the Apeironian

My Woman is Here!

Traveling to Dakar wasn’t as hairy as I thought it would be. Good thing I learned that French though; no English, Mandinka, or Sarahule up there – Wolof and French only. I picked Heather up at the airport the night of the 15th, and we got a car down the coast a piece to the Sobo Bade hotel in Toubab Dialo.

The hotel was fantastic, with pristine beaches, rock outcroppings, rustic interesting architecture, lots of foliage and amazing food. And air conditioning! Click any of the pics to go to the whole album.

Our second day there we visited the nearby Bandia Forest, which is kind of like a huge zoo with no fences that you drive through. They had rhinos, giraffes, zebras, buffalo, water buffalo, hyenas (in a cage), ostriches, monkeys, impalas, crocodiles, and lots of baobab trees. Click any of the pictures to go to the whole album.

After three nights at Sobo Bade, we returned to the Gambia by taxi to Mbour, then sept place (station wagon stuffed with people) to Kowlack (never go there), then to Farafenni. We stayed at a nice guest house there (slept in pools of sweat because the power station blew up and there was no power), then got a car to Basse the next day. Actually the car was just to Bansang, but a nice guy from the Ministry of Education picked us up on the ferry and took us to Basse. That ferry blew Heather’s mind. You have to load a couple cars onto it, then everyone lines up and pulls the cable to get boat across the river.

We stayed the night in Basse, then the next day shopped for presents for the family and lugged our crap across the river to the car park, where we just missed the first car and waited for 4 hours for the next car to Diabugu to fill up. We got home late, but my family was really excited to see us. We distributed the presents, and passed out.

Over the week that we have been here, we have done the following (in no particular order):

• Attended Monday school assembly and met some of the teachers
• Learned how to wash clothes by hand (difficult!)
• Learned how to pound grain and how to prepare green leaf sauce
• Hiked to some nearby wetlands, hung out, and birdwatched
• Biked to some nearby cliffs/bluffs, walked onto an outcropping, and watched a troop of monkeys swinging in the trees below us, then almost got caught in a storm on the way home
• Took a day trip to Basse by bike through the bush, went to the bank, and biked home the same day (never done that before – we are so rugged)
• Visited the market in Diabugu – got veggies for the fam at the market
• Helped type up final exams with some of the teachers at my school
• The Dude (our cat) caught a big rat and two lizards and we are very proud of him
• My family killed a duck for us and the resulting lunch was *amazing*

Click any of the pictures to go to the whole album.

Heather’s and my health have been overall pretty good. My rash is still here only (see previous postings), and Heather had a little heat rash on her arms. It started raining and that helped cool things down a lot.

Tomorrow morning we plan to schlep our stuff out to the river (about 2 miles – on a donkey cart ideally) and get picked up for our boat trip down the river. Till next time!

Michael and Heather

I got a rash, man – part 2

So, back to my story about my rash. After I returned to Diabugu and finished my second full course of prednisone, my allergic rash was under control, but it had weakened my immune system enough to allow all types of skin bacteria to go crazy. My whole back blew up into some kind of mutant super-acne, and I started to get a pretty righteous case of crotch rot. No, you don’t want to see pictures. It was about this time that some people came to visit me on the second stage of the “Tour de URR” which actually means nothing except that a few people rode their bikes through the bush and visited other people. I think I had six visitors. We all went camping by the river near Diabugu, I fell off my bike while trying to answer the phone and sustained minor contusions, and overall the experience was successful. The pictures have managed to avoid being in any coherent order, but what happened was: we all rode to Sarre Demba Torro to see Jenna, and camped in her backyard. My hammock broke her fence posts (actually my fat ass broke the posts), so I slept on the bantaba out front. Next day we all tried to ride to Sarre Ngai, but Kasey had a flat tire, and she and Adrienne stayed behind. The rest of us met Brendan, Dave, and Julia at Sarre Ngai, went to the luumo (big market), then rode to Brendan’s place. This took pretty much all day. We cooked dinner (delicious curry by Brendan), pre-gamed, then attended the Jaliba concert (locally famous Kora player). Kasey and Adrienne didn’t make it; they went to Basse (problems with horse carts, and no vehicles to ride, etc). So, after returning from the concert at 4 AM, Max and I (Adrienne’s visitor from America) biked to Basse at like 8 AM (the other pansies took a vehicle).

