RAMAGEDON

Every year 70 days after Ramadan people celebrate the day of sacrifice to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to slaughter his son for the sake of God. God when he saw that they were willing to sacrifice everything said they could use a ram instead. So a few days ago my suburb was inundated with Baaahhhh! Baaaaahhhh! Everyone no matter the cost purchases a ram at prices that skyrocket to about 4-5 thousand dalasi ($150-$200) this sum normally 1-2 thousand dalasi will get you one male sheep.

This is rather intense so beware...

Steps in Tabaski

1.Buy a male sheep. The bigger the sheep is… the more you can show it off. Sheep picking is an art and a large ram is like a BMW it says I have money and look at what I bought with it. a water guzzler that can mow down a strip of grass in 5.5 minutes, complete enhanced features of large horns and a loud baaahhhh costs extra but is as worth it as a sun roof would be on your BMW. 

2.Wash your sheep. Riding in the trunk of a taxi or on top of a bumpy van can be dirty. Your ram must be clean. Small boys can be contracted for approx. one piece of candy per child so scrub your ram with laundry soap (at least in this case).

3.   On the day of Tabaski the men go out and pray in the morning, women prepare the onion sauce.

      

4.   4. Grab a sharp knife. I have to say that I was dreading this. I wanted to see it for the culture of it all and because I feel in America we don’t have a good grasp of what we are eating. It is much different to look at the glassy eyes of something that is munching quietly in the yard… and then they serve you its liver in a mustard sauce in one hour flat. It was intense!

      5. WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES!!!! Then you hold it down say a small prayer and start sawing. I witnessed a few of these and helped hold down the big one in the picture. I looked away about the time he hit the jugular and the blood began to spray. My neighbor explained calmly as he finished sawing through “don’t be sad. All sheep dream of this day. He is a sacrifice for allah and today he will be in paradise” I didn’t say it but my thoughts were “No he is not really happy with your decision to end its life and the only place he is going is into the onion sauce.

d                      

                               Sorry about that

      6. Separate ever part of the ram into consumable quantities

      7. Less than an hour the ram is cooked and served. One bowl for maybe 8 people. You eat with your hand navigating small children’s dirty hands, pieces of unknown organ, chips of bone, and all the while you try not to think about how you were just petting it a few hours ago.

In memory of the thousands slaughtered. I tried to add some humor to lighten this post up
 but honestly I am going back to being a vegetarian here soon I do not have the stomach for this.
Literally

TV, Radio, and Meeting the President

Me meeting the President of The Gambia Yahya Jammeh and receiving a brand new blue Kaftan... to compliment the green one I am wearing. Next to him stands Ambassador White and Peace Corps Country Director Cornish

This seems to have been a particularly eventful month... in the course of the last three weeks… I have

1.  Danced on the most popular TV show in the Gambia, the Fatu show… it is like the Gambian equivalent of Opra. (I am trying to upload the video try the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpFQZaLGmzQ&feature=related … I come on at about minute 7) From this one performance, I have now ran into no less than 10 people who recognized me on the street. This is not really a good thing as I am now tired of being the token white person. I can now hear them say in the local language: “oh the white man can dance.” Along with other local phrases that sometimes come up “The white man has too much money” “Give me your bicycle” (popular among kids) “Buy me a football” Much of this is said without knowing I can hear, other times it is a joke but really… it isn't. In the city, continually being thought of as a tourist and having to prove yourself not is very tiring. This is where the primary advantage to the village stands out, in the village everyone knows you and kids screaming “toubob (white man) give me minty” subsides.

2. Been on a local radio station where I described my work as an environmental volunteer in The Gambia.  I talked about my business training and how important it is to understand business. I explained how I taught depreciation by talking about how a pair of cheap sandals may cost 30 dalasi and break in a month. Every day you will have to save 1 dalasi to be ready for the day that the sandals break. Everything in your life is no different, if you want to be prepared for the day it breaks you must save. I also explained how planting cashew to modify your normal groundnut (Peanut) field will lead to food security in more diverse crops and different harvest times will benefit your farm for longer!

