9 April 13 around 20:00

Greetings!  I feel like it’s been a little while.  How’s everything stateside? 

I’m doing something a little different.  I’m curious if you’ll be able to tell.  I’m writing this from village for once.  No, I’m not all of a sudden having electricity or a way to charge my laptop nor am I all of a sudden living in a climate suitable for electronics, I’m simply journaling (now thanks to this sweet new birthday journal that arrived today on mail run, thanks Jill!) and then copying to my blog.

I’m hoping to do this more often now that I have a book to record in,  I think, ok know, my village voice is different from my ‘city’ Kombo voice.  Also, maybe it would be interesting to document in real time to mention things like the lovely traditional Gambian music playing on my host fathers radio, the glow of this solar light hanging above my head clipped to an indoor clothesline and the comfort of the sound of my family’s never ending communicating and conversations adding to the rhythm and “music” of the evening and of my typical evenings.  Then the crickets- hardly noticeable anymore.

Anyway, here’s some HCA &R updating (R= random) 1^st R, Nicki Minaj is on the radio right now. No joke. Never heard the song before. ..or at least I think it’s Nicki..

H:  

• Both counterparts are having bees in their catcher boxes.  The excitement on their faces, one even danced! Is why we’re here and is what makes all the other stuff worth while

• USAID came on trek to check on their projects and were happy with the garden in Kaur

• The exchange letters from my mom’s sixth grade class finally came.  Students in 7-9^th grade (similar in age) are writing back.  Again seeing the excitement on their faces over having a friend in America write to them was pretty cool.  Also the fact that fifty some students came to my hut over the course of a week on their holiday break to reply quickly

• My health has improved incredibly.  Thank you everyone for all the delicious food, care packages, and love! Jill, Souse, Jynene, Sarah, Mom, Joe, Pam & Unc! Thank you, Ajaraama, jerejef, Abaraka! Also, Gayende loved the kitty food and now doesn’t like rice…
  
•  PC continued support regarding a crappy matter and just honestly their support in general

•  A very successful in service training for new Ag volunteers up country at the new Ag training center created by volunteer Remy Long.  Re kindled my fire for sure.

C:

• So, it wasn’t a huge deal in I was coming home by horse cart which I’ve done a number of times.  This one was heading to the village after mine in Senegal.  Also, I’m sure not a first time I've been on a Senegal hoursecart.  In total I think there were nine passengers including the driver.  I had just had a great day spending the afternoon with my friend and site mate visiting with my other friend Alpha at his bitik and another bitik owner across the way.  Had bought a good amount of veggies for my family and was excited to give them it after not giving much the last several times I’ve traveled.  Anyway, the guy next to me was being pretty boisterous- nothing too unusual.  He asked if I knew a man.  I thought it a silly simple word to test me on.  Yes I said.  I know man.  You’re a man.  Weirdo, I thought.  Then he put his finger through a circle he made in his other hand to show me what he meant.  I got it but didn’t want to engage.  He was especially handsy threatening to push me off the cart after I refused a marriage proposal or refused to pay him a ridiculous amount of money or refused to give him my veggies.  He was touchy in a way I hated, rude with his words and demeanor.  My heart started to feel funny, like it was hot.  I didn’t really realize how I was feeling or what was happening until I was home.  I called one of my former language teachers to ask her about what just happened and if and how to tell my host family that I was not happy about it.  She was amazing and helped explain how inappropriate it was and helped translate to my host father.  He took the matter very seriously and tracked the name of the man down by threat of arrest.  I didn’t think it was that big a deal.  Was more pissed off someone thinks they can get away treating me like that when I’m almost 98% sure he would never ever treat a Gambian woman like that.  Not in a conservative Muslim country.  The racism or whatever you want to call it still gets to me.  Although you could I guess call it karma.  Not mine per say but the shared karma of my country, and our poor history based on racial profiling/discrimination etc.  Did you know that genetically races isn’t even a thing?  The only thing it is is political.  Do you how much it sucks to receive the blunt of those discriminations?  It sucks! (Had to break for dinner, mbaxal with hot pepper.  I love when we have ground hot pepper!  Also it wasn’t fishy = happy).  Ok so I went off a bit.  All I mean to say is that when it comes down to it, we’re all just human beings.  Like my grandfather used to say, some of us with more chocolate ice cream than vanilla, aka, some darker than not as in evil, not nice etc.  Or however you want to interpret it.  Point still being that race, religion, and sexual orientation don’t determine how likely you are to rob a bank or cause terror.  Your parents or whoever raises you, your society, etc.  Those things that shape us.  This all being fueled from and interesting village read, Zeitoune by Dave Eggers about a Muslim American family surviving Katrina and the broken system’s following the aftermath of the storm.  The story casts America in not the best of light and I think most of us would agree that we did not shine bright after that disaster and a lot of it is understandable.  But profiling and treating one another like anything less than ourselves is something I'm not sure I’ll ever understand and is a disappointment I feel much like a parent might feel about her son or daughter acting out as a bully to someone else.  Not sure why I tend to take it so personally or to heart but there it is.  Please be kind to one another! (13 April 13- so that rant being said, I feel like it's fair to admit that I too have been ignorant and have profiled myself.  And that especially thanks to this experience I'm having of integrating and immersing in another culture, especially a Muslim one, really helps me to see how we all are really just people.  But I can understand that ignorance and simply not being exposed could cause inappropriate hateful behavior.  But just because I understand doesn't mean I agree with it and doesn't mean it's OK.  I think one of the best things you can do if you don't understand or are even afraid of something is to find out more about that thing rather than avoid and fight it. You might still decide you don't like it but at least now you know what you're talking about).

