Dakar afternoon, in some courtyard in a stranger’s compound.
Not much has changed. My roof still has holes and when traveling the other day to Kombo, it rained!!!! Briefly, but still it smelled like rain and that’s good enough for me. I was on the road so I don’t know how my roof held up. I think it was a pretty light rain up country, so I’m sure my place is fine. We’ll see. My family is still in this strange limbo of my perception of them. I over think everything they do. Why this when they’re nice to me and why that when they’re sneaky and untrustworthy or grabby might be the better word. It will all get better with time, I’m sure. For now, it’s just work, work, work. My first month was spent digging garden beds. My second, planting. And now in February, my third month, I am transplanting and planting again, more local varieties.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Journal Entry 1.7.08
Certain misgivings and streams of consciousness
It’s a cold day in Africa. I don’t think hell has frozen over, and I think a snowball still has a chance, but sure enough it is cool, or at least a cooler day than most. It’s not like you wouldn’t sweat if you labored under the sun, or that this day could still be compared to August in Portland, but comparatively, and everything being relative, I woke up clinging to my sleeping bag, socks on still, not wanting to face the cold morning air or freezing bucket of water that awaits a shocking pour over my head. Like a trooper I got out of bed and the Hermasten winds have been blowing hard. It’s a t-shirt and jeans day but everyone is a little extra bundled and complains of the chill. It’s like an Indian summer to them, but instead of snow drifts on the horizon it will soon be the hot season.
This is the apex of West Africa’s cold season, dry, windy heat, instead of dry, still, penetrating heat. My area is known to reach temperature of over 40 degrees C in April and May. I am enjoying every second of this weather as best I can. The mornings and evenings being cool means getting a biting shock every time I shower outside, even my solar shower, soaking in the sun all day, offers little relief to the grip of that first liter of bucket water I use to rinse and wet myself. The precious warm solar heated water is the finishing rinse. Treating myself to its warmth like dessert, like Tres Leches after a plate of sour beans.
I can and have been working almost daily morning and evening in the garden. This has really been my pride and joy. Since the integration part has been the real kicker this first month opposite that of training where all my focus was, or I remember it to be with my family and sitting and sharing meals with them. This family is different, the compound is different, there are no walls, their row of “houses” or rooms is detached from my free standing two bedroom hut, a mansion compared to theirs. And for whatever reasons it seemed to them to serve me my meals in a small bowl for me to eat in the privacy of my own home. This is a nice treat that I didn’t like at first because I wanted to integrate with them like my training family. But these families are different from each other. So I eat alone, which causes me to spend the little time around meal time to also be alone, either with my thoughts, which are many, or my work, which is also many, or with reading or stretching two daily activities which have become like clockwork for me.
After sunset I bathe, then come in and lay out my prayer mat to the east of course and do the minimal amount of yoga that I learned so long ago, along with some bastardized Pilates and sit-ups and push-ups. Despite digging and lifting and fetching water and pumping water and more digging, I still want to keep diligent on things like push-ups if only to normalize a routine. Then the food bowl comes and I eat, return the bowl, crawl into bed and read. I have been here four weeks and have read just as many books. A first for me. I am not a diligent reader. But with no beer and no TV…and so with the majority of the day I am alone, working and reading and thinking. I can’t shut my brain off it makes me dizzy sometimes and I can’t sleep some nights. So integrating has been difficult. They speak differently than I learned. Certain words and the dialect is blurred and fast and instead of explaining to me what I don’t understand, they just repeat the same thing over and over, confused why on the 12th time I still don’t understand a word I have never heard before. Showing me or drawing a picture in the sand or using a different word or hand gestures seems to be all but beyond them. So it’s up to my ear to decipher and that, for me, sucks ass. My ears don’t like other languages, and outside the classroom structure, where I “excelled” in Pulaar, I am now at a disadvantage and sinking slowly and to combat the frustration of trying unsuccessfully to communicate, I am left to retreat into my work. I should be writing things down, consulting my notes and staying hard fast at tying to communicate but it’s just so very hard at times that I want to just escape into my house, into my backyard, into a book. That I do. I give in and find comfort instead of rising to the challenges of communication.
Even now, right now!! there is a girl talking to me and playing with my hair and I am ignoring her so I can finish this sentence. But during that elipse I just spoke and played with them, one little cute girl was biting on a rusty nail. I took it out of her hands and put it out of reach and now she’s crying. These kids cry at a drop of a hat and I assume it’s because deep down, they must realize how shitty they have it. Playing with rusty cans, filling it with dirt, sand, biting on tetanus nails. They can’t imagine the world where I come from where sandboxes are now exiled from schools because they carry germs and replaced by plastic playground made from recycle shoes and other rendered excess. Here, their lives are filled with germs and beatings and scraps of tin and holey clothing and they don’t know any better, not at these young, young ages.
But they must know something because it’s all smiles and laughing and then at a moment’s notice as some other kid smacks them a little hard or someone takes away some piece of trash which they happen to be coveting at the moment, it’s like a dam bursting, the yells and tears and crying from both girls and boys, from birth to even 14/15 years old is so painfully obvious and obnoxious and riddled with the hardships of generations past. It’s like they cry not from the pain or unfairness of what just happened but from the ghosts of their ancestors whispering in their ears all the sadness and knowledge of sadness that came before them and will surely follow their lives until they die.
I have not been to a funeral yet but I’ve been told that the wailing appears in adults during this occasion when it is socially acceptable to grieve and vent and exhaust the emotional torture and stress that builds up everyday. The kids must cry for this build up because their tears cease just as fast as they begin. Once they’re reminded of the cruelty and unfairness of their lives and let it wash away and slowly they realize the futility of crying and then stop and are happy again. The girl with the nail has forgotten that it was taken away and now she laughs and plays and I have drawn a star on her hand. This seems to please her. But sometimes it’s the crying which I’d love to console, that drives me back indoors and I begin to escape again. Sometimes being here it’s like watching a forest fire that was created by lightning, standing helplessly by with buckets of water and resources but having the inability to use them because this fire was not begun by man but by God, and if a fire is what God wants, then that must be the way. And who am I to interfere. Nature sometime must burn. If this village is representative of Africa then all of Africa is on fire. It is contained and it is controlled, but it still burns. Watching it from afar, even now as I am in the throws of it I am still not here, protected from the flames somehow as if my white skin is a retardant of some sort. Their afflictions are not yet my afflictions, but similarly, their joys are not mine either. Much like the dancing of the flames, bright and colorful, my whiteness can only reflect, not absorb.
For every celebration I am an observer, same with every illness. I know not my place yet and am uncertain if I ever will. I am afraid to share all I have because I know they will ask for more and I will not have enough. At the same time, at sometime, they have to live with me and it must be hard to do so, seeing my pens and books and what oddities they must be. To illiterate communities that knows the worth of such tools but has only the jealousy of wanting them and I not the skills yet to properly teach them the difference between wanting what I have and needing. Of course they know the difference, I am fooling myself to think that I have the answers that will serve and determine their lives. I was not here a month ago, and one day I’ll be gone. Why not give them a pen, some children are in school and need them but who gives them the pen when I’m gone? They need to get the pens themselves. That’s what we’re taught and what we believe. That’s why this fire still burns, we’re all waiting for them to put it out themselves, just as nature intended. A bolt of lightning may strike a tree and burn it down. Maybe even take down a whole forest. But it won’t burn down the whole world, that’s not in its design.
Leave man to start that fire. Only man is capable of burning down the entire world and where will we be then? Probably not too different then they are here in this village. Poor and with nothing sometimes not ever food, even though it can grow all around them, they just don’t know how to do it, how to keep it, and sustain it. And so the fire continues on a slow burn. And maybe that’s the trick. With all of the “civilized” world thrusting its power into this continent, it remains little if changed. And when the “civilized” world burns out, which it most likely will, here it will be the same. Little will change. Our lives are drastically altered when the power shuts off. Theirs when it suddenly turns on.
My mind has been going on a lot of these tangents lately. Escaping to philosophizing as if ideas will help me learn Pulaar. All that will help me is time, and so, I’m taking a break from the book learning of language comp and I’m trying to just sit here and let the language filter into my brain, through dams and roadblocks of English daydreaming and Agfo manuals and Cormac McCarthy and ipods and the other auditory barriers that I give myself to combat my days.
Work was working. My backyard was like the rest of my house, in shambles. They “fixed” the holes in my roof, my thatch roof by throwing more dried grass up there, but I can still see sky when I’m inside and that means water in the rainy season.
It’s a cold day in Africa. I don’t think hell has frozen over, and I think a snowball still has a chance, but sure enough it is cool, or at least a cooler day than most. It’s not like you wouldn’t sweat if you labored under the sun, or that this day could still be compared to August in Portland, but comparatively, and everything being relative, I woke up clinging to my sleeping bag, socks on still, not wanting to face the cold morning air or freezing bucket of water that awaits a shocking pour over my head. Like a trooper I got out of bed and the Hermasten winds have been blowing hard. It’s a t-shirt and jeans day but everyone is a little extra bundled and complains of the chill. It’s like an Indian summer to them, but instead of snow drifts on the horizon it will soon be the hot season.
This is the apex of West Africa’s cold season, dry, windy heat, instead of dry, still, penetrating heat. My area is known to reach temperature of over 40 degrees C in April and May. I am enjoying every second of this weather as best I can. The mornings and evenings being cool means getting a biting shock every time I shower outside, even my solar shower, soaking in the sun all day, offers little relief to the grip of that first liter of bucket water I use to rinse and wet myself. The precious warm solar heated water is the finishing rinse. Treating myself to its warmth like dessert, like Tres Leches after a plate of sour beans.
I can and have been working almost daily morning and evening in the garden. This has really been my pride and joy. Since the integration part has been the real kicker this first month opposite that of training where all my focus was, or I remember it to be with my family and sitting and sharing meals with them. This family is different, the compound is different, there are no walls, their row of “houses” or rooms is detached from my free standing two bedroom hut, a mansion compared to theirs. And for whatever reasons it seemed to them to serve me my meals in a small bowl for me to eat in the privacy of my own home. This is a nice treat that I didn’t like at first because I wanted to integrate with them like my training family. But these families are different from each other. So I eat alone, which causes me to spend the little time around meal time to also be alone, either with my thoughts, which are many, or my work, which is also many, or with reading or stretching two daily activities which have become like clockwork for me.
After sunset I bathe, then come in and lay out my prayer mat to the east of course and do the minimal amount of yoga that I learned so long ago, along with some bastardized Pilates and sit-ups and push-ups. Despite digging and lifting and fetching water and pumping water and more digging, I still want to keep diligent on things like push-ups if only to normalize a routine. Then the food bowl comes and I eat, return the bowl, crawl into bed and read. I have been here four weeks and have read just as many books. A first for me. I am not a diligent reader. But with no beer and no TV…and so with the majority of the day I am alone, working and reading and thinking. I can’t shut my brain off it makes me dizzy sometimes and I can’t sleep some nights. So integrating has been difficult. They speak differently than I learned. Certain words and the dialect is blurred and fast and instead of explaining to me what I don’t understand, they just repeat the same thing over and over, confused why on the 12th time I still don’t understand a word I have never heard before. Showing me or drawing a picture in the sand or using a different word or hand gestures seems to be all but beyond them. So it’s up to my ear to decipher and that, for me, sucks ass. My ears don’t like other languages, and outside the classroom structure, where I “excelled” in Pulaar, I am now at a disadvantage and sinking slowly and to combat the frustration of trying unsuccessfully to communicate, I am left to retreat into my work. I should be writing things down, consulting my notes and staying hard fast at tying to communicate but it’s just so very hard at times that I want to just escape into my house, into my backyard, into a book. That I do. I give in and find comfort instead of rising to the challenges of communication.
Even now, right now!! there is a girl talking to me and playing with my hair and I am ignoring her so I can finish this sentence. But during that elipse I just spoke and played with them, one little cute girl was biting on a rusty nail. I took it out of her hands and put it out of reach and now she’s crying. These kids cry at a drop of a hat and I assume it’s because deep down, they must realize how shitty they have it. Playing with rusty cans, filling it with dirt, sand, biting on tetanus nails. They can’t imagine the world where I come from where sandboxes are now exiled from schools because they carry germs and replaced by plastic playground made from recycle shoes and other rendered excess. Here, their lives are filled with germs and beatings and scraps of tin and holey clothing and they don’t know any better, not at these young, young ages.
