed round this one spot that was quite accessible and were washing their clothes. Now this might seem normal but the way that clothes are washed here is a little different. Were not really talking about the washboard style cleaning I'm sure most of you are familiar with. This is taking the clothes, lathering them up and then beating the shit out of them on big rocks. lets just say i wash my nicer stuff as my clothes will be KOed in no time if i don't. Anyways i got a good pic of the place where my sisters were cleaning our clothes while i was busy fishing with my brothers. That was fun, fishing not really my thing, but catching the frogs for fishing was interesting. There's a big pebble beach that thousands of baby frogs live on, and we basically just started picking up rocks and smashing them down to kill the frogs for bait. very fun. I think we ended up catching 3/4 fish. When we were all done we trooped off back to the house with the laundry on our heads and it was a really fun day. I even learned some new Pullar words as well. Everything we end up doing generally gets me new words to learn as i really don't know a whole hell of a lot in Pullar.
Well i need to organize my room as i moved a bunch of stuff around for the little video i made for g-mas b-day, even got my brothers to say happy birthday for her, im sure she'll like that. but yeah got some things to do, ill update again later.
So I've finally moved into my hut. Albeit a month late and i still don't have a douche, but I'm moved in and my room is pretty patron. I've got a a nice bed, a chest, and a little stool my water filter sits on and a bedside table my host family is letting me use. so what has happened since my last update? Quite a bit really, Tabaski has come and gone I got some good pics of the family all dolled up for that, x-mas is next week and I'm in a muslim country, and I'm starting to make some progress with some actual work. So yea I'm really enjoying myself right now.
I've been hanging out with my host brother a lot of the time as he's supposed to go off and work up at one of the mines up by Saraya but hasn't yet been called back about it, so he's just kinda chilling here at the moment. But because of that I've got someone to hang out with pretty much all the time. This of course in between my language lessons, procuring things for my hut, and trying to learn ag/fo stuff from the 10yr old manuals I'm borrowing from the regional house as I've not been given mine yet. Yay PC being on top of things go figure right. Speaking of manuals I've been in touch with trees for the future, as that is who my counterpart works for here in Kédougou. Ive had a few email correspondences with their west african rep who was a PCV here in Kédougou 5 years ago or so. Ill be in touch with him again here in a little bit to coordinate my activities with him and Karumba for the next rainy season.
On the work front also, well kinda, today i should be working on my garden next to my hut. Ill post pics, but at the moment its rather ambitious as there isn't a whole lot there and I'm not so sure about the soil. I think if i remove a thin top layer, then double dig the soil with a bunch of manure, it should be decent enough. Yay for my host families having cows and a ample supply of cow poop! never thought id say that. But i think the garden will be roughly about 3x8 aprox. I haven't actually measured it but it the length of my hut and about 2-3m out so roughly 2/3x8m. A decent enough size for a little garden to keep me busy and provide a little something for the family and me!
More on the work front, i was rooting around the research section of the regional houses lib and came across a book called the miracle tree. Its all about a tree called 'never die' or Moringa oleifera for those who are scientifically inclined, which i know there are a few of you out there. Basically this tree is badass. You can use it for so much, just google it and check out the results. But i think im going to try and do something with this with my counterpart this coming growing season. I think it'd be interesting to alley crop with it and see how it does in helping out the surrounding crops as well as selling the leaves for fodder or human consumption, because in the market if you go looking for it you better go early in the morning as it'll all be gone by afternoon. I don't think there is a lot being produced at the moment on a carmercial scale, but if some serious farmers were to get interested it would be cool to see the results. So anyway that book that i was reading that got me interested was written by a organization called Church World Service. Well like i said this book is pretty cool and at the back of it it gives a bunch of organizations that use or promote M. olifera. Upon checking out these and getting a few names of interest, one who might actually send me some free seeds to promote the plant, i came across a blurb on the author. Well it turns out he's based out of Dakar for CWS and I'm going to shoot him a line to see if he has any thoughts on working together or something.
Right-o well thats about it for work type stuff. My new camera is here as the new pics on facebook and here(hopefully) indicate. Loving that, thanks so much chris, my host family loves it too. I think i must have taken about 100 pics on tabaski with each and every member of my family. It was cool and I've got lots of photos of my family now which is cool. They love digital cameras here and the pics. So I've taken a lot recently and plan on taking a lot more! Hopefully with x-mas around the corner ill be able to take a few more at a really nice waterfall with a few other people. but X-mas is next week, its kinda weird being away from home in really hot weather for xmas but it'll be different. But like i said there's a nice waterfall thats not too far away that I'm going to try to go to for a little excursion.
