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.

mangee dem si marse bi

past couple of days have been pretty good times. Went to the market on friday, i really enjoy going to the market. It is such an intense experience and i always leave it feeling rather physically drained. Being in the market requires being totally aware of your surroundings and your person every second. At the same time im still trying to engage local gambians in wolof. Buying some, using no english is good times. Bargained for some sweet ass blue fabrics less then 1$ a meter, I am going to use it to get pants made. Tailors are really cheap and all over the place, and they don't have fixed prices either. I am getting pants made for 150dalasi(6$ approx. ). Me and renee went with a friend of ours from the CPA. He said he was impressed with how well we communicated in wolof. Afterwards we went to his house, ate benachin which is a popular dish in gambia. Literally it translates to: One(bena) dish(chin).
Today i left the house early with the intention of goin to a few of the resorts to scope out the pools. Whenever you walk around these streets people always say "hey mike!", not because they know me but thats how white men are greeted in the Gambia. It bothers me that my name is mike in the gambia because i just fit the white guy stereotype. I avoid telling people my real name now, i go by Babucarr Bojang now. Anyway, i made it most of the way to the beach but decided to stop and talk to some random gambian guys instead. I ended up hanging out with them for a while. went to a compound, watched some weird nigerian movie, ate some bombass food then we went to the beach. There was a football(soccer) tournament that we watched for a while. Then we hit up a BBQ that was on the beach. Ate freshly killed goat on the beach with a bunch of gambians, I tried to use wolof as much as possible being that i was the only toubab(whitey) there.
ok im going to sleep now

my internship

So i started my internship last wednesday at the Childrens Protection Alliance. The CPA works to spread information throughout the country regarding childrens rights. A subject that is not known or cared about a great deal in this country. Any real legislation involving childrens rights wasn't even created until 2005 with the Childrens Act. Considering 65% of the 1.2 million in the country is under 24, you'd think it would be more of an important issue. Unfortunately, in a country dominated by Islam, children should be seen, not hear. I work directly with the national coordinator, doing what, I am not really sure yet. I am still learning how the organization works. The CPA itself does not work directly with kids, they work more with other organizations spreading information and working to raise awareness about childrens rights in the country. One of their projects, Voice of the Youth is run directly by children 10-17 who raise awareness among their peer groups across the country. I hope to work with them more then anything else. I have been really busy with the CPA's current project. Its something that is totally unheard of in the US. Its called the Worlds Childrens Prize for the Rights of the Children (WCPRC)
Every year, a jury of children are selected from countries all over the world. These children are victims of violation of their rights, whether that is trafficking, slavery, etc. They elect 3 from anywhere in the world that they feel have done the most for childrens rights. Then Books are published about the 3 nominees and sent throughout the world. Schools organizations in 83 countries receive books and the children act as representatives for the nominees. they make speeches and even hold rallies in favor of their candidates. Last year 11million children voted. This is the 4th year for the gambia being part of the program. Last year, 7 schools and organizations voted, a total of 6,000 children. This year it has grown to 18. We are hoping for about 10,000 votes this year. The CPA has been directly responisble for coordinating the voting process in the country. So far I have helped distribute books to a dozen schools. Yesterday(thursday) and today we went to a few different schools to see the voting process in action. Apparently they try to hold the voting in the same way as national elections so the kids will be more likely to partake in national elections. So now I have become the official photographer for the CPA. They asked me to take a bunch of pics of the voting process. Mr. Drammeh, my intern guy/national coordinator wants to send the pics to sweden, where the organization HQ is, they want pics of gambia partaking in the program in next years books. SWEEET
The pics are all online. check em out.