·         That reminds me of another happy.  Sitting on a gelle (overcrowded passenger van) for less than five minutes next to the kindest Fula woman, same day as the horse cart guy- she extended her hand in greeting which isn’t common on gelle’s for me to receive.  We Asalaamed Aliekumed each other and I attempted some Fula greetings but not much at all.  She removed one of her Fula beaded bracelets and extended it to me.  I was already wearing two.  I offered to exchange one for hers though both were from friends and I didn’t really want to give them up.  And she didn’t want to take them.  She just wanted me to have her red and yellow fula bracelet.  I jaramma jeffed her and was completely up lifted by her gesture.  See.  So much better than harassment!

(Another break- host sister just came in for nightly antibiotic ointment.  Shh, don’t tell PC!  We’re not supposed to share the contents of our PC med kit but I’m sorry, she had a has a huge gash on her leg that she was putting lotion on as medicine.  I swear this place will break your heart in just about every way.  She got the gash from the jagged corrugate door to the kitchen hut.  The door used to be one of my pc installed window covers.  She probably did it in the evening in the dark without a flash light.  Anyway so yeah.  I give up a cm or so of ointment each night to help it heal and discourage flies from feasting on it in the night as I encourage her to let it ‘breathe’)

Getting back on track.  Host father like I said tracked the guy down and somehow confronted him about how that inappropriate behavior is not tolerated.  The guy sent two men from his village to repent and ask my forgiveness.  I forgave.  PC comes tomorrow (our safety and security officer) basically to thank my host father for his efforts in ensuring my security.  It almost seems a bit much but my American mom sure didn’t raise me to take even the slightest bit of what would you call it, guile? Whatever it is, Clip? From anyone.  You don’t get to talk to me about sex, put your hands on me, tell me your wife or wives are prettier because I’m white and continue to rough handle me in my community with witnesses and get away with it.  It’s the principle of the matter that gets me the most.  And it is not really something that should go unchecked lest he tell his friends and decide that harassing the toubab is their new favorite game.  It’s kind of a great opportunity to remind and show people that I’m not going to take that, that I’m a professional here to help and need a safe environment to do so and that I have this organization behind me at a moment’s notice.  I’m thankful the situation was minor and that my friend and former language teacher took it upon herself to make sure the situation was minor and that my friend and former language teacher took it upon herself to make sure the situation was handled more than appropriately!  She was the one I called in the days of no gas and helped me then get the help I needed.

Phew- didn’t know I had so much fire in me wanting to come out!  Hope your eyes aren’t hot!

I really am feeling good here.  It’s always a bit of a constant struggle from here out as we become more established feeling more and more like a true and real resident (we are but being treated still sometimes like a stranger or tourist.  It shakes me more that I’d like it to and surfaces the many doubts I often have as to whether I’m even right in feeling like I “know” this place just because I live here, have a family here, work and speak some of the language.  A constant battle of proving yourself and seeking that validation that doesn’t come but you have to go forth anyway as best you can.  Maybe at some point able to accept that you’ll never quite be equal to your fellow villagers but that you are unequal to the tourist.  If even.

