12 Aug 12
Three month challenge officially ended yesterday on the eleventh. I think the longest I managed to stay at site was one month minus one night away. That month alone was pretty challenging but I'm glad I stayed. The time away from site was due to trainings, meetings, and work from a previous volunteers project that had to leave early.
There was a wedding in my compound in where I donated my hut to share with my siblings so that they would have a roof to spend the night under and as well as a bed. I lost all personal space during this time, about three days, which was a bit much but was out of my offering.
Not even a couple days beforehand we had a naming ceremony in the neighboring compound which was actually quite fun. I'll have to elaborate on what all goes into these events at a later date as for now this is a quick summary/review! Mango milk is excellent though.
I got strep throat while in village which was rather scary as you always are worrying/wondering about malaria. Even though we all are on prophylaxis there is no sure-fire prevention from malaria and when you live 8-10km off the road and 4-6hrs from the main city, one can get quite nervous while in village without a medical doctor or facility nearby. The nearest would be down the road about 8-10km away. I didn't realize though that we have the malaria medicine with us as well as a rapid test so fearing that should be less of a worry. It might sound weird but it was nice to get so much overwhelm and freaking-out out of the way during that month. I think/hope it will pave the way for a smoother service.
I took a rather long round about way to come into town as the ferry's were rendered "unsafe" as their engines have been known to cut out causing them to drift out to sea... so I crossed a bit out of the way at a smaller nicer ferry crossing near some friends from my group whom I visited on my way into town.
The project I inherited is starting a school garden using money from a West African Food Security Program sponsored by the World Food Program (WFP) I believe. We have to spend the money by the end of this month and it took a good long week to sort out where the money was and purchasing the materials as well as paying for well repairs. I think it really all went quite smoothly given the norm here but has been a bit much for me to stomach this early into service. It's at least definitely turned me off from writing grants but I was already not akin to that anyway as I want to empower my community to help themselves and not just be resource of money for sponsoring projects that may or may not last very long...
Ramadan is also here. This has been an incredible experience as well as very difficult. I am not Muslim and did not fast but when your family is fasting it makes it slightly more tricky to eat and drink when you are around them all the time and feel guilty doing something that your entire community is not doing, regardless of your religious faith, because they are your community and as social beings it is natural to want to do what they are doing, if that makes sense.
Even though it's one of the hottest times of the year and is growing season meaning everyone is out in the fields working, the people still wake up at 4am to eat before sunrise and fast until sunset. Breaking fast is nice and includes sweet hot tea with milk and sugar depending on how well off your family is, and bread with either butter, split yellow peas or beans as they call it, and or eggs and or a number of anything else, again depending on your family's wealth. Dinner comes after "breaking fast" time around the normal time between 8:30-9:30. Fasting for these people is not eating or drinking anything including water all day. I can't do it. I kind of tried but didn't last long. I've eaten less during this time as I usually eat lunch with my family. I don't know how they do it. But it's almost over. One more week!
I head back to site tomorrow to finish working on my baseline survey for my in service training which is at the beginning of next month (September). Trainings will take me out of site again for about three weeks in September but after that I look forward to hopefully kicking back in my home village for a while. It is not always easy up there but I find that I prefer it to the city here. They are two completely different worlds. It's hard to go from one to the other all the time which is why I'm more likely to stay at least in my region.
Apologies ahead of time for the various errors and poor sentence structure. My English skills are taking a serious hit from all the Wollof and or Gambian English speaking I do. It is that it is somehow more difficult to speak properly anymore, case in point.
Looking forward to hopefully hearing from people in a couple weeks when I make it back down! I'm well and healthy and happy and will write more next time in more detail, Inshallah!
Three month challenge officially ended yesterday on the eleventh. I think the longest I managed to stay at site was one month minus one night away. That month alone was pretty challenging but I'm glad I stayed. The time away from site was due to trainings, meetings, and work from a previous volunteers project that had to leave early.
There was a wedding in my compound in where I donated my hut to share with my siblings so that they would have a roof to spend the night under and as well as a bed. I lost all personal space during this time, about three days, which was a bit much but was out of my offering.
Not even a couple days beforehand we had a naming ceremony in the neighboring compound which was actually quite fun. I'll have to elaborate on what all goes into these events at a later date as for now this is a quick summary/review! Mango milk is excellent though.
I got strep throat while in village which was rather scary as you always are worrying/wondering about malaria. Even though we all are on prophylaxis there is no sure-fire prevention from malaria and when you live 8-10km off the road and 4-6hrs from the main city, one can get quite nervous while in village without a medical doctor or facility nearby. The nearest would be down the road about 8-10km away. I didn't realize though that we have the malaria medicine with us as well as a rapid test so fearing that should be less of a worry. It might sound weird but it was nice to get so much overwhelm and freaking-out out of the way during that month. I think/hope it will pave the way for a smoother service.
I took a rather long round about way to come into town as the ferry's were rendered "unsafe" as their engines have been known to cut out causing them to drift out to sea... so I crossed a bit out of the way at a smaller nicer ferry crossing near some friends from my group whom I visited on my way into town.
The project I inherited is starting a school garden using money from a West African Food Security Program sponsored by the World Food Program (WFP) I believe. We have to spend the money by the end of this month and it took a good long week to sort out where the money was and purchasing the materials as well as paying for well repairs. I think it really all went quite smoothly given the norm here but has been a bit much for me to stomach this early into service. It's at least definitely turned me off from writing grants but I was already not akin to that anyway as I want to empower my community to help themselves and not just be resource of money for sponsoring projects that may or may not last very long...
Ramadan is also here. This has been an incredible experience as well as very difficult. I am not Muslim and did not fast but when your family is fasting it makes it slightly more tricky to eat and drink when you are around them all the time and feel guilty doing something that your entire community is not doing, regardless of your religious faith, because they are your community and as social beings it is natural to want to do what they are doing, if that makes sense.
Even though it's one of the hottest times of the year and is growing season meaning everyone is out in the fields working, the people still wake up at 4am to eat before sunrise and fast until sunset. Breaking fast is nice and includes sweet hot tea with milk and sugar depending on how well off your family is, and bread with either butter, split yellow peas or beans as they call it, and or eggs and or a number of anything else, again depending on your family's wealth. Dinner comes after "breaking fast" time around the normal time between 8:30-9:30. Fasting for these people is not eating or drinking anything including water all day. I can't do it. I kind of tried but didn't last long. I've eaten less during this time as I usually eat lunch with my family. I don't know how they do it. But it's almost over. One more week!
I head back to site tomorrow to finish working on my baseline survey for my in service training which is at the beginning of next month (September). Trainings will take me out of site again for about three weeks in September but after that I look forward to hopefully kicking back in my home village for a while. It is not always easy up there but I find that I prefer it to the city here. They are two completely different worlds. It's hard to go from one to the other all the time which is why I'm more likely to stay at least in my region.
Apologies ahead of time for the various errors and poor sentence structure. My English skills are taking a serious hit from all the Wollof and or Gambian English speaking I do. It is that it is somehow more difficult to speak properly anymore, case in point.
Looking forward to hopefully hearing from people in a couple weeks when I make it back down! I'm well and healthy and happy and will write more next time in more detail, Inshallah!
