As-salamu alaykum,
I've been called out by a few for my lack of posting recently. Apologies. I just noticed my last entry was July 30th. Where doth the time go? Truth be told, I've been quite busy the last few months. A welcome change and one that doesn't often happen in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. On that note, I've now been in the Gambia for over 6 months. As you may recall from my last post, the first three or four months were so miserable I nearly called it quits. I've managed to weather the storm however, and am once again doing well in good ol' West Africa.
Rainy Season
Last year's barely existed and another one like it would have been absolutely crippling, not just in the Gambia or Mali but all across the continent. Thankfully, drought has not been an issue this year. From June through early October the rains just did not stop. Sometimes for a week straight it would pour. All the major cities/towns that make up the Kombo region: Banjul, Bakau, Fajara, Serekunda, Brikama were up to their knees in water. Most "disgusting" things have little if any effect on me these days, but every time my foot slipped into a pool of that ruddy brown, stagnant, mosquito laden, fly covered, excrement filled, schistosomiasis producing, old-dying-goat smelling liquid that doesn't even deserve to be called water, I wanted to vomit. Somehow, I managed to avoid any flesh eating plagues or at least ones with immediate, observable effects. Although in all likelihood, I probably do have schisto, if not from stepping in puddles such as the aforementioned then from swimming around in some abhorrent body of water or another. Well, at least I haven't started pissing blood yet. The flies and mosquitoes seemed ten fold what they were last year. September and October were the worst. Middle of the damn day and I'm getting assailed by mosquitoes. Thankfully, no malaria this year, knock on wood. Well, personal grievances aside, the rains were great and a welcome change. In some regions though, they were too much of a good thing. Nigeria had some devastating flooding and even here in the Gambia, the late season, heavy rains did more damage than good to the millet and corn crops. It's amazing how fragile this ecosystem is, precariously balanced between droughts and floods and made all the more vulnerable to either extreme by climate change. And yet the people carry on. At least this year people can take some comfort in knowing that hungry season won't be so hungry. Next year? Who can say?
Farafenni
My newest home, my fourth home, and as the title of this entry suggests, my final home for the duration of my service. Farafenni is a large town on the North Bank, not quite halfway up country. It's one of the largest commerce areas outside of the Kombo region as well as a significant trading hub with Senegal. It's population is about 30,000 making it by far the largest of the four places I've lived in West Africa (M'piebougoula - pop. 600, Kolondieba - pop. 5,000, Somita - pop. 1,000). It's certainly the easiest place I've lived thus far as well. Internet cafes, local restaurants, toubab shops, plenty of transport, paved roads, electricity... yeah man, it's a regular NYC... minus the electricity that is. I don't want to give you the wrong impression when I say things like internet cafes or restaurants. Picture half dilapidated shanties with a corrugate roof that happen to have a few computers and a router inside or a lady with a gas tank and a single burner shelling out egg sandwiches. That's about as sophisticated as we get here.
I am currently living on the outskirts of town with yet another host family. This was supposed to be a temporary housing situation while I looked for a renters compound/apartment elsewhere in town, but surprise surprise, three months later and I'm still here. Slowly slowly as they say. To be honest, my current digs aren't so bad. This host family is very welcoming, accommodating, and friendly just as my previous host families were. Communication is a bit of an issue. The family's first language is Wolof but they also speak Fula and Mandinka. I on the other hand only have the most basic grasp on Mandinka and can't do more than greet in the other two. A couple of the kids speak English but if they're not around I'm down to hand gestures and a pathetic mix of Bambara and Mandinka. I get by though. My actual house has been a bit of an issue. I live in a pentagonal, thatched roof hut. It has a diameter of about 15 feet and I also have my bed, desk, book shelf, and a small couch (all inherited from the previous volunteer) in the hut as well. It's certainly the smallest place I've ever lived. It's also falling apart. My roof has about 8 gaping holes in it now and that was a real bitch throughout rainy season. This is my first time living in a thatched roof hut and holy shit do those things get dank and moldy. It's getting better now that rainy season is over but for awhile there it was pretty gross. Mold everywhere! Mold on my food, mold on my clothes, mold on my bed, mold on my cigarettes, mold on my goat leather bound knives. If something got the least bit damp, it was mold covered within 24 hours, but at least that issue is behind me now. Everything's dried out since the rains have eased off in early October. Still plenty of pests in my house as well. The screens on my windows are falling apart, my back door has a large hole in the screening, made for or by the bastard of a cat I inherited, Toodles. Yeah, that's right. Screw you, Toodles. We're enemies. Spiders and cobwebs everywhere. I sweep them all out one day, they're back the next. Things like this used to bother me once upon a time. Now, it's just par for the course. I guess I'm adaptable.