A year ago yesterday

On the morning of the seventh we landed in Dakar at around 7am 7.5 flying hours from DC.  Exhausted hungry and nervous we came along with Senegal to-be volunteers, disoriented but excited.  I brought WAY too much.  We arrived in Thies, about 2 hrs outside of the city, by mid morning and were greeted warmly with dancing and drumming.  Welcome to Peace Corps.  Welcome to the next 26 months of your life in West Africa...

Reflecting back on that day and time period to now is night and day.  I came in nervous jumpy and down right pretty terrified of most things like spiders, mosquitoes, mice, and rats.  And also terrified of not being able to accomplish anything ever, not learning the language, not being able to do this, not being liked accepted or embraced by my community, etc. 

I remember during three month challenge that I had the delusion I could somehow create an insect free zone in my hut with consistency and sheer will power of the mind.  That delusion burst maybe 2.5 months in at site.

Now the spiders are allies.  The ants are too as the eat the termites or any scrap of any kind insect and food alike.  Collectively I've personally killed 10-12 mice/rats with some minor assistance from my kitten.  And though malaria is still an unwelcome prospect, it's somehow less daunting and more one of those things that might happen and that hopefully you can get to the coartem in time for if it does.  And I've done things.  A few health murals, some Neem cream demos as mosquito repellent, some tippy tap constructions and hand washing demos, a school garden in the neighboring town that seems to be thriving, HIV/AIDS sensitizations in my community and region, bee keeping, and small tutoring.  And yup, also, as I've said before, English skills have been heavily compromised.  You'll just have to bare with me.

In those first couple months of training I'm not sure I could have pictured myself ever living so comfortably in a West African village in the middle of the bush adorned with mud huts and thatched roofs, constant pounding of millet rice or ground nut, roosters, donkeys, goats, and dirty yet adorable children.  Poop, burning trash or even just trash, eroded roads, off the grid, off the road, hauling water, eating merely nothing but rice and various sauces with dried fish.  But here I am.  I've survived and moreover I'm beyond happy to be here still and excited for what this next year can bring now that I've learned a little bit of here in this last one.

I remember quite well the first time I saw what was at the time my future home.  Bags in hand I walked into my hut and took one good look at one of the blank dusty crumbly walls.  My eyes took in the dust on the floor, the dusty webs near where the roof met the crumbly mud wall, the cracks from the crumbling plastered wall, the off color white paint that tried to hide from the eye that it was really a mud hut, and just the extreme foreignness that at the time was exuded in every fiber of my hut, tree, tool, person, and place.  For a solid five seconds I had to convince myself not to run away right then and there, not to break down and cry, but to breathe and muster up that strength from somewhere in the depths from someplace.  Right then and there I made a commitment, an agreement with myself, that I can and will, do this.  And then cried later maybe after 3 months in.  No biggie.

It's been a bumpy road in this first year but par for the course as you will.  What's interesting and neat about this experience is that we're all having incredibly different ones but emotionally I feel we go through the same high's and low's, frustrations, and elations.  One thing that's helped me tremendously as of recently was changing my anti-malarial prophylaxis from Mephlaquine to Doxycycline.  I've been about 100x happier since doing it!  But also I think that has to do with where I am on this charted road. 

A year in comes with confidence, decent but definitely not perfect language skills, a clearer direction, a clearer sense of self and purpose, limitations, realities, etc.  It's a nice place to be.  Even nicer is to be able to think of the remaining fourteen-fifteen months as "omg fifteen more months! I better get to work now now as this time is going to f-ing fly!" vs. "omg fiiiiffteeeeenn moooorrreeee moooontttthhhssss, ugh!"  Fifteen more to try to continue to work with the people in my village.  Fifteen more to continue to build and establish relationships.  Fifteen more to continue to learn this place and share my own culture.  Fifteen more to give me another rainy season, another cold season, and another mango season.  Fifteen more to give me the chance to master wolof as much as possible.  Fifteen more.  Or fourteen.  I'm not good at the counting down thing.  I just know it's a year and some change left and that in it I'll continue to grow and change and hopefully continue to fall for this place so that when I leave it will be the worst and hardest thing I'll have ever done.  Going for the ultimate heartbreak.  Let's do it!

