Hannah's Peace Corps Adventures

20 Days...

2008-06-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Alright everyone, I won't write again until at least July 6th, when I come to Kombo for my COS. I'm not coming to Kombo until then so that I soak up memories and take an insane amount of pictures and tape recordings. Starting Friday, finals will be in full swing, plus I need to say good-bye to my friends at the hospital and watch a few last surgeries (yay!), plus I need to clean out my house for the fifth or sixth time, plus I need to plan my little going-away party for my compound ("puff"corn with sugar, lei and attaya and juice mix to drink, possibly meat/fish pies and panketos, possibly ebbeh—ground cassava with palm oil, lots of pepper, jumbo, etc., you can drink it but I don't because of the palm oil). I'm keeping everything to just the people in my compound because my compound is big enough (50ish people) for me to deal with. I'm going to see if I can get chicken domodaa for my last meal. Since I'm not being replaced, I'm giving all of my furniture, clothes, most of my dishes and cooking utensils, and lots of knick-knacks to my family. The day before I leave, the upper basic school will have their "Speech-and-Prize Day" and I plan to attend in the hopes of someone in Gibba Kunda winning an award; plus I can say goodbye to my friends at that school. It makes me glad that I didn't try to leave earlier. A long, drawn-out ceremony will be a perfect good-bye to village life. Then I'll have six days in Kombo to get all my paperwork and souvenir shopping finished, then home again, home again, jiggedy jig.

Good News: one of my professors asked to help sponsor Ebrima to go to school! Ebrima now is registered for school starting in September, is sponsored until he finishes his sixth grade year, and also has a school uniform, backpack, schools supplies, and new shoes for school.

Sad News: The last time I went to his compound to visit I discovered that the family doesn't have any food. Literally. They didn't eat lunch that day. Ebrima's mother Tuuti asked me to buy the family a bag of rice, but I don't have that money. Tuuti asked me three or four times during the time that I was sitting with her to help her feed her family, but at the time I didn't have any money. Because I am her "friend" she expected me to help, plus the fact that I'm white. I realize now that I was naïve going into the situation. I wanted to help one boy but didn't realize that his entire family needed help. Out of eight children in the compound (five that are school-aged), three will go to school next year. I helped one child, out of the eight I met in this family. I felt so helpless sitting with Tuuti while she asked me over and over for help feeding her brood. She told me she has ten children. I admit once I left the compound I started feeling that drowning feeling (too many people want help from me, who do I say 'no' to?) and to try and rationalize it I started blaming her: she should have gone to the hospital to ask for birth control pills, she should put more pressure on her husband to take care of her (he lives in Kombo), she should find a way to earn money for her family like selling mangoes or caba at the hospital. In the end, it is not my responsibility to take care of her children—Ebrima's father was supposed to come home from Kombo last week but still hasn't come, and that's why the family has no food. I'm going to try to help (200-300 dalasis) but then I'm finished unless I can find a way to help pay for other kids' school fees.
Reflection: I truly believe that Ebrima could go far if he just gets the support he needs. When I was taking pictures of him, he asked to use my camera and he actually took good pictures of me and his siblings. I could see him growing up to be a photographer if he could be apprenticed or something, if he's still interested in that sort of thing in six years. I think I'm going to have to come back to see how everything is going with Ebrima and my family at Gibba Kunda. I'm trying to figure out now how to keep in contact with people and it's not easy!

More Good News: Hawa's TB of the skin is cured so she'll be going home soon, maybe even next week! After seven months in the hospital, she'll finally be going home!
More Sad News: I've heard rumors from the nursing staff that her mother is thinking of leaving Hawa's twin sister Adama and younger sister Anna with my host-mother in Gibba Kunda, though I'm not sure for how long. I could maybe understand if it's for another month because Hawa will have to travel back and forth from her village to the hospital for a month or two to keep receiving her TB medication, but if it's longer than that, that's just taking advantage. Hawa Sanneh (the mother) is younger than me by two years and has three young children (all under 4 yrs.), so I can appreciate how difficult it must be for her, but I've also heard other rumors about her mothering skills (including from her husband) that are not favorable. It makes me wonder if she is trying to free herself a bit from her children/husband/family responsibilities in general.
Reflection: I cannot imagine having three young children right now, but I'd like to think that if I did, I'd be responsible enough to devote myself to them. I worry about Hawa Kujabi (the girl) and her sisters.

Great News: I'm almost positive that PC is going to be able to work with World Food Program to deliver the cheap (in price, not quality) rice from Sapu , which will definitely help the women in Dabong. The rice will be delivered to one of the schools, I'll pick it up and sell it to the women, then whatever is left I'll return along with the money that it cost per 50 kilo bag.

Happenings: This past weekend, Fatima Senior Secondary School had its graduation ceremony. I was on the reception committee so I showed up at 7am and helped cook until almost 11, when the ceremony finally started (it was supposed to start at 9). Gambia Radio and Television Stations (GRTS) came to film the ceremony—all three and a half hours of it—and important people came who usually don't show their face at the school, like the director of the Regional Education Office (REO). The ceremony was great: the students performed songs, poems, and hilarious skits. Important people gave speeches that were over most peoples' heads. The posts of Head Boy/Girl and Deputy Head Boy/Girl were passed on, and then it was finished. Oh wait, the staff at Fatima also gave me a present for helping them with this school year. I now have six meters or beautiful and very bright purple fabric, which I need to figure out what to do with. I'm thinking of bringing it back with me to the states until I can find a nice pattern and a seamstress to sew it into a Western style outfit.

Remember all of that cooking? Well, the important people received chicken and potatoes with sauce, plus cake and canned drinks (which means they're special), the teaching staff/ex-Fatima students/graduating students/parents received meat pies, cake that the Sisters from the mission made, prawn crackers and bottled drinks (cheaper than canned), and everyone else (a.k.a. students from the lower and upper basic schools) waited to see if there were scraps. It makes me upset that these important people who may never have been at the school before receive a "special" meal, while the teachers/students who are there everyday and the parents who support their students receive snacks, and everyone else goes home empty handed. However, since I helped cook, I had a bit of everything. It was after eating and bringing some home for my family (I scored an extra chicken meal and a canned Fanta, plus some crumbled meat pies), that I went to visit Jallow Kunda and Tuuti told me that she and her kids hadn't eaten that day. It's not fair!!! And right next door to Tuuti's compound there is a bitik (bitik owners do well for their families), and the owner is friends with Tuuti, and yet he let her children go hungry. Tuuti is probably too proud to let her friends know the kind of trouble she's in, but she can tell me, which in essence transfers the responsibility onto me (that's how things work here). This situation in turn makes me think of how often it happens in America; that our next door neighbors are in some sort of trouble or the kids down the street are going hungry, and we don't know it.

Over the weekend my host mother traveled to another village for a circumcision ceremony for one of her nephews, which left 15-year-old Ma Binta in charge of cooking, cleaning, and managing four unruly children, plus me. Saturday I was sick because of the food I had eaten at the graduation ceremony, so I was pretty easy to take care of, but Fatou, Adama, plus Kadiyatou and Sey (who were thrust upon us so that the mother could go to the futaampaf) are unruly little wild ones who enjoy hitting each other and climbing on me. Kadiya especially enjoys hitting on me and hanging from my shirts—sometimes this is endearing but mostly it's annoying. Explaining to her that children are not supposed to hit adults garners no reaction, so I spent the weekend hiding in my house with the door locked. Yes, three-year-olds make me run and hide—big, strong, 24-year-old that I am. The children here can be absolute terrors because they are spoiled until they annoy an adult or older sibling, and then they are beaten. As I don't like hitting (though I confess to occasional slaps on the top of the head), my remaining choices are to run to an adult or teenager, explain the situation, then have him/her administer discipline, or run away and hide. One time when Fatou was being a pill I put her in time-out, and that actually was quite successful, but I can't do that with Sey or Kadiya because they are sooooo willful and aren't used to me. Ma Binta did an admirable job taking care of the house and children over the weekend, but I personally was extremely relieved to see my host-mother again today. I think Ma Binta will be a good wife and mother when the time comes, but I hope she will also be able to have a job and thus some independence as well.

I'm going to miss Dabong and Bwiam so much. The idea of extending my service has actually flitted across my mind on a few occasions: "If I stay for another year than I can work on this…I can help so-and-so with that…" Today a grade eleven student approached me and asked if I would be at Fatima next year. He wanted me to be the staff advisor for the Red Cross Club (he probably noticed my wicked-cool first aid skills when I was patching up kids after the bicycle race). Plus I could work more with the women's group, help the women's garden get more seeds, help fix up the science labs, improve my Jolaa skills…on the other hand, I just want to be back in America with people who love me for just being me.

Anywho, these are the thoughts that pass through my head as I count down to the day that the PC vehicle comes to take me away. 20 days!

Kasumai kep,
Hannah Banana :-)

Counting Down to America...

2008-05-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

In the time since my last blog, plenty has happened. I’ve gone through my COS (Close Of Service) conference and now have slightly over six weeks left in country. That’s six weeks to write my DOS (Description Of Service), any letters of recommendation I want my bosses to sign off on, tutor my new student who’s retaking his grade twelve exam in biology, help Mariatou with her reading, write and give my final exams, say goodbye to people at the school, hospital, etc., make sure my family will be okay when I leave (i.e. buy them rice and oil to last them through the rainy season), pay Binta’s school fees and also Ebrima’s if his family will allow me…The list goes on.

Ebrima’s situation is one that happens often in The Gambia: his three older brothers are in school but the family doesn’t have any extra money to send him. Ebrima is currently eleven years old and despite the fact that he has only ever been to Dara (school for learning the Q’uran), he understands English very well. I met him when I bought peanuts from him at the ‘cafeteria’ area where the children go during their break. I befriended and over time came to learn his story. My goal is to gain permission from his parents to allow him to attend school from grade 1-6 if I pay for it. I can leave a deposit at the school which they would withdraw from each year to cover his schools fees, plus draw up a contract and make several copies of it to insure Ebrima is able to complete school up through grade 6. By that time his older brothers should be mostly done with school and it is hoped that there will be money within the family to continue his education up through grade 9, maybe even grade 12. But he is too smart for me to not to try and help him complete at least up to grade 6. Of course, my idea of ‘saving him’ might not work out—his family may need him to sell peanuts or other things to help earn money. Keep Ebrima in yours thoughts and prayers.

Last week I had the unique opportunity of seeing a nursery school for refugees from the Cassamance. The villagers of Jilanfare, a Jolaa village very close to the border with Cassamance, has been taking in refugees since 1983. A few years back, some of the farmers started an informal nursery school for the children, although it was difficult because some of the children come from a very long way so school often cannot start until 10 and then has to close by 11 so that the children can be home for lunch. Besides that, the school often can only be in session from October to May because the farmers need to go to their fields. They are entirely unpaid for their time. With some help from a local NGO called St. Joseph’s Family Farm (known by locals as simply “poultry”) and the US Embassy, the villagers of Jilanfare were able to build a beautiful two-room school for the children to study in. The new US Ambassador came to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school and some of us local PCVs were invited to the event. The villagers put on a lovely ceremony (with too many officials talking too long, as always) with the children singing and findoo (like coos) for lunch. Afterwards we went walking along a road and one of the workers from St. Joseph’s came running after us, shouting and waving his arms for us to stop. When he caught up with us he informed us we were in Cassamance—we were still in site of the women cooking!—and if we kept walking along that particular road for another couple kilometers we would probably run into landmines. Very sobering thought. All in all, it was an uplifting experience to see locals who took the initiative. The school currently needs a fence to keep the children from wandering away, plus a kitchen (once they have a kitchen, they can apply to World Food Program and thus be able to give the kids lunch so the school day can last longer), pay for the teachers would be nice, and the village could probably use a new well. They asked the ambassador to help with these projects; I hope the embassy can help, though if not I know St. Joseph’s will do their best and the villagers will find a way.