At this point my rash in that certain lower middle sensitive essential area was getting OUT of control. I called the Doc and he told me to come back to Kombo to deal with it. It sounds like I’m always in that place, but I’m really not. I got lots of different drugs (antibiotics, topicals, etc.) and rapidly recovered. There were various other entertaining activities as well.

In the car on the way back to Diabugu, an interesting phenomenon developed. Every time we would approach a police, immigration, military, etc. checkpoint (there are a lot), the people in the car would start talking a lot, and getting really excited. When we got there, one or two of them would usually get out and have some conversation with the police, or military guys, or whatever. Then when we pulled away they would all ask “how much did you pay,” or “you talk next time,” and they would hand money around among themselves. I couldn’t figure out what was going on for a long time; I just knew it would behoove me to keep out of it. Eventually one of the dudes explained to me that the big metal trunk on the roof of the car contained untold numbers of new mobile phones, which one of the passengers was smuggling to Basse under the radar to sell (avoiding heavy taxes). Also, the day before, all the military and police checkpoint staffing had rotated, so all standing bribes were wiped out and people had to start over. So the dude with the mobiles had enlisted the help of the other passengers to keep his butt out of the fire. The best part was the old toothless Fula woman in the back was just as into it as everyone else, getting all stoked when we successfully passed another checkpoint and yelling suggestions for the next time.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t said anything about the school, and computers, and working, it’s because there’s not much to say. At the end of the second term, the Principal and I both wrote letters to the Permanent Secretary of the ministry of education requesting funding for the IT program (primarily to buy fuel). I included a spreadsheet with all relevant data. At the beginning of the third term, we received a visit from the Planning Unit of the Ministry. The people that came were professional, competent, and seemed interested. They were very encouraging, and seemed to suggest that getting the resources we requested wouldn’t be a problem. We haven’t heard from them since.

The Peace Corps training department (and a dude named Josh) arranged a Men’s Retreat, held at Jonjonbureh Camp. It turned out to be a fairly righteous event, with volunteer-led training sessions (I did a session on solar power and one on Tai Chi and Kung Fu). The environment was nice. The monkeys try to steal your food at all times. Here are some pics of the place:

Latest developments: my crotch rash is back, I called the doc, and started taking erythromycin again. I’m leaving on Saturday to go to Basse, then to Farafenni on Sunday, then Dakar on Monday, and Heather will arrive Tuesday night. We have a pretty radical vacation planned for the month that she’s here. I will try to keep this thing more current. Haha, I always say that.

Listen: I’m getting frustrated with the lack of power at the school. I’m about to give up on the generator and focus on solar. They got three new huge solar panels there, bringing their total capacity to around 1.4 KW, which is enough for a few computers. I need funding to siphon power off the water pump solar array and use it for computers (for wire, batteries, a charge controller, and an inverter). I don’t know where that money is going to come from yet, but I’m fairly confident I’m going to make sure it comes from somewhere. This is getting a little ridiculous. Watch this space for updates.

Wish me luck getting to and from Dakar!

MC

I got a rash, man – part 1

Here’s a brief update on the last few months for you fine people.

I got a rash, man. I’ve never been allergic to any food in my life. I had also never consumed a cashew fruit before. It so happens that I am allergic to this particular delicacy. My face swelled up over two days, then that got better and I got a super itchy rash all over. ALL over. This was a bummer, but luckily I was planning on going down to Kombo for the All Volunteer conference anyway. I did so, swung by the med unit to snag a boatload of prednisone (oral corticosteroid), and slammed that stuff over the course of 5 days instead of the prescribed 9. I was really itchy and I wanted it to go away. It did in fact go away, but then it came back, and I had to go get more steroids. Anyway, back to that story later.