But they must know something because it’s all smiles and laughing and then at a moment’s notice as some other kid smacks them a little hard or someone takes away some piece of trash which they happen to be coveting at the moment, it’s like a dam bursting, the yells and tears and crying from both girls and boys, from birth to even 14/15 years old is so painfully obvious and obnoxious and riddled with the hardships of generations past. It’s like they cry not from the pain or unfairness of what just happened but from the ghosts of their ancestors whispering in their ears all the sadness and knowledge of sadness that came before them and will surely follow their lives until they die.
I have not been to a funeral yet but I’ve been told that the wailing appears in adults during this occasion when it is socially acceptable to grieve and vent and exhaust the emotional torture and stress that builds up everyday. The kids must cry for this build up because their tears cease just as fast as they begin. Once they’re reminded of the cruelty and unfairness of their lives and let it wash away and slowly they realize the futility of crying and then stop and are happy again. The girl with the nail has forgotten that it was taken away and now she laughs and plays and I have drawn a star on her hand. This seems to please her. But sometimes it’s the crying which I’d love to console, that drives me back indoors and I begin to escape again. Sometimes being here it’s like watching a forest fire that was created by lightning, standing helplessly by with buckets of water and resources but having the inability to use them because this fire was not begun by man but by God, and if a fire is what God wants, then that must be the way. And who am I to interfere. Nature sometime must burn. If this village is representative of Africa then all of Africa is on fire. It is contained and it is controlled, but it still burns. Watching it from afar, even now as I am in the throws of it I am still not here, protected from the flames somehow as if my white skin is a retardant of some sort. Their afflictions are not yet my afflictions, but similarly, their joys are not mine either. Much like the dancing of the flames, bright and colorful, my whiteness can only reflect, not absorb.
For every celebration I am an observer, same with every illness. I know not my place yet and am uncertain if I ever will. I am afraid to share all I have because I know they will ask for more and I will not have enough. At the same time, at sometime, they have to live with me and it must be hard to do so, seeing my pens and books and what oddities they must be. To illiterate communities that knows the worth of such tools but has only the jealousy of wanting them and I not the skills yet to properly teach them the difference between wanting what I have and needing. Of course they know the difference, I am fooling myself to think that I have the answers that will serve and determine their lives. I was not here a month ago, and one day I’ll be gone. Why not give them a pen, some children are in school and need them but who gives them the pen when I’m gone? They need to get the pens themselves. That’s what we’re taught and what we believe. That’s why this fire still burns, we’re all waiting for them to put it out themselves, just as nature intended. A bolt of lightning may strike a tree and burn it down. Maybe even take down a whole forest. But it won’t burn down the whole world, that’s not in its design.
Leave man to start that fire. Only man is capable of burning down the entire world and where will we be then? Probably not too different then they are here in this village. Poor and with nothing sometimes not ever food, even though it can grow all around them, they just don’t know how to do it, how to keep it, and sustain it. And so the fire continues on a slow burn. And maybe that’s the trick. With all of the “civilized” world thrusting its power into this continent, it remains little if changed. And when the “civilized” world burns out, which it most likely will, here it will be the same. Little will change. Our lives are drastically altered when the power shuts off. Theirs when it suddenly turns on.
My mind has been going on a lot of these tangents lately. Escaping to philosophizing as if ideas will help me learn Pulaar. All that will help me is time, and so, I’m taking a break from the book learning of language comp and I’m trying to just sit here and let the language filter into my brain, through dams and roadblocks of English daydreaming and Agfo manuals and Cormac McCarthy and ipods and the other auditory barriers that I give myself to combat my days.
Work was working. My backyard was like the rest of my house, in shambles. They “fixed” the holes in my roof, my thatch roof by throwing more dried grass up there, but I can still see sky when I’m inside and that means water in the rainy season.
Journal Entry 12.28.07
TOO MUCH OF NOT ENOUGH, the journals and thoughts of a man not accustomed to having them.
I should have known when I couldn’t find it on a map as they handed out our assignments and locations of service for the next two years. The 24 of us rushed ourselves to a map. I remember feeling lethargic that afternoon and made a slow attempt to see my name on that piece of paper hung above the water cooler at Tendeba, less enthusiastic to find out where exactly Malikunda was and when I couldn’t find it on the map and the other volunteers there and LCHS had little information about it, slightly I began to worry. Where was I going? What was I doing? Training had been a very humbling but coddled experience. As long as we were with other Americans, everything felt very normal still. Even throughout site visit, I knew I’d only be there for a few days, then back to Kombo and the fighting 24 and the idea of safety and normalcy and comfort. As long as we weren’t there, then it wasn’t really real yet, and we could all still believe in the dream of Peace Corps, instead of the reality. The reality being something, three weeks in, I still can’t quite comprehend.
After Bakary arrived during site visit I felt a load come off my shoulders, as if seeing a Gambian, who I could speak English to, was just as good as seeing an American, I could speak to him my thoughts that were more complicated that “I am sitting” “I am reading”. I had no idea how badly I want to express myself until the option is wholly stripped away. The feeling of leaving a place, even temporarily is, it seems, symmetrical to arriving. The switching off of lights echoed by the switching on, or here with the emotional weight of coming transforms into the blissful relief of walking away. As I just spent Christmas further up country with fellow newbies coming back, even with Amber accompanying me, there’s a loneliness type feeling especially today now that she went back to site, that I can only describe as sad. Not having the time yet to make strong connections in the village, and having one too many bad tastes in my mouth, I can’t honestly say that I am excited to be back, as I was in training village or of even leaving the states.
The job essentially starts now, today. Right now. No more holidays or jaunts or visitors or visits until February when hopefully I will be able to go to the softball tournament in Dakar for all West Africa PCV’s who’d wish to attend. And I would. But today as Amber got onto the Gele-gele, in a hurry, unexpectedly as we had waited three hours and were resolving our thoughts, preparing for the idea that she would just have to spend one more night, prolonging the inevitable, I guess. But no, she jumped on at the last minute gele and we said our goodbyes and an emptiness sure did pour over me. A 30 minute bike ride home from the main highway and I step inside my abode and wonder again as I did the day I couldn’t find Malikunda on a map and still can’t-- what the hell am I doing here? Moreover, what the hell am I GOING to do here?
I should have known when I couldn’t find it on a map as they handed out our assignments and locations of service for the next two years. The 24 of us rushed ourselves to a map. I remember feeling lethargic that afternoon and made a slow attempt to see my name on that piece of paper hung above the water cooler at Tendeba, less enthusiastic to find out where exactly Malikunda was and when I couldn’t find it on the map and the other volunteers there and LCHS had little information about it, slightly I began to worry. Where was I going? What was I doing? Training had been a very humbling but coddled experience. As long as we were with other Americans, everything felt very normal still. Even throughout site visit, I knew I’d only be there for a few days, then back to Kombo and the fighting 24 and the idea of safety and normalcy and comfort. As long as we weren’t there, then it wasn’t really real yet, and we could all still believe in the dream of Peace Corps, instead of the reality. The reality being something, three weeks in, I still can’t quite comprehend.
After Bakary arrived during site visit I felt a load come off my shoulders, as if seeing a Gambian, who I could speak English to, was just as good as seeing an American, I could speak to him my thoughts that were more complicated that “I am sitting” “I am reading”. I had no idea how badly I want to express myself until the option is wholly stripped away. The feeling of leaving a place, even temporarily is, it seems, symmetrical to arriving. The switching off of lights echoed by the switching on, or here with the emotional weight of coming transforms into the blissful relief of walking away. As I just spent Christmas further up country with fellow newbies coming back, even with Amber accompanying me, there’s a loneliness type feeling especially today now that she went back to site, that I can only describe as sad. Not having the time yet to make strong connections in the village, and having one too many bad tastes in my mouth, I can’t honestly say that I am excited to be back, as I was in training village or of even leaving the states.
The job essentially starts now, today. Right now. No more holidays or jaunts or visitors or visits until February when hopefully I will be able to go to the softball tournament in Dakar for all West Africa PCV’s who’d wish to attend. And I would. But today as Amber got onto the Gele-gele, in a hurry, unexpectedly as we had waited three hours and were resolving our thoughts, preparing for the idea that she would just have to spend one more night, prolonging the inevitable, I guess. But no, she jumped on at the last minute gele and we said our goodbyes and an emptiness sure did pour over me. A 30 minute bike ride home from the main highway and I step inside my abode and wonder again as I did the day I couldn’t find Malikunda on a map and still can’t-- what the hell am I doing here? Moreover, what the hell am I GOING to do here?
Journal Entry 11.24.07
Took a break from writing for a while. Lack of focus and a bit of senior-itis as well. Our training is coming to an end and soon we will be volunteers. Currently I am on my first night in my assigned village of two years but more on that later. I want to take a few moments and point out a few interesting memories of the two weeks or so that have passed. Language and comprehension still alludes me and I spent the last week in training village doing my best but constantly being frustrated. Plus I felt like the only way to progress was to stop speaking English which is impossible with 3 other American trainees around who I constantly try to relate every waking moment to, in the hopes that they are having similar experiences and therefore I am not so unlucky, crazy or ridiculously stupid. Plus having our LCH 24/7 means even if I wanted to speak Pulaar all day I’m still way too tempted to turn and ask for help instead using my own fortitude or relying on my own resources, wit, courage, self reliance and/or “F-A-C-U L-T-I-E-S” as Salinger put it. But I am responsible for my own learning as M put it last night and therefore if I haven’t mastered the ancient oral language of the West African Fula tribe in 8 weeks then it’s my own damn fault. But maybe I’m being too hard on myself. So I digress. Everything else in village was pretty regular. Played UNO and guitar at night with my family. Studied all day. Went to A’s village to have lunch one day and learned Crazy 8’s which I hadn’t played in 20 some years and realized that Crazy 8’s is Uno. It’s the same game.
The Gambians have funny names however for the suits of a deck of cards (they also have issues organizing more than 7 or 8 cards in their hands (not in a bad way, just a funny way). Diamonds are not Diamonds, they are Biscuits. Spades are Black Hearts. Hearts are Love Signs and Clubs are something called Tankepeter, I don’t know how it’s spelled. Pronounced something like “thank you peter” or Take a picture or Hackapeter – the German meat. A boasted her Attaya brewing skills and I tried them out and for a toubab she’s pretty damn good. She came over to try a Fula lunch a few days later and brewed some Attaya as we worked on our last Technical Assignment. Our whole team was impressed. Our LCH seemed to take a liking to A as well, admiring the fact that she eats with her hands out of the food bowl and not with a spoon. I have been to a few other training villages for lunch and noticed that most trainees do not use their hands. M, A, and myself do and I pride us on that. Not to say that eating with a spoon is wrong but I have noticed the whole “when in Rome” thing being an apt part of integration, and where language or lack of fish-eating has failed me, at least I am still diligent in eating with my hands so as not to completely slip back into my American habits---of desiring convenience, cleanliness, or common sense. In the land of the blind, the man with one eye might be king, but I don’t think I’m here to be king. I’m here to be blind, more or less, just like everyone else. That, easily is the hardest part of integrating, not being turned off by sights sounds and smells based on what I compare them to in my previous life which was rich with meaning in one way, in that my cause or desire for film making or storytelling or whatever was very clear, or was, in years past.
But now, certain ideas and fictions I had in my head are getting clouded. I’m worried that they are dying. I hope all it is, is that they are taking a temporary break or hiatus. I need those fictions, and worry about the realities that are taking their place. We had Thanksgiving two days ago, Kennedy, the brains and poster boy behind this operation was shot 44 years ago this Thanksgiving. He was a president, like Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt(s) that I had no personal relationship to. I was not alive when he or they were alive. Their words and actions affect me everyday however. The day after Thanksgiving we had a reception at the Kairaba Hotel for the 40th anniversary of Peace Corps in Gambia. 40 years of uninterrupted service. Two original volunteers from ’67 were there. All 100 some volunteers, currently serving, a slew of Gambians, the Gambian military band, and us, 24 trainees, who in a weird way were referred to specifically as trainees as if pointing out that we have not yet accomplished anything when we all think that we have, going though a major physical and emotional adjustment and all. In any case the event promised us a chance to meet famed President Jammeh but he didn’t show, to no one’s surprise. But what we got instead was a pretty decent speech from our CD about Kennedy, reminding me again that there was a reason that I am feeling on edge, being torn at the seams. That whole “ask not what” thing. It seemed to finally hit me like a ton of bricks. I always go back and forth about whether I should feel proud about what I’m doing. It’s very easy, even as a trainee to feel cynical and that a free ticket to Africa is just that. A two year form of escapism. Instead of making a movie or writing a book, I am watching a very long and involved travel show or drama inches away from my face, like if I were to sit half a foot away from the TV, wearing 30 specs, and tracing my fingers over Braille lettering, everything is real but nothing seems that way. It all seems like I’m being John Malkovich, or JD, or Momodon Bah, but I was never those people before. I was just familiar with them. When M, our CD spoke about watching JFK give that speech, I wondered if:
A)I would ever be alive to see a president as charismatic and outwardly true as that. (Clinton, yes, even Clinton wasn’t that man, and f*ck the Bushes). I want another JFK. I wondered also
B)If I were alive to hear that speech would I be motivated to join the Peace Corps in the sixties and/or
C)Would I make it past training. What we are doing now is not remarkable. Not in any stretch of the imagination.