Say whaaaat? You wanna come, here?!

Cool! Here's what you need to do:

• Shots shots shots shots shots shots! The CDC recommends these but check out their site and talk to your doctor first:
• Yellow Fever
• Typhoid 
• Hepatitis A and B
• Meningitis

• **Valid Passport
• **WHO card with yellow fever vaccination
• **Gambian Visa. Print from website. Send to DC along with Passport.  Receive returned visa and passport and have on your person before traveling or you will not be able to board the plane!
• Anti malaria prophylaxis:
• Mefloquine - may cause weird dreams and paranoia.  Need to take two weeks before coming.  Very effective.  Taken once/week.
• Doxycycline - may cause stomach irritations and/or yeast infection.  Can not lie down for thirty minutes or so after taking (effecting after lunch nap time). Taken daily.
• Malarone - most expensive, so I know least about but hear it has the least side effects. Taken daily.
• bottle for water (bring 500mL or 1L bottle like Nalgene or Clean Kanteen or something and I will be able to sterilize it with my steripen UV light thing!).  We can reduce plastic water bottle/bag waste in this fashion also! (Might need you to bring Lithium AA batteries..)
• small back pack for traveling around and I really mean small like a nice school sized back pack!
• comfortable light shoes (old navy flip flop sandals are fine fine as are teva's or whatever you are comfortable with/in)
• Sun glasses (can be purchased here for cheap cheap)
• hat (cool local hats and non local hats available also)
• Sun block (if you have a favorite brand..)
• and of course, never go anywhere without your towel! A pack/trek fast drying towel is great for traveling.
• Maybe a camera if you want pictures/enjoy taking pictures
• A great attitude, open mind, and sense of adventure and Patience!
• Maybe some traveling gifts from the states like quality soccer balls and food for Sam!

I would NOT bring:

• fancy electronic equipment like laptops, ipads, ipods, etc.  Electronic devices generally don't do well in this climate, even in the cold season.  Nor do they enjoy sand and dust.
• too many clothes or shoes
• anything super expensive/nice that you don't want to see get ruined/stolen
•  your nice super everything fancy phone*

*I have a spare cell phone in country.  We can buy a cheap Africell SIM card for use while here.  No problem!

Some potentially useful websites: see links above.
Others:
LonelyPlanet
LoveGambia
edreams
Momondo

When to come?

Anytime between Nov and Feb is probably the best as far as climate goes.  The best and cheapest flights will probably also be around then.  Look and compare flights coming into Banjul (BJL) in The Gambia versus Dakar (DKR) in Senegal.  Either destination is fine.  We'll get you here one way or another! (Inshallah!)

How long?

For it not to be too rushed I'd suggest at least two weeks.  Depends on how much you wanna see and do!

What would we do?

Potential itinerary:

• ferry crossing (it's an event)
• Crocodile pool
• craft/street markets
• Beach lodge
• Aerophat (village on a hill with a famous healer, marabou)
• My village including horse cart ride up and most likely drumming and dancing
• Baboon Island
• cramped overcrowded stop and go van rides
• pit latrine and food bowl experience
• Cool fabric and tailored clothes or bags or whatever
• getting stared and and called toubab and hit on and and and.., a lot.

It'll be great!  See you next winter ;-D

Some H's C's and A's

HCA: Happy, Crappy, and Awkward highlights:

What's cool is I think I have more Happies to talk about than Crappies and Awkwardies!

Happy:

• Sitting around "learning" how to eat fresh sugar cane with my host siblings Yura and Maram - rainy season
• Seeing the garden grown in Kaur and all the active children watering and hearing the teachers say, "we're growing more food than we know what to do with!" - just after rainy season
• Seeing the school take initiative without any of my input to build a local fence and start garden beds hauling water from the pump several hundred meters away because our garden pump is broken, again - post rains
• Watching the grade nine students wash their hands with the tippy tap that we built - recently
• Watching my host family wash their hands with either the tippy tap in our compound or kettle that I gave when I first moved in - since moved in and recently with tippy tap
• Christmas brunch was amazing, thanks VSN! - xmas
• Coming home from a bee keeping training and seeing the motivation of my counterparts as we hung our catcher boxes - couple weeks ago
• Receiving letters and care packages from home! - since coming, thank you!

