October Gambian Update
Hello all you happy peoples!
Well, since it's been about two months since my last email, I decided an update is overdue. I finally began teaching at the beginning of this month, but then Koriteh happened so that meant a week off for prayers, and so now I'm trying to see how many good weeks of teaching I can get in before Tobaski (Dec 20). Although I may be able to go on a trip to Guinea with some other PCVs at the end of November, after Thanksgiving. Inshallah...
Teaching grade 10 is a completely different world from teaching grade 7. My students ask me questions about the difference between alligators and crocodiles or why horses and donkeys can't be the same species if they can interbreed (answer: their offspring are sterile). I actually feel challenged and thus more entusiastic about teaching. I don't have to pull teeth in order to have someone answer a question--half the class will raise their hands. It's a teacher's dream. True, I still have to rephrase my questions a few times for the students who cannot figure out what I'm saying, but they genuinely want to know. On top of that, I work with my sitemate Sara at the middle school making teaching and learning aids for the classrooms or helping students read books in the library. Also, I've taken over a project to sell African-print bags to other PCVs, so I work with a local craftsman who does the sweing while I buy the materials and sell the product. Anyone interested in a bag? They go for about $7. I'm also trying to help the local-run tourist lodge find funding for solar panels and still working on the Babou Jobe Well Project (I have the check, but the dollar has dropped in value from 26 dalasis to 18, so if I try and casha nd convert, we lose tens of thousands of dalasis and will be unable to finish the well a second time). When I come to Kombo I work on the layout for the small-business manual Sara wrote (which brings back fond memories of working on The Pearl
It's crazy and wonderful to have a schedule for each week; I didn't realize I missed it so much (does that make me a workaholic who just fell off the Gambian bandwagon?). Monday I work at the hospital weighing babies who scream bloody murder at my unnatural white skin, checking immunizations, and dispensing Vitamin A, etc. I've been asked to start up a tutoring program for hospital staff who need in-service training, as well. Even though the baby weighing is the most stressful part of my week (I and an attending nurse can weigh 185 babies, toddlers, and pregnant women in 3-hours time), it's also the most rewarding. I am a sucker for snot-covered, drooling babies who look at me with eyes the size of calabash spoons while they try and figure out whether or not to cry. Anywho, the rest of the week I'm at school, and the weekends all the volunteers in Bwiam (3) get together for toubab lunches, so we have pasta instead of rice, and as many types of vegetables as we can find. Sundays I go to the local mission church, which is also something I hadn't realized I missed. I'm still learning the songs they sing, but I wish I could record the singing, drumming, and tambourine-shaking they do.
Compound life is a bit rough right now. There's always a bit of fighting amongst people since the compound holds five different families and wives don't always agree with husbands, or with each other, but an incident this past week really upset me. One of the compound boys, Amadou, was beating up on his younger brother, so my host father decided to break up the fight by beating Amadou. However, he was a bit overzealous in that he used some sort of rod or stick (I didn't see it happen, just saw the effects) and hit Amadou to the point where the boy had open, bleeding wounds. I cleaned and bandaged Amadou (asking my sister Binta to put the antibiotic ointment on so I didn't have to touch the blood, though I'm sure the boy is disease-free) and tried to comfort him as best I could. I sat out with the family for a bit after the event--everyone tryign to pretend it didn't happen, Amadou hiding his sniffles--and at one point I heard another girl whisper to Binta "Your father is very wicked." Binta just nodded her head. At that point I went to bed because I was afraid I would blow up at Tofey, and tried my best to avoid him for the next few days (this is the Gambian way to show someone that you're mad at them). Later, Tofey approached me when my sitemates were around and asked me why I was mad, so I almost shouted at him "You beat Amadou until he was bleeding!" and Tofey tried to apologize to me, but he did it in a way trying to be humorous, even kneeling on the floor and pulling up his shirt so I could beat him on his back. I asked him to just go, and then later that same day I came to Kombo. So now that I've had a few days to simmer down, I realize I need to talk with Tofey and let him know he should be apologizing to Amadou for what he did, not to me, and that as a full-grown man he shouldn't be beating a sixth-grader when he is upset. We'll see if Tofey actually does anything, but I do have an advantage in the fact that Tofey is trying to be friends with me--I guess he wasn't on good terms with the last volunteer and wants a better relationship with me.
