Journal Entry 10.11.2007 - Day

It’s five in the morning and I’ve woken up on time for the day of fasting. They said be up at Waktu Jowi or 5 o’clock and here I am. But there’s nothing to do so I’m writing more stuff. Like how no matter what, I’m so paranoid of mosquitoes now that I’ve been bitten to hell and back. Every time I feel anything remotely brush against my skin, I’m whacking at it. I woke up in the middle of the night, I swear there’s like a gaggle of bloodthirsty mosquitoes inside my bed netting, waiting there throughout the day to wreak havoc upon me.
I just finished breakfast with my host mother and father and middle brother. The rest are sleeping which is what I’m about to go back and do. Breakfast was served like dinner, outside on the ground in a big communal bowl. Imagine a huge salad bowl, but a cheap tin one like you might find at Goodwill, a throw back to the 70s. For dinner that bowl is filled with rice or short grain rice or some other rice-like substance. It’s only lightly flavored with a meat broth or fish broth. My family is poorer I think than most because there is rarely meat or veggies besides bitter tomatoes or okra. I thought I hated okra, served well done and mushy, but I actually don’t think it’s so bad. Bitter tomatoes on the other hand are an acquired taste. An acquired taste that’s required here. I am acquiring it for sure, seeing how it is like with last night, the only veggie in the bowl, and they keep dropping pieces of it in my portion of the bowl, so I have to eat it. Oh well, it could be worse.
So at dinner we all squat down and by then it’s pitch black so we light the food with a flashlight or my headlamp and we all dig in. I take the rice with my fingers, peel some away and mash it against the side of the bowl and between my first three fingers. Then I bring it to my mouth like a spoon and use my thumb to sort of push the food into my mouth, sticking most of my hand into my mouth as well so as to drop the least amount of food as possible. The experts, who have done this everyday for all their lives pick up the rice and squash it into a ball using their whole hand, then eating the whole ball of rice. I try not to do this because for me, it causes an even bigger greasier mess.
Breakfast this morning was that communal bowl filled with rice porridge, liquidly and mixed with sugar and then sour milk (no exaggeration), poured on top. Sour milk is also an acquired taste. Some trainees like it, others don’t. Today it was all right, maybe because it was a little fresher than normal, or maybe because I won’t get food or water for 15 hours. Either way, the four of us finished the bowl of gesr, as it’s called. Now I’m about to drink the rest of my litre of water and have a quick nap before class where hopefully I’ll have more vivid dreams, thanks to our weekly malaria prophylaxis.

Journal Entry 10.9.2007

I find that it is hard for me to complain since I have it the easiest in the village. I have more possessions in my over stuffed luggage, plus all the stuff Peace Corps gives us and still all the things I will get sent to me from home, all of that together is worth so much and awes the people when they see it. Like my guitar or my radio or when "S" the PC driver dropped off all our gardening tools—three 5 gallon drums for water storage, a rake, a machete, a hand hoe and a watering can. Everyone’s eyes went wide. When was the last time they saw a machete, sharp and not rusted out?
We have decided that this must be the guilt process everyone goes through when they get here. It doesn’t seem like anyone is jealous or will harm us for our stuff. They are mostly curious and happy to just see it; or, like the guitar, to strum it aimlessly. Good thing it holds its tune.
We, the other trainees and I, talked about this guilt today. Paying someone $5 a month to do a load of laundry every week, each load taking a few hours in the hot sun. It’s a hard pill to swallow. But guilt is just guilt. At least that’s what we remind ourselves of until it goes away.
We are deep in the process of learning Pulaar (Fula)and we have become a familiar sight laying beneath the mango tree outside our teacher’s house, trying to decide whether to read or sleep. It’s so hot. October I guess is the hot, humid nasty month. At least we will get the worst first and then be able to enjoy the cooler months to follow.
We had a naming ceremony the other day. I am Momodon Bah. I am named after my smallest brother who everyone nicknamed Alige. My family is adorable. I haven’t spoken much about them but will soon when I have more time with them. So far, it’s eat, sleep, study, sleep, eat. Tomorrow I will fast, just to try it since this is Ramadan and Friday, my birthday is Koriteh, the giant feast marking the end of the holy month. We’ll see how I do without food or drink. It might make my birthday that much more special. Plus, walk a mile in another’s shoes, blah…blah…blah.