dear diary,

choco is a tool

love mike

i dont mean to rub it in your faces or anything, but this was pretty much the best "spring break" I've ever had. Technically it wasn't really spring break because I haven't had any classes, but while St. Mary's was on break, we went on a group trip "upcountry". Mudhuts, thatched roofs, and goats galore. About 65% of the country lives out past the city and suburbs in the rural villages. The first two days were spent on the south bank of the river. First off was a nature reserve/zoo, Abuko Nature Reserve, we saw lots of monkeys! There were hundreds of them all over the forest and they weren't scared of us at all. Thats how I got these sweet monkeys pics. A baboon grabbed a piece of paper out of my pocket and tore it to pieces. We talked with the director of the reserve and he echoed the feelings of most of the country in saying that they were broke and relied almost entirely on donations. They could barely pay their staff. Anyway, from there we headed to Tumani Tenda, a village on the south bank that runs an eco-tourism camp. Tourists come to this village to see all sorts of classic village life work. It is a great way for the village to make money enough to survive in their more traditional ways. Like most villages upcountry, they still do without running water or electricity. We met with their Alkalo (chief of the village), he didn't speak english so had to be translated for us. He didn't look anything like what I would expect a chief to look like. He was wearing jellys (a very popular shoestyle upcountry). We visited their school, played some football (soccer) with the kids. We spent the next full day their, speaking with the local herbal healer about natural remedies, we took a canoe trip up river, and basically relaxed in the sun. The roads on the south bank of The Gambian River are notoriously bad, which we learned getting to and from Tumani Tenda. Especially getting back to Banjul, we took a different route which, to us, seemed like we were just driving deeper and deeper into the countryside and not back towards Banjul like we were supposed to. The driver, Lamin, said he knew where we were going the whole time, so we just sat back an enjoyed the ride. Every single group of children we passed reacted the same way to a group of Toubabs driving by. They ran screaming after our van screaming "TOUBABS!! GIVE ME MINTY, GIVE ME PEN". Apparently it is popular among tourists to just drive by the locals and throw pens and candies out the window. It sets a horrible example for whites in the country as a whole. It is something we saw all over the country for the entire week.

The ferry was an adventure in itself. The line of cars for the ferry was probabl half a kilometer long and apparently people wait all day and into the night to catch a ride. We pulled some strings and only waited 45minutes. On one hand, it is sweet to not have to wait that long but on the other it is hard to get a feel for a culture when we are getting VIP treatment to cross a ferry. Loading the ferry was different then a ferry ride in the US. First, they packed as many cars as tight as they could onto the deck. It was hard to believe that they weren't exceeding deck weight capacity. From there they opened the floodgates and people came running in to find a spot on the ferry. I seriously saw someone get trampled in the mad rush for the boat (he was OK though). It was so packed with people, almost no room to walk around, and people sitting on stairs. The concept of personal space was foriegn on the ferry, which also means we had to be wary of pickpockets.

Disembarking from there, we headed to Juffereh, whose claim to fame was the ancetral home of Kunteh Kinte, the main character of Roots. We met the Alkalo there, who claims to be a member of the Kinte family. We learned, while there, that there is much debate on the historical accuracy of the story. It was written by Alex Haley, an african-american, who originally went to the town to find out about his own roots and eventually heard a story of the Kinte family. The reason for the skepticism on the accuracy behind the story lies in the method of passing down history. Griots are traditional story tellers who pass down family histories and true stories of family lineages by word of mouth alone. Apparently the Griots who first told Haley the story was not born a Griot, so many claim that he can not be trusted as a reliable source, however different aspects were verified by other Griots, which is good enough for the everyday Gambian.

On a slight side note, there is a man who works with the St. Mary's program, Mr. Sidebeh, his title is our cultural coordinator. He is well known throughout the country because of his efforts for the past fifty years doing everything he can to preserve the culture and history of the country. When we got to Juffereh we learner that Mr. Sidebeh friends with good friends with Alex Haley. It turns out that he was not only Haley's translator on his excursion up to Juffereh in the early 70's but also did most of the verification of stories and well as hunting down other sources for Haley. As it was explained to us, without Sidebeh, Roots would never have been written. The most we travelled up country did we learn the Mr. Sidebeh is relatively famous throughout the country. Every Alkalo we met was already friends with him and every village we passed through, we was an honorary member of. I was very happy to have him with us as a primary source of Gambian history.

