so whats been goin on you ask?

well ill tell you. ill start with last weekend, where we went down to the presidents village, Kanilai. It was hosting the 4th international cultural festival. It invites groups from mostly west africa but also as far as south africa to perform for the masses in a free 2 week festival. me, renee, baboucarr (our teacher/best friend in the gambia) tyler and iben. we took "public transportation", big old vans called gelli gellis that cram as many people as they can into em. It was about 2 hours to get there. It went from about 5 till 2am. When we got there around 4, the groups were entering the open field area where they would be performing. Groups from all over gambia, guinea-bissau, mali, senegal, sierra leone mauritania were there. the first few hours were just all the groups playin their own music styles, dancing and basically just performing for themselves. Some really crazy costumes, guys on stilts. As the night wore on, groups performed one at a time, while the president Jammeh, watched from his pimp giant leather couch.
The individual performances were the best. We saw people do some things that really question my lack of beliefs. Many people have a belief in JuJus, this little pouches mostly cover protection. The most popular is protection from knives. we watched a man, with a sword, slice a mango in two, then proceed to vigoursly attempt to slice himself all over his body, legs, arms, torso, even cheek. My favorite magical act was a man, he had a basin of water, emptied the basin on to the ground in front of us. Placed the empty basin in a bag that was clearly empty. said some stuff...did some stuff....pulled out the basin...all full of water again!
that to me, was the craziest
There was lots of very impressive acrobatics works. flips and semi-breakdancin stuff. all very impressive. the guys on stilts, they would kick up past their heads, with the stilts on. how they stayed on up is beyond me.
the festivities ended around 2am. from there, well we hadnt planned any sleepin arrangements, we figured we would just crash with some local performers. it took us maybe 30min, but we were able to find the group from our area. they were sleeping outside, but gave us some room on their mats and we laid down outside under the best stars ive seen since i arrived here and slept for a few hours.

in other news, my camera has been stolen from our house, so pictures will be a bit more sporadic.

this past weekend (cont.)

Woke up early Sunday morning in our little hotel. Its was similar to a french bread n' breakfast. Being that the country is francophone, our English, we soon discovered, would not get us far. None of the staff spoke english, so our collective knowledge of french and wolof was utilized constantly. Soon pictures will be put up that will go along with this blog to give you an idea of what I will be talking about. The island is small, you can walk from end to end in less then 30min. It has only one beach, and the rest of the island is rocky with a section of soaring cliffs at least 100ft high. Renee and I spent the first half of the day exploring the coastline of one side of the island. We walked on the rocks about half way around the island, sometimes scaling some sweet boulders and basically just "scrambling" for a few hours. After lunch, it was adventures with the locals. Walking around, using french and wolof to communicate with the local artists. I was surprised as to how much french i actually understood when locals talked to us. Everyone living on the island is used to tourists, mostly french speaking tourists though. I found that communication consisted of them talking to me in french and myself responding in wolof. Senegalese wolof is different from gambian wolof in that senegalese wolof is influenced by french whereas gambian wolof is influenced by english. Leads to a little confusion but we mostly got by. Monday was spent in a similar fashion, walking around the entire island, swimming a wee bit at the little beach and doing some touristy type activities (consisting of buying arts n' crafts for you kids back home). The trip home was a lot less stressful and even boring in fact.