Journal Entry 10.7.2007

Having a good night playing guitar for/with the kids. They only know “happy birthday” I think. The oldest girl was so excited when she saw the guitar. She was like shaking as if she had just received exactly what she wanted for Christmas or something. The youngest boy kept plucking randomly and strumming the guitar. When the boys left for prayer, she had it to herself and ran to it. Strumming she started singing “Happy Birthday” over and over in her own melody. I quite prefer her version.
I want to go back to some thoughts about the first day here, but right now there are so many bugs about. I just killed some creepy spider thing next to my bed and a human sized cockroach that scattered through the towel draped across my chair. So now I’m all-paranoid where I wasn’t a few days ago. A few days ago I had much bigger things to worry about, like what the fuck was I doing here? When we got dropped off there was just us five in the village at a small village, only 7 compounds. Maybe 100 people, over half are under 15 years old. They all stared at us. Some were willing to jump in and help with our bags. I gave a ten year old a 50lb bag to carry and see how long before he gets his friends to help.
I tried to get settled, spending most of my time fixing up my water filter and the mosquito netting. And then I had too much sweat drenching my body to concentrate. After talking with a few of the kids and other Peace Corps Trainees, I walked out, feeling very overwhelmed, looking for something. The sun was setting and turning red. Two thin African clouds cut through it from top left and bottom right, this was enhanced by the cooling wind and a silhouette of a baobab tree, high green grass and iron-rich red soil. This was Africa. It was a postcard image but at least it was mine. It settled me a bit.
My host brothers met me with their David and Goliath slingshots and we walked home together. That was my first night in the Dark Continent.

Journal Entry 10.6.2007

Kikira or something that means evening. As I left off this afternoon Ossaman and the Ba brothers with more of the same kids whose names I’ll one day learn too late, played a game of futbol barefoot in the dirt. This was most likely a mistake at the peak of the afternoon with only 12 or so ounces of water in my Nalgene. But it was fun. The course is legitimately sand-dirt with moldy stagnant water lines through the middle from the well nearby. Thicker brush and barbed wire fencing border and narrow the field in the center. One side, or challenger is in the shade, we protect the goal in the sun. I played vigorously so as to stay in the shade. Sports have to be the great equalizer because I finally begin to feel a little better, language and culture always falls away when you’re with kids and a half inflated ball. I scored 2 goals to the shock of myself. These kids were half the size of "A", "M" and I but none of us play futbol every day in the hot/humid sun.
I was drenched with sweat by the end of it, as you can imagine with nothing more than my inflated sense of dignity, which is being stripped away little by little, and a promise to the Peace Corps not to strip naked and lay beneath the water pump begging the children to pump it continuously for the next three days. But instead I went back to my hut and grabbed more water. It took me till dinner time to stop sweating. "A" and I took in the sunset and our clothes were drenched like we just got out of a swimming pool.
Hung out with family after dark. We don’t say much until the kids feel like teaching me something. Today it was counting 1 - 10 or Goho-Sappo and the days of the week. The oldest, Mussa, always sits near me and gently whispers the pronunciations in my ear as the other boys, I imagine more current in school, teach me more outright.
There’s a lightning storm off in the distance. A corner of the sky lights up and flickers like a fly zapper. The men go off to pray and I stay to bathe. I’m glad for this as I do have some privacy, a fenced in, thatch wall where my pit latrine is. So I can hear everyone but no one can see me, I think. I still haven’t had a good stool in about a week. Right now they are more mushy than liquidly but they contain little. I have a feeling I’m backed up due to nerves and a solid rice and bread diet.
Bathing is great. The air cooled down. Every star in the universe was out, more than Caldera can boast, only no Frank to enjoy it with. But instead I stand naked and pour little cups of well water over my head and then scrub myself with soap and this plastic stretchy basket lining stuff. It’s hard to explain, I thought it was to nail up and make a storage hammock out of for food or something, but when used right it scrubs well. My bath water drains out to a crack in the concrete where a tomato plant sits and waits for my bathwater. All’s fair in love and Africa.
Dinner tonight comes and I say I’ll wait for the men and eat with the family. Good move. Turned out to be some weird fish still on the bones and heads and I think if I were in a nice restaurant I might gag but here, crouched on the dirty earth in pitch black surrounded by an eight person family eating their only meat of the day after fasting both food and water, I let my American ness go for a second and I help myself to rice. When the mother offered some fish, it was small and the meat not salty and okay. I had to pick out a few bones, but whatever. Had I not eaten with the family, I would have a whole bony fleshy fish to myself. For the communal, I got off easy. I stuck around till the very end and finished all the rice. The kids walked off and waited. I washed my hands and thank God I was able to refuse to dig in on the carcasses. No meat is wasted. Better for the kids though than me.
I’m going to bed now just wanted to write a little something.