While ill do that, Thomas kinda got roped into working a sumer camp type thing for kids on their winter break. They did a similar one while we were site visiting back in October which was evidently a big success hence they are doing it again. So thomas got roped in and is basically roping others into it. I will probably go help him out a bit if I'm in the right mood. This camp thing is in Dindefello which is where all of my host family is from so perhaps ill meet some of them if I do this. My host dad has been wanting to show me the village and the waterfall that is there. So maybe thatll happen. But speaking of my dad, the garden that im trying to start up needs posts to hold up the fencing material i bought and my brother told me that my dad was going to go out 'en bruce' to get them for me. That is soooo not american. This is just land that i guess the government/no one owns and most people just kinda use when they need. Were not talking about hardcore logging or anything like that, but going to get poles/wood material people use for building. Its rather interesting. i saw the same thing when i was riding back from Tjibedji and we went en bruce to get Hayes's post for her douche. Same thing.
So last week i guess, i was hanging out with my brother and a friend of his who is a spanish teacher who has satellite TV. Yeah im roughing it i know, but anyway. We were watching the champions league game between Bayern Munich and Lyon in Lyon. It was a great game, Bayern were up 3-0 inside the first half. I figured the game was over and was ready to leave, but Thierno got some lacherie and cosan. Which is basically ground up cooked corn and sour milk with sugar. Its delicious. So we end up eating that and watching the second period. What a game it turned out to be! Ended up 3-2 with Bayern holding out. But the point was at half time as in all champions league games there was a advertisement for Heineken. Basically these adds consist of places all over the world where people are sitting around watching champions league football drinking Heineken. I think it says something like proudly sponsoring the champions league all over the world. I've never felt more like that then during that game while sitting in Kédougou in the south eastern corner of Senegal. Very appropriate for the worlds game.
So I think I've gotten over the worst of the sickness i was carrying about. I've just got a nice little cold left to show for it. Yea i got a cold in africa go figure. Its gorgeous during the day and cool at night. Perfect in my book but i guess my body thinks otherwise. But hopefully ill finally shake that as well. Right now I'm sitting in my room trying to add a bit of a personal touch. I've got some pics up that people have sent me. So send me pics and ill put them up on my wall. I've also got a few leaves on my wall that some crazy person sent me *cough* sarah *cough*. But i like things that can go up and remind me of home. Like the Obama montage that sarah sent me as well. My family loves that too, all of Africa loves that.
Lots of Africa also washes their clothes in rivers. I got to witness this first hand yesterday as well. Very interesting. The best example i can think of is when we were driving to Tambacunda earlier this week and crossed the Gambia river. There were prob a hundred people all crowed round this one spot that was quite accessible and were washing their clothes. Now this might seem normal but the way that clothes are washed here is a little different. Were not really talking about the washboard style cleaning I'm sure most of you are familiar with. This is taking the clothes, lathering them up and then beating the shit out of them on big rocks. lets just say i wash my nicer stuff as my clothes will be KOed in no time if i don't. Anyways i got a good pic of the place where my sisters were cleaning our clothes while i was busy fishing with my brothers. That was fun, fishing not really my thing, but catching the frogs for fishing was interesting. There's a big pebble beach that thousands of baby frogs live on, and we basically just started picking up rocks and smashing them down to kill the frogs for bait. very fun. I think we ended up catching 3/4 fish. When we were all done we trooped off back to the house with the laundry on our heads and it was a really fun day. I even learned some new Pullar words as well. Everything we end up doing generally gets me new words to learn as i really don't know a whole hell of a lot in Pullar.
Well i need to organize my room as i moved a bunch of stuff around for the little video i made for g-mas b-day, even got my brothers to say happy birthday for her, im sure she'll like that. but yeah got some things to do, ill update again later.
Monday, December 8, 2008
12/8
So this will be a short little update as ive only got 15min left at the cyber cafe. So this week is the week of tabaski which is tomorrow. Something to do with the sacrafise abraham made or something. Basically everyone kills sheep and eats real well this day. So my hut might be done soon, my host dad said by tabaski, but im not holding my breath. The roof did get done today its the floor and bathroom that have yet to be done. Well see. So i went and helped my counterpart put up a fence at his field this week which was good, as i got to practice my pullar a little outside of my family here. I guess the guy that my counterpart works with with trees for the future will be back in the gou at the end of the month/begining of the year. Itll be neat to talk to him as hes in cameroun right now planting 2million trees or something. Ive also been talking to one of the other volunteers here in Gou meme, hes a ag volunteer and does some work with gardens around town. I might go with him to see what he does there. Other then that still working on the lang and trying to figure out what i want to do once the rainy sezason comes round as thats when ill be busy, well ive got 5min so ill write again later
Monday, December 1, 2008
Thanksgiving
So my Senegalese name is Momadou Saliou Diallo, our families here give us names to help us integrate.