Crappy:

• Alpha getting denied on his US visa application- It felt like a personal rejection since I and others of us had worked so hard for MONTHS to help him.  What the heck US Counselor?! - Nov
•  Running out of gas for cooking food - Jan
• Stink bug infestation! Fat small flat weird looking insects that are/were everywhere.  Was kind of like a living nightmare - Nov-now
• Uncovering and having to deal with two mouse nests including nine infant embryonic looking mice and the killing of... - every so often it's just one of those things that happens
• All the trees we tried to plant this rainy season, including the 5 Leuceana in my host fathers field, have since died or been eaten by the ruminants- they weren't lying about the tree guards..!

Awkward:

•  Asking my family to build me a cement bed if I buy cement and then coming home to see both bags gone and not enough bricks to explain why both bags were emptied but no other bricks in sight.  So it felt like they stole from me which was really awkward.  I then told them that I lost one of my keys which was true and so told them they had to take everything they were storing in my house out, as I was going to change the lock and not give them a key...  Was awkward for me but my host father moved the incredibly heavy sacks of wheat flour or whatever while laughing since I offered to help and my sister said I couldn't and I said I could and then I tried and couldn't and conceded that yes, my younger sister is in fact much stronger than me, which I conceded verbally in Wolof which they thought was very funny.
• Learning a new word that I thought meant spoiled, I tried it out with a "spoiled" groundnut announcing that "this ground nut is "spoiled." The whole compound starts laughing hysterically, my English speaking brother who is a teacher and was up for the holidays comes out laughing and tells me that xamadi means rudeness, and that I was calling the groundnut rudeness.  Well, it is rude that it's spoiled! I defended myself in English in my sense of humor which he translated for me to be met with even more laughter.  Fortunately I don't mind being the blunt of the joke- which is good as it's going to happen again and again! : )

Meet Gayende, my little lion

She's been a wonderful companion, hunter, and ball of cuteness.  I'm hopeful she'll survive.  If she does, her next stop, Inshallah, is the opposite of sub Saharan Africa, sub Arctic!

Food Security

Greetings!

All right let's dive in and get it over with.  You knew it was bound to come, I guess I knew it was bound to be an issue but didn't want to believe it let alone understand what it as a problem really means, food.

Life force, energy, sugar, calories.  Can't live without it.  Literally.

In the small kitchen mud hut you'll see a couple piles of ash collected within the triangle of stones used to hold up the aluminum cooking pots.  In another corner are dishes, maybe some fire wood, another corner holds the clay pot that stores the water.  Up top a metal bowl with a lid holds some ingredients, some course salt, likely mined from the brackish part of the river, maybe some onions and dried fish.

In my host fathers hut is the bag of rice, coos, ground nuts, and pot of local peanut butter.  These, the above, and jumbo (chicken bouillon) cubes are just about the main ingredients to any dish.  Making things a bit more fancy/tasty, costing a bit more money unless you are fortunate to be able to grow them yourself, are the local vegetables: carrot, cabbage, potato, sweet potato, cassava, beans, tomato, bitter tomato (a relative of egg plant), egg plant (commonly called garden egg), okra, squash, pumpkin, and that famous hot hot pepper.  Also leaves from sorrel, baobab, and moringa. 

Lunch: (will try to add pics at a later date!)
One of the most common dishes right now is domada/mafet.  A fresh ground nut sauce made with local peanut butter, tomato paste, jumbo, onion, garlic, water, and typically dried boney fish, served atop a bed of steaming fresh white rice.  Prepared well this is one of my favorite dishes.  When the sauce is rich and local vegetables can be found within, and dried boney fish not found within, this dish is delicious.  More common in village and up country, the sauce is weak and watered down and extremely fishy and salty.  Also, commonly, it's just not available in copious amounts to fill everyone's belly, or at least to fill mine.

Dinner: Mbaxal orYangkaton (depending on your tribe)
Another simple and common dish.  The ground nuts are pounded but not too fine, not too course.  Rice is cooked.  The fresh ground groundnuts are added as well as the dried boney fish, bouillon cubes, salt, and maybe onion and all mixed together.  Again I like this much more when the fish doesn't find it's way in.  But even so it's good.  Even better with fresh lime and hot pepper to add for flavor.  But even hot pepper can be hard to come by at times, let alone fresh lime.

