Balding, Bees, and Impromptu Salsa with the Ambassador of Venezuela

Planet Bald - Population You

Planet Bald- Population: Almost every male volunteer but myself 

Reunited! Finally after months of separation volunteers from all over the country returned to receive In Service Training.  This included a number of exciting subjects that will be covered later.... but to my surprise, most of my returning friends, driven crazy by heat, went under the razor and were now bald.  


Am I now Gambian?

Upon landing on the Planet or Country (depending upon expert opinion) of Africa, the Peace Corp volunteers wearily venture out of their space pod to explore the strange new world. (That is in fact me in the bee suit pictured there)

Before I begin, it is becoming more difficult to write a post.  Life starts to seem quite normal here, and in my daily conversations with Gambians we start to wonder ourselves at all the amazing things that happen in America.  This week I sat down and had a conversation with Bahtu, a Peace Corps staff member.  He had visited the US, and started trying to explain a Wendy's drive-thru to the other Gambian staff members.  He switched back and forth to Mandinka, and the awe on their faces was a priceless.  Here lunch takes 2 hours to prepare and usually involves a large cooking fire, a giant metal pot, tireless stirring and maintenance, and possibly the slaughtering of one of the farm animals.  The idea that you can drive up to a building, ask for food, and then it appears out the window of the building in 2 minutes is nothing short of a miracle here.  




Afterward I took a video of him trying to relate what a parking ticket was in excited English and Mandinka.  If you watch the video, please also note that I am speaking in Gambian English, which is the only English I can effectively communicate in, it means speaking slowly and using phrasing that only a Wolof or Mandinka speaker would understand.  Phrases like "I am on my way coming" "Off it!" (Instead of turn it off), "have you lunched today?" and finally adding "eh" after most phrases is now common for me.  


Within this context, I find myself being able to relate to Gambian life more than American life.  This makes it really hard to write blog posts because I am having trouble thinking that my day to day life is that exceptional anymore, and I really have to try to pull myself to an outside perspective to realize that indeed there are so many things that I feel should be shared.

The Most Exciting Week Thus Far
Back to in service training, this past week we learned bee keeping, tree grafting, composting, water management, and general garden and planting ideas and solutions.  Meaning, this was the most interesting week of perhaps my whole service.  

BEES

By far the most exciting thing was learning about the African Honey Bee!  From a fear stand point.  The African Bee rules, they respond much more quickly to disturbances sending out swarms of bees and will pursue you for almost 4 times further than the average honey bee (about 250-300 yards).  All over the Gambia, they make large open air hives hanging from the massive baobab trees.  Sadly, traditional bee keeping in the Gambia usually involves honey hunters as they are called, climbing trees and killing whole hives by setting fires and burning them out.  This leads to declining bee populations and honey that is cloudy, sooty, and of poor quality. 


We spent a considerable amount of time learning about bees, bee keeping, and the large market and desire for Gambian honey.  Check out the video I took in one of the hives (also posted left, but of better quality on youtube) 

The pictures below document some of the interesting things learned from our beekeeping sessions.

Each of us were given baby bee hives in hopes that we would go out and catch our own bees.

This comb will be melted down to bait these top bars.

Dave a Peace Corps Volunteer putting down lines of wax on the top bars of bee hives to bait them in hopes
of catching bees.

Different than the bright white and yellow comb seen in the movie which was pure capped and uncapped honey.  This is older brood comb where the bees (drones and queen) reproduce and place their eggs.  Some honey is still at the top for their consumption.  The masses of bees on the edges are adding wax to enlarge the comb.

Some of us just like wearing Bee suits in case the world was to end... say like 3 Saturdays ago! 

Mick is an incredible man.  He has come to Gambia from England to promote local bee keeping with his wife, together they started an NGO called BEEcause.  It is a wonderful and truly selfless organization. He is preparing the smokers for action. 

One of the hives we investigated.  The signs for the closest tree are posted in front of each, every honey indeed tastes different and mango honey is awesome!

Other Activities During IST

Water and erosion management 

We built a dam as a water break to prepare for the rainy season.

Alternatives to gardening

As part of our IST this is a demonstration garden plot of lettuce using only peanut shells and a fertilizing chemical.

Pointless Games

In our free time, we pretend to be wizards and dwarfs and battle ancient fairytale creatures.  This picture commemorates me getting my butt handed to me by what I thought was just a potted plant... it later morphed into a Ancient Plutonium Dragon and I was roasted and eaten.

Composting

This amazing fellow has been living in the Gambia for about 40 years trying to help local farmers make and manage compost and bio-char (a potent fertilizer made from combusting organic waste without air). He is now 80 and still full of energy. He stands in front of a locally made solar dryer where fruit can be dried by superheated air.

Going to tree nurseries, this one was formerly sponsored by Iran, but no longer 

This means Mike can no longer run for president of the US in 2012.  This picture proves he went to a secret Iranian agricultural school! He must have been born in Iran.




All and all, this week was a truly once in a lifetime experience.

Finally Impromptu Salsa!