I also had a cultural slip-up myself. The second wife in the compound, Hawa, had her baby on the first day of Koriteh prayers, and so this past weekend we had the nyambuuro--naming ceremony--for the little girl. My sitemate Sara told me since it was a small ceremony it would be in the afternoon, so I left that morning to go into Bwiam to buy vegetables at the market (half hour walk each way). When I returned to the compound I discovered the ceremony had just finished. My host mother, Adama, was fit to be tied with me. I had to explain to her three times why I missed it and how sorry I was, and then I went and sat with Hawa, explained what happened one more time, and then was given baby Sarata to babysit for awhile. This entire past week Hawa has been sleeping in a different house and hasn't been allowed outside, so now that she can walk about the compound again I have a feeling I may be called upon on several occassions to play babysitter.
This Halloween my sitemates and I are celebrating by frying up some chocolate-chip cookies and carving jack-o-laterns into watermelons. We're also going to walk around the village and take pictures of us with our jack-o-laterns and really give the village children a reason to point and stare at us. I may end up chasing one or two, if I'm feeling feisty.
I had my dentist appointment to have my teeth cleaned today, and remembering it makes me shiver a little. Luckily, I have no cavities--thanks to obsessive flossing and brushing--but the cleaning process was sort of like those nightmares you have about going to the dentist. No nicks or causing bleeding gums or anything like that, but the equipment was a bit rusty and the scraper he used to scrape the plaque was electric, so it sounded like a drill the entire time. There were a few times when the scraper touched a back molar and the vibrations went up into my head. The electric scraper had a water squirter attached to it so I had a face shower, but there was no suction so every two minutes I had to lean over and spit. Also, the dentist was a bit overzealous with the tongue depressor, pressing my tongue back into my throat so I couldn't breathe. The whole process felt a bit rushed, especially when he used the pumice toothpaste to buff my teeth (some of which he dropped into my pharynx, then scooped up again, all the while oblivious to my bout of gagging), then told me to get up and go to the bathroom to wash off my face (free exfoliation!) because he needed the chair for the next patient. I don't know how clean my teeth are now, but at least they had a wax job!
I guess that's about it for now; I'll write again when I come to Kombo for the all-volunteers meeting/Thanksgiving/PC The Gambia 40th year anniversay celebration in November and let you know if I am able to go to Guinea.
~Hannah Banana :-)
Well, since it's been about two months since my last email, I decided an update is overdue. I finally began teaching at the beginning of this month, but then Koriteh happened so that meant a week off for prayers, and so now I'm trying to see how many good weeks of teaching I can get in before Tobaski (Dec 20). Although I may be able to go on a trip to Guinea with some other PCVs at the end of November, after Thanksgiving. Inshallah...
Teaching grade 10 is a completely different world from teaching grade 7. My students ask me questions about the difference between alligators and crocodiles or why horses and donkeys can't be the same species if they can interbreed (answer: their offspring are sterile). I actually feel challenged and thus more entusiastic about teaching. I don't have to pull teeth in order to have someone answer a question--half the class will raise their hands. It's a teacher's dream. True, I still have to rephrase my questions a few times for the students who cannot figure out what I'm saying, but they genuinely want to know. On top of that, I work with my sitemate Sara at the middle school making teaching and learning aids for the classrooms or helping students read books in the library. Also, I've taken over a project to sell African-print bags to other PCVs, so I work with a local craftsman who does the sweing while I buy the materials and sell the product. Anyone interested in a bag? They go for about $7. I'm also trying to help the local-run tourist lodge find funding for solar panels and still working on the Babou Jobe Well Project (I have the check, but the dollar has dropped in value from 26 dalasis to 18, so if I try and casha nd convert, we lose tens of thousands of dalasis and will be unable to finish the well a second time). When I come to Kombo I work on the layout for the small-business manual Sara wrote (which brings back fond memories of working on The Pearl
It's crazy and wonderful to have a schedule for each week; I didn't realize I missed it so much (does that make me a workaholic who just fell off the Gambian bandwagon?). Monday I work at the hospital weighing babies who scream bloody murder at my unnatural white skin, checking immunizations, and dispensing Vitamin A, etc. I've been asked to start up a tutoring program for hospital staff who need in-service training, as well. Even though the baby weighing is the most stressful part of my week (I and an attending nurse can weigh 185 babies, toddlers, and pregnant women in 3-hours time), it's also the most rewarding. I am a sucker for snot-covered, drooling babies who look at me with eyes the size of calabash spoons while they try and figure out whether or not to cry. Anywho, the rest of the week I'm at school, and the weekends all the volunteers in Bwiam (3) get together for toubab lunches, so we have pasta instead of rice, and as many types of vegetables as we can find. Sundays I go to the local mission church, which is also something I hadn't realized I missed. I'm still learning the songs they sing, but I wish I could record the singing, drumming, and tambourine-shaking they do.
