Fo Waati Do (until another time)

As you may or may not already know my Peace Corps service came to an end quite early.  The politically correct/ short version is: my expectations of what my PC service would be and the reality of what PC the Gambia Environment service is do not match.  This led me to make the tough decision that I no longer wished to serve as a PC volunteer.  While this decision was disappointing it was the right choice for me. Nonetheless, I have finally set aside some time to express my final thoughts, experiences, and gratitude about my PC experience in this blog post.  I hope to continue the blog other thoughts and experiences in my life- while they may not be from the view of a PCV in a hut in Africa they will forever reflect in some ways what those volunteers endured and experienced (although for me it was brief) and I will tell you it’s a hell of a lot.  The volunteers I parted from in the Gambia are definitely some of the most courageous, positive, and kind Americans I have ever met and I am very proud of them and all PCVs. 

            I said ‘finally set aside some time to express my final thoughts’ because it’s very true that time is warped and while it slowly melts away in the Gambia it tends to fly by at lightening speed for me in the states.  I’m not sure which way I prefer, the author Ryszard Kapuscinski captures the feeling of time in Africa best in his book The Shadow of the Sun “In this part of the world, time has no measure, no reference point, shape, or tempo. It spreads, melts and it is difficult to seize it, to give it form.” I feel in the states we tend to live, breathe, and think in the past and future, in Gambia and from what Kapuscinski says about his experiences throughout Africa, Africans live in the now, deal what’s directly in front of them and leave expectations behind.  I admire it but I guess it’s no surprise that I myself, a product of western society, could not.

Village men building a garden fence.

            In my short time in the Gambia, my host mother’s and the village women built a vegetable garden- meaning they cut wooden fence posts from the bush that the men of the village built a fence out of.  Myself and some “small boys” (any boy younger than yourself) of the village delineated 1-meter beds and assigned each woman in the village 2 beds.  We then treated them with a local organic pesticide, added composted fertilizer (there are plenty of cow patties to go around) and the women planted their favorite greens.  I gave them tons of watermelon seeds, which they were very excited about for when the rains come.  Watermelons fetch a good price from buyers who bring them to the city and sell them for double.   

            The Gambians I lived with and came to know were the happiest and hardest working people I’ve ever met. They made the best out of every situation and never stopped smiling.  I will never forget the lessons they taught me and will strive to live my life in the moment as they always do so very well.

            Thanks for reading and enjoy the last of my Gambia shots below.

The outside of a gelly gelly.

2 round huts.

Bamousa gets his donkey.

5 o-clock is futbol time!!!!!! (cool shirt, man)

African Mahogany

Pounding grain, badass.

Goat, seen here as luggage riding atop a gelly.

Tillo Kandita Bake! (the sun is very hot)

Official Volunteers after swear in ceremony at the Ambassador's

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve last blogged.  A lot and not much at all has happened all at the same time since you last heard from me.  Towards the end of training myself and about 10 other trainees in my group got a bout of (what the doctor thinks was) e-coli poisoning! It was brutal, we over flowed the septic and used the bathroom more times than is possible to count or remember… it was insane, but at least we had each other and lived through the experience. 

This photo from Kombo made me laugh, they will not stop until they serve the world with beautiful hair.

Since then we got a few supplies from the markets in Kombo (the city area) and then were dropped off at our “permanent villages” I was there for about four weeks when I started experiencing adverse side effects from my prescribed anti-malaria medication- mefloquine.  This is not uncommon but sucked, I was sleeping an average of 4 hours a night and started to feel pretty loopy.  Losing energy fast in the 120 deg heat drove me to tell the doc and ask for a change in meds.  Now that that’s resolved I will be heading back to site for the duration of what is dubbed our “3 month challenge”- our first 3 months of service as official volunteers where we get used to the heat- a quick note on that: the title of this blog is the response to any greeting and or topic of conversation every day all the time in my village and im sure all villages across Gambia.  It is HOT and it is hot because it is the dry season and we are too close to the equator to escape the constant ball of fire (sun) and the Harmattan winds that blow across the sahara are hot as well.  SO we talk about its everpresence all the time, - lack of everything (electricity, cold water, food, etc.) and get really good at our local languages AND of course pondering the philosophical reality of developing vs developed world…ex: how resourceful Gambians are- they make use of everything and anything until it disintegrates and vanishes into Saharan sand dust.  To quote a fellow new volunteer “Gellys (the local taxi bus) will break down in the middle of the country.  Sometimes they do not have matching wheels, suspension, or sometimes they have a tree branch tied together to hold together a broken axel.  I cringe because I can hear the dying, out of tune engines asking to be put out of their misery.”  They make things last, whether it’s safe or not, well that’s left to chance……  These gellys are very colorful and miraculously run with the random spare parts such as plastic bags and bubble gum known to repair them.  Click and Clack would have a field day with these guys.…

Konkoron wielding machete, village boys and girls running.