Email: Africa is officially normal

I spent the last two weeks here in kombo. I thought I would be
emailing and doing all sorts of great stuff but like always, it was a
crowded rushed experience and now I leave back up country tomorrow and
am exhausted and don't even know where to begin relating my
experiences.

I'll just shout out a few bullet points.

1. Did beekeeping training and didn't get stung, even despite having a
hole in my suit and a few bee's enter my mask and land on my face,
which is unnerving when you're covered in honey and there's a bunch of
pissed off killer bees buzzing all over you. But I made it out okay.
However, while in village the bees that swarm the water pump stung me
thrice in three days. Once on my face, which ballooned.

2. Cut my own hair. Long story short, I shaved my head.

3. I built a fence with my host father, bonded, and now feel much more
secure in my host family. The fence sections off about a quarter
hectre behind my house, I will turn it into the only garden in town.
Hopefully, more will follow.

4. Still getting sick every time I come into kombo. Why, who knows?
The night I came in I started shivering. (kombo is like 10-20 degrees
cooler than where I'm at.) by the second day however I went to the med
unit and had a 103 degree fever and white puss spots on my tonsils. I
got penicillin and all has been fine. I have also been gaining all my
weight back. I stuff myself silly when I'm in town with fried foods
and beer. Then I go back up country and loose it all in a week from
slashing through bush with a machete and having massive diarrhea.

5. Africa is now officially feeling normal. It's been 7 months to the
day since I arrived. I am not shocked by much anymore, I have seen the
best and worst of this country (although I'm sure I'll see plenty
more) but I feel like it is just all so normal now. get on a gele, a
few hours here, a few hours there. Dust, sweat, confusion. That's
life. That's my life at least.

6. Thanks everyone for emails and packages. Everything is appreciated.

7. I have to get off the computer. I always feel like I am going
rather than arriving. Ending correspondence rather than beginning it.
I have been making a lot of little videos that will be online through
my blog soon. The videos are pretty much taking over the blog. I dont
journal as much anymore. It's hard to find the time actually, and it's
getting so hard to relate what's going on. Plus the videos are more
fun to make. So I hope you all get to see them.

8. How many of you lost a bet saying I wouldn't make it passed 6 months? Hm....

9. It must be spring in America, everything must look amazing. I miss
it. This is a great life I'm leading right now, but I definately
wouldn't mind going through some science fiction teleporter and
appearing back home to share a pitcher or two and shoot the shit for a
little while.

going back up country now.


until next month...