After a 6 month salsa drought... I found myself returning from a long day of beekeeping to the sound of salsa coming from a nearby restaurant. A few fellow volunteer friends were out on the patio so I decided to visit and watch what was apparently a salsa lesson going on... After watching for a few minutes, I decided to crash the lesson.  I went up to the instructor and tried to explain that I wanted to dance and found she spoke only spanish... I thought, "Oh, I know some spanish..." but upon trying all that came out was a weird spanish wolof mix as my wolof emerged in the midst of my decaying spanish.  This must have sounded quite ridiculous; regardless, I pressed on until I found someone in the class of only 4 who spoke English.  I explained my situation, and was allowed to dance with the instructor, a very scantily clad Lebanese woman, and a kind middle aged Venezuelan.  The latter two were novices, but we had a great time as I imagined my former glory days of salsa dance. I did quite well for not dancing in 6 months and trying to adapt to a different style of salsa.  In the end, I exchanged numbers with Carlos who said that he and the other woman worked with the government and were from Venezuela, and that we should all go dancing sometime at one of the local clubs (in fact the only one in the Gambia that has a Salsa night...).  Upon leaving I sat with my friends and was informed by the waiter that the lady I had just danced with was the Ambassador of Venezuela. Go figure!

I am going to write another extended post soon about my whole IST experience and some of the incredible things I have learned, until then I wanted to post what I thought was some really good photos and videos!


Be Beenen Yoon,
Until another time (actually translates to until another road, which I like as a unique cultural representation)

Roostatarian

This is the scariest most Godzilla like rooster I have found.  All the more reason they must be stopped!

You have heard of Rastafarian but I am resolving to be a Roostatarian.  Instead of some weird cultural movement or religion a Roostatarian has simply one conviction, to subside off of a diet of rooster meat.  My intentions behind this are simple; roosters are the bane of my existence.  The rooster does not crow to greet the day, it crows at whatever time it wakes up (here, usually at 5-5:30 depending on the mosque’s call to prayer).  It does not cease crowing really ever, it gets tired maybe, but will still squawk at regular intervals throughout the day.  If there are two male roosters it is worse.  To prove dominance I have watched two roosters awkwardly try to climb a mango tree to get the best position to squawk, all the while squawking each other in the face loudly.  This is too much for my sleep and sanity, what was a wolf spider day one, then a gecko, is now the worst trade off, a rooster.  Outside my window, they wait, wherever I go waiting to cookadoodaldo my sleep.  It is because of this, I think that I may be convinced to take my revenge by only eating rooster meat.  My thoughts have also drifted to having a C02 powered paintball gun which I can peak over the fence and painfully paint the scrawny roosters to teach them not to squawk at 5am.  For now my only salvation is finding the ear plugs in the morning.

Bumbles

Why is it that I drown the cockroaches I find (truly, large, scurrying and unkillable) and yet I find other insects adorable???  I don’t know, but for some reason I have become quite fond of the nest of bumble bees living in the roof of my bathroom shack (I have a shack with a toilet and water tap in the back of my duplex).  Anyway, some occasionally fall on their back in such a way they cannot get up (I think this is because of the smooth tile on the floor in the back).  The first one I found, I was particularly fond of naming it “bumbles” flipping him upright all the while giving him encouragement to fly after his tiring accident (Like “Oh bumbles you fell” and “Come on bumbles you can do it” in fact he flew away and was fine).  Others I help back into the nest, usually by letting them grab onto a broom and then holding them in from of their nest until they crawl back.  So far I have not been stung, but have been getting continually more paranoid that I will step on one as I make my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night as I have almost this done many times already.

Watching people watching me

So, I was recently surprised when I was looking through the stats on my blog and found out most people have been accessing my site recently from the UK?  I found the link and realized that I had entered into a tourism forum where a lady had found my blog and titled it “Interesting Blog by NGO worker, Gambian life” Complete with an analysis “He certainly has it sussed lol. If you read all his posts from the beginning you can see how his feelings for Gambia can be at variance in the same posting. He has a clear respect for the traditional Gambian way of life but hates modern Gambia with all the crassness its absorbing from the 1st world." It is fascinating to see how the internet forms connections like this over the web.   Also, we have a ridiculous chain of “I see you, you see me” because now, they will know that I know that I see them seeing me, and it could continue infinitely, but I will end it now by just saying hi and apologizing if anyone was offended by my comments on the royal wedding, as I have had some negative feedback on the polarizing comments. (I guess it up already as I just posted on there).

My main room after a few homey touches.

Just a note, if anyone wants to keep up with other friends of mine; most people access my site, and the site of other Peace Corps volunteers through Peace Corps journal which indexes all of us volunteers throughout the world.

Thanks

Spraying Mosquito Repellant in Open Wounds

Once again, serious and funny stuff for the day.

How do you save a continent? 

It is a growing thought of mine that leaving Africa to heal on its own is better than interfering with ignorance. That does not mean do not help, it is just that I experience many things here that tell me that just giving money to Africa does not help and may actually hurt!