Peanuts kind of look weird to when you first pull them out of the ground

The President's Village of Kanilai

3. All of us Peace Corps volunteers got to visit the president at his village/incredible resort.  His official name and title is His Excellency Sheikh President Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh Naasiru Deen Commander In Chief of The Armed Forces and Chief Custodian of the Sacred Constitution of The Gambia. His Excellency gave us two incredible meals, outfits, and a night of entertainment. This was all to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Peace Corps. In his speech, the President Professor Dr. Jammeh mentioned that he was taught by a Peace Corps volunteer in his youth.  I believe that the Gambia is very unique in that we volunteers make up most of the US’s presence in the country, and being such a small country, we interact with the government probably more than almost any other country. All in all it was an unforgettable night.

Peace Corps Director Cornish waving before his speech

Other speeches were given by the US Ambassador, the Peace Corps Country Director, some ministers of the government and speeches by volunteers of the 5 languages that Peace Corps now trains in. It was very inspiring to hear the passion that being in a country 45 years will get you.

We happened to all dress up in traditional Kaftans though I no longer rock the pink… the bright green does me some justice.

Me and my friend Alex had a group picture in matching outfits. Complete accident.

Waiting for lunch in the heat of tightly sown outifts

Work

The site in Birkama where the Jawneh sons already have a small cashew business that we are helping to expand

My program manager Moise and my co-worker Ccott on site at Fass. In the background is the building we hope will store cashew and be a cutting center for the women of the village.

I have now begun a mix of bees and cashew construction projects. The cashew work, being in line with my assigned work at IRD in are ever illusive quest to place cashew processing equipment in a village setting.  Our quest for the equipment has taken us to hire construction companies to build foundations  in the buildings where steamers, dryers, and cutters will soon be placed. IRD is not running at the highest efficiency these days or any… but we have hope that this month fancy Indian equipment will be set down in the port of Banjul and allow us to take the next step on something that has never been done in West Africa!

The site in Fass of our hopeful processors

Me and some volunteers just back form bee keeping at Bee-Cause

The Bees well… I have a childhood fear of bees, which I figure I should conquer. So I have begun part time work at a local NGO Bee Cause dedicated to helping promote sustainable bee keeping in the Gambia. I am embracing this opportunity because after working in an office doing research, contract writing, and bid justification getting stung by the aggressive African honey bee (same as “killer bees”) makes me feel alive, in Africa, and in the Peace Corps. I hope that my work here will increase dramatically, and you will soon have posts on all different things about BEES and honey and wax and hives. I can’t wait.

Happy Halloween

So in keeping with Halloween I stumbled upon the scariest spider I have ever seen!  With a web the size of my body and discarded fly carcasses I approached for a photo shoot 

Where I Live: The Manjai Dump

There are few words that describe some of the places I have been or the things I have seen since I have been here. I figured I would start creating a pictoral account of every place I have visited.  I was going through all of my pictures and I wanted people to get a feel for what Manjai Dump is like.

Manjai Dump is situated maybe a 10 minute donkey ride from my house and my weekly bag of trash that I give to my local garbage man (man on donkey cart) ends up going to the dump. The dump itself is a place unlike anything I have ever seen. In my mind I remember describing it as "The Mouth of Hell"

Unlike the Buba Gump shrimp company this is trash

There are mounds of trash.

Trash on fire

Trucks and tires in the trash 

Donkey carts of trash

Dogs rummaging through the trash

Tractors of trash

People Riding on the Tractors of trash

People searching through the trash

Food stands for hungry people in the trash

Children searching for valuables and discarded clothes amongst the trash

Entire mountains of pills, syringes, and discarded pharmaceuticals

A haze of toxic smoke above the trash  

And of course ever animal imaginable eating the trash.

Thanks, I plan to work on creating a clear picture on the things here. I don't know what I will work on next but hopefully it will be more uplifting as I personally found the Manjai Dump horrifying. 

Everything has its Vanquisher

The fog of culture shock has now worn off.  More and more it seems that it is more shocking for me to witness American culture in its day to day forms reaching out to me from radios and TVs that still somehow have the most recent hip-hop on them and overpriced American shampoo and deodorant that frequents a few shelves here.

I am however still caught off guard to see downright bizarre and funny products staring back at me from time to time in a land where there is no quality control or grammar correction. My favorite such product is the “Hongli Cockroaches Killer Paste” the label says that it is formulated to complex scientific principles the most important, “According to the Biological inadaptability principle, everything has its vanquisher!” One word, Epic! Science here must have come so far since I have been in the states, first the speed of light is exceeded, now it appears that instead of evolution, genetics, adaptability, we have the vanquishing power of inadaptability. After buying this exceedingly cutting edge product I brought it back to my house and attempted to vanquish the 1.75 million (*last census) cockroaches that have made their kingdom in my kitchen and occasionally send me envoys to my small bed room city state crawling on my body while I’m sleeping and causing me endless paranoia about how they morph under my mosquito net.  BEHOLD the Vanquisher! A small plastic syringe with green stuff… we are on day three and I feel like the vanquisher might be a little overwhelmed and misleading, to my dismay it says “a kind of effective method to kill cockroaches” on the side.  I think cockroaches here, some the size of small skate boards are immune to the “biological inadaptability principle”

I'm on a Boat!