            While at site I have been busying myself with a few things such as walking/ biking the 14k to the Chimp Rehab Facility (Baboon Island).  On the way back one day (actually my first time there we walked and I was so spent) it was probably like 115 deg F and I was running low on water.  About 5k into the walk we reached a village where the Konkoron (the cultural French fry looking guy) who runs around with a machete or 2 clanking them and scaring village boys, is signifying that its time for circumcision camp to begin.  Everyone ran into their compounds and shut the doors, the village instantly became a ghost town.  I was concerned with my dwindling water supply and weighing the risk of jardia or other parasites against dehydration when the grown men I was with also proceeded to run into a compound telling me to follow.  When grown men run from the konkoron you know it’s serious.  As we ran from the French fry man into a nearby house and sat down, the sweat running down my face as fast as I was drinking water, I realized there was like 20 men women and children all gathered in this hut hiding (making it even hotter under the corrugate metal roof mind you).  I had to laugh on the inside as this was quite the scene.  Eventually, because everyone was too afraid to go outside, they flipped on the generator and turned on their 14-inch television.  It was insane, I was sitting in the middle of this village in a hut in the middle of Gambia hiding from a French fry machete wielding man watching botched kung fu movies with English voice over.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, ears, or drenched body. I pinched my arm to know I wasn’t dreaming or having hallucinations from the mefloquine….. nope it was real.  After the kung fu movie finished King Kong came on and that’s when we decided it was safe to leave, or was it? We made it home several hours later with a donkey cart sweeping us back into my village for the last 2 kilometers as my feet were about to fall off.  It was quite the day and yes there were monkeys and baboons at Baboon Island…..  

The inside of my hut, super sweet.

The view out the front of my hut to my family's hut. round grass fence in the middle is the tree we planted for future shade insh A'llah (god willing)

Red Colobus Monkey, chillaxin'

Green Vervet monkey with baby under belly looking for loose peanuts.

Random boy selling mint while waiting for my gelly to fix a tire.  Part of the philosophizing I was talking about, note the shirt and the fact that this boy is selling mint for like 3 cents and not at school.  Gambians are big Obama fans...

The inside of a typical Gelly, you don't want to see the outside....

Tuubaab Tuubaab!!! 29-Jan-11

White person white person!!! My paradigm has shifted or begun to shift, whatever that means…. I’ve been in West Africa, specifically The Gambia, Africa’s smallest nation for ohhh 3 weeks.  It is amazing and strange and humbling and enlightening and depressing and uplifting and hard and easy all in one.  I arrived with about 30 other tuubaabs as we now refer to ourselves- tuubabo is not a derogatory word, it just means white person and when in West Africa if you are Caucasian you are a tuubab and always will be.  The difference for us Tuubabo’s is that we are learning the local langauage(s), this distinguishes us as Peace Corps Trainees (PCT’s) and soon to be PCV’s because every other Tuubab is either a tourist (commonly female sex tourists from Europe) or from NGO’s in Europe and America.  These people most often do not know the language and tend to come quick through villages handing out candy, clothes, medicine, etc. Learning the language is critical to our success in PC and our ability to integrate and function in Gambian society as their equals.  Nonetheless, being a Tuubaab comes with the glory of d-list stardom and a posse of children everywhere you go and with everything you do.  Villages are like oasis in sub-Saharan sand dune land- we roll around in PC land rovers and every child within 300 yards runs our from their house to wave at us and shout “hello” “what is your name” (they don’t necessarily know what this means just how to say it over and over) and as I gaze out the window at them the reality of where I am remains ever present.