Compound life is a bit rough right now. There's always a bit of fighting amongst people since the compound holds five different families and wives don't always agree with husbands, or with each other, but an incident this past week really upset me. One of the compound boys, Amadou, was beating up on his younger brother, so my host father decided to break up the fight by beating Amadou. However, he was a bit overzealous in that he used some sort of rod or stick (I didn't see it happen, just saw the effects) and hit Amadou to the point where the boy had open, bleeding wounds. I cleaned and bandaged Amadou (asking my sister Binta to put the antibiotic ointment on so I didn't have to touch the blood, though I'm sure the boy is disease-free) and tried to comfort him as best I could. I sat out with the family for a bit after the event--everyone tryign to pretend it didn't happen, Amadou hiding his sniffles--and at one point I heard another girl whisper to Binta "Your father is very wicked." Binta just nodded her head. At that point I went to bed because I was afraid I would blow up at Tofey, and tried my best to avoid him for the next few days (this is the Gambian way to show someone that you're mad at them). Later, Tofey approached me when my sitemates were around and asked me why I was mad, so I almost shouted at him "You beat Amadou until he was bleeding!" and Tofey tried to apologize to me, but he did it in a way trying to be humorous, even kneeling on the floor and pulling up his shirt so I could beat him on his back. I asked him to just go, and then later that same day I came to Kombo. So now that I've had a few days to simmer down, I realize I need to talk with Tofey and let him know he should be apologizing to Amadou for what he did, not to me, and that as a full-grown man he shouldn't be beating a sixth-grader when he is upset. We'll see if Tofey actually does anything, but I do have an advantage in the fact that Tofey is trying to be friends with me--I guess he wasn't on good terms with the last volunteer and wants a better relationship with me.
I also had a cultural slip-up myself. The second wife in the compound, Hawa, had her baby on the first day of Koriteh prayers, and so this past weekend we had the nyambuuro--naming ceremony--for the little girl. My sitemate Sara told me since it was a small ceremony it would be in the afternoon, so I left that morning to go into Bwiam to buy vegetables at the market (half hour walk each way). When I returned to the compound I discovered the ceremony had just finished. My host mother, Adama, was fit to be tied with me. I had to explain to her three times why I missed it and how sorry I was, and then I went and sat with Hawa, explained what happened one more time, and then was given baby Sarata to babysit for awhile. This entire past week Hawa has been sleeping in a different house and hasn't been allowed outside, so now that she can walk about the compound again I have a feeling I may be called upon on several occassions to play babysitter.
This Halloween my sitemates and I are celebrating by frying up some chocolate-chip cookies and carving jack-o-laterns into watermelons. We're also going to walk around the village and take pictures of us with our jack-o-laterns and really give the village children a reason to point and stare at us. I may end up chasing one or two, if I'm feeling feisty.
I had my dentist appointment to have my teeth cleaned today, and remembering it makes me shiver a little. Luckily, I have no cavities--thanks to obsessive flossing and brushing--but the cleaning process was sort of like those nightmares you have about going to the dentist. No nicks or causing bleeding gums or anything like that, but the equipment was a bit rusty and the scraper he used to scrape the plaque was electric, so it sounded like a drill the entire time. There were a few times when the scraper touched a back molar and the vibrations went up into my head. The electric scraper had a water squirter attached to it so I had a face shower, but there was no suction so every two minutes I had to lean over and spit. Also, the dentist was a bit overzealous with the tongue depressor, pressing my tongue back into my throat so I couldn't breathe. The whole process felt a bit rushed, especially when he used the pumice toothpaste to buff my teeth (some of which he dropped into my pharynx, then scooped up again, all the while oblivious to my bout of gagging), then told me to get up and go to the bathroom to wash off my face (free exfoliation!) because he needed the chair for the next patient. I don't know how clean my teeth are now, but at least they had a wax job!
I guess that's about it for now; I'll write again when I come to Kombo for the all-volunteers meeting/Thanksgiving/PC The Gambia 40th year anniversay celebration in November and let you know if I am able to go to Guinea.
~Hannah Banana :-)
posted by Hannah | 3:31 AM
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