In other news, I have switched from Oregon Health and Science University to Georgia State University for my Master of Public Health degree because Georgia State has given me a GRA (Graduate Research Assistantship), meaning they waive my tuition and give me a small living stipend. I don’t know which lab I will be working in yet, but there are a few labs interested in me because of my strong desire to do international research. So I’m trying to figure out the details, like finding an apartment and eventually a car. The apartment is more important to me because of the fact that I have been living in a compound with more than 30 people and I desperately, desperately need a quiet place that is mine and mine alone. As nice as it is waking up to women pounding each morning, I can’t wait to fall asleep someplace where reggae music isn’t blasting at eleven at night. Plus the fact that children won’t be sneaking into my house when I’m in my backyard or calling for me when I’m grading papers… *sigh* I will truly miss being mobbed by ten to fifteen children at a time whenever I come home from the school or hospital, though. The other day they were fighting over who would be the next to sit in my lap and have their fingernails clipped—add that to my list of “Things I never thought I’d do in Africa!”

I am freaking out more than a little about readjusting to America. I leave The Gambia on July 12th and thirty-one hours later I will be back in Oregon after two years and seven days without seeing my family or America. Then I’ll only have two weeks with them before I have to move to Atlanta since GSU starts August 18th. Yikes! I’ll definitely be jumping right back into the culture. I’m worried that I have changed too much, that I’ll have too much disdain with American consumption or not be able to handle the huge amount of choices Americans make every day. I’ve heard stories of RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) breaking down in supermarkets. Plus there’s the fact that I was a stress-junkie before I left and while I know that with grad school, then medical school and residency, I’m going to have to be one again, I don’t want to lose the part of me that’s come to appreciate sitting in the compound and watching the baby goats run around for hours at a time. That’s part of the reason I want to do international research (I’m more interested in improving public nutrition in impoverished countries than studying obesity in the states); so that I won’t go too long without seeing people that I can help.

Speaking of which; I’ve only heard a little bit about the food crisis hitting the world. Rice in The Gambia has jumped up more than 200 dalasis (about $10) per kilo, from 600 to 850, and will increase again at the end of the summer to at least 1,000. President Jammeh has put an artificial cap on the price of rice until September so that there are still a few months to try and stock up. I’ve come to accept my role as provider for my family since Tofey still hasn’t come home. I’m the only one with a steady job, so it is my duty to look after the women. That’s why I’m buying rice and oil before I go; my last paycheck from Peace Corps is going towards food for my family. There’s also going to be a mandatory meeting around the beginning of June about more ways that PCVs can help their families and villages to cope with the food crisis. That’s when I’ll be back in Kombo so I should be able to update then with what’s going on.

Kasumai kep,
Hannah Banana

The Fun Never Stops!

2008-04-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

More adventures in The Gambia! Last month Anna and I went on mailrun, so in five days time we stopped at each volunteer’s site and delivered their mail. One of the drivers, named John, drove us around since volunteers aren’t allowed to drive cars. So we had a good time seeing everyone’s site, laughing at John whenever he yelled at children, or other drivers, or animals in the road—“Hey, move out of the way you donkey *insert appropriate noun here*!”—and trying not to mess up the mail. For some reason I thought that the truck, which was packed to bursting when we left, would empty as the trip went on. I was wrong. Very wrong. As we went along people would send thing to people further down the line or back to Kombo, so as the boxes diminished they were replaced with bags, soccer balls, books, and things like guitars. Many a time could one here from the back of the truck “Where the hell is that last box?!? Can we put some of this crap on top so we don’t have to keep moving it around?” It was pretty much fifty-fifty whether it was Anna or myself back there…Anyway, it was a good time, even with Jaliba (one of the local artists) playing on endless repeat.

After mailrun I went back to village for a week. Besides watching lots of hernia operations, I’ve started helping the family with watering their beds in the women’s garden. Hawa is still in the hospital but doing well. After a week of teaching I went on my spring break. It was supposed to be spring break for the entire region, but the schedule changed. However, I had already purchased my visa for Guinea and received my vacation days, so I went on my own spring break trip to see my boyfriend. Yes, I have a boyfriend. His name is Bob and he’s a recently COSed volunteer in Guinea (I met him on my last trip through Guinea, then we saw each other again at the softball tournament in Dakar, Senegal, and he took me out for my birthday). He’s staying in Conakry because he loves the country. He’s a mechanical engineer, from Tennessee, and treats me like a princess.

Oy, what a wild trip! I left for Basse on Friday and made it in eleven hours. Saturday morning I was at the carpark by 5:30 in the morning and wait until noon to see if a car going to Labe would fill up in time. No dice. At that point I asked for my money back, walked half an hour to the other side of Basse to the carpark going to Vellingara, Senegal. As I walked I called Bob to let him know what was going on, and he suggested meeting up in Koundara instead of Labe. After waiting a few hours at the Velingara carpark for a car to fill, we made the trek safely to our destination. In Velingara I made friends with some people heading in relatively the same direction and they told me that the best way to go to Koundara was to go to Manda and get a car there. So I went to Manda, and waited until nightfall thinking there was only a space left to fill the car. At that point I offered to buy the space, but the driver said no. Fine. I ended up sleeping in the taxi that night, thus kicking the driver out of his usual sleeping space. Meh. He slept in the front seats. The next day everyone waited until 9:30 before approaching me to say there were two spaces left, the other passengers were going to buy one space, will I buy the other? I say no, but I'll pay half (I still end up paying more than anyone else). So hours later, after being hit on at each and every checkpoint by icky police officers--sometimes it's good not to understand French--I made it to Koundara and tried to contact Bob. After several hours of trying unsuccessfully, I called the Peace Corps Director of Guinea, Steve. Steve told me the last time he talked with Bob, Bob was in Gaoul. I don't know any Guinea geography so I didn't know what to do other than wait in Koundara. And wait, and wait, and finally it was dark outside and I found a mat to sleep on in one of the bitik verandas. People weren’t happy with me, but they left me alone because I was crying (I was feeling extremely sorry for myself) about being lost in a country where I didn't know the language and I had no idea where I was except that I wasn't in Labe. So passed another night. The next day I bought water and some snacks from the bitik owner so he was a bit kinder towards my staying on the mat. It was my safe haven by that point and I was loathe to leave it for any reason. I managed to let people know that I was waiting for my 'husband,' and so they were nicer to me in general. So a full twenty-four hours after I arrived in Koundara, Bob arrived with an even worse traveling story than mine (car broke down, he slept on a table in a restaurant while they were still serving people, finally he bought a seat in a passing semi truck). By that point it was evening on Monday, so we found a place to sleep for the night, then Tuesday we headed to Labe. It took about eleven hours to get there, and we ended up sleeping in the same dive of a hotel that Becca and I stayed at when we passed through--I even slept in the same room!--then Wednesday morning we grabbed a car going to Conakry. Because the taxis in Guinea Conakry always oversell places there was no room in the back (two big people, one medium person (me), and one small guy who kept complaining in French), so I ended up sitting in Bob's lap for almost the entire trip. The annoying skinny guy then started making jokes in French about how Bob should have the other lady in the back sitting on his lap, she could be his first wife and I would be the second, blah blah blah. I wanted to tell him in English to shut up because he was the one complaining about there being no room, but I held my tongue. So I finally made it to Conakry six days after I started my journey. If I had traveled back by land I would have had to leave the very next day to make it up country, but Bob said he “kinda wanted to spend time with me other than in a car” so he bought me a plane ticket to get back. Thus I was able to spend four days in Conakry. It’s a pretty cool city, and I was lucky that there weren’t demonstrations, because there were supposed to be. But all in all, I missed the relative quiet and smallness and familiarity of Kombo. Plus everything is in English or an African language I can understand at least some of!

In other news, I’ve enrolled in the Fall 2008 Epidemiology/Biostatistics track of the MPH program at Oregon Health and Science University. I decided I should be closer to home for at least a few years (I haven’t had Thanksgiving at home for the last 6 years!), plus OHSU is a school with a good reputation and as a resident of Oregon, it’s considerably cheaper than Emory (I was accepted there, but cannot afford the $45,000 a year). So, in three month’s time I’ll return to the states, enjoy a few months of readjustment, then head off to Portland at the end of September.

Okay, that’s all for now! I go back to site tomorrow and probably won’t be back until COS conference!

Yay for Vacation!

2008-01-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I made it back from my vacation in one piece, despite the best intentions of various peoples. Here are the highlights of our three-week adventure through West Africa:

Basse to Labe—Becca and I left at 11am on Christmas day because that’s when the car was leaving. Thirteen people piled into a Pugeot taxi meant to seat seven people in comfort. The road was okay in The Gambia, better in Senegal, then turned into a 4WD nightmare in Guinea! The child sitting on his mother’s lap next to me vomited on me after a few hours, so I had that to enjoy for the rest of the 20 hour trip. It would have taken less time if we hadn’t had to stop at 10 at night to weld the underbody of the car back together, and if we hadn’t run out of gas at 4 in the morning and had to push the car to the next village to look for gas. We finally reached Labe around 7 am on the 26th, but we were dropped a ways outside of Labe for reasons unknown and had to trek in and find our dive of a hotel. We passed out until the afternoon, shivering against each other because the nights in Guinea are cold.

Doucki—After resting in Labe for the day we headed out to Doucki for some hiking. Hassan Bah has a tourist complex and leads tours all over the mountain on which he lives. We stayed for three days, four nights and hiked 44 kilometers. We enjoyed the gorgeous scenery, went swim in waterfalls, and hiked some insane trails that involved rock climbing (we’re talking literally climbing the face of a mountain where if you slip, you’re going to fall a good ways and get hurt). Empowering, but also exhausting, so we had to rest a few days in this nice town called Dalaba. The craziest thing about the trails we hiked is that these are trails the locals use everyday to get up and down the mountain for market, herding, etc. And they do it all with baskets on their heads and in flip-flops! We met some really cool ex-pats, Annoushka from Czech Republic, and Romain from France, who do development work in Guinea Bissau. They loaned us money so we wouldn’t have to try and find a Standard Chartered when we went to Conakry. We owe them a lot since we weren’t ever able to find a Standard Chartered where we could cash checks and we would have been completely stuck halfway through the trip.