past two weeks and this past weekend

for the past two weeks, a group of professors have been staying in the Gambia, half of which were staying in our home. They were brought over by Bill Roberts (the head honcho for the program), i guess in an effort to expand the faculty involved with the exchange program. They all taught lectures at UTG at least once, were able to travel up country and learned how the Gambian educated community interacted. I personally didnt see too much of them due to time conflicts, whereas most of the other students were able to go to the beach with them, my internship, which keeps me out of the home all afternoon didnt allow it. This was fine with me, but getting to know some new profs. would have been nice. This past weekend, all us students and the profs went on a trip to Dakar, senegal, from which they returned home. It started sat. morn, getting into the van around 6am in an attept to catch the 7am ferry across to the north bank. Of course, while picking up some of the profs from one of the hotels, i realized that the one thing i needed most, my passport, was still at home. So bill told me that i had to hire a taxi to take me back to the house and then to the port. they wouldnt wait for me if i missed the 7am ferry but would wait on the other side. Being that anyone can pretty much be bought here, i bribed a worker from the hotel 200dalasi (9$) to haul ass to the house and then to the ferry. Managed to make it just fine, and caught up with the group. Of course the port was packed already so we missed the 7am ferry...and the 8am ferry...but we caught the 9am! From there it was less then one hour to the gambia/senegal border. Then we find out that our driver, has forgotten his ID card, and wont be allowed to cross into senegal without it. We have to wait from 10am until 1pm at the border for his company to send someone with his ID card up to us. During this time i spent chatting with locals. I made a friend on the gambian side of customs and sat with him while he checked peoples bags coming into the country. i watched him take a few bribes, and deny a few people access to the entry. All in a days work apparently. Finally the ID card came and we were able to cross. From there it was only about 6hours to Dakar. We hit the city, on a saturday night around 7pm. massive traffic. Now none of us have had a real meal since 8am. Although i had been under the impression that we were staying in Dakar, it turns out we actually arent staying in the city at all, but on an island off the coast called Goree (gore-a) island. Although it was beautiful and picturesque and lots of interesting locals on the island. I was dissapointed because i was very interested in the city itself. All of the city that we saw was driving through it at 1030pm looking for the ferry port. Well anyway, when we get into the city, we go to the airport, to meet one of the professors friends, from college who now lives in Dakar. We are going to his house or something because the professors dont want to take their large luggage items to the island when they fly out monday morning. This guys house is phenomanally beautiful, amazing old art pieces, fantastic furniture and crazy sand art, and here we are, having been in a van for 12 hours looking disheveled and starving. Hes a perfect host, pulls out snacks (which we devour) and booze. The professors and some of the students have wine, gin&tonics, and cognac (which comes in a bottle shaped like the eiffel tower). There was no way i was about to start drinking with no food in my belly except for some peanuts and what looks a lot like chex mix (in Senegal?!?). Now im not writing online that the profs get drunk or anything, but they certainly got festive and into this whole party atmosphere created for us. There is light jazz playing in the background, wife is serving drinks and snacks, and i just want to pass out from traveling all day. Finally we all head out, the profs are boisterous on the van, and we drive into the thick of DKR looking for some port to goree island. Of course we get lost a few times but eventually make it to this ferry and board it, heading for parts unknown.
Apparently this island was a former trading post for slaves as well as a WWII outpost. So there is a bunch of interesting history. Its current role is home to many senegalese, most of which who are artists selling their wares to the flocks of tourists who arrive every year. Basically bill roberts has brought us to this island to be tourists and work on our wolof. This is fine with me, except i had been working under the impression we were going into Dakar to explore the city. Whatever, well its 8am now so ill finish this later

life is super busy

so my life has become really busy as of late. Ive started teaching computer skills lessons at CPA everyday from 230-4. thursdays are my busiest days. class at 830-10. class 1-230, teaching comp lessons 230-4 class 5-630. i enjoy all of it but now classiest are starting to actually assign work and its getting to be real busy. Exam and paper next week in Peace&conflict studies, Exam and paper in Urban&rural sociology, presentation in juvenile delinquency. now we are going to dinner at the Vice-chancellors of the Univ. of Gambia house. so im out!

hey im not dead but my comp is

hey so im not dead but my computer is. im working on it but its not exactly top priority. i just put some pics up from an adventure to an art village to do some tie n' dye work.

http://community.webshots.com/user/rrekekim


peace out

an exciting weekend in the gambia

heres what i did this past weekend. The weekend before i went upcountry for the weekend. But its way too much to write becuase im lazy/tired/sick of computers that suck. it will come soon. also check out pics. "upcountry with renee" will give you an idea how that trip was. "Weekend adventures 4/28" is from this past weekend