We are coddled compared to those 40-30-20 maybe even 10 years ago. The world is getting hard, but we as people are getting easier. It is impossible for me to believe that I have made any great sacrifice in coming here but maybe if I keep thinking about Kennedy, maybe I’ll buy into some form of pride and not just float through this experience. Our volunteer leader, F, and our other volunteer facilitator, J, both seem put together, both probably younger that I but seem years more mature. I look at F and hear about what he has done and pity him for going back to the states because it is as if he has actually done something with his life these last two years, he has done something for his country, and going back, I fear the hum-drum will swallow him up.
Having been out of the loop for only 2 months, I find little desire to know what’s going on. The same thing happened when I moved to Berlin. Hurricane Katrina happened; brought America “together” and I thought I would have been envious for missing it. But I wasn’t. A form of self-centered-ness is a lack of homesickness I guess. The other trainees admire my ability to nap almost anywhere including a massively bumping ride down the south bank highway. Is it that I have an uncanny knack for relaxing or that most times I don’t care about the details or what’s going on in front of me and find better solace closing my eyes and escaping into whatever my brain tells me to think about? Or maybe I’m just a sucker for the sandman.
On Thanksgiving we flushed out of our training village and drove to Kombo to have dinner with every volunteer and admin at the Ambassador’s house which I on the beach with a pool, all the beer we could drink, all the food we could eat. It was great. The day went from walking away from my host family which, surprisingly I grew to really care about and which I could spend the two years with, when my second oldest host brother Amadon came back up to the road after everyone had seen us off and just stood there watching the bus that was about to take me out of his life. My heart truly broke and I had to get off the coaster to give him another hug and hope that I would see him again. The mood was high on the coaster as we picked up everyone else. I didn’t feel like being happy, but over the course of the day everyone’s energy exponentially grew and I couldn’t help getting swept up as well. At the ambassadors we drank and swam and I met some more volunteers and I almost forgot about my sleepy little training village. Times were good there. It only reminds me of how we are getting it easy. Or at least I am. Or was.
Today was another story. Today we begin our site visits. Three days to checkout our village, meet our new host families, and negotiate rent and food and laundry. I was first to be dropped off. B or L.J. as he was aptly named, American named that is, will come on the third day to help me with negotiating the money stuff. Today, until Monday I am all alone. I was dropped off and I met my family. I was told something different about them, or at least the picture in my head was all different. I knew very little since I am not taking over for anyone and since no one wanted to talk about the last guy here or why he early terminated a year ago. Whereas K, my old training village, was a sleepy little hamlet, my current village seems more like a forgotten outpost or inhabited ghostown. Something about it smells like the film “A Fistful of Dollars” or was it “for a few dollars more”. In any case, I am not Clint Eastwood. This is not Yojimbo, and my family is nice enough and no one is at war, or so I hope, and chances of something going awry are slim to none. But I am on edge just the same. There’s smoke in the air and I can’t tell which direction it is coming from.
My house has holes in the thatch roof and my backyard fence was in shambles, the replacement fence was pseudo put up and I am writing tonight on my bed/sack of hay. Obviously the amenities are few. Nothing will be quaint and cute as it was in training. College is over, life is what I make it. My main goal is to learn or understand what they are saying about me. Then find out what the town needs and by God keep busy. My new host brother who’s a little older than me came to greet me, as I was setting up my bed and doing little unpacking. Later I went to fetch water and he was sitting outside my door looking down in the mouth. He said: “a bazi sundu am do” I had him repeat it several times, I knew the words but couldn’t understand the meaning behind them “I took his house” he said. He had to bathe, where was he going to do that. Depressed and ego probably a little bruised he had to give up his house, he, his wife pregnant, and maybe another toddler probably had to move out so I could have a place to live. As much as the prospect of toubab living with the family can be, it must suck to be ousted, furniture, family and all to some other less exciting digs. I didn’t know what to say. Sorry. I was kind of going through my own thing. I didn’t know how sympathetic I should be about it. For the same reasons that I don’t give every person I see a hundred bucks, even though I really want to, I just can’t muster the strength to bend completely backwards. A part of me wants to help. Anyway, any how. But another part of me knows how much b.s. that is. No one can help anyway, anyhow. We just don’t care and are too concerned with ourselves, our lives and end up going to church only twice a year Easter and Christmas and telling ourselves we will make up for missed charity by feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving when no one helps 364 days of the year. I was losing light and needed to get to the pump so I could wash my water filter. I would have loved to explain the complexities of a J-curve and why him giving me his house would eventually lend to a great gain than his current loss but, I just didn’t have the words. And where does he get off!! Like I am not already overwhelmed?
I further have a strange taste now in my mouth at about this spot. There was a bit of mystery and controversy surrounding it that I can’t get into now, which only adds to my desire to write tonight for a few hours, hoping to figure out where I am and how I am going to deal with it. Arriving in F Kunda two months ago made me ask what the heck I was doing with my life. Then I loved it and didn’t want to leave. This town could have a similar effect. I’ve been here 8 hours or so and had a great dinner and slow evening of bad Pulaar translation with my host parents. But as I arrived and Peace Corps and the last trace of U.
S. connection left my sight I again asked. “What the heck am I doing now? I’ve done it again like it or not. Sink or swim if I’m lucky, maybe both.
Like most journals that have come before this one I preface for the multi-numerous time…
“O snail,
climb Mt. Fuji
but slowly! Slowly!”
The Gambians have funny names however for the suits of a deck of cards (they also have issues organizing more than 7 or 8 cards in their hands (not in a bad way, just a funny way). Diamonds are not Diamonds, they are Biscuits. Spades are Black Hearts. Hearts are Love Signs and Clubs are something called Tankepeter, I don’t know how it’s spelled. Pronounced something like “thank you peter” or Take a picture or Hackapeter – the German meat. A boasted her Attaya brewing skills and I tried them out and for a toubab she’s pretty damn good. She came over to try a Fula lunch a few days later and brewed some Attaya as we worked on our last Technical Assignment. Our whole team was impressed. Our LCH seemed to take a liking to A as well, admiring the fact that she eats with her hands out of the food bowl and not with a spoon. I have been to a few other training villages for lunch and noticed that most trainees do not use their hands. M, A, and myself do and I pride us on that. Not to say that eating with a spoon is wrong but I have noticed the whole “when in Rome” thing being an apt part of integration, and where language or lack of fish-eating has failed me, at least I am still diligent in eating with my hands so as not to completely slip back into my American habits---of desiring convenience, cleanliness, or common sense. In the land of the blind, the man with one eye might be king, but I don’t think I’m here to be king. I’m here to be blind, more or less, just like everyone else. That, easily is the hardest part of integrating, not being turned off by sights sounds and smells based on what I compare them to in my previous life which was rich with meaning in one way, in that my cause or desire for film making or storytelling or whatever was very clear, or was, in years past.
But now, certain ideas and fictions I had in my head are getting clouded. I’m worried that they are dying. I hope all it is, is that they are taking a temporary break or hiatus. I need those fictions, and worry about the realities that are taking their place. We had Thanksgiving two days ago, Kennedy, the brains and poster boy behind this operation was shot 44 years ago this Thanksgiving. He was a president, like Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt(s) that I had no personal relationship to. I was not alive when he or they were alive. Their words and actions affect me everyday however. The day after Thanksgiving we had a reception at the Kairaba Hotel for the 40th anniversary of Peace Corps in Gambia. 40 years of uninterrupted service. Two original volunteers from ’67 were there. All 100 some volunteers, currently serving, a slew of Gambians, the Gambian military band, and us, 24 trainees, who in a weird way were referred to specifically as trainees as if pointing out that we have not yet accomplished anything when we all think that we have, going though a major physical and emotional adjustment and all. In any case the event promised us a chance to meet famed President Jammeh but he didn’t show, to no one’s surprise. But what we got instead was a pretty decent speech from our CD about Kennedy, reminding me again that there was a reason that I am feeling on edge, being torn at the seams. That whole “ask not what” thing. It seemed to finally hit me like a ton of bricks. I always go back and forth about whether I should feel proud about what I’m doing. It’s very easy, even as a trainee to feel cynical and that a free ticket to Africa is just that. A two year form of escapism. Instead of making a movie or writing a book, I am watching a very long and involved travel show or drama inches away from my face, like if I were to sit half a foot away from the TV, wearing 30 specs, and tracing my fingers over Braille lettering, everything is real but nothing seems that way. It all seems like I’m being John Malkovich, or JD, or Momodon Bah, but I was never those people before. I was just familiar with them. When M, our CD spoke about watching JFK give that speech, I wondered if:
A)I would ever be alive to see a president as charismatic and outwardly true as that. (Clinton, yes, even Clinton wasn’t that man, and f*ck the Bushes). I want another JFK. I wondered also
B)If I were alive to hear that speech would I be motivated to join the Peace Corps in the sixties and/or
C)Would I make it past training. What we are doing now is not remarkable. Not in any stretch of the imagination.
We are coddled compared to those 40-30-20 maybe even 10 years ago. The world is getting hard, but we as people are getting easier. It is impossible for me to believe that I have made any great sacrifice in coming here but maybe if I keep thinking about Kennedy, maybe I’ll buy into some form of pride and not just float through this experience. Our volunteer leader, F, and our other volunteer facilitator, J, both seem put together, both probably younger that I but seem years more mature. I look at F and hear about what he has done and pity him for going back to the states because it is as if he has actually done something with his life these last two years, he has done something for his country, and going back, I fear the hum-drum will swallow him up.
Having been out of the loop for only 2 months, I find little desire to know what’s going on. The same thing happened when I moved to Berlin. Hurricane Katrina happened; brought America “together” and I thought I would have been envious for missing it. But I wasn’t. A form of self-centered-ness is a lack of homesickness I guess. The other trainees admire my ability to nap almost anywhere including a massively bumping ride down the south bank highway. Is it that I have an uncanny knack for relaxing or that most times I don’t care about the details or what’s going on in front of me and find better solace closing my eyes and escaping into whatever my brain tells me to think about? Or maybe I’m just a sucker for the sandman.
On Thanksgiving we flushed out of our training village and drove to Kombo to have dinner with every volunteer and admin at the Ambassador’s house which I on the beach with a pool, all the beer we could drink, all the food we could eat. It was great. The day went from walking away from my host family which, surprisingly I grew to really care about and which I could spend the two years with, when my second oldest host brother Amadon came back up to the road after everyone had seen us off and just stood there watching the bus that was about to take me out of his life. My heart truly broke and I had to get off the coaster to give him another hug and hope that I would see him again. The mood was high on the coaster as we picked up everyone else. I didn’t feel like being happy, but over the course of the day everyone’s energy exponentially grew and I couldn’t help getting swept up as well. At the ambassadors we drank and swam and I met some more volunteers and I almost forgot about my sleepy little training village. Times were good there. It only reminds me of how we are getting it easy. Or at least I am. Or was.
Today was another story. Today we begin our site visits. Three days to checkout our village, meet our new host families, and negotiate rent and food and laundry. I was first to be dropped off. B or L.J. as he was aptly named, American named that is, will come on the third day to help me with negotiating the money stuff. Today, until Monday I am all alone. I was dropped off and I met my family. I was told something different about them, or at least the picture in my head was all different. I knew very little since I am not taking over for anyone and since no one wanted to talk about the last guy here or why he early terminated a year ago. Whereas K, my old training village, was a sleepy little hamlet, my current village seems more like a forgotten outpost or inhabited ghostown. Something about it smells like the film “A Fistful of Dollars” or was it “for a few dollars more”. In any case, I am not Clint Eastwood. This is not Yojimbo, and my family is nice enough and no one is at war, or so I hope, and chances of something going awry are slim to none. But I am on edge just the same. There’s smoke in the air and I can’t tell which direction it is coming from.