            Speaking of children- Gambia is ranked something like 19^th in the world for % of population under the age of 10 or something like that. Ie: there are A LOT of kids here. It’s like Lord of the Flies times 10000000.  The kids are their own rulers for the most part.  Once able to walk they join the other “dingdings” (children in Mandinka) in everyday life of: eating oranges (currently in season) chasing chickens, playing in dirt with old bike wheels and trash, chasing Tuubabs, beating each other up and when called upon by their mother or grandmother they carry water or other babies around.  5 year olds take care of 4 year olds take care of 3 year olds and so on.  It is NUTS.  I’ve been doing chores with them, ie: carrying my water (that I then have to filter and bleach b/c I am a Tuubab in W Africa and can’t drink the water without being glued to the toilet after), washing my clothes in a bucket (not really sure if this cleans them but mentally it does)  Going to the garden with my host sisters to water their plants (ie hauling water up a well to no end and pretending like it doesn’t make me tired b/c the 8 year old at the next well is kicking my ass).  And Tooroo- pounding grain with a full body stand up mortar and pestle.  Basically we work out all day to feed, and clean ourselves and do it over again the next day.  And by we I mean my sisters: Fatou Bintou (27ish who I’m named after) and Mariama (19).  Fatou has 2 dingdings (kids, remember?) and her husband died so she moved back home.  She does most of the cooking and cleaning and is a real tough broad with a really soft heart, she is not much of a discipliner from what I can tell- she leaves this to her mother.  Mariama is 19 but doesn’t act like a teenager in that she is very responsible, helps with all the chores is ridiculously strong and speaks some English (ie translates for me and helps me learn Mandinka).  They are great and I’m very lucky because from what the other trainees tell me I have it pretty good in my host compound.  Other than Fatou’s 2 kids there are about 4 other children who reside and eat with our family- Gambian families rely heavily on each other- so much that brothers and sisters give their kids to each other to take of, and not for a week or so, but for rearing, the long haul- 2,3,4,5 years, whatever it takes.  I’ve been learning a lot from my family and the reality of living in a developing nation amongst people who live on less than a dollar a day is setting in.  It is dry season right now which means small gardens provide the bulk of food and income.  The animals (goats, chickens, donkeys) all roam freely as well making for what initially seems like total chaos- I don’t just mean a few here and there either, I’m talking hundreds if not thousands of each.  The roosters crow all day starting around 4am and then the mosque starts prayer call around 545 am.  This loudspeaker prayer call (there are several per village) then becomes competition for the 50 roosters in its vicinity.  As you can imagine this leads to complete chaos predawn.  Or so it seemed in the beginning, it is gradually becoming an afterthought but wow it was strange at first.  So then the sleepy villages begin to rise and babies cry and goats cry and donkey’s call each other for sex (all the time every day) and life in West Africa goes on accordingly. 

In addition to language and culture we’ve been getting training on gardening and the environment in Gambia as well as a boatload of shots, malaria pills, vitamins, and safety training.  We are well taken care of, the Gambian PC trainers are wonderful people who really believe in PC’s mission and they are thrilled to be a part of it, thus making PCTG (peace corps the Gambia) successful for over 40 years.

            As you may imagine futbol is a driving force here-the boys are always playing in one of the 5 fields in our village.  And by field I mean futbol field sized sand box.  Gambians don’t have much in terms of material goods but they are REALLY resourceful and will use things until they disintegrate.  Anyway back to futbol- today, the same boy usually bringing supplies via donkey around the village was setting up a satellite in order to watch the Barcelona vs Hurcules match in their hut with a generator.  Yea. Nuf said. We got our warm orange fanta (soda) and 5 dalasi and watched it with them, the first tv I’ve seen in 3 weeks. It was awesome.  Dalasi are the form of money here and its about 27 dalasi to the dollar so it cost like 10 cents to watch the game.  Speaking of warm Fanta- our standards for food are REALLY low these days, rice and peanuts are staples here so anything besides those 2 things are luxury.  So on that note feel free to send a little care package, the cheapest way is probably to stuff the smallest sized USPS priority mail box with any dried good you can think of from trader joes or that you made or candy, candy is gooooooddd, or spices that I can cook with, ANYTHING will doJ. (desperate? Haha)

Nicole Hackman, PCT
c/o US Peace Corps, The Gambia
PO Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa

I learned I will be working in Baboon National Forest in the Central River Region of the Gambia, this is one of the largest forests in the Gambia and I can’t wait but I don’t know the details yet. When I learn them I will share more. Look it up though, sounds great to me!

      Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more from Tuubab land and the adventures of Fatou Bintou in The Gambia, West Africa.

Alas! My first blog/ blog post!

Well here goes nothing- it takes leaving for The Gambia for 2 years to get me to commit to writing about what will likely be the adventure of my lifetime.  I am going to serve in the Peace Corps through their Forestry program in The Gambia with around 30 other volunteers.  I leave around January 4th, 2011 and can't wait.  While loungin' around at my parents has been nice and kept me well fed I would like to be busy once again.  I spent this past summer working with an environmental non-profit in Telluride, CO and when I wasn't writing or reading I was fishing, hiking, biking or camping.  It was PHENOMENAL.  But here's to a new year with new adventures that I will keep alive by blogging.  I plan to write about the random encounters and questionable circumstances I will likely find myself in while wandering around the African bush.  Hopefully with a little humor and as few words as possible I will be able to keep you updated and not lose your attention.  In case you're wondering- the name of this blog comes from a phrase spoken almost daily by my mother Peggy referring to me and I love it, I don't even know if fruit cakes are that nutty but whatever, we all are in some way.... until next time gadget.