One story as an example is that of my friend Kelsey and how she came upon a teacher spraying mosquito repellent into a child’s open wound; when asked why are you doing that, he replied, “It is in the medical kit I figured it would help.” A similar experience I had recently when visiting my family in village, Fatou my host sister had a tooth ache… which is understandable because most Gambians have a healthy addiction to sugar and know only about the tooth brush and nothing of floss. I have now started flossing all the time, because I can see many people have black lines of dying gums and teeth in the spots where a brush can’t reach. Anyhow, my host mother in an attempt to help pulls out the “medicine” (in wolof is the same word as fruit, translated literally as “child of the tree”) which consisted of assorted pills, some with labels other not. Amongst the heart burn pills and menthol drops meant as an inhalant, I realized that had I not been there, random pills some not even being edible would be consumed to fix a tooth ache. This is because people in the village are used to treating their illnesses with sticks that have been blessed from the local marabou (traditional healer). Our medicine is often treated in the same magical way, but no one has every really explained how it should be used. Here is an example of the discrepancy between intention and application in Africa. There are thousands of these examples from every Peace Corps volunteer speaking to this.

A pile of mittens from America being sold on the side of the road, on the bright side it seems clothes do stimulate the local economy.  Each pair there will go for maybe 10-20 dalasi or about 60 cents.On a 90+ degree day I do not know why anyone would want mittens though???

When we send money to Africa, the intention is good, but there is often no real direction to the money. The money is passed down from hand to hand, but no one take the time to figure out how to make an impact, and when it is received markets are built in the wrong place or it goes into the wrong pockets.  The key is education, "teaching a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime," is never more true than here.  Renewable technology, medicine, used clothes, all of it gets misused here, we need a way to teach and train people how to do it for themselves.  Furthermore it has created a culture of corruption and expectation.  They expect the white man has come here to hand out money or exploit them for money.  Never to teach them or be apart of their culture.  

Education is the key, education requires man power and cannot be fixed with books, money, clothes, or aid.  Figuring out how to educate Africa so that Africa can help it self is the only way for what we perceive of as poverty, hunger, and disease to disappear. We must be there to teach them or have dedicated people from Africa come here on our dime to learn it from us so they can go back and explain in the local language why it is not good to feed someone with a tooth ache vapor drops. 

My Work:

Currently, garbled skype calls to India have been the norm. I am constantly trying to pester cashew equipment supply companies in India to get back to us with their bids. Then trying to negotiate bids and set up reference checks. This is because IRD is setting up to buy a massive order of processing equipment which it hopes to give to 4 different villages in Gambia. I have been to each of these villages, danced, ate with the families, and sat under the tree brewing atia (a super strong green tea). I am undertaking things that I never thought I alone would undertake, and feel shocked that this NGO can actually use much of the help I can give. Hopefully, we will have ordered roughly $80,000 of equipment soon. I am just dreading doing the reference check which will further include me calling various African and Indian numbers over garbled skype lines.

Another captured geko from inside my house, shortly before his relocation.  This one looks much more life the GEICO Geko.

My Day to Day: My list of general day to day activities

• Read

• Do Yoga

• Meditate

• Go to the gym

• Play Frisbee at a British based research center with some British people and locals

• Go running on the beach

• Go to games night on Saturday and play board games with above mentioned brits

• Watch a traditional African band at the local theatre where many come to play

• Spend the night entertaining Peace Corps friends who are constantly coming into town to treat various amebas, bacteria, worms, or fungal problems they acquired in village.

• Hang out with random people I meet

• Have dinner with the house across from me (a nice Wolof family)

• Go to the market

• Of course work

• Visit friends up country to dig holes for trees

• Give counseling to friends on cashew trees

• Practice Wolof

This is currently my standard day to day life all of this mixed in.

 

Ferry of Doom

One of the many patrons waiting for the ferry. He subsided of trash and an apple core that I fed him.

There is no way to describe the Banjul to Barra Ferry. Chaos and purgatory come close, but waiting a combined 14 hours for a 3 day weekend trip going and coming is not fun. Our ferry adventure included: pushing a broken down van onto the ferry which we were stuck behind as cars attempted to and did cut us off, loud arguments with officials for not watching cars cutting us off, the asking for and passing of money, food, and even some cashew seeds to get into "VIP line" (the only one that moved) in order to get the vehicle I was riding in onto the ferry, large cattle which were borderline anorexic wandering through the lines of waiting cars, a man carrying an upside down adolescent hog tied goat in each hand onto the ferry, ferries pushing other broken ferries across the river, and 100 degree heat.

After eight hours of waiting, this is the ferry I finally made it on.

The only bright side was that a wonderful games weekend was had on the North Bank where I reunited with many friends I made during training. Frisbee, a mango eating contest, kayaking on the River Gambia, and settlers of catan were some of the wonderful games we played. I also bought 19kgs of cashew seeds in hopes to distribute them to all of my friends wanting to start cashew orchards in their village.

That is just a brief update, I have been putting off calling references in Tanzania and think that that is my next task for the day.

Me and some volunteers playing a game of spoons

Mango eating competition. How fast can you eat a plate of mangoes without your hands?

Thanks