My house has holes in the thatch roof and my backyard fence was in shambles, the replacement fence was pseudo put up and I am writing tonight on my bed/sack of hay. Obviously the amenities are few. Nothing will be quaint and cute as it was in training. College is over, life is what I make it. My main goal is to learn or understand what they are saying about me. Then find out what the town needs and by God keep busy. My new host brother who’s a little older than me came to greet me, as I was setting up my bed and doing little unpacking. Later I went to fetch water and he was sitting outside my door looking down in the mouth. He said: “a bazi sundu am do” I had him repeat it several times, I knew the words but couldn’t understand the meaning behind them “I took his house” he said. He had to bathe, where was he going to do that. Depressed and ego probably a little bruised he had to give up his house, he, his wife pregnant, and maybe another toddler probably had to move out so I could have a place to live. As much as the prospect of toubab living with the family can be, it must suck to be ousted, furniture, family and all to some other less exciting digs. I didn’t know what to say. Sorry. I was kind of going through my own thing. I didn’t know how sympathetic I should be about it. For the same reasons that I don’t give every person I see a hundred bucks, even though I really want to, I just can’t muster the strength to bend completely backwards. A part of me wants to help. Anyway, any how. But another part of me knows how much b.s. that is. No one can help anyway, anyhow. We just don’t care and are too concerned with ourselves, our lives and end up going to church only twice a year Easter and Christmas and telling ourselves we will make up for missed charity by feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving when no one helps 364 days of the year. I was losing light and needed to get to the pump so I could wash my water filter. I would have loved to explain the complexities of a J-curve and why him giving me his house would eventually lend to a great gain than his current loss but, I just didn’t have the words. And where does he get off!! Like I am not already overwhelmed?
I further have a strange taste now in my mouth at about this spot. There was a bit of mystery and controversy surrounding it that I can’t get into now, which only adds to my desire to write tonight for a few hours, hoping to figure out where I am and how I am going to deal with it. Arriving in F Kunda two months ago made me ask what the heck I was doing with my life. Then I loved it and didn’t want to leave. This town could have a similar effect. I’ve been here 8 hours or so and had a great dinner and slow evening of bad Pulaar translation with my host parents. But as I arrived and Peace Corps and the last trace of U.
S. connection left my sight I again asked. “What the heck am I doing now? I’ve done it again like it or not. Sink or swim if I’m lucky, maybe both.
Like most journals that have come before this one I preface for the multi-numerous time…
“O snail,
climb Mt. Fuji
but slowly! Slowly!”
Jounal Entry 11.13.07
28 years and one month and one day. A funny thing happened on the way to the pump today. Strike that, it was to school, to class. This afternoon as I walked around my house, I saw the tin door to my window shut and thought “hey, I’m right here, it’s easier to prop open from the outside, might as well.” So with nalgene and Pulaar dictionary in hand, I open my window, the top of the door (or shutter) scrapes the bottom lip of the thatch roof as always and then something hit my face. I at first thought nothing of it. I’m used to birds and lizards living in my roof. Often I will find bird poop on my desk; termite mounds jetting out of my walls. I sweep twice daily to make sure frogs aren’t hiding behind my bags, trunk and/or bike but still wondering why, since technically they are guests in my house. Why they are not eating their fair share of mosquitoes, spiders, earwigs, beetles and various other creepy crawlers common indoors this Halloween season. But this afternoon, what hit me in the face was not my everyday piece of crumbled termite debris or bird/lizard shit, but instead judging by the intense stinging section on my lower lip and then a subsequent just as fast as the first time sting on the bridge of my nose, I determine these were angry Africanized wasps, not bees but wasps, just like the ones in my backyard some weeks earlier. This time they chose to live outside my bedroom window, a shotty thin screen separating me sleeping and them buzzing. In shock I got out of there and walked in a daze to my LCH’s house wondering if the sharp pain in my nose and lip were visible to all the passersby. Happy end of course, I’m not allergic to bee or wasp stings African or any other and redness aside, no swelling. As I look in my hand mirror I can’t tell the difference between the stings and my previous and fast growing zits. So all’s well that ends without swelling and an Epi-pen shot. I just did some re-con and sure enough there is a small hive. I’ll need to kill or displace. But tomorrow there is a 6 inch gecko eating bugs on my back screen door, my garden is half successful, half non-existent, and I am tired and still need to fetch bath water for tonight and sweep and do whatever else. That doesn’t compare to the chores my family and neighbors do to prepare each meal and give me the best portions and all I did today was get stung in the face and not have the foresight to take a picture of it. I have about a week left in my training village before I go to Kombo (the capital area) to have Thanksgiving, swear in, buy all my stuff for my permanent site and celebrate the 40th anniversary with the President and all the president’s men.
I spent all last week at Tendebah and sent my last journal entries and photo card home with A.O. who early terminated after 5 weeks. I wish him good luck and hope he seizes a better opportunity in the states than what the Gambia had in store for him. Tendebah was nicer this time around. I had only one bout with stomach illness on Friday where, no joke, I lost 5 lbs in one day but it wasn’t so bad. I got to sleep most of the day away and that was what really counted. The next day we did the marathon march where as 24 PCT’s and 3 guides walked 20 some kilometers though sharp, itchy 7 foot tall grass and sopping ankle high mud. We couldn’t complain about the weather though, it has cooled down substantially and I feel like I’m back in LA except today which is hot and humid and very Africa. I can’t help but sweat as I write and watch this lizard outside my door. I know it is raining in Portland and snowing in New York and 72 and sunny in California. All of which I am not shy to say sounds wonderful. I can’t help but constantly feel humbled here as I sweat and have an awful day with language as I did today. I watch the locals and my mind wanders. I don’t feel so on task as I used to. No one does. Our thoughts are drifting away from our training villages and onto our permanent sites, or at least, to the feeling of permanentness of our decisions. Not in a bad way, just in a readjusting way. We are constantly learning and comprehending, struggling, adjusting, thinking, reading, writing, studying, preparing, but not settling in. That comes in the next three months when we go to site and are challenge don’t get to leave for 90 days or at least no overnight stays or guests, so as to better integrate. That’s scary I think, in the way that we have no idea what to expect but are asked to expect everything. How will we stack up? Your guess is as good as mine, but I am up for the challenge. I long for the days where this language does not bog me down. This could be the hardest thing I do, ever, and/or the easiest, depending on how I handle myself. Probably with a smile and a stupid look on my face. Let them laugh; God knows I would if I were they.
Quick note, getting back to the marathon march at the last few kilometers we trekked though rice patties and at two points we had to stop, take off our packs and move up and slip down into the neck high, thick muddy swamp water flooding the surrounding rice fields. Uneasy going in I was also uneasy going out. We had to stagger out from bank to bank passing backpacks over our heads to the other side. Not a one fell in the water despite clumsy hands and sinking feet. Some folks were comfortable in the water, the kind of folks who cool off in Florida, I imagine, by jumping into stagnant everglade swamps. They swam and kicked around and dunked their heads underwater, but they are f*cking nuts and I, being used to water with heavy amounts of chorine, decided to get in and out as quickly as possible without my hands or head going beneath the water line. I was successful even though at some point as my foot was mashed in the mud and I was passing backpacks over my head, something long and heavy and hard (and no it was not a polish last name) slithered over my foot and stopped and rested there, occasionally wiggling as if it were trying to burrow into the muddy bank adjacent to me. You know how I know it wasn’t falling mud and my imagination (like some of you may think as I tend to overact) because it slithered and wiggled and weighed at least 5lbs as it sat on my foot. A dense 5 lbs, not like the hollow 5lbs I lost the day before.
This thing was real, whether it was a snake or catfish, the guide (Gambian) to my right, who was sure-footed on the bank was quick to pull me out of the water as my face went a little white and I nonchalantly said that a snake or large fish was making sweet love to the top of my foot. And if the local guide pulls you out of the water--- you get out of the water! The only problem was that I had to get right back in, to cross the rice and not step back onto the snake, catfish or Loch Ness monster and not get swamp water all up in my grill was no easy task. But I did it. That night A and I traded full body massages and I slept like a baby. The next day we went out for a boat ride down the muddy tributaries of the river Gambia. We saw a plethora of beautiful white cranes and birds and crabs with one giant claw and mangrove trees and even one crocodile that slipped beneath the water a few meters in front of our boat. I caught only tail end of the croc submerging itself but I’m sure it won’t be the last wild croc I’ll see. I have too many juicy, tasty appendages and after the Marathon march, I plan on making a long career out of opaque river and swamp exploration. But until then, the night calls. I have only a week more to enjoy my host families company. Plus so much more Pulaar to learn. I scored intermediate low on our second test, hoping for an intermediate mid, but it didn’t happen. We need that IM to score our 4rd test to swear in. I was hoping to get it early and after today I see why. My comprehension is too poor. It also takes me too long to form sentences, statements and questions, basically I am retarded and cannot break through this wall. I will slowly slowly, seeda, seeda.
Jounal Entry 10.4.07
The flight, which could have been an adventure, was just normal. No extended layovers or turbulence or crazy flight attendants. Except for once when they briskly trotted down the aisle spraying something foggy into the vents above our heads. It turned out to be mosquito repellent, so mosquitoes wouldn’t fly into the plane and lay their malaria eggs.
Arriving in Banjul….green and red as far as the eye can see. I had never imagine Africa much differently, but here it was in front of me. The heat wasn’t too bad getting off the plane, neither was the rush to get into the country. No customs for Peace Corps. Should have smuggled something in.
I had spoken a bit more to J on the plane and in the Brussels Airport, we were now friends and when they crammed us and our stuff, all 24 Peace Corps Trainees into an Africa safari wagon we all as a group got to see The Gambia (more or less) for the first time. Then they dropped us at GPI (Gambia Pastoral Institute) a Christian mission/hotel/compound/learning center and told us our roommates for the next 11 days or so. J and I were roommates and he was very pleased with that. So was I. I felt like I could bond or at least b.s. with him about the girls, booze, blab, blah, blah and we did and then some. Dinner, bed, sleep, pack, move rooms, unpack, bed, sleep, first morning we wake up to the most obnoxious bird in the world. If I ever hear it again I’m going to shoot it in the face.
The days at GPI were full of classes, one block after another, slowly introducing us to the LCH’s, (language and culture helpers), natives who will be our number one contact at the training village. At meal times we eat in the hot, humid dining hall which at night reminds me of those movies about evangelicals in the south having town hall meetings on hot summer afternoons, with the cooling fans spinning but not cooling anyone down. Schedules are: 7a.m. breakfast, then classes, then lunch at 1ish, more classes, then dinner at 8:30 and for the first couple of days a lecture after that. People were dropping like flies, sleeping through the awkward PowerPoint presentations. All was pretty much perfect for the first few days.
Saturday was A’s birthday so we all went to a bar that night to try Jul-brew. S, our PC Volunteer/babysitter and I and others bought some booze as well. 70 Dalasi for a local bottle of vodka, gin, whiskey, etc. where at a bar a Jul-brew is 45 dalsi. The booze was for pre-funking and it was the cheapest imaginable but whatever.
The bar and the beer and the company, more PCV’s were all right. We were supposed to mingle but I stayed mostly with who I knew. The few volunteers I spoke to were rather boring, as was I, I’m sure, not really who I expected as PCVs but neither am I. I supposed. M was right, a lot of “bores” and “white guilt”.
Back to GPI, we formed a dance party in the gazebo but everyone was a little bummed about dancing. Only M and A and myself and a few others did, and what music to play. It was A’s birthday, but whatever.
The next day we went to the beach, the water was amazing, shallow for miles and warm. We tried body surfing, only T really got going. Went to the reptile farm, all was good. I held a snake, I sweat like a pig. I got dehydrated but felt great going to bed. Even stopped to watch a bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Woke up shivering some time in the morning/night. I couldn’t believe I could get so cold in Africa. After what felt like an hour, huddled in my sheet, I turned the ceiling fan down –- still cold. I pulled out my sleeping bag, still freezing. I couldn’t breath very well either. I didn’t want to admit it, but I had the chills. My roommate finally took pity on me and woke up and got me to stand up, though I was out of breath and walk around. I went downstairs and it was a cool, nice night. Lightning went off in the distance, I was feeling better walking around trying to remember the lyrics to “Changing of the Guards” and “On Traveling”. I could feel like either shit or vomit was going to come next. J already has some minor diarrhea. I was hoping for the best. That’s all I knew.