Email: Waist-ed in Dakar

The three month challenge is almost over and I have broken it at least twice. The last email with my "sick-as-a-dog" all day traveling extravaganza was the first, the second was WAIST, the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. It featured Peace Corps volunteers from Guinea, The Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, and Benin. Plus the local Dakar ex-pats, local teams, and even the local boarding school kids got in on the fun with their varsity and junior varsity teams competing. I had never been to Dakar, outside of the half-hour we laid-over at the airport when first arriving to Africa. It was strange to see a real town, a real sophisticated city amongst the dirt and trash and poverty of everyday West Africa. I said it over and over but it was like being in Barcelona, I can't describe why exactly, the streets and buildings were similarly laid out and the people sort of sitting around waiting for tourists, and the taxis and the sprawling suburbs and compounds. It was a little piece of Europe I guess, only everyone spoke French. And compared to the Gambia where produce and pastry shops are rare at best, being able to walk around the corner and buy a grapefruit or avocado or chocolate filled donut was a real treat. The tournament was three days at the Club Atlantique which was like an American ex-pat country club next to the ocean with a pool and beach volleyball court and tennis and basketball and hamburgers and hot dogs and beer and of course softball. Everyone let loose, especially us from more rural areas, we burned the candle at both ends. In village, I'm asleep by 9 or 10pm after reading a book by flashlight, at Waist, I don't think there was a night I was in bed before midnight, or three or four or five. So sleep I lacked, and it was hard to take a nap at the club when you would walk around with a beer and if you were hot, jump in the pool, if you were board, go play touch football or volleyball. I did so much eating and drinking, but sports as well, by the end of it my body was so soar and bruised. But I had forgot about that "lifestyle" of sitting by the pool and goofing around. In village I get into such a routine of waking, fetching water, watering garden, eating, working, reading, working, eating, working, fetching water, watering garden, bathing, eating, reading, sleeping that I crave and lust for small things, like grapefruit, avocados, and just submerging my body into a pool of clean water. It gets so hot and dry right now up country that some afternoons I hover over my bucket and dunk my head just so I can remember what it feels like to be in a bath. So needless to say, I'll be doing Waist again next year. I'd actually like to get a little more serious about it, I think our team was really decent but we were in the competitive league with all the ex-pats who have been playing as a team for the last 30 years, or the boarding school varsity team full of kids of missionaries who have nothing better to do than play softball all the time and when playing us, they enacted the "mercy rule" calling the game after the 5^th inning because they were so far ahead. 20 or so points to 1 I think. Our best game was our first, 10 to 0. we only played 4 games and we gave up 83 runs while only scoring 4. We had a -79 run differential, a new record. BUT, we got so much better as a team, the more we played, and we liked playing, we should have been in the social league playing other peace corps teams instead of these ex-pat and local teams who practice once a week on the fields we were using. Their wives and mothers had coolers and lawn chairs for christsakes and knew every rule and took everything very seriously. We had beers and dirty chants and just wanted to have fun. But we were good and I hope next year we can practice more and compete in the social league and take the trophy away from the damn Senegalese. I was able to Ump one game, never did that before, I had to read the seven pages of rules and then pretend that I knew everything as I had these veterans in my face. But I held my own and even that was a goodtime. Sipping on gin and juice the whole time didn't hurt either. I even got beamed in the foot, right in that front ankle part, some kid on that varsity team just whacked the hell out of the ball, I was pitching, I got to pitch all four games, and this kids just wailed on the ball, one minute I heard the crack of the bat, the next, the crack of my bone. But I stayed in the game and played it out. Every time we went to bat I iced up the swollen bruise, but our batting wasn't anything to write home about and so one, two, three, we were out and took the field again, I got little time to recoup, but dammit I played it out. And then THEY called the mercy rule, little brats. I went over to talk to there captain and persuaded him to finish out the game, we didn't care how many points they scored, we just wanted to play. When people found out that we had never practiced before and just came together the day before, they were surprised, I think they thought we were terrible, but hopefully they also though we had potential. In any case, the captain of the Varsity team changed his mind and we got to play only to the 6^th inning. Apparently they were tired and their moms wanted to go home and (quote) if I injure any of my players after we already won the game, I just couldn't live with myself (endquote). Pussies. I was injured and you didn't see me complaining about anything except for not playing more. I don't know, maybe that's a sign of maturity. Or alcoholism.