These two dishes complemented with the breakfast bars my family sent me is what I've been subsisting off of solely for about a month.  Until recently I was able to add to my regimen rice from the school food bowl.  There they cook bennechin every day except Friday when they cook yellow split peas with onion and oil.  Bennechin: rice, oil, onion, jumbo, and salt. 

And then the school ran out of their WFP (World Food Program) rice.

The common theme is the 'shocking' absence of vegetables.  Vegetables and leaves do find their way in seasonally.  But all the above mentioned dishes and breakfast bars just somehow wasn't enough to keep me healthy nor enough to fight off infection or stave off the cold.

Then my gas ran out.  It was out in the neighboring town and in low quantity next nearest me in Senegal.  Oily pasta and Parmesan cheese couldn't come to the rescue.  Nor could vegetable noodle soup, oatmeal, or soya macaroni.  My standard staples when I can cook.  I was slipping.  My cold relapsed.  The market stubbornly remained stationary some 12 km away.  I was too tired or sick to make the 24 k round trip journey.  Vegetable gardens in the community remained stubbornly dried out and unproductive.  Depression, frustration, and apathy settled in along with the cold nights (my blanket was some 140km further up country left at a friends site after a bee keeping training)...

My kitten was happy and plump though.  She had fish heads and scraps to eat on a pretty regular basis.  And though she turns her nose up to the rice initially, after realizing that's all we got, she'll pretty much finish her handful offered by the family before the next handful or two comes.

So Peace Corps had me come on in, eat some food, take even more antibiotics, and get back on my feet.  Pizza, homemade chicken noodle soup, apple pie, hot chocolate, r&r and wonderful friends to the rescue. 

The hardest thing with the food is that we do have it, but what we have is somehow small and basic and is supposed to feed some ten people.  My little brother will look up at the food bowl, lay back down as I start to dig in with my camping spork.  Yura, doo lekka? Yura, you won't eat?  Full.  Bullsh*& I think to myself.  But what do I know.  Maybe he ate at another compound?  It's so hard to gauge ages here because the malnutrition stunts growth and size substantially. 

When this happened before the harvest, when we were just getting small bowls of coos (millet) flour and cold water to eat, and it was just me and some of my brothers eating, I would ask my sisters if they ate the next morning after finally mustering the courage to ask wondering if it was inappropriate as we don't really talk about food or hunger, ever. I was surprised to feel the stinging sensation strike my nose and eyes as I tried to fight back the tears as my words came out of my head, did you eat, and hearing my host sister tell me with a smile that she did not eat, she doesn't like coos/chere. 

I have an out, always.  It's called America or the United States of America (as there are more than one America).  If I'm out of money and going hungry, someone will help me, PC, a fellow PCV, a teacher at the school.  But this is their life.  There is no out.  There really isn't a McDonalds up the road or Taco Bell as much as I may fantasize.  There are other compounds where all are always welcome and will always find an invitation to their food bowl.

But they are "used to it."  As horrible as it sounds.  It's the bit of solace I hold onto to make me feel better that it's likely they aren't 'suffering' or feeling as badly as I feel when the food just isn't quite enough.  But it's one of those things I'll never really know as I doubt they'd ever really tell me. 

The quality and quantity of the food bowl is correlated to the emotional rollercoaster of peace corps correlated to the emotional roller coaster of life.  It has it's ups and downs.  Some periods are better than others. 

I'll be ok.  As much as I hate the stereotype here that because I'm white I have money, it's true.  And as long as you have money you can buy food.  But what about them?  What about them especially if food aid stops? Which is likely to happen at least eventually.  Our rice is aid rice.  It's one of the reasons we aren't eating our home grown millet because aid rice is available and they prefer it as it's held in higher prestige.  Even though the millet is available in higher quantity and has more nutrients.  But it's probably being saved for when aid rice is in smaller quantity.

This powerful book I nearly finished, Two Ears of Corn: A people centered approach towards agricultural improvements by Roland Bunch with World Neighbors, emphasizes that one of the most powerful things you can do, is somehow get the people to believe in themselves.  To believe that things could be better and that they, not foreigners, can make it better.  Most people of the developing world have been or are minorities that have been made to feel over the course of history that they are inferior and incapable of doing anything.  If you believe it long enough it can become the truth.  I think this is the situation we are dealing with and should be the angle we approach any form of community development anymore.  There is a dependency now on foreign aid.  If that dependency can be replaced with confidence achieved by seeing that yes they can produce more food and make more money if they space the corn like this or till the stalk in like that, a spiraling outward effect of "what else can we do" is likely to follow which is how development will actually occur.  Like I said, it was a powerful book!  It proposes a time frame of work that is substantially longer than Peace Corps (5-8 yrs) but gave me much 'food' for thought.  Check out the organization here if interested.