Anyway, an island on the Gambian river, James Island, right by Juffereh was a major hub of the West African slave trade. It was where the English brought hundred of thousands of the slaves that were shipped off to the west. It was a miniscule island, filled with interesting ruins for us to climb around.

After the island, we went on a walk through the ruins of an English settlement outside of the town where the English apparently traded goods with the locals. Being toubabs, we always attract attention, especially from the local children. We had a crowd of maybe a dozen kids as young as 3 up to around 12 walking with us. They walked all over the town with us as Mr. Sidebeh told us about the history of the town. They are a lot of fun to talk to and a great way to work on language skills at the same time.

The next day we drove a lot longer on lot worse roads. mad bumpy dirt roads...hardcore.

we went up to Janjanbureh. A pretty big island on the gambian river. On the ferry to the island we started talking to some peace corp volunteers and it turned out that a bunch were coming to the island for a st.patty's day party the following night. We were excited about that. Anyway, friday afternoon was spent on a boat going 3 hours down the river. lookin at crocodiles and hippos while drinkin beer and eating some slammin food. it was lots of fun. then saturday we met up with peace corps people. i met a guy from somewhere in north jersey. we drank and bonded. lots of fun. the next morning was rough though.

sunday was spent driving allllll the way back to banjul aka civilization.

hangover+really bumpy roads+lots of sun=no fun

all in all it was an awesome week upcountry

new pics

new pics
http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7271815745157302307

my adventures upcountry

and our naming ceremony
my gambian name: babucarr bojang

no worries, i am still alive

hello all from the gambia, once again. sorry i haven't updated in a while. Last week was spent upcountry in the rural parts of the country. Mudhuts, thatched roofs, barefoot kids and more goats then a pagan cult could sacrifice. This past week the internet has been problematic all over the country. i'm at fancy internet cafe, 1$ an hour stuff. when the net gets back up at our casa (hopefully by tomorrow or monday) i will throw up my pics and a better blog. sorry and no worries i am still alive.

banjul, the capital

new pics.
They are from our trip into the capital. We went on top of this really weird and random arch that leads into the capital. but its a sweet view. I wasnt too impressed with banjul to be honest, but i dont think we saw much of it and we kind of had an agenda. First was the big arch and then the national museum (very subpar) and then the market. Market was good but we only had half an hour so it was pretty much a tour then go. Afterwards we came back to the house and had a discussion on "gambian culture, ethnic groups and ethnic relations". the main ethnic groups are Mandinkin, fuller and jolla(think thats how its spelled). They all get along very well actually.
Afterwards we had two peace corps people come over, the female has been "upcountry" for almost 2 years. they got electricity about 2 months ago for the first time and she said that after turning on a light, there is nothing really else to do with it. Apparently electricity reliability has increased a massive amount in the past 6months. we only have blackouts for about 30min a few times today. i dont think we actually had one today. The guy, it pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum was all into the developing IT. The country is really trying to connect itself to the internet and technologies in general and thus the world i suppose. cyber cafes are everywhere but there are still people at the university apparently who have never even seen a mouse until they get to a computer lab. Well they hung out and ate dinner, but then just wouldnt leave basically. I think they liked our house and kind of wanted to stay. fine with me, we played some drinking games for a while and it was a good time.

well for starters, some new pictures are up...again

yesterday was an unexpectedly awesome day. It started slow and stayed slow for most of it. I took a walk around where i live to try and get my bearings. it is a confusing place, there are a lot of alleyways that take you in much more direct routes but only if you know where you are going


The following picture, which you can see more of on my webshots is of a typical field here in the gambia. The closest thing this country has in regards to trash disposal is burning.



the picture on the right is whats left over from burnings. This is all less then half a mile from where im living. After that we had a meeting with the registrar about proper etiquette while attending classes. Mostly common sense stuff except for the gender seperation. This country, and i guess a lot of the rest of the world has a gender segregation that none of us are used to. Contact between the sexes is limited but apparently in the unversity it is more open. who knows what that really means. I guess we will find out.
Afterwards, we had a musical group come to us and play, the music was awesome (even though it all sounded the same to me). The whole group were all members of the same family as well which made it awesome-er. everyone in the group was real enthusiastic and i made friends with the xylophone guy, he was twenty and told me i should come to another one of his
The last few songs, we all got up and danced around it, was fun cause they didnt care that we had no rhythm.