Not only does my roof have multiple holes but I realized a month or so ago that it's literally being eaten and shat out on top of me. Let me explain... Not so long ago, I was sitting around, reading a book when I heard a conspicuous 'plop' sound. I looked down and found a corpulent white grub about the length of my pinkie finger but fatter which had apparently fallen from my straw ceiling. It had 6 tiny legs but all of them so close to its head that they seemed utterly useless, a mean set of jaws, and its ass-end was somewhat translucent with some sort of dark matter within. I'd never seen such a thing and was quite curious to find out what its writhing, fat ass might become. So I put him in a jar with some of the straw from my ceiling, named him Jerry, and waited. Well, Jerry died not long after and the only thing to come out of him was that mysterious dark stuff inside his ass. It was grub shit and in hindsight I guess that should have been pretty obvious. But I recognized this shit. It was the same stuff I had to sweep off my floor en masse every morning, I had just assumed it was dirt and debris falling from my roof. But no, apparently my roof is awash with Jerry's buddies and they're slowly eating it and shitting all over me. Happy days are here again.
So, those issues aside my arrangements aren't that bad. I have a nice shaded backyard with mango, papaya, and lime trees and I'm afforded a pretty nice view as well. The view is south facing over a nice expanse of bucolic farmland interposed by a grove of baobab trees and two massive, towering red silk cotton trees. The cotton trees are competed for day and night by literally hundreds of birds. In the lower branches you'll find at least a hundred weaver bird nests, the bright yellow males hanging upside-down below their nests attempting to attract mates. The middle branches are run mostly by starlings, metallic blue in color, extended tails, a screechy but not unpleasant call. They seem to swim rather than fly through the air; my favorite birds both in the Gambia and Mali. From time to time I'll spot a lime green parrot or two but they're rather uncommon. The crown, however, is home to most of the action. A slew of fishing birds, cranes, and vultures jockey for the best perches day and night with the losers being relegated to a shameful spot in one of the surrounding baobab trees. These trees are always animated and alive and I can easily pass an hour or two just watching the action. Mmhm, I like my backyard.
Work
Work is going well these days. I'm still at the Anglican Training Centre (ATC) school which is a branch of the Anglican Mission Institute (AMI) in the Gambia. It's an upper basic school and a senior secondary school (junior and senior high school) with a focus on agriculture and other vocational skills. My primary project has been redesigning the school's main garden and making it a classroom of sorts. The garden is 50m x 40m which is about ideal size for my purposes. When I first got there more than half the garden was consumed by weeds and grass taller than me, along with randomly placed beds of sorrel, okra, and cassava. It was in pretty poor shape but then again it wasn't quite gardening season when I arrived so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't always so scrappy. I have three farmhands working with me and I immediately became the boss of sorts, which is something I'm not quite used to. We started by cutting everything down and ploughing the garden ala donkey power. My counterparts only let me play with the donkey and plough for a few minutes, then they politely told me to go sit in the shade before I hurt myself. ...Shucks, really wish I would have gotten more time to toil with 7th century technology under the boiling African sun. After the ploughing we came up with a basic design for the garden, dug out the beds, and made pathways. We got a bunch of compost going, made 18 1.5m x 9m double dug beds (torture) then had to wait around until the rains stopped before we could start planting. The rains have since stopped and we've got tomato, hot and sweet pepper, basil, and cabbage planted in the nursery, the carrots are sown in their permanent beds, just planted the corn with nitrogen fixing pigeon pea. Banana plants are going strong around the perimeter of the garden. We still need to get the potatoes in and I want to start moringa and baobab tree permaculture beds. In fact, I'm trying to introduce a range of permaculture techniques not readily used in the Gambia. Simple stuff really, like proper composting and other natural fertilizers, double digging beds which increases the nutrient content of the soil, integrated pest management such as complimentary planting i.e. basil and tomato, carrot and onion, etc. as well as natural pesticides of which I have at least a dozen recipes for various pests, fallow planting, crop rotation, alley cropping i.e. planting the pigeon pea or other leguminous plants or trees with heavy feeders such as corn or tomatoes to provide more nitrogen in the soil... we have a bunch of stuff going on. Now if I can just get the students more involved. My hope is that these techniques will get picked up leading to better use of farmland, management of soil and resources, higher yields of vegetables without relying on expensive and damaging chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and improved food security all around. Finally, our tree nursery hasn't gone off as well as I would have liked but we still have some acacia senegal and acacia tortillas for live fencing, mango, and some moringa started.