During my rash recovery and relapse period, I attended the All Vol conference. It essentially consisted of listening to Peace Corps policy for three days, punctuated by incredible dining experiences. It took place at the Sheraton – nice. During that time I stayed at Chris and Kane’s house, there was dinner at Blair’s, and a really nerdy dinner (except for Katie) at Doug the solar guy’s place. All of this is photographically documented here:

On the evening before the last day of the conference, we had an open mic night at a venue in Bakau called Sinatra’s. The level of participation and the quality of the performances were high. Documentation:

I’m not sure how to describe this next event. I got a call from Marnie asking if I wanted to go to a fashion show. The ticket was usually expensive, but she could hook me up for free. Apparently some of the judges were going to be PC volunteers. In fact, it turned out that 5 of the 6 judges were PCVs, and it was a fashion and talent pageant, called “Queen of Companies” (I think), and each contestant was backed by a corporate sponsor. It was amazing, hilarious, outrageous, and LONG! It was supposed to start at 9, it started at 11, and finished an hour after I left at around 6 AM. I’m going to shut up now and show you videos:

On the way back to Diabugu, a bunch of peeps wanted to get Fula scars. This is a permanent scar traditionally done by Fulas, but other tribes also do it. Normally it’s three parallel slashes, filled in with peanut ash so they stay black, but there are many variations. Here’s the peeps getting cut:

I eventually made it back to Diabugu after the silliness of Kombo. The mangos were ready by this time, and it was the job of Grandma and the kids to go to the orchard and pick/gather them every other day. I started going with them, and it was pretty fun. At one point Grandma walked over to the primitive dirty well in the garden, pulled up a bucket of fetid water, and started drinking it. I said “hey Grandma, that water’s dirty! Is that safe?” She laughed, said “yeah, it’s dirty!” and kept sluggin’ it down! She is a highly robust old woman.

I installed Rosetta Stone on my computer, and started using it to study french (for my trip to Senegal to pick up Heather), and also to help teach my host brother Bamoree english. I started him out on level 3, since his english is pretty good, but realized that was too high, because of the reading and writing components. I procured level 1, and that has been going really well.

Obviously not a golfer

Lately my angling career has slowed down a little. By that i mean I failed to catch any fish this morning on my third such excursion in this place. I did manage, however, to lodge my lure against a foliage abutment, and spend about half an hour wallowing up to my knees in river mud waving the f-ing stick around trying to un-post this valued item from the tantalizingly proximal branch on which it calmly abided. The tangle was too troublesome, and the lure evaded me. So did the fish. I didn’t even get a bite today. I suspect my lack of technique, poor choice of location, misuse of standard equipment, and poverty of any ability or skill whatsoever are probably at least partly to blame. Besides that stuff though, I’ve got all the other aspects pretty well nailed down. Maybe the fourth time will be the charm. I have one lure left, after all.

On a more positive note, i finished reading ‘The devil in the white city’ by Erik Larson today. It’s about the Chicago world fair, its architects, and a serial killer. Fascinating stuff man. All true, too. Recommended.

In case you’re wondering why I’m not doing any actual work, it’s because school is closed for Easter break. That’s right – Easter. Until the 12th. As far as i know, not a single student or teacher celebrates Easter. Or anyone in the town or general area for that matter. Hmm… To be fair, its the break in between the second and third academic terms, and they probably didn’t have anything better to call it.

Posted by Wordmobi

Another one bites the dust

Unfortunately, Peace Corps has lost a good volunteer in the Gambia. Philip is a great guy, and I am sorry to see him go. I am happy, however, that he is safe now, after his little adventure.

Here is a link to a Gambian newspaper article on the aforementioned little adventure. I have no involvement in, nor commentary on this information, I am merely providing this link to publicly available information for your reference. I have to say that so I don’t get in trouble.

Mark it, Dude!

It’s been a long time. Deal with it. Because it has been so long, I’m going to forget some stuff and gloss over other stuff. So it goes.

I think the last time I wrote was before the holidays last year. Well, the holidays predictably occurred, and celebrations commenced. The stuff in Kombo doesn’t require a lot of explanation, because you are all familiar with the activities. We had a gift exchange, and a little Christmas tree, and one of those things where you throw a ping pong ball at a table of gifts and you take which one you hit. I got a huge candle, which I’m still using.