So im feeling a little better now, my dose of some lovely little African bug has left my head and just has remnants left in my nose and throat. Details i know. Anyway to catch up on the last week, we've done a lot really. So on Monday i had my french class with Jibby, my tutor for Pullar. I have class at his and Assana Hendricks apartment. Jibby i guess was friends with some peace corps volunteers about 10 years ago or so and they were visiting him. So i got to talk to a another RPCV about her service and all that jazz. The french was ok, basic stuff as it was the first time we had a session. That was the only thing of note that i can remember.
The next day on Tuesday Thomas and i went out to the rice field that my host dad has to help cut rice. That was really interesting. Its probably a good 10-15min bike ride away from the city. Thats on a bike, and I'm pretty sure i've seen my dad multiple times hoofing it out there on foot. Its just Africa and he had to get out there. It must take quite a while to get out there on foot. So the field is nice and around other fields. While I'm saying this its not really a American field, but a African one. No neat rows and isles, just a big section of rice running up the middle of the field. We Got to cut the rice by hand too, that was fun. We were using a hand sickle to cut the rice and then pile it up in little piles all over the field. It was fun and we did this for a little while until my host brother said he was heading back to the house and my dad said he would be coming along in a little while.
So we head back to the house and hang out for a little while until i fall asleep for about an hour. I get woken up by a phone call from Matt at the regional house requesting my presence for a swimming adventure down the Gambia. This is fun we swim around for a while and then get the idea to lazy river down the river a while. We find a cool tree thats hanging over the river and use it as a jumping pt. it was really fun. We get out of the river a little bit further on down and walk back to where our stuff is. It was fun, and everyone really seemed to enjoy it.
The next day, Wednesday the 25th Thomas and i have our pullar class with jibby. Between the french and the pullar ive got alot of 'classes' to go to. Im pretty sure no one else has this sort of arrangement. After class, thomas and i go to the market to try and get our beds so that the 35 people who are coming to the regional house will at least have two extra beds to sleep on. We first go to Thomas's host dads boutique to see if he can help us with the process. hes a nice guy and has a nice boutique. He was able to help us get mattress for our beds and then help us find the one remaining bed at the spot where they sell beds. We got everything loaded up on our bikes and the guy we bought them from said he'd get the bed to the regional house. We both figured he meant on a cart or something, but he just bends down and puts it on his head in true African style. So we walk the 20min it takes to get back there while this old man is hoofing it along with this bed on his head. Truly something to witness.
So Today as well, it is decided that we should go drifting on the river again. This is with a bunch more people as more people have shown up for thanksgiving. So now weve got about 16 people or so to go. This time we bring rope and a air tight bucket to put our stuff in. We also decide to try and float all the way down the river to where a restaurant is that we always go to, and can see the river from. Its really fun, and we end up making a rope swing and jumping into the water. After we do this for a while we float on down to the restaurant and have some nice warthog sandwich's. When we get back to the regional house yet more people are there and the place is starting to get crowded. I have dinner at the host family compound and then head back to go to bed as my head snot feeling too good.
Thanksgiving, what a hypocritical holiday, i cant think of a group of people weve treated worse, well maybe one, that we celebrate as if we didnt. For those who dont know we pretty much systematically wiped out the Indians from the north east, mid Atlantic, south, mid west, west and pacific north west. You name the area weve prob been pretty nasty to Indians there. But hey we give them this holiday as a little joke cause they saved our asses when white people first got to America. My thanksgiving sucked. I was sick all day. Not vomiting sick, but flu-ie feverish sick. I ended up with a 102 fever and was stuck in bed cause i wanted to fall over when i got up. I took a bunch of aspirin for the dinner and was able to eat a little bit of dinner but really didnt have much of an appetite. Ah well ill have another Thanksgiving next year and ill just have to make it that much better.
Friday was better, i was still a little sick but no fever and was able to eat some warmed up leftovers for breakfast. Unfortunately i missed the desert the night before and that was long gone. So i dont end up doing a whole lot Friday either as im just trying to get better. Thats basically what ive been doing up untill now, minus the few meals ive had at the family compound and the regional strategy meeting we had on Sunday. While at the compound on Saturday though, i walk in to it and right when you walk in theres a large 10x20ft shade type structure 10ft off the ground that has loads of corn on it. Ever since ive been there the corns been drying out. When i came in Saturday my uncle is sitting on top of it with about 5 little kids beating the corn. Now i wasnt really sure what he was doing until i remember that thats what they do to get teh corn off the cob. it was really interesting to see. They usually do this at a smaller scale with a bag, but they had a big tarp set up underneath it and he was swinging away at it. The kids loved it.
The regional strategy plan is roughly based on the millennium development goals outlined by the UN. It basically gave us a better platform to stand on to clearly define what it is we are trying to accomplish here. The meeting took 5hrs as we went over the entire doc, and the action plans associated with each of the 8 sections. It was interesting to hear everything.