4/28 was sierra Leone’s independence, due to massive civil wars in the country over the past two decades, there are a great deal of refugees in the country. The independence celebration consisted of a parade (march pass) through a few towns in the greater Banjul area. It started in Bakoteh, wound through Serrekunda and into Serrekunda market (largest and biggest market in the country) then up to Kotu, at least 10K in total. Our day watchmen/friend Mohammed Lo works and lives in our compound. He makes sure we survive The Gambia. He is from Sierra Leone, and told us about the celebration. My tailor/friend, Iman, he is also a refugee and told Renee and I that he wanted to take us to the celebration. We didn’t realize we would be walking in the parade. The parade consisted of hundreds of Sierra Leonean singing and dancing, walking through the streets together. There was a truck blasting music, keeping them all hyped up as well as some traditional demons characters that were dancing and scaring the crowds. To make things even more interesting, apparently the permit the parade applies for from the government every year allows for drinking and pot smoking in the parade. This means that it’s totally legal for everyone to get ripped (very drunk and very high). No worries readers at home, I only had a few beers. Anyway, as the parade progresses, everyone is passing around bottles and just getting drunker; we saw a few semi-scuffles in the crowds, but nothing big. Then to make it even more exciting, the parade route goes past (and into) two bars owned by a Sierra Leonean. So everyone hangs out at these bars for about an hour, refueling, and off the mob goes. We eventually decided to leave when it changed from a parade of people celebrating to a drunken massive crowd roaming the streets.

The next day, Sunday, April 29, I woke up around 830 and took transport into Banjul. My plan originally was to walk the stretch of beach between Banjul and Bakau, about 10 miles. I walked onto the beach around 930 and sat down for a few minutes to drink some water. I had been sitting for about 15 minutes when a group of Gambian guys rolled up and sat down with me. They were bumsters (Gambians trying to get my money) but when they learned that I wasn’t a tourist and not about to give up my money, they switched to friend mode and we sat and shot the shit for a few hours. So I didn’t actually start my excursion till just short of noon. I walked only a few hundred meters and I stumbled on a huge Christian cemetery (a rarity in a country of 90% Muslim). It was right on the beach, and it was pretty messed up due to the coastal erosion the Gambian coastline has faced. The insides of the cemetery were beautifully elaborate, with large individual graves that bordered on mini-mausoleums. The closer the graves got to the water, the more dilapidated and covered in sand they became.

Further on down the beach, I stumbled on another cemetery, this one was a small Muslim cemetery. However it seemed to have been totally abandoned, I could not find a grave after 1980. Most of the headstones were in shambles and some of the graves had totally collapsed. Many of them had trees growing out of the individual graves. As far as I could surmise, coastal erosion, had eaten up a massive amount of the beach, to the point where the beach had moved up to the cemetery. The cemetery was now part of the beach and in a less then a decade it seems that the beach would fully engulf the cemetery. From there I walked along the beach for another few kilometers. Banjul is an island, and by 2pm I reached the bridge the connects Banjul to the mainland. While walking towards the bridge, I had walked past what looked like an abandonded factory so I decided to approach it from the street. It turns out that it was a peanut oil factory. I asked the guard if I could go in and look around, he responded “what are you going to do for me?”. So I gave him 25dalasi (just short of a dollar) and he gave me the grand tour. He showed me all the different areas of the factory and walked me through the whole process, showing me each piece of equipment along the way. He made sure I took pictures of every piece of equipment. It was really interesting to see how much a dollar can get me in regards to services. By this point I was pretty exhausted, I had been wandering around since 9am and it was now close to 4pm. I walked out onto the main highway, Banjul Highway, and waited for transport. Unfortunately I was just outside of the city, so all the transports were full coming from the city. After about 20 minutes, I decided to just hitchhike. Within five minutes I was able to flag down a truck that dropped me off 10min from the house.

some sweet stuff

So classes were supposed to have started last Monday (9^th). We were warned that the first week of classes is always iffy. Most students do not show up because the course list has not been finalized. Lecturers don’t bother showing up because they know that no students are going to show up. Out of the six classes I was supposed to have last week, I went to four. Of those four, three of them had no lecturers and a handful of students. I did have a lecturer show up for one of my classes, however no other students showed up so he cancelled the class. I wasn’t annoyed by this, we had been warned that it was just the way things ran at the university. This week, all lecturers and students are expected to show up for classes. Yesterday morning I had my first class, Peace and Conflict Studies with Dr. Taal.