Speaking of which, I did let loose, how could I not. There were great organized events, Indian buffet, Ethiopian buffet, all you can drink parties, or at least beers for one or two dollars. With transport and not holding back on spending (btw Senegal CFA's are like in the 1000's so it's even more like monopoly money than the Gambian Dalasi. One donut 500 CFA, a taxi ride for 1500, a beer for 2000, why not?) I ended up spending about 100,000 CFA or about 240 bucks. For five days and the cost of traveling, that's nothing. That's most Saturday nights in LA hanging out with Dave and Alex. We got home-stays, ex-pats that put out a bunch of mattresses and had about 12-20 peace corps volunteers from all around stay with them. They were all spread out so I just kept my backpack loaded with essentials, swim suit, softball mitt, toothbrush, gin packets. (They have the equivalent of those little airplane bottles of booze here in Kombo only instead of bottles, it's small plastic bags and you have to rip them open with your teeth. They're about 5 dalasi per, or 25cents. We got a deal on 'em before we went up there, 2.50 dalasi per, or 17 cents. Can't beat that deal.) In any case, I nomaded a while and slept in about three different home-stays and it was great. I've never had that Cabo spring-break thing, so I imagine this was a lot like it. Foreign town, everything is cheap and exciting, beautiful women in bikinis, good food, new friends, team sports. Spent the last night at the banquet and after-party wearing some girl's dress and getting a lot, a lot of positive attention. Hint to the boys out there, chicks dig guys in dresses.

What a change from village life, I wonder if I can go back to the bowls of rice and peanut sauce three times a day. Btw, my stomach is still off and on, some weeks are great others not so much. But Dakar was no problem, after dropping thirty pounds since I've been here, (I was 164 when I weighed myself before Dakar,) I just weighed myself again and I'm up 8lbs. 8lbs in five days, it must have been the buffets. But village life should be great to get back to. I feel revitalized and want to begin more projects. I met some Mali volunteers who were working on diluting human urine for plant fertilizers and getting great results, and another who found a way to transplant fruit trees in the dry season without much watering. So those should be fun to work on.

As always I appreciate all the packages and letters and emails. I've gotten used to all the "hardships" of village life, now I just have to get the people motivated, that as it turns out is the hardest part about this peace corps life. You go out there to help, but you cant just "give" them money, you have to get them to sustain themselves and their own income, but work is hard and it's hard to work and a lot of people just aren't motivated, they say they WANT things, but they don't, they just want to be given things. That may sound harsh, and I have gotten very cynical and disappointed about things in the last two months, but I'm hoping it will just take time, find the right counterpart and slowly, slowly, things will change. But right now, I am still the white guy in the village. In the province really. But it's getting better. Being around all the other volunteers lately I hear their stories, Mai had her house catch fire, other PCV's are dealing with the no-roof problem like me. Woman constantly getting harassed by the local men. Some of them have to eat dried fish every day. I'm glad at least I nicked that one in the bud. No fish for me!

Okay, hope you enjoyed another long email. I have sleep to get to, my foot finally began to swell after the baseball injury, it took a few days of walking on it and I think I busted a toe up pretty bad on that foot too playing touch football, my right foot is now bruised and swollen, one inch fatter than my left. My bones and muscles still ache and I still haven't caught up on sleep, not by a long shot. So I'm off to bed.

Much love to y'all, Gambian style,

jonthan dick

ps, Just before sending this out, I got an email about the passing of my good friend and collaborater John Rausch. He was one of the BEST men I had ever met. Hands down. There will be a Wake for him on March the 2nd, in Portland, Christian Bergmans has the details. Please pass on my love.