Dalaba to Conakry—What a trip! First of all, the car was dirty and so it had cockroaches, which enjoyed crawling up and down my legs. Ewww! Our driver was a crazy man driving way too fast on a winding road coming down off the mountain. This made the girl in front of me so nauseous that she threw up numerous times, and one time she missed the barf-bag and ended up vomiting into the car. The only good part about this is that it detracted the roaches away from my legs and they didn’t bother me the rest of the trip. However, the sounds of her vomiting were making me queasy, so I shut my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts. The next thing I know, there’s a BOOM sound and I’m thrown against the seat in front of me. I open my eyes to see that we’ve run into a truck which was going at a significantly slower pace than the one our car had kept up. Only one woman was hurt—she had hit the door frame and was a bit bloody with a hen’s egg sized contusion on her forehead. The twelve of us climb out of the car, look after the injured woman, wait for the drivers to finish yelling at each other, then pile back in the car and coast to a sort of mechanic’s shop on the side of the road. Back out of the car. We wait for and hour and a half for them to ‘fix’ the car—‘fix’ meaning removing the hood, front bumper, and remaining glass from the shattered headlight, then banging the engine with a hammer, checking the fuel line, and starting the car. So back in the car, with the hood and front bumper attached to the top on top of our bags. It’s actually a good thing the car parts were there because at the next stop a woman decided to buy a cow leg that dripped blood and fat onto the car for the rest of the journey.

Conakry—It is a very bad idea to visit a Francophone country when you don’t know French. We were able to get by up-country with the Pulaar I had learned for the trip, but it was no dice in Conakry. So of course we get lost looking for the US Embassy, but not entirely our fault. I blame the embassy for moving to a completely different side of town within the two years since our guide book had been published. Tens of mil Guinea Franc later, we find our way to the embassy, and they contact PC Guinea and help us get a taxi to the compound, which was a life-saver because it was 8pm by this point. Once we reach the compound, check in, and make our way to the hostel, we are greeted by a group of very cool volunteers. Truly, the Guinea volunteers that we met were just good people, and they helped us so much, especially with stuff like where to find food and the appropriate costs for things. So, we stayed for a few days and tried to leave Friday morning. However, the president of Guinea fired his Minister for Information on Thursday, so when we were driving to the carpark in PC transport, things were crazy at the traffic circle. It took us twenty minutes to get through the traffic. We dropped off the Guinea volunteers at Bambeto carpark, then headed to the US embassy to pick up a security official. We received a call saying we should probably go back to the Bambeto carpark in order to find a car going to Sierra Leone, and this time when we went through the traffic circle it was completely empty. There was maybe one other vehicle and three police officers on the road. Becca and I were wondering what the heck was going on, and when we reached the Bambeto carpark the gates were locked. The security official jumped out of the car, ran inside, found the Guinea volunteers, and we all loaded up in the car, which sped back to the PC compound. Half an hour later the riots started, with rock-throwing and tire-burning. One person died. All the volunteers were stuck in the PC house trying to figure out what to do and where we could find any food since everything was closed because of the riots. Thankfully, things quieted down and we were able to leave for Sierra Leone the next day.

Freetown—We made it to Freetown despite the scary people at the border asking for bribes and being way too suggestive. Because we brought silafando, we were able to stay with some relatives of our Doucki guide for a few days, then we moved to a hotel a few kilometers from the beach. We went to the beach for a few days, but one time when we were walking to the beach we noticed this creepy guy following us. We ended up escaping, no helps to our driver who ended up being in league with the stalker, and making it to the beach we wanted to go to, only to see the stalker when we were leaving. I looked him dead in the eye, we recognized each other, and he looked pissed. Becca and I freaked out a little while we tried to get back to our hotel, then tried to check out. We couldn’t leave because we couldn’t get our deposit back until the next day (and we couldn’t afford to go to another hotel without that deposit), so they put a guard n watch for the night and moved us to a room on the second floor. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well, and were out the door on the way to the US Embassy as soon as we had cash in hand. Trying to find the US Embassy was quite the experience, seeing as how it had moved just like the one in Guinea, only this time to the top of a hill very far away from anything except other embassies. We ended up having to walk up several hills so that by the time we arrived, we were cursing the ostentatious nature of the American government and whining about what is the point of having an embassy really far away from where American citizens actually live. How could citizens get to the embassy if something bad were to happen? Anyway, when we reached the embassy we were told we’d have to wait until 2 o’clock, so they let us wait in the library. When we checked in after 2 and told our story, we were basically told to be careful and not to go back to that area (ya think?) and sent on our way. It might have been different if we could have talked with an American, but they were nowhere to be found. Anyway, we moved to a new hotel in Central Freetown which ended up being a nicer place for the exact same price, and we had people to look out for us. We spent the rest of our time walking around and going to markets. We were supposed to return on Friday but the airline we booked with doesn’t actually have any flights on Fridays (no idea how the travel agency’s computer let them book our flights for a day when no planes are flying), so we just had to show up really freakin’ early on Saturday morning so we could make sure to get a seat on the plane. Everything worked out, and now I’m back in The Gambia. *sigh of relief* And tomorrow I go back to site to write all my lesson plans for the week, then start teaching again on Tuesday. Wait! I’m not ready! I need to relax from my vacation first!

So.....I may be addicted to surgery

2007-12-07T18:11:00.000-08:00

Holy crap! The first time I see a birth and it's an emergency C-section done because the mother was eclampsic! And this time in the operating theatre I actually helped, albeit just a little. I held down one of the woman's arms when she was starting to convulse and sometimes I had to hold her gas mask on, and then I helped an orderly open her legs so he could change her cathater (because the maternity nurse put a pediatric-size cathater in and the bladder was too full for the doctor to get a good grasp on the baby's head). At the time it didn't feel like anything special, except maybe when I was holding the gas mask and I could feel her short, shallow breaths, but now when I think about it I get a rush. During the surgery it seemed very surreal, as if the doctor was just performing a dissection like biology majors do in various labs, except the specimen was bleeding and warm to the touch. And Dr. Spencer was very calm about it all--it's all old hat to him I suppose. I mostly stood out of the way, but whenever I was called over to hold something I was very calm as well. It's only looking back on it that I think it's amazing. Maybe this means I have the needed distance for becoming a good doctor: empathetic but not losing myself in the problem of the patient. Anyway, it was really frickin' cool to watch Dr. Spencer pull the baby out of the womb. At first I didn't think it was alive because it was all grayish (remember, we're talking about an African baby here, not a wrinkly white one) and not moving or breathing. But a midwife and an orderly took the baby aside, used a suction machine powered by a foot pump, and sucked out the mucus in the baby's throat and mouth. Eventually it woke up and there is now a very healthy baby boy with a larger-than-average head. The mother's BP had dropped once the baby and placenta was removed but she was still twitching a bit when she was wheeled out to the maternity ward.

And earlier this week I walked with Dr. Spencer to see a patient with severe lower abdominal pain in her right side. The first (and only) thing I thought of was appendicitis, but Dr. Spencer said it could also be an ovarian cyst or ectopic pregnancy. Anyway, he did emergency surgery and it turned out to be appendicitis (Total points for me: 1). There was actually a seed, maybe baobob, that had become trapped in the appendix and caused the inflammation. It was ready to rupture by the time we did surgery, so Dr. Spencer saved the patient's life. How cool must that be?!? I used to say that I can cut up dead things but I wouldn't trust myself to cut something that's living, but now I think I could do the cutting. It's the suturing that would get to me. Definitely something needed, but the interesting part of the surgery is over by that point. Ah well. I'm just a toubab trying to play doctor with insufficient knowledge and my personal first aid kit (not the one given by Peace Corps, the one I brought with me).

One thing that struck me today though is how similar patients are when they come to the doctor, whether in the states or here. They have a pain, and they want the miracle drug that will make it go away. End of story. They don't want to have to change their lifestyle to improve their helath; they want a pill to make everything better. And the doctors eventually give way and prescribe some sort of antibiotic (today it was mostly doxycycline, which is the anti-malaria medication I had been on that gave me stomach ulcers, so at least the women are safe from malaria for a week or so), which leads to antibiotic-resistance among some of the disease-causing microorganisms, and then things get worse.

When I was in the scanning room watching ultrasounds the orderlies were talking about how some women want the ultrasound (even though it costs 100 dalasis) because they think the scanning wand will actually heal them. That kind of blind faith in medicine and the doctors and nurses who practice it can be scary sometimes. Like when people in village come to me with a health problem, and I have no idea what it is and tell them to go to the hospital, but they think if they sit and stare at me long enough I'll change my mind and give them some aspirin and everything will magicly be better. It's a sort of transfer of the old animist beliefs into medicine, but the "magic" is still there. That's why if people are given medicine to take for ten days, and after two days they don't feel any better, they stop taking the medicine and go to the local marabout for traditional healing. What to do? What to do?

Things that I've been pondering....

2007-12-01T23:55:00.000-08:00

Days until Christmas: 23
Days until vacation: 25
Days until Dad's 50th B-Day: 40
Days until my b-day: 72
Days until I go on mail-run: 110
Days that I've been here thus far: 513
Days until the date I can hopefully come home: 182
Date at which there will hopefully be only 100 days left: February 22nd

Life in a Gambian Hospital

2007-12-01T23:47:00.000-08:00

I'm back in the Kombos after a long month in village. What with teaching 100+ tenth-graders, weighing babies, trying to organize a night class for hospital staff, working with the Peer Health Club to put on educational skits for the up-coming World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) celebration we're having, still trying to figure logistics out for finishing the well at Babou Jobe, helping my sitemate with her micro-business manual (and her countless venting and "I think this is the first thing I'll do when I go home, no this, no that" sessions), and trying to figure out information about solar panels for the community lodge, I've been busy! I came down to Kombo this week to celebrate Thanksgiving (we ate at the ambassador's house, even though we don't have an ambassador right now), celebrate the 40th anniversary of Peace Corps, The Gambia, and attend the all-volunteers meeting. Needless to say, there were several nights of partying on behalf of fellow PCVs, but luckily these were not at the hostel, so a friend and I did things like making manicotti and layered jello or go to the beach. What is it about living overseas which drives PCVs to unnecessary drinking bouts whenever groups of three or more gather? I have had a few times when I would like to have a drink, but frankly I don't feel safe doing so, especially not around other PCVs (the rumor mill is insane), plus there's a little voice in the back of my head saying "What would your host mother think?" Ah well, everyone needs a way to let off some steam. As long as they don't wake me up whent hey come stumbling in at 4am, it's all good.