I also spent some time at the beach, as you can see in these photos:

New years does require explanation, because it was awesome. I made my way back to Basse, along with an unusually large group of volunteers. James and I landed at Mike’s Bar sometime during the early evening to round up the usual suspects. By that I mean we procured large amounts of booze, roast pork from the lady ’round back, and a pile of fireworks, and taxied them back to the transit house, where tubs of ice had been secured (no mean feat). Earlier in the day we had also collected wood for a bonfire, so that night we used all of those things to great advantage and the result was spectacular. Good times all around.

Here are Christmas and New Years pics (sample below) – oh yeah, I also attended In Service Training. That was fine. We learned some stuff.

Upon returning to Diabugu freshly invigorated by holiday celebration (aka in need of recovery), I set to work. My counterpart and I designed a bi-weekly schedule for computer classes that gave each class one double-block of power-on computer time every other week (with a single block of non-power time on the off week), which isn’t much, but it was the most we could get the Principal to agree to, due to limited funds for fuel. This schedule went well for about half the term, then we ran out of money. Actually, I have no idea how much money we had then or how much we have now, but the Principal told me we ran out. So I stopped teaching, and started thinking about how to proceed. I had a meeting with my counterpart and the top three in command at the school to address the plan for term 3. After various ins, outs, and what-have-yous, we decided to make the class optional. If the student has paid his or her IT fee, he or she is welcome to attend, and any student that wants to register may pay the fee at any time. We will schedule the classes outside of normal curriculum time, and schedule as many classes as needed to satisfy demand. Doing this will pay for the fuel required to run the generator, as well as leave the option open to invite members of the local community and the greater region as well, depending on how things go. This is set to start in about a week, when students return from break.

At some point during the second term, the school held elections for the head boy and head girl for next year. They took an ENTIRE Friday to do the elections, during which no classes took place. I had stuff planned for my IT class that day, so I kind of flipped out and left to go bird watching or something. When I came back Monday, at the assembly, the principal and some teachers were making a big deal about the election, saying how great it was that all the students got to participate in a free and fair election and that everyone’s vote was counted and legitimate this and procedure that and committee whatever. I realized that whether intentionally or not, instead of wasting that whole Friday as I initially thought, they had spent the whole day seeing real democracy in action. This, of course, is a wonderful thing, and made me feel bad for flipping out and leaving.

Attack of the ants – I woke up one night during the cold season to put on some warm clothes (crazy, I know). I zipped open the bug net, flipped on the light (luckily), and just before my hand reached my clothes, I realized they were seething with ants and their nasty white larvae! My floor was also swarmed. This was a bummer, man. I disentangled myself from my hammock and my sleepy haze, schlepped the infested clothes outside, and battled the ants inside with a broom. I got things kind of under control, dealt without the warm clothes, and went back to sleep. The source of the problem was revealed when I lifted up my trunk. The ants had chewed tunnels through my concrete, and nested under that bad boy. I swept them all up, and sealed all the holes with candle wax. That helped for a while, but it wasn’t until I procured ant poison powder the next time I went to Kombo that I was finally able to ruthlessly crush their attempted coup.

Heather booked flights to come see me! I am very excited. She will arrive in Dakar June 15, and leave July 15. We haven’t planned all our activities yet, but it’s going to be a robust adventure, for sure. We hope to cover a little bit of Senegal and most of The Gambia, with stays at some pretty nice places both on the beach and inland, as well as stay in Diabugu for a while. Two and a half months until she gets here is going to fly by.

We’ve been having strange outbreaks at school of what appears to be girls experiencing epileptic convulsions and/or seizures. This is not good. The first girl to experience this required six strong guys to hold her down so she didn’t severely damage herself. I suggested they seek medical intervention, but they didn’t want to at first, because apparently this happens regularly and the shots they gave her last time didn’t help and incapacitated her for three days. I suggested perhaps they reduce the dosage of (probably phenobarbitol) and give it to her again so she would relax. I confirmed that there was an available medicine to take that would prevent these seizures over the long term, and also learned that the family didn’t believe in this medicine and wouldn’t administer it because they believed their daughter was inhabited by a demon and preferred the local treatment for that. Eventually I convinced them to call the ambulance which came, collected her, administered some drugs, and took her home. Not sure what happened after that.