So im feeling a little better now, my dose of some lovely little African bug has left my head and just has remnants left in my nose and throat. Details i know. Anyway to catch up on the last week, we've done a lot really. So on Monday i had my french class with Jibby, my tutor for Pullar. I have class at his and Assana Hendricks apartment. Jibby i guess was friends with some peace corps volunteers about 10 years ago or so and they were visiting him. So i got to talk to a another RPCV about her service and all that jazz. The french was ok, basic stuff as it was the first time we had a session. That was the only thing of note that i can remember.
The next day on Tuesday Thomas and i went out to the rice field that my host dad has to help cut rice. That was really interesting. Its probably a good 10-15min bike ride away from the city. Thats on a bike, and I'm pretty sure i've seen my dad multiple times hoofing it out there on foot. Its just Africa and he had to get out there. It must take quite a while to get out there on foot. So the field is nice and around other fields. While I'm saying this its not really a American field, but a African one. No neat rows and isles, just a big section of rice running up the middle of the field. We Got to cut the rice by hand too, that was fun. We were using a hand sickle to cut the rice and then pile it up in little piles all over the field. It was fun and we did this for a little while until my host brother said he was heading back to the house and my dad said he would be coming along in a little while.
So we head back to the house and hang out for a little while until i fall asleep for about an hour. I get woken up by a phone call from Matt at the regional house requesting my presence for a swimming adventure down the Gambia. This is fun we swim around for a while and then get the idea to lazy river down the river a while. We find a cool tree thats hanging over the river and use it as a jumping pt. it was really fun. We get out of the river a little bit further on down and walk back to where our stuff is. It was fun, and everyone really seemed to enjoy it.
The next day, Wednesday the 25th Thomas and i have our pullar class with jibby. Between the french and the pullar ive got alot of 'classes' to go to. Im pretty sure no one else has this sort of arrangement. After class, thomas and i go to the market to try and get our beds so that the 35 people who are coming to the regional house will at least have two extra beds to sleep on. We first go to Thomas's host dads boutique to see if he can help us with the process. hes a nice guy and has a nice boutique. He was able to help us get mattress for our beds and then help us find the one remaining bed at the spot where they sell beds. We got everything loaded up on our bikes and the guy we bought them from said he'd get the bed to the regional house. We both figured he meant on a cart or something, but he just bends down and puts it on his head in true African style. So we walk the 20min it takes to get back there while this old man is hoofing it along with this bed on his head. Truly something to witness.
So Today as well, it is decided that we should go drifting on the river again. This is with a bunch more people as more people have shown up for thanksgiving. So now weve got about 16 people or so to go. This time we bring rope and a air tight bucket to put our stuff in. We also decide to try and float all the way down the river to where a restaurant is that we always go to, and can see the river from. Its really fun, and we end up making a rope swing and jumping into the water. After we do this for a while we float on down to the restaurant and have some nice warthog sandwich's. When we get back to the regional house yet more people are there and the place is starting to get crowded. I have dinner at the host family compound and then head back to go to bed as my head snot feeling too good.
Thanksgiving, what a hypocritical holiday, i cant think of a group of people weve treated worse, well maybe one, that we celebrate as if we didnt. For those who dont know we pretty much systematically wiped out the Indians from the north east, mid Atlantic, south, mid west, west and pacific north west. You name the area weve prob been pretty nasty to Indians there. But hey we give them this holiday as a little joke cause they saved our asses when white people first got to America. My thanksgiving sucked. I was sick all day. Not vomiting sick, but flu-ie feverish sick. I ended up with a 102 fever and was stuck in bed cause i wanted to fall over when i got up. I took a bunch of aspirin for the dinner and was able to eat a little bit of dinner but really didnt have much of an appetite. Ah well ill have another Thanksgiving next year and ill just have to make it that much better.
Friday was better, i was still a little sick but no fever and was able to eat some warmed up leftovers for breakfast. Unfortunately i missed the desert the night before and that was long gone. So i dont end up doing a whole lot Friday either as im just trying to get better. Thats basically what ive been doing up untill now, minus the few meals ive had at the family compound and the regional strategy meeting we had on Sunday. While at the compound on Saturday though, i walk in to it and right when you walk in theres a large 10x20ft shade type structure 10ft off the ground that has loads of corn on it. Ever since ive been there the corns been drying out. When i came in Saturday my uncle is sitting on top of it with about 5 little kids beating the corn. Now i wasnt really sure what he was doing until i remember that thats what they do to get teh corn off the cob. it was really interesting to see. They usually do this at a smaller scale with a bag, but they had a big tarp set up underneath it and he was swinging away at it. The kids loved it.
The regional strategy plan is roughly based on the millennium development goals outlined by the UN. It basically gave us a better platform to stand on to clearly define what it is we are trying to accomplish here. The meeting took 5hrs as we went over the entire doc, and the action plans associated with each of the 8 sections. It was interesting to hear everything.
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