The biggest thing that's happened to me this month is that Hawa came to visit. Hawa is a four-year-old girl who had a very gross malignant skin ulcer for the last three years! Her mother said the "wound" just appeared (maybe it started as a burn from boiling water) and everytime they went to the doctor the wound ended up covered in iodine or just bandaged, but regardless they were sent away each time, and because the wound was itchy, Hawa scratched at it with her dirty fingernails and the wound spread. So I went with the mother and Hawa to the hospital where my toubab status pushed her to the front of the line, and some volunteer Cuban doctors thought she might have anthrax so they signed an admittance paper and told me to take her to the "ward." When I asked which ward the doctor just said "the ward" and shooed me away. So one of my friends who works in the lab took us first to the pediatric ward, but that wasn't it. Go to the surgical ward, so we went to the surgical ward, and that was the correct place, but Hawa could only be admitted if the surgeon cleared the paperwork, so then we had to go to the surgical clinic and get in line. Again, my toubab status assured that we were at the front of the line, but we waited more than two hours for the surgeon to come. After 11 he came, but hospital staff kept pushing their friends through the door to his office while everyone else was waiting patiently (Gambians are very patient people; they're used to waiting). However I, at this point, was quite frustrated and finally just knocked on the door and went in. Meanwhile one of the nurses closed the door on Hawa's face. Once she and her mother were allowed in and the surgeon looked her over, he agreed she needed surgery and signed the paperwork. So once we had Hawa safely established in the surgical ward I rushed off to school to teach my lessons, then ran home and ate a quick lunch while I informed my host mother as to what was going on, then back to the hospital with lunch for Hawa and her mother. Hawa's mother asked for a few things like clothes so I returned that night with necessities. The next day Hawa was supposed to have surgery, but because her hemoglobin level was low she would need a blood transfusion. So in between classes I ran home, talked with some people, and found a way for Hawa's father to come donate blood, only to find out at 2pm that the surgery had been canceled and the father didn't need to give blood because a donor with her blood came in a gave blood. Her surgery would be the next Tuesday (as surgeries are done Tuesdays and Thursdays). So we waited until Tuesday, but Tuesday brought with it generator problems, so the surgery was canceled again. On Thursday everything was a-okay so Hawa was the first surgery that day (I requested time off from school and had permission from the surgeon to attend the surgery). Hawa came kicking and screaming, but with some laughing gas quited down. Once everything was ready and I was thinking how much like a doll Hawa looked, Dr. Spencer came in with his rubber boots. Using a lamp that looked more like a flashlight for lighting, the scrub nurse cleaned the area (with soapy water) and dried it, then Dr. Spencer began. It took several passes with the scalpel to make it through the tissue, and Hawa bled so much for someone her size--clamps were just blossoming around the wound--and at one point I aided the surgery (I grabbed adrenaline to put on the cut area to help stop the bleeding). After removing the diseased tissue and cutting it up for preservation and testing (it may be cancerous), Dr. Spencer pulled out an inflammed lymph node the size of a lima bean. It was crazy. Once the bleeding was under control, Hawa was bandaged and the clean-up started. First removing the clamps, then wiping up the blood--some of which pooled under the gurney and congealed into a sheet which was partly stuck in her hair--then one more sweep over with the soapy water, cover her up and wheel her away. I stayed for two more surgeries (during the last of which, the power gave out and Dr. Spencer tried to continue blind while the scrub nurses ran around trying to get the power to start up again), then visited Hawa, who was still asleep. Off to school for classes, and when I returned she was awake, in some pain, and in the middle of her blood transfusion. She was not at all happy with me. For the last week we've been waiting to see how the wound heals, and if everything is healthy then Dr. Spencer will perform a skin graft. Meanwhile, Hawa is running around and happy. Whenever I visit she likes to beat up on me and we tease each other in Jolaa: "ow, ow jakuut!" "nje? haani. ow. ow jakuut!" ("You, you are bad." "Me? No, you. You are bad.").

During the waiting period I was extremely frustrated and emotional, feeling like if anything goes wrong it's my fault for convincing Hawa's mother to admit her, and the world is such an injust place for not letting Hawa receive the medical attention she needs without a toubab bringing it to her, etc. Upon reflection though, the clinics and hospitals she went to before were not as big as Bwiam's, and probably not even staffed by doctors. For awhile I was mad at the doctor for not doing the surgery, thinking he was making excuses, but once I was in the operating room and witnessed what he is up against, I have a profound respect for the work he does with so few resources. The shopital has three generators, two of which are supposed to be functional at all times, but all three are having problems. Meanwhile the director of the hospital is the only person taking care of these administrative issues; he has no help. And the patients just blindly believe whatever they are told because they aren't as educated as the nurses and doctors (none of the doctors are Gambian, they're all either Nigerian or Cuban volunteers). They call the nurses "doktor" because they don't know any better. Meanwhile, many of the nurses are actually still in training. For patients staying overnight in the hospital, they receive one meal a day, and that is for the patient, not the family. There is a cantina on the hospital grounds, but that's for the staff, not family. There are seven beds to a room, no chairs, and nothing to do all day. I brought some Newsweek magazines for surgical patients so they could look at pictures and such, but the nurses took them. Families from the area bring lunches and dinners to their people in the surgical ward, so everyone shares meals. The people on the ward become like a family since they spend at least two weeks there at a time. It's great to be a part of that and greet everyone when I come to visit Hawa.

Kasumai kep!

October Gambian Update

2007-10-30T03:31:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

Summer Fun

2007-08-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

In the last few months, I have helped with pre-service training both at Camp Tendaba and in Kombo. On the 4th of July we were in sessions when we heard people screaming. We went outside to discover that one of the huts was on fire! Apparently, the owner had overloaded the electrical circuit, it shorted out, and because the paint was petrol-based, the whole thing went up like a matchstick. Immediately people formed long lines leading from the river and the pool to the burning hut and passed buckets of water to each other. Volunteers jumped right in, too. I stayed with the woman who owned the hut while she cried. The only things that were saved were some clothing.

Not long after that I had to go to Kombo because I had been having stomach pains that wouldn’t go away. Turns out the malaria medication I was on, doxycycline, had given me an ulcer! So now I’m on malarone, which the nurse made sure to inform is “the expensive stuff.” If anything happens to me on malarone I’m not going to say anything, because after switching my medication twice the only option left might be medical separation. I’m in my final year and I will not let that happen.

I’ve moved to Dabong and am settling in. The night before I left Dankunku I bought attaya and ley for the family and we had a small party. When I left the whole family prayed over me and little Fatou started crying and wouldn’t let me hug her goodbye. I ended up crying (I hadn’t thought that I would) in the truck as we were leaving. The family called me just the other day to greet me, too. I didn’t think I’d miss them so much, but these are people who took care of me for almost a year.

My new compound is HUGE, though my nuclear family is mid-sized. The compound is so big because my host father has three brothers who also have their own families, and most of my host father’s children live in the compound (he has four wives, but only two, the first and the fourth, live in the compound). My host father’s name is Tofey (toe-fee, not toffee) and he thinks it’s the best thing if I call him “Ba Tofey” (father Tofey). The first wife also likes me to call her “Nna” which means “mom,” but I can call the fourth wife by her first name, Hawa. Everyone thinks I’m great because I’m trying to learn Jolaa, and from what I can tell, it seems to be made up of pieces of Wollof, Madinka, and Pulaar with some weird words of their own thrown in. Apparently Gambian Jolaa isn’t the “real” Jolaa (that would be the Jolaa in Cassamance, which is Southern Senegal where there’s rebel fighting because they want to be their own country).

It’s interesting learning about Cassamance. Apparently it used to be part of Guinea Bissau but the king decided he didn’t want to be ruled by the Portuguese government so he signed a treaty with the French government to be part of Senegal for a period of 100 years, at which time they would be their own country. However, the date came and went and the Senegalese government has decided they can’t let Cassamance go because Cassamance is the fertile side of Senegal. Northern Senegal is desert in comparison. So, during the rainy season when there’s underbrush to hide in, the fighting starts up again. The fighting isn’t currently where I’m at right now—it’s further East—but wounded rebels have been taken to the Bwiam hospital for treatment, something the Gambian government doesn’t at all agree with. One of my host brothers is a soldier with the national army, so if anything big happens the family will let me know.

Anyway, I was only in Dabong for a week before I had to leave to help with site visits. I went with a girl going to Boiram, a good-sized Wollof village. I went there a few times to visit Nancy, the volunteer who lived there before, so I got to see her family again and they were all happy to see me. I took the new girl to the alkalo and we had a double translation. The host father, Ibu, speaks all three of the main languages, so the alkalo spoke in Wollof to him, then Ibu translated it into Mandinka for me, and I translated it into English for the new girl, then vice-versa whenever she had something to say. And just being in Boiram for a few days made me pick up Wollof again so that I was able to speak some small sentences. I felt like a language rock-star, though I’m far from it. I think just being forced to hear another language everyday awakens the language cortex in the brain so that learning other languages at the same time becomes a bit easier.

Swearing-in for the newbies happened on Friday, so I’m officially a second-year volunteer now. I’m looking at master’s programs right now (I’ve decided that after my time in The Gambia is finished, I need to come back to America. I won’t be coming home for Christmas as originally planned in the hopes that I’ll be able to close my service early to attend Keith’s graduation) and from there I want to go to medical school for pediatrics. Being a white person in The Gambia automatically qualifies me as a doctor and I’ve enjoyed talking with people as they’ve come to me with various ailments—“No, if your finger swells up to twice it’s normal size you should go to the clinic, not the local marabout.” “If your stomach is paining you, drink mint tea to help ease the pain”—and trying to figure out what ailment they have based on what little I know and my “Where There is No Doctor” book. **Disclaimer: I always tell people to go to the local clinic to make sure it’s not something serious**

I haven’t met my counterpart yet, and I’m a bit worried because I hear he treats volunteers as if they’re beneath him and merely another teacher. I want to let him know I don’t want to work Mondays so that I can help out at the hospital, that I only want to teach grade 10 biology so I can work with the other science teachers on organizing and maintaining the science labs, and that I want to work with youth groups both at the senior secondary and the upper basic schools. We shall see. Inshallah, things will work out, otherwise, he might just see how stubborn and independent American women can be. I let myself be bossed around for one year; I’m not about to let it happen again.

So that’s my life in a nut-shell at present. I think when I come back to America I will have a t-shirt printed with “slowly-slowly” to remind me of my time here. I only need to learn it in Serer and maybe Monjago.

Ndanka-ndanka—Wollof
Domanding-domanding—Mandinka
Seda-seda—Pulaar
Ja-ekung, ja-ekung—Jolaa
Honi-honi--Serahule

~Hannah :-)

My first year is almost finished!

2007-06-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm in Kombo again, woot woot! I came last week to greet the new education volunteers at the airport and have been helping with their training for the last few days, basically sharing my experiences and giving advice about where to go to buy this, that, and the other thing. It's an experience very similar to babysitting or being a camp counselor. I had the opportunity to help with interviews for the teacher-trainers and math/science teachers, and that helped me get to know the trainees a lot better. I also gave my input as to what villages they might be placed in, which in turn determined what language they are now studying, so I feel pretty darn cool. Sitting through training again and listening to the questions they ask constantly gives me flashbacks to when I went through training, and it's a real ego-booster to see how much everyone in my education group has grown and done in the year since we were trainees. The new group is full of people with teaching experience, which is something my group didn't have much of, so I think the new people are going to do marvelously well. They're very upbeat as well, as have all the other groups before—starting with my training group—so it looks like things are on the up-swing. Last Saturday we took the trainees to a local restaurant for a chance to meet some current volunteers, and it was a smashing success. When my group went there as trainees, we met a bunch of sarcastic, embittered volunteers who were just waiting until their COS, but this time around everyone was positive, and just being there in that mass of optimistic feelings has revved me up to finish the school year strong and to do even more when I move to Bwiam. I'm also considering in the back of my mind the possibility of extending to another country, most likely The Philippines (I have a thing for countries beginning with "The") where I can continue teaching science and hopefully do more youth-development work with an NGO. I have to wait until the new country director comes in July and give him some time to settle in before I discuss such things out loud, but we shall see. Which reminds me that I don't think I've mentioned our former country director terminated her service early. We joke that you know things are messed up in your country when you can't even keep your director from ETing, but she found a job helping to develop the new Oregon State University campus in Bend.