Email: One month in

so I had to come into Kombo for a trip to the bank so I could buy some provisions and get rent money and planned it all out, I would spend the night at my site mates place and then cross the river in the morning and get a gele gele on the north bank road and ferry over to Banjul and make it in no problem. well, best laid plans I guess.

Thank you all for your emails, my health is definitely something you are all wishing the best for. And for the most part it has been in tact, I've been banged around a few times but no problem. Sunday night however, the night before I was to leave, I started feeling dizzy in bed, so I got up and went out side and for almost an hour I had what I like to call, a diarrhea/vomit sandwich. Diarrhea, vomit, then more diarrhea. It's not my favorite sandwich, and I wouldn't suggest it on a toasted bun, but I think if you're lucky, there are a few places in Van Nuys where you can order one and have it delivered. In any case, I didn't sleep that night, every bone and muscle in my body was soar, from lack of rest and squatting over a hole in the concrete latrine for 45 minutes. But somehow the lure of a nice clean med unit with Gatorade and antibiotics and a caring nurse called my name and at 7am I pulled myself out of bed, my site mate, was amazing by the way, taking care of me and thinking me stupid not to rest at her place all day. But I couldn't, I got up and took a loaf of bread and a liter of water and hit the road. I couldn't eat to save my life, and I knew more water would bring on the runs so I had to be careful. I hate that I always write about my horrible bowel infections, you all deserve more than that, so I'll make this more about my traveling experience, because in the end, the symptoms of illness paled in comparison to my frustration of traveling less than 200 kilometers in more than 10 hours.

it took me an hour to walk to the river. another 20 minutes to wait for people to come and fill the boat. another 20 minutes or so to cross through the tributaries and the great Gambian river. then, no car or donkey or horse cart on the other side. I met samba on the boat, coincidentally he is the brother to my host brother's wife. So we're practically related. he spoke a little English and thank god took pity on me and guided me through the trip. as bad as my day was, it would have been much worse without samba. so we get off at the dirt trail that makes up the makeshift wharf. it's about 9ish a.m. He takes my hand and we start walking to the car. after an hour I ask how much further, after another hour I'm about to die. I gave most of the bread I had to the other waiting passengers because I couldn't eat it. I drank half a liter and my body, from not sleeping a wink, was tired to say the least. I tried not to slow samba down, I tried to power through, but at one point, when it was just a "little bit further" I finally stopped and rested and tried my most politest to ask, where is the car, what town, how much further?? that town? I don't see a town, just more overgrown fields and more bush and more nothingness, where is the car?!!" we get to a junction and I collapse on a cement platform where others wait for the car. it's about 11am and the sun is directly on me, no shade, but it's not so hot, I'm in jeans and a t shirt and I don't can, I had to close my eyes. I faded a bit and about a half hour to an hour later the car, or gele gele, or van, or whatever, comes by. we get in and it goes the OPPOSITE DIRECTION! It goes back down the road we took 2 hours walking. They had to collect peanuts in the first town by the river. We never had to walk...I put a bandanna around my neck and tied it up like a western outlaw to keep the dust out of my lungs and it worked, I gave my spare to samba and we sat on the shaky bumpy road until we got to Ferafenni at about 1pm. this is the main transport hub and I got a banana to eat and some more water and I felt like I could die. all I wanted was a quick ride to Barra, which would have happened except a bunch of Senegalese were on board the gele gele with us and didn't have I.D. so at every police checkpoint, at least three, we had to stop and wait for ten to twenty minutes as they got hassled, then packed inside the van again. got to barra, this was supposed to be the easiest part. it's 3pm and I have 2 hours to get to the med unit. The ferry is half an hour and the cabs to the med unit shouldn't be more than that. Best laid plans...