I got the chills again and went into the empty vacant room with my sleeping bag. The storm began, it was amazing. Hard, hard rain. Loud thunder or no thunder. Bright, sharp lighting. I couldn’t help but draw the natural conclusion that this was not a coincidence. I started this storm. My body at least or the way I was that was a part of it. I tried to wake up J but he didn’t get it, so I left him alone again. I slept until the next morning. Still freezing and dizzy I got up to go to the nurse, Barbara, for immunizations. Everyone saw I had it bad and they all took pity. My shits were starting to burn and give me less warning of their onset. I lost more and more energy. I didn’t eat or drink so I could break the fever. Barbara checked me out and immediately put me to bed. I had to give her a stool sample, that was gross, but at least I aimed well, then I conked out. T joined me later, he had been experiencing the same thing for all of Sunday. Barbara said something about my temp being 104, later I saw it was 104.8, at some point it was over 105. Bad ass dysentery was the name of the game. She gave us some antibiotics and had us sleep off the fevers, more people were coming down with diarrhea. Barbara wasn’t happy. We tried to come up with what it was.
My theory was the fish because my stool smelled exactly like the fish market town we went to. This was the third time in my life I have had this in one form or another. We called it food poisoning in the states. I beat it there but no such case here. I needed the sick bay, I needed to sleep and have people take pity on me I guess. This all being said, the bug is gone and I feel tons better and 13 lbs lighter. Weighing myself I started at 192 and am now 179, I hope I can lose a little more and lighten this load.
Journal Entry 9.30.07
It’s been a while, haven’t had a lot of time. In Africa now, I don’t want to sound lame, but I can’t believe so much has happened. Last day of training was fine. We played a cool game where half the room was in a culture that have a set of rules, men speak to men, women to women. We could only answer yes or no questions but it would depend if their question was asked with a smile, then the answer is yes, if frown, then no, even if they asked the same question. Twice the answers could change depending on their smile. I had the fortitude to be made a native, so I only had to sit there and say yes or no. The other team were the anthropologists and they had to figure out our rules. That night I paced up and felt pretty confident about it. We went out to the White Dog. My bartender was not there. We, about 6 of us got nice and buzzed. I woke up still drunk and got ready to leave Philly. Shots, (inoculations), loaded whatever I could that was small and heavy and not a weapon or liquid into my guitar. When we got to the sky cap area, we weighed our bags. My Costco duffle bag weighed 51 lbs so I threw out expendable toothpaste and shampoo. My Jansport Mozembique was 42lbs—12 over the limit. L was there and she shoved about 10lbs into her second bag that was underweight. It was an ordeal. My guitar weighed 30.5lbs!!! I was nervous that security would not let it though or make me unpack it to check the pills I stashed in there, or the flight attendants wouldn’t stow it in their closet. In the end I made it through fine but I found out as soon as I had checked the bags and walked away from the terminal, with the group, ready to go through security, that the 80lb weight limit was b.s…the airline took 100lbs (despite what Peace Corps kept insisting). There was no reason to put so much stress on (or in) my guitar or shoulder stash (which weight some 25lbs). I was miffed, to say the least.
Journal Entry 9.25.07
What happened next was a little strange. Strange in the way of unexpected. The blonde-haired bartender and I started talking about the Gambia and her experience there visiting her sister. We share good eye contact and soon the two other guys she’s with seem to fade away. She says something about art and how that’s her service to the world. Giving the world art. Bit turn off. Why would someone say that? She, as it turns out is deaf in her left ear, as we switch spots so we can talk more and I’d be on her better side. The subject of dancing come up and we started dancing salsa to some Marc Anthony song. It was awkward but fun. For the last song, of the night she played “Mr. Bojangles” by Dylan and I was on cloud nine. I started talking about how rare that cover is and the guy with her that looked like Stanley Tucci was impressed by my Dylan skills. He gave me his website and said if any of the Gambians had CD players he’d totally send over a bunch of his CD’s. Ok guy, we’ll see what happens with that. The blonde gave me her contact info as well, walked me up the street. We parted ways after a kiss or two. “A farewell kiss” she said. This morning I woke up fully wanting to hear “Mr. Bojanles” but the copy I got from Liz didn’t work. It’s glitched, same with “Bob Dylan” which glitched on the plane. Not happy to know my Dylan is scratched for two years. That is going to suck. Had to pack tonight then maybe some more White Dog.
Journal Entry 9.24.07
Hier Kommt das begginnen: Philadelphia, PA
Yesterday doesn’t really count since it was mostly on a plane and I was asleep. But today counts. 24 or so hours ago I arrived and met T, my roommate or hotelmate, Sheraton University City hotel mate. But what’s stranger than that, which isn’t so strange, is that while getting the ground transportation at Philly airport a woman had the same hotel request.
“Peace Corps?” I asked.
“Yeah”, she said.
Long story, short, we shared a crowded van to the hotel and she was from Portland and I was from Portland—small world.
“I recognized you” she said, “you were asleep the whole time. I noticed you with that red pillow.”
I brought my mom’s red mochi pillow, it doesn’t condense well so I have to attach it with a shitty carabiner and so it rubs up against everything... dirty—airport floors, dirty airplane seats, dirty Philadelphia sidewalks. In any case, I thought it was weird, 3 out of the twenty-four volunteers are from Oregon, 2 from Seattle. The Northwest kicks ass!
My roommate (or hotelmate) A, the other Portlander, and I went to the White Dog Café which was recommended by the lady sitting next to me on the Liberty van that took us from the airport. The porter at the hotel said Peace Corps people always pack too much. “we have to” A said. The White Dog is a great bar. Well maybe not great. It could be cheaper, but the music is handpicked and the atmosphere is as well. What’s most impressive is the street on which it lives. Sansom, although A and I thought naturally that it was Samson. But T bet us the opposite and of course we were wrong. But as we licked our wounds I take comfort in hearing every local Philadelphian say “Samson Street”. So there. T is a geographer so I guess he reads street signs. F*ck geographers. But Sansom Street is quaint and beautiful. It looks like it got lost and is trying to find Greenwich Village again, a thin row and a tight one-way street lined on one side by brownstones. They’ve re-done on the ground floors to become cafes, bars, restaurants. The White Dog, is the only place in Philly that’s served me a beer. They feature local beers only so as to stay local. It’s a cute idea that the rest of the world should adopt. When we walked in, they were playing Ella. When I came back in to use the bathroom, Pointer. I’m a pointer, and we were sitting outside, the music was none other than Bob Dylan, good omen. “and like a fool I mixed then, and they mangled up my mind and people just kept getting uglier, and I lost all sense of time.” I non-soberly sang long. The White Dog’s good enough that I’m back here again writing this.
Today I woke up and denied my roommate company to the Rocky stairs and went it alone to downtown. I took the 36th? Station thinking it was a real subway but it wasn’t. It was a trolley, a trolley underground. Strange. I got off at City Hall, which was gorgeous at least from the outside. I then walked down Market to the Delaware River. I was surprised that the sister city to Philly was Camden, a town I have only heard disdain for. But seeing it from across the river on a sunny clear, eighty some degree-day, Camden didn’t seem so bad. How lucky for me to see the brighter side of shitty horrible places, when of course I am far away and safe and naïve.
I didn’t go inside anywhere historical because, frankly once I got there, I wasn’t interested. I walked then, grabbed the real subway back to 34th no 40th avenue and walked back to the hotel. But before I got there, I went inside an Indian place, got the buffet, and did all my PC paperwork.
Orientation was all right. I had to busy myself with doodling and the lead facilitator I think, wasn’t so hot about that. I caught her eye a few times. They gave us a debit card with $180 on it and asked us to pull it out at once and we were happy to hear that. Reimbursement and per diem. So I’m back at the White Dog. Last night I caught the eye of the bartender a few times, right now she’s a few seats down between two d-bags trying to make important conversations. I’m glad to know that Portland isn’t the only town where people b.s. about their home made bikes and being an artist and how important and interesting it all is. But in the end there is always uncomfortable silence because who F-ing cares about bikes and self-righteousness. But who am I to judge, I’m alone at a bar. But I’m glad cynicism isn’t just for Portland and Seattle, the whole world can enjoy it.
...and just when I thought things couldn’t get stranger, the bartender from yesterday mentions Gambia and how her sister served there for the Peace Corps five years earlier. We talked for a while and she wrote down the village where her sister lived. If I make it there I’ll have to mention her name and see what happens. Amy from orientation doesn’t know I’m here, she’s on my left. This bartender is on my right, they both speak of the Gambia. The omens are strong. Maybe I’m meant to go there after all. Too bad for Tanzania.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Journal Entry 11.4.07
I just got scolded. I guess I haven’t been in much of an academic mood lately and my Pulaar is slipping. The trip to Janjanbureh hurt me more than it helped. I had an evaluation yesterday with my LCH and I couldn’t form even the simplest of phrases. There’s a wall I was ready to hit and I just hit it. Tonight my host father came up to me and said that I was having an exam. A pop quiz so to speak. Two days ago we learned body parts in class. I don’t know if he knew that or not but sure enough he tested me on all the body parts that I did not know or at least forgot. He joked with me but I was disappointed for the last two days I have been disappointed with my language skills both comprehension and in speaking sentences that sound better than a caveman. “me want this, me come water garden, me good good, mosquitoes bad”.
We have our second language test on Wednesday or maybe Tuesday. I got Novice High last time ahead of the curve. I have to excel again. My goal of course is Intermediate Mid, but Intermediate Low is more of a reality. I cannot get Novice High again. I must progress. My host father made me get a pen and paper and write down all the body parts he told me. I promised tomorrow that I would have a make up exam and know it all. I realize my worst fear when studying by myself. I procrastinate too much. I am way behind on my agfo reading. I don’t know coppicing from cutting or grafting. I’m working on my garden and in the process of making manure tea. ok clumps of cow and goat shit in a bidong and add water, shake and leave in the sun for a week until it gets ripe and then pour onto seedlings for extra fertilization or (jambunge). I have another bidong soaking up neem leaves and branches. Neem is a tree here that the locals use the branches for toothbrushes, the sap and leaves can be used as a pesticide that essentially is what I am making. Right now though, I am slacking. I need constant check ups and pop quizzes like tonight to keep me in line.
My main priority over the last two days has been lei making. A trainee here is from Hawaii and today she had a birthday. The other week I asked her if she had ever had a birthday where she didn’t get a lei and she said no, her African birthday would be her first. Well somewhere inside I heard my mother 6,000 miles away saying that I shouldn’t let that happen so I asked the trainees in my village and the neighboring one if anyone wanted to bike to “M”s village for her birthday. I had four takers so yesterday I got all my chores done and at sunset I set off into the fields to find wildflowers. I asked the locals what the small yellow ones were. They called them Senegal something, no worries, I picked a bunch and then took them back and outside under the stars by candlelight with my travel sewing kit, I strung a bunch of little yellow flowers into a long white string with the help of my little host brothers and sisters, cutting flowers off of the stems piercing the needle through stringing them up. I liked the one I made for “M” so much that I started making another one for my host mother. I wanted my host brother to give it to her but everyone went to bed, so I stayed up and finished it. I heard my host mother still kicking around so I called her and gave her the second lei and she didn’t understand that I was giving it to her. She thought I gave it to her so she could try it on, but I said: “no its for you. I made it for you” in my best Pulaar. Then I turned my flashlight on to show her what she looked like with it on and to my surprise she was topless, National Geographic style. I guess it wasn’t that much of a surprise, she’s always topless, she has a baby after all, and this is Africa no one wears shirts I’ve seen more shirts on men then I have on women. But it was the fact that I was giving her this lei, I was expecting this nice bonding moment and it was at the same time it was yet another reminder that hey, I’m in Africa! When I give my host mother a floral necklace and put it on her, and turn a light on so everyone can see, chances are she won’t be wearing a shirt. The lei will only further accentuate her motherly breasts and her absence to the thought that anything could be possibly wrong with going topless because after all there isn’t anything wrong with going topless. I encourage more American females to follow in my host mother’s footsteps. I hoped “M” would at least, this morning when I gave her her lei but I wasn’t so lucky.
She did love it even though it wilted pretty bad. I tried to “refrigerate” it by sticking it in a Ziploc bag and placed it in my reserve bucket of drinking water which stays a bit cooler than room temp but I wasn’t so lucky The African heat got to it pretty fast, it shrunk to about 2/3 its size by the end of the day.