Back in Dankunku things are much the same. I'm thoroughly disappointed in my host father and school headmaster because of some money issues. Before I came to Kombo last time my host father "ate" the advanced rent he asked for, which he said he would use to buy rice for the family. Instead, he used it to buy cement for the new addition he's adding to his personal house, and he had the courage to ask me for the money because I had been trying to help the family finish a house they're building in the compound with monetary donations, which were also "eaten" by my host father to improve his own house. "No good deed goes unpunished" as they say, but I won't give him money help ever again, only to the wives. As to Mr. Sane, he had the gall to ask me for 2,400 D as a loan for some personal problems he has, and when I told him that I don't give out money, he then said "Well, then just give me 500 D as a grant." When I asked him if he knew a grant doesn't have to be repaid, he replied "Yes, exactly, give it to me as a gift." I almost blew up at him since I still had anger regarding my host father, and because I know Mr. Sane has borrowed money from the garden committee, the Scouts, and the sports committee, adding up to a few thousand dalasis and which he has not repaid. It's very difficult to be here in situations like that, when there is such a culture clash (here, if you have money or anything else of value, you share it, no questions asked) and no matter of explaining will make them understand your perspective, it's only "You have it, I don't, so you should give it to me." Another volunteer explained it a better way. "In The Gambia, nothing is yours, it's everyone's. That's why strangers can walk into your house and take water, or villagers can come take your hammer or your donkey cart without asking and tell you about it later, because none of it is yours to begin with. You may have possession of it, but it belongs to everyone and everyone has an equal right to use it." I think some sort of line needs to be drawn regarding money, though. And there isn't much sentimental value attached to objects, either. For instance, my host brother Dembo, who "borrowed" one of two wind-up flashlights my grandparents gave me until he forgot he was only borrowing, told me that when I leave for Bwiam I need to give him my other wind-up flashlight because he broke the one I had "given" him. He could not grasp the concept that I don't want to give it to him because it came from my grandparents and that when I use it, it reminds me of family camping trips with them. And the fact that I still use it means nothing to him either; after all, I do have a headlamp. He wants my wind-up flashlight because the flashlight he finally bought for himself once he broke my other one isn't as bright as the wind-up flashlight I use (unwittingly, I introduced him to the concept of LED lights and now he's dissatisfied with local ones). So, if I think back to the other complaints I've written about in other letters, most of my culture clashes relate to money or possessions, things Americans hold dear because they are a symbol of our wealth, power, and independence. While wealth is a value here, and power to an extent for those few who have it, independence is almost a non-issue. Most of my culture clashes stem from my own stubbornness and willful nature conflicting with the reality of what life here is like. So what does that say? I still struggle with adapting myself to life here while trying to retain my American ways to keep myself sane, but sometimes the tension between those two drives me batty anyway. By the time I figure it out it will be time to leave, and I know I will not extend my Peace Corps service in this country. Ah well, we shall see…In happier news, my roof has been fixed just in time for the rainy season, whew! Still need to replace that ceiling panel, but one thing at a time. One interesting thing is that while Dembo was fixing my roof, he called down to me "I see one of your cats is here." I told him to stop hammering to let the cat get out (the hole that was covered was where they were entering my ceiling to get at the rats there), but he said "No, it will be fine." Well, later when the THREE cats who were trapped inside my ceiling started yowling, I tried to help them get out by standing on my trunk and holding one of my big wash basins for them to jump into. No dice. I eventually had to build a tower underneath the trapdoor in the ceiling and after another hour or so of crying, they worked up the courage to jump down. Everyday is a series of small adventures. I attached some pictures of them trapped in the ceiling, so you can see what I'm talking about regarding the missing ceiling panel.

I go back to village on Friday, the same day that the trainees go to their training villages, though they will go by the South Bank highway (since the rains are starting, I should say "mudway") at 9am while I leave by the North Bank highway at 6am. On Saturday, the school is supposed to have it "Speech and Prize Day," a awards ceremony for the best students in each grade and subject. Then finals start Monday the 25th and run until Friday. Sunday July 1 st I come back to Kombo for Warden training on the 2nd and the All-Volunteers meeting on the 3rd, then travel out to Tendaba for sessions with the trainees. Back to Dankunku Saturday the 7 th of July, last week of school the 9th-13th (I'm throwing parties for both 7th grade classes with certificates for the Top Boy/Girl, Best Notetaker, Best Attendance, and Most Improved Marks, prizes of school supplies which I think I'll give via raffle and maybe some puzzle games, and cookies and Foster Clarks juice mix). Next week I'll visit my new site in Bwiam and talk with the new host family about rent and what needs to be fixed in my house, then out to Tendaba for two weeks of helping trainees with Model School, then hopefully I'll move to my new house somewhere in the second week of August, which means I won't have time for a vacation because I'll need that time to get to know the village, where things are, how to find the school and the vegetable market, etc. and meet with my new counterpart at Fatima Senior Secondary School. Yamai told me I need to devote my time to teaching grade 10 maths and science at the SSS, then with my extra time work with the upper basic school, so that is what I intend to do, though I hear from the volunteer at the school now that Mr. Gomez, the headmaster, doesn't like to share "his" volunteer with anyone. We shall see who is the more headstrong, because while I am more than willing to teach classes with students who have a better handle on English, I refuse to be ordered about by someone just because they feel they are entitled by their position to do so. Over my time here I have greatly improved my control over my temper and have discovered more subtle ways to push my addenda, and I understand the cultural importance of working up through the hierarchy and not going around my counterpart, but I will do whatever I need to do what I believe is the right thing for my students/clubs/teachers and accept the consequences of my actions. And I just realized I sounded entirely like a vigilante in that statement. What I mean to say is that I have a better understanding of what I need to do to make sure good thing happen, and with improved patience I am also more determined to make a positive impact during the time given me. Oy, I could never be a diplomat, I mean what I say too much.

~Hannah Banana :-)

Someone Turn Off the Sun!!!

2007-05-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Returning yet again to civilization, I can give you an update of the Gambian life. Since my last email, the school held our inter-kunda sports competition (track and field day, essentially). As a member of the sports committee, I had the pleasure of sitting through almost daily meetings regarding how to secure funds to hold the inter-kundas, which mostly consisted of three different people making the same points but somehow able to argue with each other--quite a talent--while the rest of us listened and occassionally tried in vain to comment or even change the subject. :-P The committee has held various fund-raising activities like movie nights (there's something other-worldy about sitting outside on a mat in the sand, watching action movies on a small TV screen which has the volume turned to maximum so you can hear it over the hum of the generator used to run it, and then to have a donkey walk in front of the screen or a sheep come up to your mat to try and eat it) and the Mother's Club has given money specifically for the inter-kundas, but then the headmaster "borrowed" over 1000 dalasis for trips to Kombo or Basse and he has yet to return the money, so we were definitely in a financial pickle. Somehow we managed to find the money, yay! The day of the inter-kundas, I woke around 8 because the inter-kundas were scheduled to start at 9. Since I've accustomed myself to "Gambian time" I didn't show up to the field until almost 10, and I was one of three teachers and ten students there who were trying to set up the shade covers and scratch lines in the sand for the track. The events didn't start until noon. The students had been divided into four teams, and most of the students were cheerleaders for the ten or fifteen kids actually competing in all of the events. Mostly it was running track and jumping events, but there were a few fun ones like bucket balance (literally, a 15 liter bucket full of water balanced on the girls' heads with no hands to hold, walking 100m). Unfortunately, the difficult events like distance running and relays didn't happen until after lunch (so, after 3), and over the course of one hour I counted eleven children collapsing from heat exhaustion, so that more often than not the people who won events were the only ones who kept to their feet. Fortunately, we have a great Red Cross Club at the school, GambiaHelp gave us lots of first-aid supplies, and all students in sixth grade or higher learn how to make oral rehydration drinks with water, sugar, and salt. We emphasized to the teachers in charge of the kundas to make sure their kids drank lots of water, but it was the same students competing over and over in events and they became too tired. Plus, the teachers are fanatically competitive when it comes to inter-kundas. The students do it for fun, but the teachers will scream and chase after kids while they compete. Slightly frightening. I was the main scorekeeper during all of the events so I had a 360 view from the middle of the field to see all of this happening. During break, I learned where the procured money went--to feed all the "important people" from Dankunku and surrounding villages who mostly had nothing to do with the school all year. We had the school cooks make chicken domodaa (think hot peanut-butter sauce, really yummy) with cooscoos and noodles, even vegetables like cabbage and eggplant which most people didn't touch so I went around helping clean plates by eating those (you become a total scavenger living here). The children were all told to go home for lunch, though if money hadn't been "borrowed" the sports committee had planned to give each kunda some money to cook for the themselves. I overheard some men who dropped by to see their important friends say that they really just came to the inter-kundas for free lunch, and we gave it to them. There were panketos (think giant donut holes), fish pies, and icees (frozen juice you suck out of a small plastic baggie) for these men to eat and drink during the competitions, even cold soft drinks which were bought in Farafenni and brought back (which requires a boat and gele-gele ride each way), but we couldn't afford to give anything to the kids passing out in the field in front of us. Sometimes the beuracracy here makes me want to scream! Ahhhhhhhhhh! However, all-in-all the day was a lot of fun because I had the chance to watch some of my grade sevens compete. Salifu, my best student, did an amazing job at high and long jump, and four of my "super-chatty girls who sit in the back and don't even take notes while I'm trying to teach" made up the winning 4x400 relay team. My sitemate, Elyse, and Charlie, the VSO for the Niamina districts, came to see the events, too, so we enjoyed chatting amongst ourselves about how we were sitting on metal desks with frayed wiring from the speakers looped all over the place around us. I'm quite impressed with the technical feats the men achieved--they made a microphone out of a pair of headphones connected to a radio. I never would have thought about doing that. The more time you spend here, the more resourceful you become.

Right now the grade nines are in the middle of their two-week-long tests which will qualify them for senior secondary school. I helped with attendance and keeping time while I was around, along with teaching after-school sessions to help students study for the exams they would have the next day. My grade seven classes were switched to afternoon shift so that the grade nines would have more space for their testing, and all I can say is I hope never to teach an afternoon shift again. It's currently up to 118 degrees in Dkk (I know for sure now that I have a thermometer I snatched from the free pile at the hostel). Students do quite poorly in such heat, and I know my mind wanders while I'm trying to concentrate on what I'm teaching. However, the heat has helped me to slow down while I teach, which prompts the students to ask more questions while I walk around the classroom (the new strategy my mother told me about for minimizing class chatting.If someone is especially chatty I'll just put my hand on their head; it kind of freaks the students out, but it does keep them quieter as I walk back and forth between pockets of chit-chat). I'm teaching them about nutrition and how the circulation, respiratory, and digestive systems work together to unlock the nutrients and energy from food. My favorite lecture was covering which foods have which nutrients. My students asked me to explain what pork tastes like, and they tried to explain hyena meat to me. I want to try some now, and we definitely have them in the area--I can't seem to fall asleep anymore before I hear them calling out in the night. When I make it back to village we'll have review in class with "Hungry Lamin," my pride and joy of teaching aids. By using a rice bag, some velcro I brought from America, poster board, and markers, I've made a human outline with removable body parts for each of the systems we've discussed in class. I've also made food bowls out of poster board with cutouts of various foods with their nutrients labelled on the back. I'll divide my classes into four groups and have competitions to organize balanced meals. I've promised mintees to the winning teams.