This past week I was lucky enough to hang out with the US Navy on the HSV Swift. They took in a few of us volunteers and gave us the first American breakfast we have had in months (or years) for some. They were here to help train the Gambian Royal Navy.  So for the past two weeks I have spent time with some Navy folks, played some vollyball and frisbee and got to know what it would have been like to have taken a more militarized career path. Wow, Peace Corps Navy, they are both interesting and fascinating ways to see the world.  I think we have much in common as far as the sheer isolation is concerned.  We Americans are so used to having family, friends, and culture in easy access through a quick car ride, phone call, or a few clicks of the internet. Which brings me back to how it all effects you after the culture shock wears off and just you are left.    

Maybe I have been in the Gambia too long but it seems like goats are everywhere! I didn't know recruitment was down that much. Baaaaahhh means enter right?

The Death of Culture Shock and Insanity.

I am much more fascinated as of late to see how I have changed now that I am adapted. I am definitely not the same person I was when I came here. Heck I can't even tell who I was from 6 months ago.  When there is nothing around you to ground you to a sense of identity it is incredible what you discover about who you are or who you thought you were.

This is not always a good thing. I had a close friend tell me a few weeks ago, "If I had to do it over I would have punched the person who said I would be a good Peace Corps volunteer. There is no way I can recommend this experience to anyone and there is no way I would have done it over again had I had the chance. I liked the person I was before I came here. Now that I am here, I don't like the person I have become."  

Statements like this have haunted me, because though I feel very differently (ie I would absolutely do it over again), but there is a death of idealism. Across the board, every volunteer I have talked to has said the following things about their experience and how it has changed them.

Things Volunteers I know Have said about Peace Corps

• I have become more of a realist now. I am not out to save the world.
• I have a new view on Africa, aid funding, and development work. Usually these views are overwhelmingly that we should stop aid funding and that much development work actually is misguided through corruption and misunderstanding of need
• I have become more conservative. SHOCKER right. Myself included we have all seen how the misuse of aid and interfering in foreign economies usually does not help the entrepreneurship of that country when they are looking to start their own businesses. Usually, the mass grab for aid funding keeps these people from learning how to do business on their own. Too often the first world is looking over the developing world like an overprotective parent doing the work for them without the child learning anything. This says nothing about political affiliation, just conservative in allocation of funds to the developed world, and the merits of business when the markets are "fair trade"
• We usually due to days, months, and years of thinking gain new perspective on ourselves and what we want to do next in our lives
• We are not afraid of traveling anywhere. The world once in all its fearfulness is now a playground as many of us have confidence to be the only American in a crowd of 1000's
• Many of us pick up smoking to battle the stress of being the only American in a crowd (I have not, but I just work out all the time)

I think we have found our vanquisher. This culture and being isolated in a small box the size of Connecticut with 2 million Gambians changes our very selves. Personally I have noticed:

• I have a much longer attention span. I read 2000 page books, and then sit down to watch movies and am disappointed when it ends after 90min feeling like it just started and that I know nothing about the characters
• I have complex routines that slow me down including daily listening sessions to the BBC, yoga, meditation, weekly laundry that I do by hand in a wash bucket. Meticulous cleaning and picking up of things (an unheard of procedure for me in america)
• I feel like I have the capacity to be dedicated to things. Instead of hours in America, you have to think about Gambia in terms of days and months so a challenge to imbibe no sugar for a month is not as difficult because a month is a few hours in America. This gives me the impression I am in a relativity capsule where time is flying by back home and I will come back to a Planet of the Apes or conversely technologically superior race when I return to America. They will be using their I-Phone 7 as a tivo, video game system, camera, computer, breathalyzer, flotation device, frisbee, and/or hover coaster. All of which will leave me going "how do I text? to which someone will laugh and show me the ESP device where I can communicate directly with someone's thoughts" holy crap then!!! Everyone will look at me and say "Join us" in a creepy, "we are all one" voice. Then they will plug me in to the 'Steve Jobs' Memorial Hive Mind then it will be alright though because all thoughts will cease except for what i product to buy next... for example: buying our i-Bark (virtual dog) and making him speak (play music). Petting him (calling china)...feeding him (inserting our credit cards in his mouth is the only way to feed your i-Bark as he feeds on our credit and maybe someday our souls..) Shall I regress from my apple owned distopian future. 
• Hmmm finally ahh I might be going paranoid... maybe I should stop exposing myself to cockroach poison and DDT... I am going to end it here 