Getting to “M”s village takes about an hour so we had to leave at 7ish this morning. The ride was gorgeous! The sun rising over the baobab trees and the dew lifting off the rice fields. Awe inspiring a nice cool breeze. We waited till about 4pm to head back so the afternoon sun would cool a bit and we got lucky the ride back was even better. I’m glad out of all the miscellaneous crap I brought that I included my biking spandex padded shorts and cycling jersey. Sure I looked like a fool, but it felt great, sweat wicking off of me, the wind grazing my ample aerodynamic frame. I’m not used to mountain bikes and that’s exactly what we have. The roads look like downtown Bagdad potholes the size of VW bugs. The Gelegeles and trucks cannot exceed 20mph for fear of breaking an axel. So biking and driving have relatively equal distance times. If it takes me an hour by car, expect the same by bike. I’ll try to get pictures but just image an impassable road on the states, that’s the best stretch here on the South bank highway. The North bank is much nicer, but that’s because they vote for the current president. South bank could give half a shit apparently. They just drive on the side of the road in the ditches. It’s often better than what’s “paved”. Used to road bikes, I thought mountain bikes would take some getting used to but it was a lot of fun actually. I figure the main road is like a giant obstacle course and the back roads are so sandy it’s like riding on ice sometimes, jack-knifing and tipping over. I figure people drive for miles and pay lots of dough to ride in trails like this. Here I get a free trek mountain bike and an adventure every time I ride down the street to get a bar of soap.
On somewhat of a sad note one of our original 24 trainees is considering terminating his service. It’s a guy here in my training village. He confided in me the other day even though everyone saw it coming, he saw it coming too. We talk a lot about that, how he’s been overwhelmed on this journey and maybe it’s not the right time for him. He pretty much made it public the other day so I think it’s going to happen, we’ll see. Whatever does happen, whatever choice he makes I just hope it’s for the right reasons. Leaving or staying whatever makes him fitter, happier and more productive. It’s gotten all of us to think about our time here and how we feel about early termination or not leaving and why would do either. Riding home today I had a burst of endorphins and the road kept its integrity for a stretch and a nice cool breeze came and I really felt great. I felt the same emotion that I felt when I would ride home at night from watching a movie at the Laurelhurst on a cool summer night, dry, going “no hands”. It was one of these moments when I felt like this was my new home. I AM GETTING ADJUSTED. It’s strange to move somewhere and not get those feelings. But it takes time. Slowly, slowly. As much as Portland was my home so can this be. I’m not forcing it. I’m just letting it happen. Plus, the other day my youngest host brother was in my backyard helping me and saw my toilet paper and asked “what’s this?” I cracked up. I have two years to either teach people about toilet paper or forget about it completely myself. We shall see.
Journal Entry 10.31.07
Halloween and I’m writing this by candlelight. Finally got a candle holder. My deodorant ran out and lucky, Old Spice Red Zone happens to fit two white standard candles just fine. I have been in country for a month now and have accumulated ¼ of a Target plastic bag in garbage. In the states, I’d have taken the trash out at least two times, filling one of those green bins each time. Here, there is no trash collector hence no dump other than the streets. Things are dirty but also pretty clean. Since everyone prays five times to the east and have to wash their hands and faces each time it keeps them clean and dust free. Plus they bathe twice a day and always wash their hands. Things aren’t clean here by U.S. standard, dishes and clothes are best left to be done out of sight, out of mind.
But still we went on a 4 day excursion to Janjanbureh (or Georgetown) and stayed at a rustic camp, not unlike Tendeba only without electricity. But there was running water and the shower was a much welcome luxury. This camp was on the river so mosquitoes were the # 1 pest. I have a system now, however. I shower (or bucket bathe) then I hop into scrubs, t-shirt and socks (most important since the little shits go after the feet most of all). I just plain out don’t wear shorts or sandals at night if I can help it. Or at least sandals with socks which is my #1 fashion pet peeve but since my scrub pants drape over the ankles, and since it serves a purpose, it suffices my hypocracy for now at least. So the mosquitoes (or bodi) weren’t such a problem this time. The monkeys however were.
I was sharing a room with “A” and “K” (who we’ve named “stripes” because we have like three “K”) and one day this “K” wore a striped shirt and the name stuck. I will continue to make it stick!! So late at night, nothing stirring in and then along comes this sound of a man shouting and more sounds of animals scampering around. I’m dreaming fast asleep because its like four in the morning and what else would I be doing. And upon hearing these noises I instantly dream that there is a man outside our room herding sheep at 4a.m. through the camp. What wakes me up is the sound of some type of mammal crashing upon the aluminum roof over our heads. I jolt up still in the “sheep herding dream” thinking now, half awake that a goat has busted down our door and has proceeded to eat, in and around Stripes. I call out “Stripes, you okay?” Obviously she is, because a goat didn’t come busting through our door. Rather some type of monkey or monster, had crash landed on our tin roof, which is already loud and from what we could make out, took the next half hour to eat, or perhaps mate with another monkey or perhaps monster. We’re not really sure. Although there were plenty of monkeys at camp and possibly no monsters, the sounds that came from above us on the roof were not only inhuman but I don’t think even primates have the gurgling capacity or want to make those kinds of noises no matter how badly it wants to eat or mate or how badly it does not want to be eated or mated upon. Like most other interferences and strange noises in the night outside my window, I began to pay it no mind and fell quickly asleep again still wondering if there was a chance that a goat might still come into our room and eat Stripes.
This morning was the first time I actually made it to breakfast at the camp. I wouldn’t say on time, because I wasn’t, but at least I made it while they were still serving. I was able to finally eat the buffet of bread, butter flavored Crisco, strawberry jam (a rare treat!) and little bean curd donuts not unlike Malasadas or whatever its called. They had two forks wrapped in napkins instead of one fork, one knife. But lucky they did because my first fork fell on the ground not because I’m clumsy though often I am, but you see, one of these monkeys the cute skinny gray kind with long tails and almost baboon faces, the kind that infest the trees around the eating area and forage for leftover scraps, the kind that probably has e-bola. One decided to be daring and come over and sit by me. For a split second I was like, “holy shit, there’s a monkey that just came right up to me how awesome!” Until halfway through my thought I noticed that the monkey was only looking at my plate and before I knew it, the damn thing snatched a piece of bread off my plate knocking my fork to the ground. Before I could call the cops or say “hey, stop that” the monkey was back in the tree enjoying my fresh piece of bread. Bastard. I have now rightfully been mugged twice in my life. Once at gunpoint in L.A., and the other in Africa by a monkey. Sometimes I wonder what good it was that we evolved in the first place. Damn monkey.
Journal Entry 10.25.07
By the looks of it, it’s been a month since I arrived in Philly and this whole damn adventure began. On days like today full of challenges and what not, it’s actually easy to see myself here for two more years. “Seeda, Seeda” the motto goes: “slowly, slowly”.
Uno is a big hit, I’m playing more Uno or have played in the last two days than my entire life. Two points of interest today.
1) Today was our TAXI EXPERIENCE DAY where we had, with the other trainees and our LCH, to take a trip to Soma from our villages by way of Gelegele, the local bush taxi. Soma is about a half hour’s drive but the roads are SO bad it takes upward to an hour. It costs D25 or $1.00 U.S. And there’s no schedule. You just wait by the side of the road under a tree or thatch roof if one exists, until you see a rickety van gallop down the road, huffing and puffing diesel like it’s the last Mad Max/Chitty Chitty Bang Bang contraption left on the road. Then you flag it down, if there’s room, you get in, if not, you probably still get in, but if there’s really not, you wait for the next one which may or may not ever come. We caught one about an hour after waiting.
The trainees from a Mandinka village down the road were already in there along with a few locals. We piled in no problem, 8 or 12 passenger van with 1 or 2 seats left till capacity. We jossle down the road, come to a stop, fill the engine with water (it was thirsty) and pick up a few more passengers. A small boy is put into the lap of his father and I figure that is a full ride. A few minute later we stop at a police blockade (standard, no trouble) except more people start climbing aboard. We couldn’t possibly cram more people in, but we did! The lady against the window had a small baby who needed to pee. She tried holding it up to the window, but the driver’s apprentice, 1 of 3, all stand outside on the bumper or above on the luggage rack, said NO. We stopped and he took the kid out to pee, we gather more people going to Soma. We were over twenty in the van swinging by another village where trainees are studying Wolof. We gathered “T” and “Bj” and a few more. “Bj” had to ride standing up half in and half out of the back of the van with the apprentices. At final count there were 29 people in the van not sure if that included the 3 up above and outside. The van was packed and for some reason they asked for the fare when we were most packed and confused, smashed going this way and that, waiting for change and getting said change back into your pockets takes patience. Gambian patience.
2) This afternoon, “M”, “A”, “K” and I were working in the fields of coos, collecting more stakes for “A”s fence. We figure this is a futile task but it keeps us busy and already the goats are getting into his garden and nothings been planted yet. As the sun began to set we tried to figure out how we were going to get the stalks back to his garden. Last time we wrapped them in rope and then “M” and “A” carried them, but that was too itchy and heavy. So “A” said he’d grab his bed sheet that he doesn’t use and we’ll carry it in that. We try to suggest a donkey cart, but it was getting late, we’d have to get the donkey cart, donkey, both of which were just out of our mental and physical reach. So “A” got the sheet, and was teased on his way back to the field ”What’s the sheet for” “to carry the coos” “but it’s so new!”
We lift the coos stalks with the blanket, each taking a corner like a bunch of pall bearers and hike the coos awkwardly to “A”s garden. The ladies at the pump laugh of course and we take two loads like this. Carrying the third, our LCH stops us and asks what we are doing. We figure it’s because the ladies got her saying that we’re wasting a perfectly good bed sheet. Nope. She tells us to drop the coos immediately. Apparently the Gambian culture is such that they bury their dead exactly how we were carrying the stalks. Even down to the brand spanking new bed sheet. They take the bed sheet, place the dead and carry them to be buried, one man at each end. The fact that we were defacing their culture wasn’t even the worst of it. If one does mock the dead, that in itself is a bad omen. That death will be coming soon, and in a village in a third world country, death can come without warning just about anytime and for any reason. One doesn’t need a good or bad omen to predict death! So. Bed sheet: 100 dalasi. Machete: Peace Corps issue. Offending an entire village mid their sacred rituals: priceless. Chalk it up to the full moon, which I might add is awe inspiring and so damn bright even an idiot toubab can find his way to pit latrine at night without a flashlight.
Uno is a big hit, I’m playing more Uno or have played in the last two days than my entire life. Two points of interest today.
1) Today was our TAXI EXPERIENCE DAY where we had, with the other trainees and our LCH, to take a trip to Soma from our villages by way of Gelegele, the local bush taxi. Soma is about a half hour’s drive but the roads are SO bad it takes upward to an hour. It costs D25 or $1.00 U.S. And there’s no schedule. You just wait by the side of the road under a tree or thatch roof if one exists, until you see a rickety van gallop down the road, huffing and puffing diesel like it’s the last Mad Max/Chitty Chitty Bang Bang contraption left on the road. Then you flag it down, if there’s room, you get in, if not, you probably still get in, but if there’s really not, you wait for the next one which may or may not ever come. We caught one about an hour after waiting.
The trainees from a Mandinka village down the road were already in there along with a few locals. We piled in no problem, 8 or 12 passenger van with 1 or 2 seats left till capacity. We jossle down the road, come to a stop, fill the engine with water (it was thirsty) and pick up a few more passengers. A small boy is put into the lap of his father and I figure that is a full ride. A few minute later we stop at a police blockade (standard, no trouble) except more people start climbing aboard. We couldn’t possibly cram more people in, but we did! The lady against the window had a small baby who needed to pee. She tried holding it up to the window, but the driver’s apprentice, 1 of 3, all stand outside on the bumper or above on the luggage rack, said NO. We stopped and he took the kid out to pee, we gather more people going to Soma. We were over twenty in the van swinging by another village where trainees are studying Wolof. We gathered “T” and “Bj” and a few more. “Bj” had to ride standing up half in and half out of the back of the van with the apprentices. At final count there were 29 people in the van not sure if that included the 3 up above and outside. The van was packed and for some reason they asked for the fare when we were most packed and confused, smashed going this way and that, waiting for change and getting said change back into your pockets takes patience. Gambian patience.
2) This afternoon, “M”, “A”, “K” and I were working in the fields of coos, collecting more stakes for “A”s fence. We figure this is a futile task but it keeps us busy and already the goats are getting into his garden and nothings been planted yet. As the sun began to set we tried to figure out how we were going to get the stalks back to his garden. Last time we wrapped them in rope and then “M” and “A” carried them, but that was too itchy and heavy. So “A” said he’d grab his bed sheet that he doesn’t use and we’ll carry it in that. We try to suggest a donkey cart, but it was getting late, we’d have to get the donkey cart, donkey, both of which were just out of our mental and physical reach. So “A” got the sheet, and was teased on his way back to the field ”What’s the sheet for” “to carry the coos” “but it’s so new!”