In regards to projects, the well projects are at a standstill right now. Lamin Sanyang, the well-digger we've been using, has twice now been in trouble for possession and distribution of marijuana. The sitemate we were supposed to have after Lizzie closed her service has been moved to a different village (so only two people remain in our district and surrounding districts) because she saw Lamin drying pot on the roof when she went to visit the compound for site visit and she told Peace Corps about it, and Lamin has been arrested by the police in Jareng. He's the only well-digger in any of the surrounding areas, so we're stuck. However, I have all the details typed up for our request to turn Dankunku Basic Cycle School into a senior secondary school--as there are none anywhere nearby--so that project is going quite well. We have to be quick about turning all the paperwork in, because Jareng is also requesting a SSS and if they are chosen, we cannot build one for another five years because the Department of State Education (DOSE) won't fund the project. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Oh, almost forgot: my request for transfer has finally been approved! Yay! I'm not sure when I'll move to Bwiam because I'll be helping with PST all summer and right before school starts I want to go on a trip to Guinea and Sierra Leone (two countries that are supposed to be amazingly beautiful, which is something Gambia isn't) with one or two other PCVs. So we'll see. Also, I've learned that because of my recommendation not to be replaced, the senior staff has decided to pull Peace Corps out of Dankunku for the time being. I feel like I've killed the village, not that it hasn't been dying for years anyway, but I do feel guilty and it's weird to know I have that kind of power. To look at the bright side, though, I'm moving to an area with three schools I could help with, two of them with science labs, plus a hospital where I could volunteer and could take students to for a field trip. The village I'm moving to is a Jolaa community, so I'll be picking up yet another language (Wolof, Mandinka, Jolaa). I feel torn about moving because I know I will miss my fellow teachers, my host family, and especially my students, and I feel guilty about the fact that I'll be leaving behind unfinished projects, but I truly do believe it is the best for my mental and physical wellbeing. Before I came to Kombo, I hadn't had any meat for a month, because there simply wasn't any available, and I had been starting to feel very tired, weak, and dizzy from the deficiency in protein. Not cool.

~Hannah

April Update

2007-04-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

Long time, no computer access. I'm back in Kombo writing my transfer request letter, and I would have like to discuss preparing for training, but my boss is on vacation again. I don't think it's quite fair that volunteers are yelled at if the administration feels they are making too many visits to Kombo, but they can take frequent vacations back to America. Ah well, such is life, and they aren't paid to live in a village, whereas I am. It would be helpful if they would at least tell us when they plan to leave the country.

So, what has happened since my February email? Well, International Women's Day. Working with FAWEGAM (a sort of girl-power group) we organized a march from the school into the market in town, where girls and female teachers gave speeches and members of the club performed two skits that they wrote themselves--one about teen pregnancy and one about early marriage. The boys wanted to participate in the march and they also put on a skit of their own. Everything was in Mandinka so I understood very little, but people were laughing so I think it went well. All in all, about 200 students participated and 200 villagers came to watch. After it was all over and I was congratulating the girls on what they had done, I had a bittersweet moment. They kept asking me if I enjoyed the skits and if I was happy with what they did, and I realized that they hadn't marched or performed skits because they wanted to raise awareness about women's issues, but because they knew it was something important to me. So, sweet, but a bit sad. Ah well.

In other news, I've started teaching ninth grade English classes, trying to teach them reading comprehension in preparation for their ninth grade exams which are coming all too soon. It's very difficult when I ask students to read passages aloud only to discover that there are two English books in the entire classroom and one of them is mine. I also taught a few one-on-one art lessons to ninth graders who needed something for their art practicals. I taught them how to make beaded-lizard keychains, and when the examiner came he didn't believe the students were the ones to make them. It was crazy though because the day before the examiner was due to come look over students' practicals, I learned the students were supposed to do two practicals and every single ninth grader had only done one. This is not entirely their fault though; the art teacher had told the students that their second practical would be tie'n'dye, but the day before the due date he wasn't even in school. He was at the lumo in Jareng to buy material when just the week before he had been in Kombo and could have easily purchased the material there when he was buying other art supplies. So Tuesday after school when he finally returned, eighty ninth graders tie-n-dyed their fabric, washed it, dried it, and ironed it in time for the examinations. I am always in awe of how people can do things last minute here. Oh, and as far as the school is concerned, I'm the new girls' soccer coach. There are twenty-eight girls on the team and the school has two soccer balls, which the boys like to steal.

The well projects are going very slowly. My sitemate Lizzie leaves tomorrow for America (lucky bum) so we've been trying to figure out some money issues. We gave the well-digger 97,000 Dalasis but according to his receipts, he spent 130,000 D. However, the well-digger is illiterate, so we think he accidentally doubled some receipts. We spent hours figuring out the receipts, but now everything adds up for when I turn in the final paperwork.

I think the most important thing I've done in my village is to help the teacher-trainees write their assignments for the BESPO training program. I use all those skills I learned in the writing center to help them figure out what questions they need to answer in their essay, how they should structure it, and to figure out exactly how they want to phrase what they want to say. It can be exhausting--working for two hours on an essay regarding teaching a math lesson with appropriate teaching aids which is only supposed to be 250 words long. More often than not my trainees become frsutrated with me for not giving them the answers or telling them what they should say, but I stress after we're through that they wrote the essay themselves and they should be proud of what they did. The trainees become very possessive of their essays and are far less likely to let others copy off of them (a common practice both among teachers and students). Anyway, I help them fine-tune their English skills and help them think more about the message they want to get across. It also gives me opportunities to suggest new teaching strategies to them.

That about wraps things up for now, more the next time I come to Kombo in May, which will be for IST (In-Service Training). I've been here for nine months now, and it feels like forever, probably because time passes so slow in general and nothing ever really changes--which can be quite frustrating.

Tilibuloo ye diyaa!
~Hannah :-)

More Gambia News

2007-02-23T02:58:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

To keep you updated on my wild African adventure, I have to say not too much has happened. I came back to Kombo in January for some work stuff and went to visit my friend Sara in Bwiam. She showed me the schools she's working with (they actually have science labs, and the senior secondary school has computers!) along with the hospital where she works occasionally. She introduced me to her headmasters and the director of the hospital and they all said they would love for me to come help organize labs or do in-service training for the employees.

So…confession time. I haven't been exactly loving my site. Actually, I've been pretty depressed because other than teaching 7th grade science, I haven't actually been doing science-related stuff. The projects I've worked on, like the library and teacher workshops, are things I feel could be done and would be done better by a teacher-trainer. My village is truly in the middle of absolute nowhere so I'm isolated and feel more lonely than I have ever felt before. I've talked with the head medical officer and with my boss Yamai about switching to Bwiam or possibly Mansakoko area, someplace that is more urban (so I'll actually have network for my cell phone and can talk to my family more than once a month) and that has more volunteers around so I have someone to talk to if I'm frustrated or depressed--rather than hiding in my house reading. And either site would be much closer to Kombo (Bwiam is 3 hours away, Mansakoko 4, rather than my 9-12) Anyway, I need to write a formal request for a transfer, so I'll keep everyone posted.

Part of the depression stems from the malaria prophylactic I've been taking (Mephlaquin, also known as Lariam) so I've switched to Doxycyclin which means I have to take pills every day instead of once a week but in return I no longer have freaky dreams or bouts of insomnia, and even though I've only been on Doxy for a week, I do feel happier in general.

This past weekend was WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament) in Dakar, Senegal. It was a blast! I was on the non-competitive team, and we were absolutely terrible (-76 points in the end because of all the runs scored against us) but none of us cared so we had a great time. Our competitive team made it to quarter-finals before they lost. It was crazy being in Dakar, which is a real city with buildings that are taller than three stories. It sort of reminded me of Chicago, but it was still easy to tell that I was in a third-world country because in front of those tall buildings were wooden stalls selling everything from phone cards to grapes. Ohmigosh! The fruit and vegetables were amazing! The oranges were actually orange, not green like the ones in Gambia, and the bananas were yellow instead of brown. Granted, everything was expensive, but it was fresh and heaven to eat. I kind of struck out with the whole restaurant experience: if you are ever in Dakar, do NOT go to a Chinese restaurant called Hong Kong II, the food was worse than cafeteria food, absolutely no flavor at all. On my last night in Dakar I also suffered food poisoning from a banquet the organization hosted.

I stayed with another volunteer in a real apartment that had consistent power and running water (that was even hot!), and our host was so sweet to us--her maid cooked chicken and baked chocolate chip cookies. She served as a PCV in Nepal during the seventies and told us amazing stories. When she served, her closest sitemate was a four day's walk away, and during training everyone had to learn how to give themselves their own shots because they were just so far away from the medical office. I feel like a total wimp compared to her, griping that it takes me 9-12 hours to get to Kombo and that I don't have good cellular phone service in my village. Ex-pat life is pretty good, though. Our host works as an elementary school teacher at the American School in Dakar, but she lives in a nice apartment and has a maid.

In other news, I have been semi-productive since the last time I wrote. February 9th-12th Dankunku hosted a Scout campfire for schools in the CRD region. Nine schools attended with 200 scouts present, and they all slept at the school. Chaos anyone? I'm surprised that it happened at all because everything was last-minute. One thing I've learned about the people I work with: they are very good at planning things--especially with me pushing them to think things through and organize--but execution of those ideas is a big problem. So, while we had great fundraising ideas to get the 11,000 dalasis we needed to feed the campers, fundraising didn't actually start until the week of the campfire (because I wasn't around saying "we need to do this NOW"--I was in Bwiam). The scout did community service, cleaning up sectors of the town, along with drilling--it was a little intimidating to watch thirteen-year-olds pretending to hold guns--, skits and chants and songs around the campfire, and I organized troop building activities, which were a big hit. I set up puzzles like Spider's Web, Six-Legged Race and Human Knot where the scouts had to work as a group to solve puzzles. It didn't work out exactly as planned because the scoutmasters I put in charge of activities were commanding the kids instead of letting them try the activities themselves, but the kids had fun, which is the most important part. In the mornings I helped with BFT (Body Fitness Test), so at 6:30 myself and a few other scoutmasters would lead the kids on a 2K run, which was more like jog-marching with the kids clapping hands and chanting "Yugel, yugel wii, hoya. Lem lem ma lem lem ma lem lem la hoya." I don't know what that means but it will be forever stuck in my head.