My secondary project is beekeeping and its been a trial by fire thus far. The school already had a few bee suits, smokers, and five Kenya Top Bar hives (KTB). Only one of the KTB hives was colonized and that's still the case although we're trying to capture a few more swarms. In spite of having the tools, nobody at the school had much expertise in bee keeping. Neither did I but there happens to be a fellow pcv, Scott, about 13 K up the road who's been helping us get started. We went out one evening about a month ago to check on our one colonized hive. The dearth period was just ending and the bees were beginning to forage again now that there was something to actually forage for. Since the bees hadn't been disturbed for several months they were just about as aggressive as they could be. As soon as we opened the lid they were all over us. I teetered back and forth at first trying to suppress the urge to run the hell away... which, let me tell you, is a pretty strong urge when there are a couple thousand bees all over you, bee suit or not. Our bee suits weren't that thick so we were getting a lot of false stings as well. You could feel the bees stinging you all over but they couldn't get close enough to really get the venom in. I was just getting acclimated to this sensation when the bees managed to find a hole in my suit... And then shit got real. All of a sudden I had about a dozen bees flying around my face and I'm running around at dusk, tripping over neem trees and the barbed wire fence surrounding our apiary thinking why the fuck is there a goddamn barbed wire fence here?! Really should have done something about that before we went bee keeping. Eventually, I was able to get out of the danger zone and had to repeatedly smack my face to kill the bees under my hood. But not before I took enough stings to make it look as though i got decked in the face. Honestly though, it didn't really even hurt that bad, it was mostly just fear. And thankfully I'm not allergic to bees. And um, that barbed wire fence is still there. But damn, was that honey good, yessir. I got another chance to go out a few days ago, this time at Scott's village, Wallalan. Things went much better. His suits are a lot thicker so no stings of any kind, no holes in my suit this time, and the bees were much calmer. We just did a bit of hive maintenance. Unfortunately there wasn't any honey to take. Beekeeping is pretty awesome though, looking forward to continuing it in the States.
Transport
Still a pain in my ass. Some days its better, some days... it's beyond miserable. If I want to leave Farafenni and go west to the capital/Kombo region, I have two options: North Bank or South Bank. Farafenni is located on the North Bank and Kombo is on the South so at some point I have to cross the Gambia river. If I go South Bank I have to bike 7 or 8k to the ferry crossing between Farafenni and Soma, take the ferry, bike another 7 or 8k to a volunteer's house in Soma and drop off my bike. Then I have to take a gelee (ancient vans packed with 20 - 25 people, super uncomfortable, slow, many stops) the rest of the way including a 50k span of unpaved road until I reach Brikama. Then I take another gelee from Brikama to Westfield and finally, a short taxi ride from Westfield to Fajara. It's the longer route in general. Plus the gelees are notorious for getting flats on that unpaved span. The last time I took this route we got a flat and the driver forgot to fill up his spare tire. I thought I was going to kill him. The other route is usually the better bet. This involves heading to the garage in Farafenni, getting a sept place (station wagon with room for 7 passengers) and driving along the North Bank highway from Farafenni to Barra. Not only is this route shorter, it's completely paved. Once I get to Barra I can either take the ferry or what we call a small boat (large pirogue that should fit 50 people but its usually crammed with about 75 or more, boat has a single outboard motor). Now that I'm at the mouth of the river/Atlantic Ocean it's substantially wider. I think the crossing is about 3 or 4k. The ferry is slow as hell and its engines have a tendency to stop working which can leave you stranded for hours just floating around the mouth of the river. The small boats are a lot faster... but it is a small boat and you probably don't want to be in it when the weather gets rough. Guess who was in a small boat when the weather got rough? Oh yeah, we're coming to that. Anyways, once I cross the river the worst of it is over. Then it's just a short gelee ride from Barra to Westfield and then a shorter taxi ride from Westfield to Fajara were our office and transit house are located. At this point you might be asking yourself, "Why not just cross the bridge?" Well that would be because there is no bridge. Yep, a country that is pretty much all river but doesn't have a bridge. It's grand, let me tell you. So one day I was heading back to Faraefenni from Kombo with Scott during rainy season. I immediately wrote down a thorough description of the small boat crossing once I got to my house. Here is said description (note: I considered editing this but nah, I'm not gonna. I feel that would be a grave disservice to this blog)...
9/05/12
Transport from Kombo to Farafenni today: Took a small boat as usual... Sitting in the sun, relentless fuck that it is, no shade. Captain cramming every last person on that he can. Storm is moving in, waves choppy and growing. Thunder not so distant. Gambians on board start pleading with the captain to go but the boat isn't full to his liking. We wait. I move off the top railing and into the bottom of the pirogue where there is a bit more shade. Immediately realize sea sickness had a much stronger hold on me down here. Immediately lost my previous seat. Time passing, sun burning, nothing happening but more people getting on the boat. Finally, anchor up, motor running, we're off. Propulsion of the boat is mercifully negating worst of the side-to-side assaults of the waves. Sea is still getting rougher though. Down in the bottom everyone is feeling the waves. Little wind down here, less space. They're all doubled over, face in hands. I'm trying to distract myself by looking at the parrots somebody's smuggling to who knows where but I concentrate on them too much. Now I'm feeling it. The man across starts passing around matches. People take them and chew on the non-business end. I don't take one, doubt it'll do anything. Engine stalls out and the rocking of the boat immediately triples. I look up at Scott, still on the top rail and ask how far out we are.