After our little concert, we had heard the Juniata college of pennsylvania had some students nearby so we managed to get in touch with them and invited them over. They have been here for six weeks, so it was real nice to talk to them and we could tell that they definetly missed american companionship outside of their own group. It was 5 girls and 1 guy, needless to say, we all feel bad for him. Well they took us to this little restaurant that was ridiculously cheap but so amazingly slammin. There are lots of these restaurants that people build on their properties. This one is apparently owned by a nice guy from holland. I got half a chicken with salad and chips for 75dalasi...a little more then two dollars. Beers were 20 dalasi each, around 75cents. It was so much fun to talk with these other americans. We made friends with a gambian who had worked in bethesda, MD for 6 years at a bagel shop and used to live in silverspring as well. He hung out with us all night as well. The tab ended up being 1000 dalasi...little less then 20bucks. All in all a good night.

This is one of our gambian friends
That video is hatabe, he is employed by the program to basically hang out with us. He's awesome

This is our drumming teacher, we are learning how to do this

a clip of the music group that came to our place

what a weekend

this week has been so hectic with trying to adjust to life here i think that we were all looking forward to our weekend to use for relaxation. On friday we went to an area called Senegambia. it is where all the tourists go to hang out. We decided that it would be interesting to see the africa that the tourists see for the night. First there was the club, WOW, and it had a dance floor that was pretty empty with ridiculously loud american pop music playing. Drinks were expensive so we only had a few, and just chatted and played some pool. Locals that hang out all day trying to get money from tourists any way they can are called bumsters, and we were surrounded by them. Bumsters are nice people, fun to chat with and good to practice wolof on, but they are always trying to get your money. I have had to learn to be a little bit of an ass to them. That is just how its done unfortunately. The thing about bumsters is that they will do anything for western money. ANYTHING. apparently male prostitution is estimated at being 50% of the tourist income into the country. Where ever you go that has tourists, you see large black muscular men with older white women or petite black women with older whit guys. Its kind of ridiculous because it isn't hidden or anything. Anyway, after the club we went across the street to an "irish" bar and just talked until the wee hours before coming back and crashing. It was about as touristy as it get there, i wont go back, but i am glad i went.

last night we went to a local bar that we were told was a place to go, free of the bumsters. We decided to meet up with one of the peace corp volunteers who goes there a lot apparently.
It also had real loud music and a dance floor, but no white folks aka tourists. the booze was much cheaper and the people were seemed a bit more genuine in their conversations. i got phone numbers from all these guys who all claimed to be my friend, but apparently one of the peace corp peeps told me that he was a homosexual male prostitute. I dont know if it was true, because there was no hittin on or implied sexual stuff. just talking...

anyway, today, one of the guys who lives in the area took us to an amazing beach for the afternoon. the beach itself was a huge area, wide from the entrance down to the water. There was lots of room to run around, and run aroud we did. we did races and played frisbee and wrestled in the water and all those things guys do at the beach. The water was perfect, flat but perfect and really shallow as far as we went out, maybe a few hundred yards and still only waist deep. Near the end of the day a car drove out onto the beach with some locals who were going to play footbal(soccer) so we played beach football for an hour or so and got schooled hardcore. Afterwards we went to a restaurant in town called Sultan Sweets and got ol'fashined american pizzas. they were delicious.

ps. new pics have been posted

new pictures!

rrekekim's photos and albums on webshots

we tapped palm wine today with rastafarians. it was really sketchy because they lived out in the forest/jungle and just sold palm wine all day.

the beginning

I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning, the flight to Atlanta was fine, I slept a little because I didn’t sleep more then three hours the night before. Atlanta airport is the largest airport I can remember ever being in. Met up with one of the girls from our program, kaycee, at ATL where we caught our flight to Dakar, Senegal. We hadn’t really talked at any point before this, so we talked a bit about the trip and ourselves. Dakar airport was intense in so many different ways. As soon as I got off the plane my heart started to race and I suppose it hit me that there was no turning back from that point. I was in Africa (It looks silly to me now, to say that, but Africa is a magical place when you are sitting in your room in New Jersey but to the Gambia, America is the magical place).