Projects I'm working on right now include trying to re-start a proposal for a resource center for the school. Rebecca, the PCV before me, wrote a grant proposal through the PC Partnership program, but wasn't able to raise all the money need within the time frame given, so now as far as we know, that money has been taken by Peace Corps Washington and I need to write a new proposal. Another project I'm writing a proposal for is to turn Dankunku into a senior secondary school. The school has already been changed from a lower basic school (grades 1-6) to a basic cycle (1-9) so the school has plenty of building space. The school serves fifteen villages and there are no other senior secondary schools anywhere nearby. So, keep your fingers crossed for that, I have no idea what DOSE (Department Of State Education) will say.

Oh, and don't forget to mark your calendars for International Women's Day, March 8th. I'm trying to organize an assembly to celebrate. I need to ask permission for an assembly from the administration, which I don't think will be a problem, and I also need to talk with the girls' club I hear the school has (but which I've never seen). Activities I am thinking about are skits (because the kids LOVE dramas), translating Maya Angelou into Mandinka, maybe debates about gender issues, and possibly a football (soccer) match between Dankunku girls and the Sambang Upper Basic team.

To go completely off-track now, in the seven months that I've been in country, eleven people have terminated service early. It sounds amazing and at first I didn't believe it when people would say "Sometimes, we go a whole month without someone ETing," but now I see how true it is. Only two people have left from my education group, and everyone at least made it through training. The agroforestry group that came after us (in September) lost three during training, and has lost another three since then, and they haven't even finished their three-month challenge yet. The health group that came before us (in February) has lost three in the last two weeks. On top of that, there are groups COSing (Completion Of Service) and the new health group came in at the beginning of the month. The turn-around for PCVs is just crazy. It feels like I just get to know someone, and then they leave for one reason or another. It's worse than college.

Okay, I'm going to quit rambling now so you can all go about your lives. If you have time, shoot an email or letter my way. I'd love to hear what's going on in everyone's life. Miss you all!

~Hannah :-)

Guess Who Made It Back To Kombo?!?

2006-12-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Holy crap I made it through three month challenge!!! I’m such a bad-ass. Actually, our training group only had one person ET and one person who is on medivac. 19 out of 21, that's 90%, pretty dang good! My Mandinka still sucks, but part of the reason is because I was really pissy for a long time about having to switch languages and being out in the middle of the twilight zone so I didn’t put forth the effort to really try learning. I also blame it on speaking English all day at school and on some small social anxiety. The night before we left to go to our sites, I was walking with Isatou to the PC hostel when we got mugged. Okay, it was definitely more her than me because the guy grabbed her purse and said “Give me this or I will kill you” and punched her a few times before she let go of her purse. I called for help from a nearby car, but that happened to be the guy’s getaway car so things didn’t work out. I was pretty shaken but Rebecca was amazing and didn’t seemed too phased—that could have been shock though.

Things are going much better now and I’m slowly getting into the groove. I try not to plan too far in advance—difficult for me, part of me is already planning my COS trip—and just focus on the day-to-day things.

Projects
1) Teaching—My main project is teaching ‘maths’ and science to 7th graders. I’ve been trying to implement new strategies like science experiments and lab reports (the lab reports were a bust, but kids enjoy the experiments).
Number of students between my two classes: 72
Number of students who actually understand me when I speak: maybe 10
I’ve also been helping with workshops for the teacher-trainees who needed to re-sit some of their exams. There’s this three year program to help unqualified teachers earn their certification so during school holidays the teacher trainees go learn about teaching methods and basic subject knowledge.
I have experienced two staff meetings thus far. The first was an “emergency meeting” which pulled me out of class in the middle of teaching and ended up being about the school buying bowls and spoons for the cafeteria, and water buckets for the classrooms. The meeting lasted three hours and was a small argument over how best to keep the students from stealing the spoons, bowls, and buckets. After this meeting ended, the principal gave out the Koriteh bonus—yellow beans from the World Food Program which are supposed to go to the students and palm oil. The teachers proceeded to take the water buckets in order to carry home the beans! Irony, anyone?!?!? The other staff meeting focused on alternative forms of punishment besides beating or sending students out of the classroom. I mentioned that if students are talking too much I separate the talkers or if the entire class is being disruptive I hold them for five or ten minutes during their break or after school lets outside because they took away from my teaching time. My principal stared at me as if he had never heard anything like that before, and was in awe of the idea.
Number of teachers at my school: 27
Number of teachers with a college diploma: 8
Length of the average staff meeting: 3 hours
Most frequent form of school punishment: slapping the hand, head, or calf with a thin stick four or five time
Most cruel form of school punishment: forcing students to kneel in the sun on rocks while holding their arms out. Students must maintain this position for half an hour or longer, depending on the mood of the teacher

2) Being school librarian—I spent weeks cleaning the school library and organizing the books, only to have the students mess it up the first day. They pull books from the shelves at random and put them back in the wrong places, usually backwards and upside down.
Number of books broken since the library opened: 10
Number of books stolen since it opened: 7 (3 by teachers)
Amount of time it takes one 8th grade class to completely destroy the Dewey Decimal System: under 10 minutes

3) World AIDS Day—I worked behind the scenes talking with administration and such to organize an assembly for WAD. Students from the Red Cross Club—directed by other teachers—put on three educational skits about HIV/AIDS (one in English and two in Mandinka). The actors were awesome; everyone remembered their lines and spoke clearly, and the students somehow managed to organize costumes for themselves. During the assembly I stood in the audience and took pictures of my school. I felt very proud that they did it all themselves.

4) Scouts—I’m a Scoutmistress, so during meetings I try to teach the kids things like first aid and knot-tying. They really enjoy the fact that I don’t just write information about Scouts for them to copy and then berate them for not paying their dues. They do want notes to copy, but they enjoy doing things with their hands, too. Last weekend the Scouts helped clear dry brush, so I participated in my very first bush fire.
Number of close-calls: 1. I was sweeping a room with no windows and only one outside doorway facing the field. I didn’t hear the Scouts light the fire because of the sweeping and realized after a bit that I felt pretty warm. I heard crackling and saw the fire start to really take off (they burn very, very quickly), and though I felt a little singed I managed to escape before I was trapped.
Height the flames reached when we almost lost control of the fire: however high the top of a warehouse is
In February we are tentatively planning to have a campfire in the school and invite Scouts from other schools to come. Mr. Jawo, the National Scouting Director or something like that, has moved to DKK and he wants this campfire to be big, and he wants me to plan it all. Stress, anyone?
Number of students Mr. Jawo wants to have attend the DKK campfire: 500+
Number of people he wants to plan this project: thus far, just me

5) Well-digging—my sitemate Lizzie asked me to help her with her latest project to help a nearby village find funding to dig a new covered well. The village covered well collapsed more than a year ago and since that time villagers have had to walk a kilometer away to the nearest village with a covered well, or draw their water from a shallow open well 700m away—which is what most people have been doing. Everyone in the village has been or is currently sick with cholera, dysentery, giiardia, malaria, etc., especially dysentery among the children. I went to talk with the villagers and they were so grateful that someone had come to talk to them, as if my just being there means they’ll get their well. Lizzie might have already found a donor, but regardless there are many months of work ahead, and Lizzie leaves in April, so once that happens it’ll be just me and the district councilor (an overworked, underpaid Gambian man, not woman).

Other than school and projects, I read, write letters or journal, work on my garden—fungi are destroying my squash plants! Noooooo!—, go running/walking/biking, and sometimes I can work up the nerve to go into village. Not often, though, because I have to greet everyone who goes by and they get upset if I don’t remember their name. But half of them still call me Isatou!

Most frequent mode of travel now: foot
Number of times almost been stung by a scorpion: 1
Number of run-ins with scorpions: 3
Frequency of eating meat: once or twice a week
Frequency of eating vegetables: one or twice in a fortnight
Number of love letters to date: 4
Size of the ceiling panel that fell down: 3 ft x 6 ft
Number of rats living in my ceiling who could possibly fall down the giant gap in my ceiling: I don’t want to know
Time they usually wake me up during the night because they’re chasing each other around: between 2 and 3 am, sometimes again around 4:30 or 5
Record for ‘days without seeing another tubab’: 21
Record for most boxes on a single mail run: 6 (I had Christmas last week when I opened those)

Okay, I’m going to end this now because I have actual work to do, like typing up well information. Hello to my friends in America who check this blog every now and again to make sure I’m alive! I am!

Gambian Update

2006-09-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

After two months without email and living in the middle of nowhere in a hut with a grass roof, I have finally made it back to the big city of Banjul, Kombo area. Internet is delicious! So, they had me learn Wolof, then decided to put me in a Mandinka community for my permanent site, so now I have to learn that language, too. I swear in this Friday, so I'll be a real-life PC Volunteer! I start teaching math and science on Monday at Dankunku Basic Cycle School, getting 8th and 9th graders ready for the grade 9 exams so that hopefully they can qualify for senior secondary school. I've seen copies of that exam--it's bullshit the stuff they want these kids to understand. Grrrrr to The Gambian government. Presidential elections are next Friday, the 22nd, so hopefully no rioting will happen and we won't be evacuated. Keep your fingers crossed. There's also a civil war going on in Southern Senegal, but that's not close to where I'm at in the CRD (Central River Division, in the big town of Dankunku, which is about 10K from everything--it's like the twilight zone, lots of people in one area, then nothing), but I do have a couple people in my training class who can hear the bombing going on from their villages.

Once I get back to site, it's 3-month challenge time where we're not supposed to leave so we can really get to know our community and what it needs. No internet for Hannah for a looooooong time.

Craziest thing I've done thus far--I ate iguana.
Most frequesnt mode of travel--donkey cart.
Languages I can greet people in--Wollof, Mandinka, Pulaar (a little bit)
Old Gambian Name--Soxna Njie (Wollof, "Soxna" means wife)
New Gambian Name--Sona Barrow (Mandinka version of Soxna, Barrow is the last name of my new family)
Number of Wives in my Compound--2
Number of People Living in my Compound--12
Animals Living in my Compound--3 donkeys, a cat, a dog named Simba (which is Kiswahili for "lion"), chickens
Freakiest Thing that's Happened to me--I had a fassom jeet ("fake scorpion") in my shoe, which was packed inside my zipped-up bag. Fast little suckers, they're a type of thin spider with thin claws that do kind of look like a scorpion. I chased it around my hut in Saresamba for a good five minutes before I finally was able to smash it with the very shoe it crawled out of.
Longest Distance Walking--27K, for our marathon march at Tendaba
Number of Love Letters Thus Far--1

My compound is great! I love my host family--they're the sweetest people ever. My host father said to just pay what I could for rent each month and that I am part of the family. I have two rooms (which makes me so very, very happy), a big backyard where I can plan a vegetable garden and which already has a papaya tree and a hot pepper plant, and my compound has a bunch of mango trees and is located close to the punp. I'm not far from the school, my compound is at the edge of town and very quiet, and is also next to the health clinic where I can help out at in the afternoon is I want. There is also a forestry station, but apparently the workers don't do anything there.