We lift the coos stalks with the blanket, each taking a corner like a bunch of pall bearers and hike the coos awkwardly to “A”s garden. The ladies at the pump laugh of course and we take two loads like this. Carrying the third, our LCH stops us and asks what we are doing. We figure it’s because the ladies got her saying that we’re wasting a perfectly good bed sheet. Nope. She tells us to drop the coos immediately. Apparently the Gambian culture is such that they bury their dead exactly how we were carrying the stalks. Even down to the brand spanking new bed sheet. They take the bed sheet, place the dead and carry them to be buried, one man at each end. The fact that we were defacing their culture wasn’t even the worst of it. If one does mock the dead, that in itself is a bad omen. That death will be coming soon, and in a village in a third world country, death can come without warning just about anytime and for any reason. One doesn’t need a good or bad omen to predict death! So. Bed sheet: 100 dalasi. Machete: Peace Corps issue. Offending an entire village mid their sacred rituals: priceless. Chalk it up to the full moon, which I might add is awe inspiring and so damn bright even an idiot toubab can find his way to pit latrine at night without a flashlight.
Journal Entry 10.22.07
“The sky too is folding over you” I listen to this now as I write, not thinking that I would write for a while just because everything seems either dull or repetitive. Last week was spent at Tendeba a tourist camp/hostel on the river with millions of mosquitoes. In fact the t-shirts say “one million mosquitoes can’t be wrong. Tendeba is awesome”. Well, Tendeba is something. It was better than GPI in the way that we believed the kitchen better prepped and cleaned, the dishes and food. There was electricity almost all the time and there was even a bar and a four/five foot deep swimming pool. All of that was great except we (our whole group (24) got back together again) had class every minute of everyday, so it wasn’t the easiest to find time to do everything we wanted. We spent time in the garden, a forest really, about 1km from camp. We learned to make sunken beds and mud stoves and beehives and had other tech stuff classes, lots of classes, not much applied learning yet. All in all, Tendeba was ok, but we ended up longing for our sleepy little villages. At least I did. I enjoyed my company, “J” and I mated rooms again. I hung out a lot with “A” and “M” and “B” and I jammed on our guitars and harmonicas. That was a lot of fun. We had our first language test, the goal was Novice Mid but I scored Novice High. I don’t know how I did that cause I feel like an idiot speaking this language and I can’t understand anything anyone says but whatever. I’ll take it. But coming back to village feels normal. We know the people better and more interesting things happen. On Sunday I went over on my bike (used, but the best of the bunch, mine changes gears! and has brakes!) to the next Fula training village. I went by my lonesome and guitar and met up with “B” and sat neath a mango tree playing our folk jam songs to little Africans who couldn’t possibly understand how ironic it was for us to sit in front of them with their eyes wide open listening to two Toubabs named Momodou Bah, Jam Tan Jam Band, singing wide-eyed ourselves about them lost and certainly this is not our home and yet we are the ones who feel comfortable. They are the ones without a clue to why we are blowing metal reeds between our metal head gear, strumming against foolish wooden expensive guitars like a bunch of idiots.
Yesterday I was feeling overwhelmed with all the work I needed to do and the language work and the immersion into the community, that’s the most daunting., talking with the locals. I’m just not there yet, I don’t feel right stumbling over my vocab as they smile blindly at me. But finally I needed to start my garden in my back yard, so I gathered up my tools and my brothers and a couple other “small boys” jumped at the opportunity to help. That’s the best part of having a village like ours. The kids can be annoying and loud but the village really does raise them, not just one mother one child. If you see a kid doing something wrong, you say something. If you need help, you tell them to do something, and they do it. They love to help. It must kill the boredom. So I had three or four small boys digging up my back yard. I did my best to tell them how to do it correctly in my best, always my best Pulaar. It worked for the most part. One kid, Ousman (another of the many) saw that I had a wasp’s nest beginning on my fence. I said that when I get a chance I’ll spray it or something. He didn’t want me to wait I guess cause he convinced me that he would grab it with a rag and throw it over my fence and into the coos field. Okay I said. I gave him a rag and sure enough he grabbed the softball sized wasp’s nest with his hand (wasps included) and held onto it for a few minutes, then chucked it away.
Today’s African moment of the day was cleaning my three bidongs with my host brothers. A bidong is a five gallon drum of cooking oil from China. It’s plastic with a small opening and a handle. It comes used and dirty and still has oil inside. Our job is to wash them out so we can water our gardens with them, or store water. They’re a bitch to clean though. You have to fill them with dirt and sand to soak up the oil and then wash all the dirt out, and then if you want to store drinking water in ‘em, you have to sterilize them after that. I’m not storing drinking water anywhere near them, I’m just using them to water and mix compost and manure tea.
So my brothers took the bidongs to the well and with a small wasp-hive-grabbing rag and a few slivers of soap we cleaned the hell out of those bidongs. One quick African method, as I saw it with my own eyes this morning, is to grab a discarded ear of corn, kernels removed and preferably eaten, roasted and delicious. And take that ear of corn and use it as a scrub brush. And that’s exactly what I did. I collected the best chewed up corn cobs I could find and my brother grabbed a corn husk laying in the dirt and we got scrubbing. They didn’t use sand or dirt to absorb the oil inside but instead some dried, little crusty looking things from the coos fields, they worked great. These kids really knew what they were doing. I, as the oldest one, hadn’t a clue. But I loved getting there at the water pump, scrubbing away at a plastic oil container with a broken down ear of corn in the 21st century thinking, wow, sure don’t do this in the states. Later that evening I taught (they already kind of knew) UNO, only I was trying to do everything in Pulaar, so it was Goto. Goto, didi, tatti, nigh, jowi, jago, jadidi, jatatti, and janigh. The colors, which I learned in class today are Bodajo (red) Bulajo (Blue) Bajekaci (green) and Natejo (yellow). I don’t think I have that right still every after saying it three hundred times. They played in a sudden death kind of way. Whoever had the most cards at the end sat out the next game until there were only two left myself and Amadou, the middle of the tree boys who was in charge of the bidong cleaning today and who has taken the most to making sure I don’t get myself into trouble by politely handing smaller kids my things as I often innocently do. Amadou definitely has my back, even when he had malaria which he just had when I was at Tendeba. He’s feeling better now, thank God. I gave him some 400mg of Ibuprophin for his fever the other day. I’m glad it didn’t kill him. He’s the kind of kid that’s just well behaved and uses common sense, is very intelligent and receptive, hard working. He’s the kind of kid I want to send to Toubab Country Continent University. I’m sure there’s about a million kids like him, all deserving of a chance, but they’ll never get it. They’ll be here in 20 years, farming coos, having a big family, happy, not knowing anything different than the few Peace Corps volunteers who show up every year to relearn how to tie their shoes and take a shit. Amadou won, of course. I don’t think I’ve ever won at Uno or Gofo. We finished up and laid down looking up at the night sky, the moon was almost full and it’s so bright you don’t even need a flashlight half the time. Dark clouds moved above us and a cold wind blew over our skin. The three boys and I laid there anticipating rain that never came. I felt content and happy, watching clouds pass over the moon, dreaming about home, wondering who’s dreaming about Africa?
Journal Entry 10.13.2007
Today was Koriteh and for the first time the village did not fast. This meant there was a more festive afternoon, following of course the morning of prayers. We all went to the prayer session at 10am. Dressed up a little, hot and sweaty. All the kids got new clothes. Some shorts and pants, probably the only ones they’ll get for another year. We sat with the 40 or so people of the village who came to pray. The women of middle to adolescent age weren’t there, but all the men, boys, girls and elderly women. It was beneath a tree looking east into the cous field. The town mosque is too small or else we would have been inside of that. But outside in the shade was just fine. The whole thing lasted only half an hour or so. We mentioned the ceremony with the boys telling us when to say amen and touch our forehead. We sat beneath our shaded studying tree and finish our homework then around 4ish, "L" and "A" arrived on bikes.
The women of the village by now dressed up in fine colorful wraps and dresses began to beat a drum. We were made to dance which didn’t take too much cajoling when the kids were grabbing our hands and smiling and laughing. My host brother asked for the guitar so I got it and ripped off a piece of bamboo from under our studying tree. Bamboo by the way makes a great pick. I even took out my harmonica and blew on it as the women were drumming. Everyone stopped and jaws hit the ground. They all started laughing and had these looks of awe. The party continued and this little girl danced to the bad harmonica I was playing until her flowers fell out of her hair. We then went on parade to the big house, a new structure one of the richer families built with money coming in from America. One of their sons married a PCV about two or three years ago. At least I think that the family I may have it wrong. In any case, the house was nice but contained nothing but beds, laundry, rugs and concrete floors, rich is still a relative term. But we danced and drummed through the horde and I played guitar with them. We got to a room, a small room, crammed inside and the women and the girls were taking turns dancing in the middle of the room. One older lady had a whistle she was blowing with all her might and an infant baby strapped to her back with a long blue patterned wrap. The baby despite being rocked and whipped back and forth with a loud whistle and drums and singing echoing throughout a small reverberated room, was fast asleep. Children here learn fast and young to be docile in loud and tough situations. We panic, they live. When I saw that woman dance, however, I had what we are calling an African moment. Despite being here, it still doesn’t feel real, maybe because we are still being coddled, fed, taught, engaged. We are still speaking English to other white people. Maybe when that disappears, it will all hit us. But until then, it’s hard not to think that we are not just ten minutes down the road from civilization or the western world, or however you want to call it. Throughout the day this does not feel like “Africa” until one moment hits you and you feel like your are in the middle of a National Geographic magazine and you realize that this is not home. This is not “safe and easy”, this is very much real. These moments so far have been from positive experiences, playing with kids, watching people eat or do their hair, dance, sing, etc. But then we go to bed at night and at least still dream vivid dreams about home and America.
Last night I was hanging out with Larry David, which is of course Zack Fox in 20 years, and we were getting into all these adventures trying to take the Max redline into New York City and visit the Ghostbusters building which turned out to be haunted still and I could see the ghosts and Larry David drove a sports car and gave me a lift to the airport where I missed my flight to Africa and I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I knew I couldn’t leave the airport either. That’s the short version. In any case I have these moments I guess they are of homesickness but more over, take the situation in the airport, I feel like I’m still not here, I’m in limbo. I’m in some waiting period where Frank, Jesse, Sara, Heather, and everyone else is still a part of me waiting for me as if they are just ten minutes down the road waiting for me to get bored, or to really want a shower in a clean bathroom with towels and a sink and a mirror and a fan and music playing. Half of me doesn’t want to forget that, the other half wants to start dreaming of the Gambia, speaking Pulaar and working under a hot sun in the middle of a cous field.
The women of the village by now dressed up in fine colorful wraps and dresses began to beat a drum. We were made to dance which didn’t take too much cajoling when the kids were grabbing our hands and smiling and laughing. My host brother asked for the guitar so I got it and ripped off a piece of bamboo from under our studying tree. Bamboo by the way makes a great pick. I even took out my harmonica and blew on it as the women were drumming. Everyone stopped and jaws hit the ground. They all started laughing and had these looks of awe. The party continued and this little girl danced to the bad harmonica I was playing until her flowers fell out of her hair. We then went on parade to the big house, a new structure one of the richer families built with money coming in from America. One of their sons married a PCV about two or three years ago. At least I think that the family I may have it wrong. In any case, the house was nice but contained nothing but beds, laundry, rugs and concrete floors, rich is still a relative term. But we danced and drummed through the horde and I played guitar with them. We got to a room, a small room, crammed inside and the women and the girls were taking turns dancing in the middle of the room. One older lady had a whistle she was blowing with all her might and an infant baby strapped to her back with a long blue patterned wrap. The baby despite being rocked and whipped back and forth with a loud whistle and drums and singing echoing throughout a small reverberated room, was fast asleep. Children here learn fast and young to be docile in loud and tough situations. We panic, they live. When I saw that woman dance, however, I had what we are calling an African moment. Despite being here, it still doesn’t feel real, maybe because we are still being coddled, fed, taught, engaged. We are still speaking English to other white people. Maybe when that disappears, it will all hit us. But until then, it’s hard not to think that we are not just ten minutes down the road from civilization or the western world, or however you want to call it. Throughout the day this does not feel like “Africa” until one moment hits you and you feel like your are in the middle of a National Geographic magazine and you realize that this is not home. This is not “safe and easy”, this is very much real. These moments so far have been from positive experiences, playing with kids, watching people eat or do their hair, dance, sing, etc. But then we go to bed at night and at least still dream vivid dreams about home and America.