"Half way" he says "or maybe a little more."
An old man jumps off the railing into the bottom of the boat and immediately starts yacking. I can see it all. Looks like he had beans and spaghetti for lunch, must not have been long ago. Gritting my teeth now, really getting pissed. Endless mantra running through my head: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this fucking country! This country is a fucking river with a little land on either side but not one fucking bridge. Oh, oh, Ok there are two bridges but they don't fucking count because they just cross tributaries. Not one fucking bridge connects North bank to South, so there! FUCK! fuck fuck fu... engine rolls over, moving again, about fucking time. Girl directly across from me starts puking. Everyone on top and bottom look ill. Only the apprento seems undisturbed as he collects the fares. No, not undisturbed. He's disgusted by the weak constitutions surrounding him. Still in the bottom. Can't see anything but the sky directly above me. Captain starts cutting the engine off and on. We're slowing down as he maneuvers to dock the boat on the north shore. Somethings wrong though. We're tangled in at least one other pirogue's anchor line, perhaps two. It's hard to tell. The pirogue to my right is being smashed into ours by the waves. Waves still growing. We can't actually dock. Still caught up in the lines and half a length shy from where the operantos can carry us to shore on their shoulders. Over half the passengers storm the boat to the right so they can get out from there but all their weight is on the left side. Now it's hitting about 75 degrees everytime a wave hits it. Thinking for sure this is gonna roll over, top down on my boat. A giant, 120 foot long , mahogany, ocean-going coffin. People on the second boat start distributing their weight more evenly. Boat calms immediately. Standing now. Several operantos are yelling at me at once.
"Come wit me!"
"No, wit me NOW NOW!"
"Take my hand, boy!"
"No dis way! Come come!"
Water isn't deep, but I have my iPod, phone, money, bag full of shit. Boat next door is still crashing into ours with every pounding wave. Could easily get knocked out and go under. Unnoticed in an opaque sea and a sea of people. Shit, could easily get my head crushed like a mellon. I tell all the operantos to fuck off, I'm waiting until things calm down. Captain is finally trying to maneuver the pirogue out of the lines. Ropes are criss crossing over us as he backs the boat back out to sea. Four or Five apprentos from other boats are on board now, everyone's screaming directions at each other and at the passengers still on board. An older man falls down hard from the top railing into the bottom of the boat.
"Watch out!"
"Here! Come over here"
"Grab da rope"
"Get da fuck out da way, man!"
"No, now stay dere, stay dere!"
Same old man falls again, this time into me. Wave hits and we both go down. Right in somebody's vomit. Why the fuck not? Finally, boat is untangled. New problem. The boat is parallel to shore. Gonna tip over for sure. How could it not? Every wave is pushing us closer to 90 degrees. Captain gets us perpendicular again, somehow. Rocking subsides. Neighboring boat is still smacking into us but not as hard. I cross over and move off the left rail towards middle of the boat.
Apprento yells to me, "Hey toubab, you don't get off my boat you owe me 25 Dalasi."
"Fuck you" I throw back. Immediately realize that was a mistake. This guy is fucking jacked. They build these boats by hand, haul anchors up by hand, haul passengers to and from shore on their shoulders, haul 50k rice bags to and fro all day, everyday. Shiiiit. He's too busy to pay me mind though. Lucky. I gain my footing and head towards the nose of the second pirogue. Climb onto an operantos shoulders. Out of the surf, he drops me down and I'm on my feet, on dry land. One more crossing in the books. Don't anybody ever tell me infrastructure isn't worth investing in. I'll kill you.
Summary
So that more or less sums up the last three months. Just under five months to go. As always, I don't know where the time has gone. I still have plenty of work to keep me busy through March. I have a trip planed to Guinea at the end of this month. Mini hot season is about over and cold season is creeping in. I sincerely hope its my last season in Africa... at least this go around. Just can't do another full hot season. That shit sucks. I'm happy I decided to stick with it though. Finally feel like I'm on the verge of accomplishing something here, small as it may be. On top of that, I'm still learning new skills, learning more about myself, meeting great people, and having some awesome adventures, like that boat ride or that beekeeping fiasco... or, wait a minute. Well, some are more awesome than others. Cheers for now.
P&L
Rege