The i-Bark is coming! Be afraid

Peace Corps Training Village Resort

In Peace Corps terms I am now a sophomore.
In the midst of the rainy season, a new group joins us as volunteers.  For Peace Corps the Gambia, every six months marks the changing of the seasons of our Peace Corps service with the exiting of old volunteers and the entrance of new ones.  We now have 13 new education volunteers here to teach at The Gambia's schools, help train teachers, and IT volunteers to improve on Gambians' computer skills.

A Fond Look Back at the Peace Corps Resort:


Well for my end of Ramadan celebration me and my new younger Peace Corps brother Gabriel got to go back to the place where it all started for us.

Oh yes those were the days. Training village! Lets look back at how Peace Corps Resorts get their 5 goats of quality rating.

Meet the high quality Peace Corps pit latrine. Complete with foot markers, a cover, and wetness... now with 30% less flies. fine print Sadly higher rates of fire ant infestations may occur.

My former room... awww the memories

For the end of Ramadan. Everyone dresses up in single tone complets... some more groovy then others.

A view out of the resort you find many convenient features... like a small shack to buy bread and ahhh...

Served everyday... all day... at all times when sitting under the mango tree ataya... yummm green tea and 5 times your daily sugar allowance in a small glass!

Meet Dinner. Sorry but you got us up at 330am... that is an offense punishable by death and a light onion sauce.

Your well... please notice the goat outside of the well instead of in the well. Please see "Water with a Hint of Goat" for any questions regarding the goat content of your well.

I am going to make it short and sweet for today.
this is one of my favorite photos that I have taken here. I just haven't had a place to frame it so I'll just let it stand alone.

Spend the day in Peace

Cape Verde in Pictures

Welcome to the largely pictorial account of our trip to Cape Verde.  The images are mostly chronological and captions give you an idea of our adventures.  For the most part though I am going to let the pictures do the talking. (I will also include the similarities and differences between Cape Verde and Gambia)  

Difference 1: Cape Verde Treats its dogs better

Mostly

Difference 2: No bumpsters on the beach

Similarity 1: Same undying love of Barack Obama on everything made for sale

Similarity 2: Women still carry everything on their heads

Difference 3: Everything is in Portuguese. But our collective Spanish sufficed most orders
Similarity 3: Still have thatched roves though not as many

Tired of listing them out... but they are also fishermen, their boats however are much prettier

Things needed for trip: Good travel companions - check!

Cape Verde was stunningly beautiful everywhere. This is Mindelo.

The biggest thing that Cape Verde has that Gambia doesn't ELEVATION!

In our travels we spent the night with Peace Corps volunteers who lived and worked on a volcano in a pine forest
that is often above the clouds

This is the crater of an extinct volcano, inside lies a village of farmers who farm the still rich soil.

Ok, huge difference.  Cape Verde they built everything with rocks and even terraced the hills they farmed to prevent erosion.

Never seen before in the Gambia, behold: THE WOOLLY DONKEY! 

Our mountain Sherpa (a Peace Corps Volunteer named Scott) and Sharon.
Notice the beautiful cobblestone roads on the side of a cliff!

One of our magnificent hikes took us down the side of a vertical volcano face down through the clouds

Under the clouds, towns that farmed bananas, sugar cane, and coffee

A local cheese and grog maker had a side kick...
Grog is the national drink of sugar cane liquor that is brewed locally, it provides entertainment for the locals in the form of stumbling down steep volcanic cliffs

We went to see a local dojo of Capoeira martial artists.  Capoeira is a form of "dance fighting" popular in Brazil.  Cape Verde is also a big fan! 

We all enjoyed the finer things in life not found in Gambia... some it was wine. For me fresh coffee was everywhere!

We enjoyed food not seen or eaten by us in 8 months

On the ferry

The trip was an awesome invigoration for another round in the Gambia... Thanks for looking