we started walking around the various shanty set ups of shops and eateries and samba guided me through a maze to get to the ticket booth which was akin to a Chilean Soccer disaster. under the mid afternoon heat and sun, no shade within a corridor and twisted and tuned and bottle necked, made of cement on one side and corrugate tin on the other, no wider than 4ft, were hundreds of people crowded together, shoving and pushing (politely) because there is no queue system, it's everyman basically for themselves, so samba is trying to hold my hand and guide me through this gauntlet. it all stops and were stuck, no one is moving, no one knows why, it takes 30minutes or more to move 20 or 30 feet, smashed up amongst the people and the heat and the smells, I leaned against the cement wall muttering to myself how this was the single most dangerous thing I have ever seen in country so far, more than the gele's packed with people riding on the bumpers, more than the ill cooked food and undercooked meat, more than the rickety boats that fill with water, or drinking no water on a 2 hour walk through nothingsville, crampacking a hundred people in the space where 20 should orderly file, in a hallway made of heat absorbing material under an afternoon sun with no shade and sending people back against the traffic flow because there is no exit once you get to the ticket booth, you just have to go back the way you came...if one person had lost it and pushed to hard, many people would have been trampled, I was clutching the wall for support with one hand and my stomach with the other and I wanted to either die, or kill the bastard pushing me from behind. I couldn't stand it. Once we made it to the front and got the tickets, the one guy guiding the line at the beginning was very non sympathetic. all the workers could care less, they probably had it worse. who knew. I wanted to yell and scream at them but I felt if I did, what would it matter, I just wouldn't get on the ferry, i would be apprehended or something or detained, and I didn't want that and so I was important just like the rest. Why do a few hold power over the masses when their situation is so grim, because it could always get worse. and those with power know it, and exploit it. What I witnessed at the ferry was NORMAL. in fact, it has gotten BETTER, says the administration, they are proud of their corridor and how orderly it is. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. probably because no one stands up. I sure didn't, and I had probably the least to lose if I did. getting out was like trying to get out of a mosh pit, you're pushing your way out as everyone is pushing there way in. Then, done breath of fresh air. Get to the gates to go to the dock and the guards literally grabbed me and shoved me almost over a donkey cart because a car had to get by that was no where near us. But when people are constantly trying to push through the gates, again, this is normal. even when the ferry arrived and we tried to get on they were shoving us off, trying to unload all the cars first, but we're not in their way...who cares. We get on, get settled, I lower my head, by now it's almost 4pm and I am concentrating very hard on my stomach and the little water left in my bottle. I don't want to drink or eat or look up or anything, I just want to cross. The ride normally takes 30 minutes, this one took about 45 and stopped dead thirty yards from the dock. We had to wait for the other ferry to leave. So close...but so far away.

we got off and I hit the ground running I had only 20 minutes till five and then the med unit would close. we grabbed a cab to the car park. Then tried to get on a gele, but they wouldn't take us, then tried to hire a cab and a 6 dalasi ride cost me 50, if I had patience I could have made it cheaper but by then, who cares. I paid for samba and I and we went. We exchanged into another cab that took me to the med unit, I said good bye to samba and knocked on the door and I was 15 minutes to late. 10 hours and 180 dalasi (9 bucks) later and I missed it. I went to the PC office and unloaded my wares so to speak and went to the hostel and crashed for the last two days. I feel better now, but I will not repeat that route to get to kombo for a long long time. To go on the south bank road, which is a worse road and no one likes to use it, is about the same amount of money and time with an hour and a half walk to the nearest junction from my house and then wait time for a gele. There's no bus stops. You just wait for a van to come by, maybe one or two an hour. If it's full. Tough luck. If not, it'll stop. going up country to another volunteers place, where eight of us spent the holiday, took amber and I about 8 or 9 hours when it should have taken 3 or 4, because for 4 hours we waited for a gele, and one came, about every hour, full up. So we started walking up the road tot he next town and luckily one gele, already over crowded took pity on us and stopped, and didn't even over charge us.