The moral of the story is if you want to help- stop giving things out.  Hand outs aren't valued and are the opposite of useful.  Give confidence.  It's much harder to give but much more valuable!

Thank you again for all the continued love and support and care packages and letters!  Jynene, Souse, B, Laura, Robert, Sarah, Brady, Mom, and Joe- they keep me goin!  Love to all of you.  And if you live in a climate that is conducive to this, take advantage! Grow what you eat and eat what you grow!  Our motto around here.  I'll have quite a few paces to walk with my 25L of water on my shoulder but am going to give dry season gardening a try here soon.  Hot season okra here we come.  Also am excited about the hot season mangoes that are already on their way!

Good food makes for good livin.  Enjoy, savor, and if you really want to, send some this way ;-D
So much love!

GAD Days

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year both from the Muslim Calendar and Gregorian Calendar!  Thank you for all the love, and polar bear card, Mrs. Stevens!  It made my Christmas!

It was a warm Christmas spent at the beach with fellow PCVs with a more than an indulgent breakfast of sticky buns, quiche, muffins, and fruit put on by the volunteer support committee (VSN) for a price of about seven US bucks.  Not too bad when you're far from home for the holidays.

I came in partly for the holiday and good cheer but mostly for the gender and development (GAD) in service training that occurred on the 28th and 29th of December.

The GAD committee was encouraged by PC admin to put on a GAD in service training for both volunteers and counterparts.  The two day training covered topics regarding:

• Gender in The Gambia (the difference between sex and gender)
• Gender Development in our Sectors (environment, health, and education)
• Men as Partners (how men and women can work together)
• Family Planning (birth spacing, number of children, etc)
• Cultural Mysteries (demystifying Gambian and American culture where some questions included for Americans, do people practice polygamy, does America have tribes and do we know them, and what superstitions are we having there, and  from PCV's, why do Gambians steam the rice before boiling it, and clarified how the term toubab is a promotion for Gambians but derogatory for us, PCV's)
• Business Strategies
• Micro finance
• Girls and Sports
• Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and gender based violence
• Making Changes in Your Life and Community
• Action Plan for change in our Communities
• and Evaluations

The training, as you can see, touched on highly sensitive issues but went in my opinion extremely well.  Both volunteers and guest speakers from organizations in The Gambia participated in giving presentations.  Counterparts and volunteers worked together throughout the two day training having difficult but important discussions and coming up with concrete plans of action to take back to our communities.

I invited a female teacher from my school to attend.  She is very active in the school heading the Peer Health Club and always assisting me in anything I need.  I got to know her mostly from her profound assistance with regard to teaching a lesson on HIV/AIDS to our grade nine students at the school.  Our plan of action is to continue to spread sensitization messages of HIV/AIDS throughout the community in the form of dramas by the Peer Health students.  We also want to try to encourage more girls to play sports at the school.

*--**-Caution, the following is super sensitive and perhaps difficult read regarding FGM/C-**--*

I was nervous as to how this discussion was going to go.  A volunteer brought in a guest speaker who works for a research organization out of Spain, http://www.mgf.uab.es/?lang=english.  The website is mostly in Spanish but maybe it can be translated if you are interested.  He is a Gambian working for this Spanish researcher and was extremely sensitive and professional in his presentation on the issue.  He came about it from a research and medical concern angle in a means to take the personalization out of it.  In The Gambia, 78% of FGM/C is observed amongst the different tribes.  Our neighboring Senegal observes 28% where it is illegal to perform FGM/C there.  One reason it is so high in Gambia is because here is home to a number of different tribes that recognize this practice as being important to their culture. 