After a couple different phones and internet services, I’m now using a Nokia E72 and Qcell internet, which is substantially faster, cheaper per MB, and less of a hassle than the Comium one I was using. It also came with a USB cell modem. They actually have legit 3G service in Kombo, Farefenni, and Basse, with 2.5G (EDGE) everywhere else, including here in Diabugu. It works pretty well most of the time, and I can skype on it (audio only).

I got a cat! I shamelessly stole my pet’s name from Tyler in Minnesota, although it was his dog’s name, so I figure, different species, fair game. His name is “The Dude,” “Dude” for short. Actually, when I told my family here his name is Dude, they said ohh, Doo Doo! Because that is an actual Mandinka name here. So in my house he’s The Dude and to the family he’s Doo Doo.

Along with excellent packages from various other people, I got one from Jim, Ed, and Matt. This contained various righteous material, including but not limited to the book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougal, as well as some Chia seeds mentioned in that book. The book is great. If you like running even a little, read it. In the book, the Tarahumara native Mexicans of the Copper Canyon make a signature energy cocktail using Chia seeds, called Chia Fresca or Iskate. After I read the book, and my sitemate Kasey also read it, I made some Iskate to take on a bike trip to Basse. Halfway there, I was like “hey Kasey remember the Chia Fresca from the book” – “yeah” – “I have that in my bottle right now” – “no way!” -”ya, wanna try it” – “sure…. ew it tastes like frog eggs!!” True, it does kind of remind you of frog eggs. Not that I have eaten them. Anyway, when we got on the little row boat to cross the river, the pilot saw us drinking this stuff, asked what it was and Kasey said “ñing mu toto kilo le ti, I lafita a ming le bang?” – “these are frog eggs, you wanna drink ‘em?” – “sure…. eww, here ya go!” said the pilot after trying a little and making a funny gross face. He totally thought they were frog eggs. Now every time I see him he asks about them, and declines to drink them if I have it. He probably thinks all white people eat frog eggs now. Awesome.

Also weird: I walked into the new house the family is in the middle of building in the compound here, and found two sets of severed goat feet on the living room floor. I asked host mom #2 about it – she was mildly surprised, and indicated she had no idea where they came from. When my host dad got home, she asked him, and he provided a long and complicated explanation which I didn’t understand, which my host mom repeated to me, which I still didn’t understand. Oh well.

I was returning from a trip to the bitik (store) in Diabugu on the afternoon of March 17th, and saw a woman I knew wearing a green t-shirt with beer advertisements and St. Patrick’s day all over it. First of all, none of the people here drink (ostensibly), and definitely have no idea what St. Patrick’s day is. I informed her what her shirt said (minus the beer part), and explained that this day happens once every year, and that it was in fact taking place this very day! She seemed to sort of get it, appear happy and pleased, and carry on hauling her enormous laundry basket on her head back to her house…

Mail run came two weekends ago. I was going to accompany Kasey on a well-digging expedition to Niakui that day, but we decided to wait for the mail truck. Kris delivered the mail, along with a truly magical slice of chocolate cake, which I promptly devoured. We then biked to Niakui, which was a short but robust ride involving some interesting terrain (rocks and hills and whatnot). We went to check and document the progress of a well project Kasey set up through Water Charity. Everything was legit. The family really wanted us to stay for lunch, but we managed to escape. Pics in this album somewhere.

Last week I had the unfortunate experience of witnessing corporal punishment at school. I was watching a class for another teacher, when I heard commotion in the next block of classrooms. I looked over, and saw a group of teachers and the Principal going from class to class and systematically beating each student with a stick or long strap or something. At the time I had no idea what it was about. After about 20 seconds, I got fed up, walked up to the Principal, told him if he wants to do this in his school, I’m out of here, and left. He called me back asking to talk, and I told him to forget it, I’m done. The next day, we had a long talk about it. I have brought up the subject of corporal punishment and alternative discipline to him and the rest of the staff before, and they seemed to dig my perspective. This incident provided evidence to the contrary, however. It turns out they beat the entire 9th grade because their Friday attendance was habitually bad. I told him there were three major reasons why I thought this was a bad idea. One – it’s morally wrong to beat a fellow human being. He agreed with me, but apparently not strongly enough to dissuade him from the practice. Two – It’s ineffective and counterproductive; beating the kids reduces kids’ respect for teachers, which hinders the learning process, and instills fear, not motivation. Three – it’s illegal in this country (despite remaining common practice). This is a very difficult argument to make in this environment though, because any alternative I can propose is totally untested here. The principal told me that students would only see detention and suspension as a holiday or a gift. When I present evidence of these practices effectiveness in other countries, the principal rightly claims the students there and the students here are completely different. When I tell him his methods are ineffective, he tells me they have worked his whole life, and continue to. I told him I have no right to tell him how to run his school or how to do his job, but that I can tell him what I think, and I can choose where I work, and if he chooses to beat kids, I choose not to work in his school. This ultimatum clearly caught him off guard, and I could see that in context, it was a little over the line. I mitigated that by an offer to personally implement any of the alternative schemes I had suggested, if he was willing to give them a shot. He agreed, and we parted amiably.