Christmas by the way was great. we sat around the firs and made a heck of a lot of pasta and tried to buy a chicken and kill it but it was too small so we gave it to our hosts' host mother as a gift. My first month has been like my travel to kombo, tough, and hard, and some moments better than others, some moments painful and over whelming, but good people surround me and help me and I am not a lamb amongst wolves. It is very very hard just existing out there, but it also is very nice just to exist. The stars are amazing and it gets bitter cold at night and the mornings and evenings are cool and I work most of the day in my garden, digging and digging and designing a nursery for vegetable plants and trees. and so far I have cucumber and okra and tomato and eggplant and pigeon pea and carrot all doing well. the peppers I think were bum seeds, so I'll keep experimenting. People ask what to send in care packages, well seeds are a good idea, This climate is like the southwest, at least the next few months. and there are no gardens in or around my village. No one eats vegetables, only the schools have gardens and thank god, but they are still growing. I want to be able to have produce year round, it is possible here, so if you know of anything that grows well in an arrid hot climate, or in the summer it's very humid and rainy and hot, or now it's cool at night and hot during the day but very dry, then send some good seeds, all you can get around here are the aforementioned and some potatoes and onions, but not good quality or variety. I brought some squash and cucumber seeds from the states and they aren't doing to well but they were cheap and I think close to expiring. so good seeds, herbs, greens, fleshy fruits, trees, that kind of stuff that i can experiment with throughout the year would be great. also, fast food condiments. I'm not a ketchup fan but I love taco bell sauce, love it! or round table Parmesan cheese. It's free for you, essentially, just grab and handful and shove em in a box. (might wanna Ziploc em). what else...tacks or stuff to hang things from the wall, beef jerky and dyhdrated fruit/veggies, dried fruit, spices, nuts, anything to supplement my food bowl. Its just rice and sauce, and the occasional stomach bug. I don't eat with my family anymore, they serve me in my house so I can add stuff to the meal behind their back, I'm not looking for anything specific, if you're making a care package, just think of what you'd want, unless its fish.

Despite my email, I am staying healthy and well mannered. adjusting is very hard, but it's getting easier. like when I got sick the other day, it sucked, but now I'm okay, feeling better, ready to take on the world, maybe. I've lost 25 pounds, I weighed myself when I got here 192, the other day at the med unit I was 167, with jeans on too. That is technically the least I have ever weighed in my adult life. But I am not emancipated. I work out and stretch and work and feel good, the sickness(es) that I get are random. In fact, the healthier I am, the harder the illnesses, so there you go. I'm healthy and doing well and have so much more to say but not the time to say it. While writing this I got interrupted and went downstairs to give a tour. Some Americans from Washington/Jefferson college in Penn. were here for a tour so I got to tell them everything I am telling you and it really revives me to get this stuff out but still be proud of where I am and what I'm doing. To see their faces when I said I eat sour milk every day, milk that's been squeezed out of an utter of a cow, left out for a day and then served up to me, every morning and how that's a delicacy and there are people who are jealous that I get that every morning, they looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe when you read this stuff you are making the same faces, but i can't see them, but seeing those kids' faces, it made me feel good, like I knew them, like they were you. Miss you all.

I have to give up the computer so sorry if there are errors in the text, I cant go back and edit, I hope it all makes sense. I just uploaded the new radiohead to my ipod today along with season 4 of the Office and some books on tape and the new Animal Collective, and I just watched half the simpsons movie at the hostel until the bootleg copy froze up. So I'm not in the middle of NOwhere, there is some modern life still here. But I happened to see online that the golden globes were announced, I forgot about those. Kind of like how I forgot about xmas and new years. when all that junk isnt in your face, you get the better moments of stuff, friends gathering by candlelight to eat pasta made over gas burners, drinking coffee grinded in a meat grinder with local brandy shots and peppermint sticks melted inside. who need presents and walmart. not us.

but some taco bell sauce would be nice.

love ya,