Stephanie was waiting for me in the airport, and I didn’t realize how much I missed her until I saw her. Steph has been in Dakar since September and will be there until May. Props to her, I still don’t know if I could pull off what she is doing. Anyway, it was 530am and we had a few hours to wait until the ticket office opened for us to collect our SLOK airline tickets. Me, steph, kaycee and renee (she met us at the airport) sat around for a few hours, she taught us some phrases and we talked about her trip so far. When the airline counter opened is became clear that there was a problem or miscommunication. Having Stephanie there was actually a huge help, she ended up being our translator as many of the people we encountered spoke only broken English but fluent French. Starting around 11am we had quite the adventure as we were sent to various offices around the airport to discover what happened to our tickets. Eventually we talk to someone from the airline who tells us that we have no tickets. The ticket number we were given doesn’t exist. Now it is 1pm and our flight leaves at 230pm, we have no tickets. A few frantic calls to the house where we are staying and we are told that we just need to buy our tickets now. Tickets bought with 30min to spare I say bye to Stephanie, whom without, I feel we would have spent the night in Dakar. The flight to Gambia is fine and I slept through most of it. After landing we are met by some babucarr, our Wolof instructor/orientation leader. At this point I was in information overload as I struggled to comprehend his questions in the thick accent. If you have seen some of my pictures, you’ve seen some of what I have, flat as the eye can see, trash and sand everywhere. Traffic laws are nonexistent which was something we had been warned about before arriving but was still shocking to see on the way from the airport. Our house is ridiculous in everyway. We have one of the nicest houses in the area, and it is definitely the largest. All the houses here have walls and are referred to as compounds. We met Nut, Choco and Tyler who had been in the country for a few days already. It was nice to see some friendly faces. At this point I was past comprehending what was going on and just let my mind sit back while my body was on autopilot. We walked to the main drag called, The Pipeline, which is like Bloomfield ave with no traffic lights, no sidewalks and twice the volume of cars. The guys gave us a tour after which we came back to the house and I pretty much went to sleep…

new pictures...i live in the castle

pictures

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

sorry to get all complicated on you but i feel that this will be the easiest way to upload photos to our world wide web. this page will be for verbal updates i suppose and maybe my favorite pics.

This is where I am going

PEACE program Service-learning internship and directed research, spring 2007

Description

The purpose of your project is to enable you to work with Gambians in areas of mutual interest. You will be challenged to improve your language and intercultural interaction skills in a Gambian workplace under the supervision of PEACE partners who you will meet during orientation. During your first month, concentrate on trying to understand the structure and function (people, positions, and roles) of your workplaces. Can you contribute to meeting the mission of the organization? You are required to write a weekly reflective essay each week and give a copy to Yamai Secka-Jack, your supervisor, and send an electronic copy to me. In your essay, be sure to write about each workplace for the first month.

Think about the research skills you have and the research skills you want to improve upon or learn during this first month. By the end of the first month, you should submit to Yamai Secka-Jack and Bill Roberts a list of at least three research topics and questions that you think are worthwhile and feasible to investigate over the remaining period you will be in Gambia. From these questions, a directed research project will be formulated for the student to undertake. The project will culminate in a paper that includes the student’s primary research and other experiences in Gambia.

Baturu Camara (Gambian youth advocate) will supervise your service-learning work with schools, the President’s Award scheme, and possibly the Gambian Tourism Authority, helping to develop skills among Gambian youth, and looking at skills development activities in Gambia.

do you love me?

do you love me?

are you going to miss me??

if so then you too can write me/send me packages of love at this address:

C/O St. Mary's College, PO Box 2185
Serekunda, The Gambia

Just a test really

On saturday, February 24th I leave for Africa...The Gambia to be more specific. This site will be a photojournal of my adventures, and maybe have some writing as well. We shall see