From what I can understand there is Islamic law, Farla, and prophetic teaching, Suna.  Praying five times a day towards the East is an example of Islamic law, meaning if you are to be a good Muslim, you have to honor Islamic law.  Male circumcision also falls under Islamic law but female circumcision does not.  According to our guest speaker, FGM/C is not practiced in Saudi Arabia.  The image below shows where it is known to be practiced in the Africa and some Middle Eastern countries:

Picture image from: http://www.mgf.uab.es/?url=geography_mgf_0x33&m=ml_03

Where type I is a small cutting of the clitoris to full clitoral removal.  Type II is full clitoral removal and scraping of the minor labia, and Type III is the removal of the clitoris, small and large labia, sometimes followed by a closure of the vaginal hole to be opened again upon marriage.  There is a story from the prophet that mentions a cutting of the clitoris but no command that this needs to happen.  Every culture has their own beliefs wrapped up around the issue.  As you can imagine this is a very personal and sensitive issue where it is important to remember as volunteers we are not here to change culture accuse or judge.  We are here to promote peace and encourage best practices in each of our sectors including health. 

Several tribes believe that a woman is not clean if she is not circumcised, several males won't marry an uncircumcised woman, and it is difficult to be one uncircumcised in many as insults will find their way to you as "smelly man," etc.  This practice is primarily through the women only where men are not invited to be a part of the ceremony or decision.  The pressure comes mostly from the grandparents as well as the society at large.  The Wolof tribe historically was known for not practicing female circumcision.  Recently with all the intermarriages, this practice has started to infiltrate into the Wolof tribe.  There was a story of a Wolof bride uncircumcised and thus looked down upon from the women in the tribe of her husband.  She pleaded to her husband to be circumcised in order to be accepted by the women in the village and was before giving birth to her first child so that the women could see during the birth that she was circumcised.

In the Gambia specifically 66.2% practice type I FGM/C, 26.3% type II, and 7.5% type III.  Some complications include hemorrhage, death, keloids, tetanus, STI's, UTI's, scarring (which can prevent vaginal fluid being secreted causing extra friction tearing etc during intercourse and labour), etc.  Health clinics and health working professionals are not encouraged or permitted to safely perform FGM/C as it is perceived as a health risk that is not safe.  Any modification to the female genitalia is disturbing an organ where in male circumcision it is removal of foreskin, not damaging or effecting that organ (yes I'm aware that skin is an organ too...).  A small improvement is that people seem to be using clean new razor blades more, and a blunt rusty knife passed down from generation to generation holding the spirits of the circumcision ceremony, less. 

People also seem to be aware of the "this is maybe not such a good thing" attitude surrounded around FGM/C and are keeping quieter about it, perhaps even becoming embarrassed about it and so forth, but still practicing it.  Change occurs slow slow and needs the support of many, men and women for behavior change to occur.

Our guest speaker from this Wassu Kaffo organization trains health professionals as well as Imams (prayer leaders) on the health risks associated with FGM/C so that those professionals and well respected individuals can share the message with the communities in which they serve either at the local health clinic or in the local mosque.

For us volunteers, we can try to even just have that difficult conversation inquiring about the practice to learn more about the culture we are immersed in.  If our host sister or best friend in village knows that we know about FGM/C, they know they have someone else to confide in.  As volunteers too we can inform about health risks and inform that women from America at least are both healthy and can be wed, with a full clitoris in tact and all.

--**--**-end super sensitive topic-**--**--

So, we survived the GAD days where it was followed by a modification of the "Anything you can do I can do better" song having men and women taking turns to announce the above verse followed by the opposite sex chiming in with "no you can't" and so on to the modified verse of men and women then holding hands and singing "anything we can do we can do better, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can!!"

We left the training with concrete action plans, inspired, and more aware of what the sexes feel and go through.  I saw in the faces of the men the pain they felt in hearing about FGM/C in particular.

It might take some time but I think the more we can do trainings like this and expose each other to... each other, the sooner we will start seeing men fetching water and supporting women with their chores, and women supporting men with finance and business.  We realized after the training how it's important for a nation to utilize the skills and talents of both men and women for development and that when you are capitalizing on all your people, you can develop that much faster than if you are only utilizing half of what you've got.

I think young men and women would benefit from similar GAD talks and activities stateside because as much as we like to think we're perfect, we're not.  Pay is still not equal and men and women are influenced by "socially constructed differences behaviours and expectations that change across cultures over time" aka gender. 

Anything we can do we can do better
We can do anything we want to do.

Yes we can

Yes we can

Yes we can!!!