Last night I was hanging out with Larry David, which is of course Zack Fox in 20 years, and we were getting into all these adventures trying to take the Max redline into New York City and visit the Ghostbusters building which turned out to be haunted still and I could see the ghosts and Larry David drove a sports car and gave me a lift to the airport where I missed my flight to Africa and I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I knew I couldn’t leave the airport either. That’s the short version. In any case I have these moments I guess they are of homesickness but more over, take the situation in the airport, I feel like I’m still not here, I’m in limbo. I’m in some waiting period where Frank, Jesse, Sara, Heather, and everyone else is still a part of me waiting for me as if they are just ten minutes down the road waiting for me to get bored, or to really want a shower in a clean bathroom with towels and a sink and a mirror and a fan and music playing. Half of me doesn’t want to forget that, the other half wants to start dreaming of the Gambia, speaking Pulaar and working under a hot sun in the middle of a cous field.
Journal Entry 10.11.2007 - Night
Oh day! What a good day. What a gorgeous goddamn day. The fasting went well, but I had little to strain myself over. I did happen to notice that my feet and ankles have become swollen like that of a pregnant lady. "K" thinks it has something to do with the heat, dehydration, high sodium intake. I agree but add on to that list mosquito bites and bed bug bites and probably a myriad of other things. My neck is still killing me. It’s like I had whiplash or something. Either from the enormous pillow which is made of tough hay, or the fact that I carry stress in these muscles. Pain and discomfort-wise it rated a 9 the other day. Today, maybe a 6. So that’s good. (A donkey just sneezed outside my window, it scared the crap out of me).
But I digress. It’s been a wonderful day, neck and feet aside, fasting gave me a little boost of energy and respect in the village and they all think it’s funny that I won’t do it again tomorrow. But again, besides all that. Today is the day before my birthday, I am turning 28 years old. I feel someday like 21, most others 62. Ida, our language and culture trainer (LCH) here in our training village left today at around 2pm so she can enjoy the holiday with her family. We are left to amuse ourselves and do all the mounds of homework by ourselves before we go to Tendeha Camp for a week, starting Monday. Well, when the cats away….
Ida left and we sat around our favorite mango tree, I put my feet up on the trunk to quell some of the swelling and rested my head on my binder, a familiar position for my afternoon nap beneath the classroom tree. There’s an elevated bamboo woven mat that surrounds the trunk. It makes for a perfect meeting place, well shaded throughout the afternoon. Well at about 3:30 or so, I never keep track of time anymore, I awoke and pulled some books out to study when I saw a bunch of toubabs, or white people with bikes and bike helmets out the top of hill near the entrance to town. I thought it was our neighbor Fula group of PCT’s (peace corps trainees) from the next village down about a kilometer and a half. Then one of the local boys came over to announce said Fula group coming from the back road, not the front. I tried to correct him saying that I can see the toubabs coming from the north. He instead said they were coming from the east. I looked to the east, and sure enough, there came the neighbor PCTs. Who were on the bikes then, Mormons? Hardly. The 3rd and 4th group about 5 or 6 kilometers down the road from the Mandinka villages. Without direct communication the Fula group made a 30 minute trek on foot to our village arriving at the same time as the Mandinka PCTs some 30-40 mins by bike and the opposite direction!
No one could believe the coincidence. On top of that, our village is populated by 7 (only 7 compounds). Even if each compound had 10 people that’s only 70 towns people. Here, on a sleepy Thursday afternoon comes 12-14 white people, some on bikes all wishing me a happy birthday. I almost forgot it was my birthday to be honest. I have enough on my plate and I hate burdening people with stuff like that, but how sweet of them to all make the effort. I have to say I was pretty surprised. I didn’t think I was going to see "J" or "A" until Tendeba so when they showed up, we got to catch up a little, swap stories, plus I felt this becoming sense of pride for my village. It’s small but everyone is so nice and it’s noticeable. "J" made some comment about how some other villages were tougher, the people here he said: “You can see the love in them”. I showed them my house and backyard and tomato plant where I bathe. "J" pulled out a fifth of whisky (McCarthy brand 7 dalasi Gambian special) and technically I broke fast. But hey, it’s my birthday. Everyone left too soon, but had to hit the road before dark. I understand. "A", who has been having a rough time adjusting, got the boost he needed visiting with everyone and seems much more optimistic. We walked down to get our books from the mango tree and noticed a giant black cloud over the firmament. I’ve never been to the Midwest but I imagine this is what it’s like to be sitting outside in the muggy heat one second, and then have to grab your stuff and run for the hills the next. A giant wind blew through town and everyone was off the street. We grabbed our books and high tailed it out of there. I met up with one of my younger brothers and we talked about the “ngigam” that was about to come. Last birthday I had been in a foreign country was Spain’05 and it stormed that day as well. I love storms and I love rain, and I love it when a good cool wind blows through hot African towns. Thank God for a wonderful birthday or pre-birthday. I sat beneath my thatched roof on the concrete porch with my three “minirawo” or younger brothers and tried to communicate about the rain and how where I’m from it rains all the time and how I miss it. They were shivering—it’s probably 70 degrees or thereabout and they are freezing. They asked for the guitar and so I brought it out and we sat on the bench on the patio. One kid strumming, one kid drumming on the wood, and me holding down strings to make the G and E-Major chords, the guitar stretched out on our laps. It was great. Poor people aren’t so bad after all.
Later we gathered in the father’s house. I had not been in there before. It’s the same size as mine but without concrete floors, just dirt like the outside but no one cares. We broke fast with this tea that I love so much. I’ll be sad when Ramadan ends cause that’ll be the end of the tea. Also there’s bread, little baguettes, fresh that day from one village over, a little butter and garlic smeared inside of it, then roasted “tourbano” or corn. An ear put right on the charcoals of a small little stove, the kernels are roasted and it tastes like popcorn still on the ear. Awesome, love it! The little girl and I played that game where you hold your hands out and the other person tries to slap them before you can remove ‘em. I had her giggling for 5 minutes. All in all, great day.
Now I get to go to bed and have more vivid dreams. Last night I was modeling for Madonna’s Vogue album cover. It was me making zombie-like shadow puppets with Madonna and company on the bed with a camera liking what I did. What will happen tonight? Hopefully the first night it’s cool enough where I’ll wake up without sweat all over me. At least I hope it’s sweat. Oh, also point to make….Bucket baths are actually pretty great especially under the stars at night when you’re surrounded by fields of tall corn and cous. Tonight, since it was pouring rain, I made the decision to bathe under the rain as well as the night. I stripped inside and left my towel and things inside, walked out naked with only my sandals on since the clouds blocked the stars and moon, it was pitch black. I had only a dim light from my headlamp inside my house to see the concrete path to the latrine area. Again, I have a pit latrine and concrete landing area where I bathe. The sun bleaches it during the day so it’s nice and clean by night. There’s a neck-high fence of dried reed and no roof so I can stand naked bathing and see the fields and water pump besides my compound when there’s better light out, but not tonight. Black. The rain was not cold, but not warm either. The bucket of water was cold as hell so it was nice to get a little rain dropping on me to mix things up. All in all, totally recommend bathing outside at night in the rain, if anyone ever gets the chance.
But I digress. It’s been a wonderful day, neck and feet aside, fasting gave me a little boost of energy and respect in the village and they all think it’s funny that I won’t do it again tomorrow. But again, besides all that. Today is the day before my birthday, I am turning 28 years old. I feel someday like 21, most others 62. Ida, our language and culture trainer (LCH) here in our training village left today at around 2pm so she can enjoy the holiday with her family. We are left to amuse ourselves and do all the mounds of homework by ourselves before we go to Tendeha Camp for a week, starting Monday. Well, when the cats away….
Ida left and we sat around our favorite mango tree, I put my feet up on the trunk to quell some of the swelling and rested my head on my binder, a familiar position for my afternoon nap beneath the classroom tree. There’s an elevated bamboo woven mat that surrounds the trunk. It makes for a perfect meeting place, well shaded throughout the afternoon. Well at about 3:30 or so, I never keep track of time anymore, I awoke and pulled some books out to study when I saw a bunch of toubabs, or white people with bikes and bike helmets out the top of hill near the entrance to town. I thought it was our neighbor Fula group of PCT’s (peace corps trainees) from the next village down about a kilometer and a half. Then one of the local boys came over to announce said Fula group coming from the back road, not the front. I tried to correct him saying that I can see the toubabs coming from the north. He instead said they were coming from the east. I looked to the east, and sure enough, there came the neighbor PCTs. Who were on the bikes then, Mormons? Hardly. The 3rd and 4th group about 5 or 6 kilometers down the road from the Mandinka villages. Without direct communication the Fula group made a 30 minute trek on foot to our village arriving at the same time as the Mandinka PCTs some 30-40 mins by bike and the opposite direction!
No one could believe the coincidence. On top of that, our village is populated by 7 (only 7 compounds). Even if each compound had 10 people that’s only 70 towns people. Here, on a sleepy Thursday afternoon comes 12-14 white people, some on bikes all wishing me a happy birthday. I almost forgot it was my birthday to be honest. I have enough on my plate and I hate burdening people with stuff like that, but how sweet of them to all make the effort. I have to say I was pretty surprised. I didn’t think I was going to see "J" or "A" until Tendeba so when they showed up, we got to catch up a little, swap stories, plus I felt this becoming sense of pride for my village. It’s small but everyone is so nice and it’s noticeable. "J" made some comment about how some other villages were tougher, the people here he said: “You can see the love in them”. I showed them my house and backyard and tomato plant where I bathe. "J" pulled out a fifth of whisky (McCarthy brand 7 dalasi Gambian special) and technically I broke fast. But hey, it’s my birthday. Everyone left too soon, but had to hit the road before dark. I understand. "A", who has been having a rough time adjusting, got the boost he needed visiting with everyone and seems much more optimistic. We walked down to get our books from the mango tree and noticed a giant black cloud over the firmament. I’ve never been to the Midwest but I imagine this is what it’s like to be sitting outside in the muggy heat one second, and then have to grab your stuff and run for the hills the next. A giant wind blew through town and everyone was off the street. We grabbed our books and high tailed it out of there. I met up with one of my younger brothers and we talked about the “ngigam” that was about to come. Last birthday I had been in a foreign country was Spain’05 and it stormed that day as well. I love storms and I love rain, and I love it when a good cool wind blows through hot African towns. Thank God for a wonderful birthday or pre-birthday. I sat beneath my thatched roof on the concrete porch with my three “minirawo” or younger brothers and tried to communicate about the rain and how where I’m from it rains all the time and how I miss it. They were shivering—it’s probably 70 degrees or thereabout and they are freezing. They asked for the guitar and so I brought it out and we sat on the bench on the patio. One kid strumming, one kid drumming on the wood, and me holding down strings to make the G and E-Major chords, the guitar stretched out on our laps. It was great. Poor people aren’t so bad after all.
Later we gathered in the father’s house. I had not been in there before. It’s the same size as mine but without concrete floors, just dirt like the outside but no one cares. We broke fast with this tea that I love so much. I’ll be sad when Ramadan ends cause that’ll be the end of the tea. Also there’s bread, little baguettes, fresh that day from one village over, a little butter and garlic smeared inside of it, then roasted “tourbano” or corn. An ear put right on the charcoals of a small little stove, the kernels are roasted and it tastes like popcorn still on the ear. Awesome, love it! The little girl and I played that game where you hold your hands out and the other person tries to slap them before you can remove ‘em. I had her giggling for 5 minutes. All in all, great day.
Now I get to go to bed and have more vivid dreams. Last night I was modeling for Madonna’s Vogue album cover. It was me making zombie-like shadow puppets with Madonna and company on the bed with a camera liking what I did. What will happen tonight? Hopefully the first night it’s cool enough where I’ll wake up without sweat all over me. At least I hope it’s sweat. Oh, also point to make….Bucket baths are actually pretty great especially under the stars at night when you’re surrounded by fields of tall corn and cous. Tonight, since it was pouring rain, I made the decision to bathe under the rain as well as the night. I stripped inside and left my towel and things inside, walked out naked with only my sandals on since the clouds blocked the stars and moon, it was pitch black. I had only a dim light from my headlamp inside my house to see the concrete path to the latrine area. Again, I have a pit latrine and concrete landing area where I bathe. The sun bleaches it during the day so it’s nice and clean by night. There’s a neck-high fence of dried reed and no roof so I can stand naked bathing and see the fields and water pump besides my compound when there’s better light out, but not tonight. Black. The rain was not cold, but not warm either. The bucket of water was cold as hell so it was nice to get a little rain dropping on me to mix things up. All in all, totally recommend bathing outside at night in the rain, if anyone ever gets the chance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)