Greetings,
It's been almost three months since my last post. The reason being that this period of my service has been quite miserable and I was interested neither in incurring your concerns and worries, nor sugar coating my time here. But alas, I do my best to keep an honest portrayal of my life as a Peace Corps volunteer and it's past time I fill you in. I'm yet to even describe The Gambia to you so allow me to start there.
This sliver of a country I'm living in is the smallest on continental Africa. It's literally just The Gambia river and the immediate lands north and south there of. I've heard it's roughly the size of Connecticut, I'm not certain but that sounds about right. It borders the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast and is surrounded by Senegal on all other sides. It was initially a British colony as opposed to French controlled Senegal. Although I'm not sure how Senegal didn't manage to annex it once the two countries gained independence, especially given the fact that the Gambia is more fertile than most of Senegal and the Gambia river is also the largest, most navigable river between the two countries. I understand there was a loose confederation between the two states known as Senegambia. It lasted from 1982 to 1989 when the two countries rather peacefully decided it wasn't worth their time. Another interesting fact, Kunta Kinte, central character of Roots, as well as a whole lot of other West Africans were abducted into slavery from The Gambia.
For the last 18 years, The Gambia has been blessedly guided under the impeccable stewardship of "His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhagi Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh Nassiru Deen, President of The Gambia, Commander-In-Chief of The Armed Forces, and Chief Custodian of The Sacred Constitution of The Gambia". But you can just call him Jammeh for short. He just won another landslide "election" last year so hooray for him. And if that wasn't awesome enough, he can also cure AIDS and asthma with natural herbs! ...erhm. Anyways, The Gambia is culturally very similar to Mali and the rest of Muslim West Africa. The major language spoken here is Mandinka, a derivative of Bambara. Wollof and Fula are the other common languages in addition to pockets of Jola, Sarahole, and others. English is the administrative language and one of the main reasons I chose to finish my service here rather than Francophone Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, or Cameroon. Perhaps I'm biased, but I have to say, the Gambia cannot touch Mali when it comes to culture. Then again, no country really can seeing as how Mali is the heart of West Africa. Geographically, however, The Gambia does have quite a bit to offer. It has a much wider variety of flora and fauna than Mali as well as a more tropical climate. It's access to the ocean and the Gambia river act as a corridor for an incredible variety of birds. Indeed, it is a bird watcher's paradise. During my first week here I did a 12 K hike around the west coast area. I got to see grasslands, marshes, mangroves, salt flats, and old growth forest all within that range. Monkeys, baboons, hippos, crocodiles and boars are also far more common here than in Mali. It's a pretty beautiful place.
When I first met with my program manager and administration upon coming to The Gambia, I specifically requested a site where I wouldn't need to use local languages and that had projects ready to roll. Having already spent more than half of my service in Mali, I do not have the time to both learn a new language and build up a project or two from scratch. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, I was given pretty much the opposite of my request. I was placed in a town called Somita. It's part of the West Coast Region and not far from the capital, Banjul. If I had a full 27 months to spend there, I think it would have been a great site for me but given my aforementioned restrictions, I felt rather useless. In fact, I've been down about a lot of things since coming here. Yes, yes boo-hoo for poor old me. Bare with me as I describe the shit storm that's been my life for the last couple months before we get to my current, slightly more positive outlook... I imagined the transition from Mali would be rough but I didn't realize to what extent. Like any volunteer, I've had my share of challenges throughout my service, but this period has undoubtedly been the hardest yet. I miss Mali a good deal and all my friends there, both nationals and other volunteers. I was hitting a good stride in Mali just before the coup happened with some promising projects in the works. I thought I'd be able to keep that motivation coming here but it quickly vanished. There's good reason we're given 2+ years to work as volunteers. It takes at least a year to reach the point where you feel comfortable not only with the language but also the community you've been placed with. You need to learn which community members you can trust and rely on and the community needs to be able to trust the volunteer. On top of that, it takes a lot of time just to be able to develop a personality within your community. Something obviously taken for granted but rather difficult when you have the vocabulary of a 4 year old. Moreover, volunteers are supposed to have one site throughout their service. Somita was my third and it seems it won't be my last. I have just about no patience or motivation left to go through the customary meet and greet phase of being a volunteer. That should all take place during the first couple months after training ends. August 2nd will mark a year and a half since coming to Africa, and yet here I am, still meeting and greeting yet another new community, in a different country from which i started, and in a new language. Finally, after 18 months of being here, a lot of the adventure's lustre has waned. It's becoming more challenging to deal with the realities of living in the 3rd world. I'm tired of shit food, shitty living conditions, shittier transport and people literally shitting wherever they damn well please.
So what am I still doing here? That's a question I've asked myself ad nauseam. I've been on the verge of quitting a few times. I even went so far as to tell some friends and family as well as my program manager that I wanted to quit. And just when I was absolutely certain I was going to go through with it, I found that I couldn't. Mostly I think it comes down to pride. I signed up for 27 months and I want to see it through. Given how little time I've spent at any one site, I don't feel I've accomplished anything yet. Plus it's not like they're just handing out jobs in America right now. In fact, a lot of the volunteers who went home after Mali say they wish more than anything they could go back to the Peace Corps life. Despite all the stress and frustrations I just described, it's still a pretty amazing way of life I get to enjoy. Perhaps tomorrow I'll wake up and decide I want to travel up country, visit some other volunteers, maybe try to go find some hippos or something. Perhaps I'll save up some of my monthly allowance and take a trip through Guinea and Sierra Leone in the next few months. Or maybe I'll just sit and knock out War & Peace over the next 3 days. There won't be much stopping me.
Immediately after telling my program manager I wanted to leave, I offered the caveat that if he could find a site like the one I initially requested, I might just continue to grace him and The Gambia with my awesome presence... or something along those lines. Luckily, there happened to be such a site. I'll be moving to a nice sized town called Farafenni. It's located about halfway up country on the north bank and is just a couple k from the Senegalese border. I'll be working at a vocational school called the Anglican Training Centre. They focus heavily on sustainable agriculture. I was impressed with their grounds and ambitions. They're clearly motivated and invested. English is pretty much the only language spoken on their campus. They have a couple demo gardens going, a tree nursery, honey cultivation, and poultry production among other projects. Most of these projects are in their infancy and there seems to be ample opportunity for me to assist in and improve the work they are doing. The notion of tackling my 4th site is more than daunting but it does seem that this is perhaps the work opportunity I've been waiting for since coming to Africa. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.
P&L
Rege