2006-07-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

For anyone who wants to mail me anything, my address is

Hannah Ross-Suits, PCV
US Peace Corps
PO Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa

It's supposed to take about three weeks to get from the US to Gambia, but there's a designated week in which they pass out mail stuff. Training has been going well; we leave tomorrow for our training villages. We'll be put with host families and they'll have a naming ceremony where they give us Gambian names (they dress us up, make donut-like snacks, and pray over us).

We've gone on a few field trips--one to the local mosque and one to the crocodile pond. I can say now that I have petted a crocodile, but it was way tame so it wasn't as thrilling as I thought it would be. They're all over the park so we had to step over a couple as we were leaving. I also saw the biggest fattest and surpisingly gray spider on the wall of a museum. The body was slightly smaller than my palm and with the legs it was easily as big as my hand. Ewwwwwwww. We went to market yesterday and I bought some pretty fabric to make a Gambian outfit for myself (well, for a tailor to make one for me) complete with skirt, shirt, and headress. Unfortunately, the computers in the PC office don't recognize my camera so I can't upload photos. I may have to ask for another card later on down the road if I can't figure a way to upload pictures. Today, we went to visit one of the local schools. Oh my gosh Mom, it's so sad. The classrooms have about fifty kids in them, and the teachers aren't as well trained so they teach by writing on a chalkboard rather than doing things like labs, and there's no sort of practical application at all, so the kids just memorize. That's the kind of stuff I'll be working with.

I'm very excited to be leaving for a new place. The Gambians who have been teaching us are soooo friendly, and I'm starting to get used to being sticky all the time. I take two bucket baths a day--Gambians can take up to four. I've been washing my clothes out of a bucket as well, and mending small tears in my skirts. I feel very self-efficient. Yay! However, despite bug repellent, the mosquitos are eating my alive. I have an anklet on my right ankle of bites, and they are all over my feet. I will be surprised if I don't get sick. The Lariam they give us for malaria has given me some funky dreams, and I don't usually remember my dreams.

~Hannah :-)

My first two days in Gambia. Woot woot!

2006-07-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

Salaammaaleekum!

I have spent only two days and three nights here, but it feels like I've been here forever, and not in a bad way. I really enjoy it here. The weather is quite warm--between 85-95 F--and muggy all the time. Surprisingly, even though this is the rainy season, it hasn't rained yet. It's been quite sunny.The plane rides from Philadelphia, then Brussels were so long (7 hours each), and I didn't sleep on either of them. When we landed in Dakar, we were held up because the small plane in front of us had crashed due to the front wheels not coming down. No one was hurt, but we spent about an hour on our plane waiting for everything to be cleaned up. After that, the pilot told us it would be another two hours so he arranged for us to at least wait in the airport. We deboard the plane, are bussed to the airport, go through security, then let back out onto the buses to board the plane because the crash has now been cleaned up. Welcome to Africa. So, we got in late, but there was a group of people welcoming us and we made it out to our current location--the Gambian Pastoral Institute (GPI)--around 9:30. They fed us then let us head to bed.

We have dorms right now with showers and sinks, a closet, two beds, and a small desk. Bathrooms are located down the hall, and there are at least three different water coolers (cold water is the most amazing thing ever). We are fed four times a day (three meals and tea time), and have sessions on diversity, Gambian and American perceptions, and good stuff like that. The days are a bit long since my roommate and I like to wake up at 6:30 and we don't usually get to bed until 10 or 11.We're located on the outside of Banjul right now, but on Friday we'll move out to our training villages. I'll be at Saare Saamba because I'm learning Wolof. The village is located very close to the Southern Senegalese border but we are not to cross the border, and it's the village furthest away from Tendaba camp, so when we go there for technical training we get to ride in a taxi rather than bike in. Saare Saamba is also the cleanest village in the entire country and receieved an award from the president because of that. We will be rotating between our villages and Tendaba on a weekly basis, so that we have time to work on our language skills as well as technical training.

Last night there was a gathering of older volunteers, so we had the chance to meet the other sectors (Health Extension and Agriculture/Forestry). The people I talked to were great, and there are gatherings of volunteers throughout the year, so I feel better about perhaps being far away from the city. Most people have cell phones (they call them mobiles), but they are a bit expensive to use for calling. They receieve calls for free, however. If I get a mobile (depending on where I am stationed), I won't get it until swearing in, which is scheduled for September 15. As I am learning Wolof, I will probably be located on the North Bank or in the Central region of the country, so I could either be quite close to Banjul, or really far away. I asked to be a village, but I also asked to be located close to another volunteer. Today we have off, so I woke up early enough to go to the Peace Corps office and get to the computers before anyone else. A bit later we will be going to the beach, and we have language homework and reading to do for training. I also need to wash clothes (in a bucket), and I'll probably take a bucket bath sometime in the afternoon (we have fully capable showers, but my roommate and I want to practice bucket baths while we still have a good source of water. Once we get to the training villages, it's wells for water and pit latrines). I'm really excited to be here--the people are very friendly and call us toubabs (too-bob, white person). The kids like to come up and touch our skin, and most people smile really big when we practice our language skills--I've gotten the "silly toubab" look I don't know how many times. Greetings are extremely important here, so the focus of our language training thus far has been directed at that.

Okay, someone else needs the computer so I'll say good-bye for now.

Be ci kanam!

Things to check off my list...

2006-06-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

I took the GRE on Friday, after driving two and a half hours up to the University of Oregon in Eugene. I took it straight through, with no breaks, adn then I took the extra little test at the end which the ETS uses to test out the new version of the GRE before they revamp the system. Did you know the new version will let you use a calculator on the quantitative section? So not fair. I also discovered I managed to take the GRE before the price went up from $115 to $130.

Anyway, overall it took me 3 hours, 20 minutes, which is nice since the practice stuff told me to expect four hours. I ended up with 610 on my verbal, 660 on my quantitative (first time I've ever done better in math than in English), so I have 1270 thus far. I'm sure I'll be in Africa before I find out my analytical scores. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but better than I had expected, and I went online to see the national average, both of which were below my scores, so at least I'm better than average. I checked out a website that had the average scores for some of the top schools, and my scores are good enough to get me into Harvard! Woot woot! That was a nice ego booster. So, the GRE is checked off my list.

Next, I have filled out my Power of Attorney forms and figured out my Will, so after I go to the notary tomorrow with my parents to act as my witnesses I can check both of those off as well. Whew. I would like to note that within three weeks of each other, three of my friends have or will be getting married. I, meanwhile, am writing my will; I find that slightly depressing. Anyway, I have my clothes figures out, and major things I want to bring like the textbooks I hope to use, a yoga mat for stretching and ab work, along with the Peace Corps guide to Wollof that my friend Lilly gave me from her semester studying in Senegal. I don't have the small stuff like vitamins, soap, etc. And I haven't finished filling out my Peace Corps paperwork quite yet. I'm one of those "have a plan in my head but don't put it into effect until the last minute just for fun" type of people.

Things I have left to do:
~Pack up the small stuff (shampoo, contact solution)
~Go to Kailee's bridal shower (I feel very uncomfortable at those because most of the people who go are already married or are in steady relationships, and I feel pressured even thought I have no intention of getting married anytime soon, like in the next five years. I need to finish grad school first)
~Finish going through my room and doing general cleaning
~Have the mother of all yard sales to get rid of my ols books and clothes so that my room-hopefully-will stop being the storage room as it has been for the four years I spent going to college in Iowa
~Go get my second pair of glasses from Binyon's
~Convince my parents that even though I already have two crank flashlights and a mini one, I still need (or just want) a headlamp
~Close my checking account back in Iowa now that my major expenses have been paid
~End my cell phone service and pay the last bill
~Create a photo album to bring with me (I have the album, pictures, and stickers--I just have to put the darn thing together)
~Figure out little gifts to give my mom, stepdad, and younger brother to make them feel a little bit better about my leaving them (again)

2006-06-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

Oh boy. This Friday, I'm taking the GRE. Am I fully prepared for it? Of course not. I've been studying off and on for the last six weeks, but now I'm so excited and nervous about leaving the country that I don't want to take it anymore. I just want to concentrate on the things I have yet to finish before I leave, like my will. I'm 22, and I'm writing a will, because I could very well die from disease or road accidents or snake- or spider-bites or being mugged or who knows what else. I know that I'm leaving the money in my meager savings account to my little brother so that he has some more money for college, and that I want to be cremated. That's about it.

I've gone shopping with (and without) my mom so many times to pick up small things to bring wiht me. Last time, we got ziplock bags, tupperware, rope, some cheapo burn kits, and a cutting board with a paring knife (thank you dollar section at Target) while shopping for my brother's birthday present and for Father's Day gifts. This time, I want to look at schools supplies and presents for my host family (although I already have some small things), although based on the amount of stuff I have thus far, I'm not sure how I can fit it into one large and one small bag. My books and school supplies will be shipped to me, but I'll still be in training when I get the boxes (provided they aren't stolen before they reach me), so I'll still have to figure out how to transport them in-country. This stuff is so much more fun to think about than trying to remember the formula for finding all the lengths of sides in a 30-60-90 triangle. Ah well. Just keep praying, just keep praying, just keep praying. What happens is God's will, and it happens for a reason. Remember to keep breathing....

2006-05-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

Oy. Who knew that having two months at home to pack could be a bad thing? I've been going through Gambia packing lists online, which are all really long, and I found another education volunteer who'll be going at the same time I will, and we've been chatting back and forth, mostly about good durable shoes that are breathable. I have to prepare for being away two years and somehow fit it into a duffel bag and personal backpack. And looming over me is the fact that I'm going to be gone for TWO YEARS and that I'm going to be a teacher. Confession time: I may have gotten a degree in Biology, but English has always been my best subject. I've always had to work at science and upper-level math, yet somehow I find that now that I've graduated (which still hasn't quite sunk in yet), I have a degree and most of my course and lab experience has been in molecular biology, discovering genes and making mutant strains of Streptococcus pyogenes (the bacteria that causes flesh-eating disease). What happened to other important aspects of biology, like anatomy and ecology? I have some experience, but nowhere near my experience at the molecular level. And yet, anatomy and ecology are probably much more practical to teach in Gambia, where they don't have equipment like microscopes. I've talked with the chair of the biology department at Coe about getting some of the old optic microscopes (the kind that have a reflective surface to catch sunlight or roomlight and reflect it up into the microscope), though I shudder to think at the cost of that.

Anyway, that's what's going through my head right now. Back to studying for the GRE.

2006-05-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so I'm back in GP. I've started working part-time in the clubhouse of the Red Mountain Golf Course, and right now I'm working on my list of items I need wo bring to Gambia. My mom and I have found some long skirts and summer dresses so that I'll be decent while still cool. I don't know what I'm going to do not being able to wear pants for two years. I've never felt especially comfortable in skirts, but these long skirts aren't too bad. I don't want to bring a lot of clothes when I could be bringing stuff like flashlights or things like that. I know I'll be buying most of my stuff there, so it's hard to figure out what I will and won't be able to buy there. I've been trying to do some language studying as well, but I'm also studying for the GRE so I'm trying not to overload my brain. I'm basically just trying to help out and spend time with my family while getting ready, and sometimes it's hard to be in the moment and make good memories when I'm so excited about going to a new place. Ah well. I'll get things figured out eventually. :-D