Dr. Taal is an interesting man. He runs one of the nation’s newspapers, The Daily Observer. It is paper that does not hide it bias for the current governing party. As Dr. Taal explained it to me when we had him over for dinner, the president himself will often call Dr. Taal and tell him to run an article about some good thing the president has done and Dr. Taal does so without hesitation. The papers first job is to always spin the president in a positive light, its second job is to inform the public. Dr. Taal claims that he is an anarchist who is just out to make a buck and he doesn’t care how to do it. The president pays him good money to run this paper, so he does it. He is teaching this class, Peace & Conflict studies based on his own experience traveling throughout Africa. He has been to every nation on the continent and has seen first hand the many different conflicts that are tearing Africa apart. He has many strong opinions about politics and does not hesitate to share them. It will be a very opinionated class and I plan on approaching everything he has to say with a quite a large grain of salt, but I am sure that a man with his experience and two doctorates will have some good things to say.

This weekend was a good weekend. On Friday we were invited to a fruit liqueur distillery, Kim Kombo, by some Peace Corp Volunteers. Twenty of them has just finished their three month orientation upcountry and had been sworn in that afternoon. Following in the footsteps of tradition, about 50 of the volunteers, new and old go to Kim Kombo every year and get liquored up. 150dalasi ($5.50) got you unlimited access to their alcohol. Needless to say, it was a good time had by all. I really enjoy talking to the Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs).

They have a very interesting perspective on life for Americans in the Gambia. Many of those who are well into their stay are jaded by their experiences and feel that the good they can do here is limited. A few of them believe that PC is not needed in this country. Upcountry, where most of them are stationed, PCVs feel that many of the villagers sit around and wait for PCVs to come in and do much of the hard work. It defeats the purpose of PC, which is helping to set up sustainable methods of improved lifestyles in the country. The villagers know that when one PCV leaves, another will be ready to take his/her place.

This is not to say that PCV is actually useless in the country. They have set up a majority of the IT in the country as well as brought in a good deal of western education involving health and education. For example, my favorite PCV, Dan, from Toms River NJ, is working in the health field. Type two diabetes is rampant throughout the country; unfortunately there are many areas without the proper refrigeration required for insulin. However there is a tree which provides leaves that, when made into a tea and drank daily; provide the same benefits as insulin. He has been working to create a sustainable system for harvesting the leaves that can be used long after he has left the country.

Dan is my favorite PCV, unfortunately he is stationed about 150 kilometers upcountry. This weekend, Renee and I are going to travel upcountry on our own to visit him. It requires getting to the ferry crossing around sunrise and followed by a twelve hour Gelli Gelli ride on some exciting (terribly rough) roads. Gelli Gelli’s are bush taxis. They cram as many riders as they can into large vans and go driving all over the country.

On Saturday Renee and I went with Dan to an auction being held by the US embassy. They were auctioning off everything including, office supplies (shredders, copiers, and printers), air conditioning units, lamps, tables, motorcycles, cars ands bikes. The bikes were the last thing being auctioned and Dan needed to get three of them for himself and other PCV’s. The going rate always ended up around 2000 dalasi ($70) regardless of the condition of the bike. Many were without seats and plenty lacked wheels, brakes or chains. We managed to get three of them for a little more then 6000 dalasi. Originally we thought we would just hang out while Dan did jumped into the fray but apparently after you win an item you have to pay for it immediately. Dan put me in charge of getting the second bike while he was paying for the first one. I got to yell out a few bids and all sorts of exciting stuff. The prices quickly went over our cap though so I never won anything. He managed to procure more money from another PCV later and got a hold of the three bikes he needed. Afterwards, we went into Bakau, an area much more active then Kanifing Estates where we live, to explore. Our adventures there included: Walking into random homes asking if they sold food, walking into random bars looking for cheap drinks and talking to a random British tourist couple who travel the world smoking pot.

On Sunday, Renee took me out to breakfast (because I was broke) and then we bought a kilo of mangoes for a dollar. We decided to go up to Bakau again and see what there was to do. We went into one of the sweetass resorts and ate some mangoes on their beach and passed out in the shade. Then we went down to the pier where all the local fishermen bring in their daily catches to sell. It was madness. Mad Props to the fishermen, I will have to play tourists at some point soon and take my camera down there. I hate looking like a tourist though. Hence the absence of any new pictures. Afterwards we decided to try and find Baboucarr’s (our Wolof instructor) compound. It is deep inside Bakau and required actually applying out knowledge of the local area to find it. Of course, being that we kick ass, we found his compound and hung out with him for a few hours. In the Gambia, you don’t call ahead to see if someone is home, you just roll up and are invited in.

That was my sweet weekend in a nutshell.