I hunted and killed this rat in my house with a broom handle the other evening.

I biked to Basse on Friday to meet Steve-o, one of the dudes I trained with. We hung out there Friday night, then biked to Diabugu Saturday morning. When we got to Kanyube by the river, we swung through Sunny’s compound. There was a Kora player there playing when we got there – cool! We hung out with her and her host family for a while, drank some attaya, and listened to the music before continuing. We made it to my place, chilled out the rest of the day, and Kasey came over for dinner and to stay the night as well, because she was leaving from Diabugu at 4:30 Sunday morning to take three 8th grade girls to a conference in Kombo. Sunday morning Steve-o and I went fishing with poles, reels, and bait provided by the Treats and Jim (thanks guys!). Here is a short synopsis of that experience:

I don’t remember all the books I read during this period off the top of my head, but the two highlights were:

1) Richard Feynmann 4 lectures at UCLA on Quantum Electrodynamics. Fantastic layman’s explanation of the theory. Fascinating.

2) The China Study by T. Colin Campbell – This book is about nutrition and medicine. It is the only book about nutrition that I have read or heard of that presents a systematic, very well documented explanation of what constitutes good human nutrition. And according to this book, that is a “whole-foods, plant-based diet.” This book provides copious evidence and references to support the claims that foods that come from animals are bad for you, and cause disease, and furthermore that consuming a whole-foods, plant-based diet can stop the progression of and in some cases reverse those diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes to name a few). This book presents, as far as I can tell, a mountain of irrefutable (pending further research) evidence that a person should consume a vegan diet. It will certainly affect the food I choose to eat in the future, though I am not yet ready to claim vegan-hood.

On a sad family note, my Grandma (Mom’s Mom) is not doing well. My Mom is caring for her (along with the nursing home staff) as she has been doing for the last 6 years, and should be recognized for the monumental amount of time and energy she has devoted. Whatever happens Mom, you are doing a phenomenal job.

Is this a weekday?

I have not yet fallen off my bike again, if that’s what you’re wondering. Actually, the ‘falling’ part and the ‘off’ part were separate incidents, since I remained connected to the bike throughout and after the falling process.

There will be a loose chronological organization to this one. Any other apparent organization is accidental.

The Quiet American, by Graham Greene: This book pits naive idealism against self-interested superficial practicality in war time Vietnam before US army involvement. One could either say that idealism loses, or that they both lose. Enjoyed the book.

Twin baby goats were born in the family compound. As far as farm animals go, these are the best ones I’ve seen. Endlessly amusing, and they don’t mind being picked up if you can catch ‘em.

The generator stopped working again, was hotwired again, started working, and we continue to lack fuel. We have run it a few times though. More on that later.

I gave the same test to every section of IT in the school, except for one seventh grade class. I think both the students and I learned some things. First of all, open-answer questions are very difficult for non-native english speakers. Many students either couldn’t read or understand the questions at all. Maybe it was my handwriting (admittedly awful). I tried to make it as easy as possible to do well on the test, including giving 30 bonus points (over 100), writing easy questions, and making the test open-notes. I also gave points for any answer remotely resembling and intelligent thought or a fragment of correctness. The grades weren’t spectacular. Next time I will do multiple choice.

I did receive some funny answers. Here are some samples from one 11th grade class:

Q: What is information?
A: If Police man want to arrest someone, you tell the Person That Policeman well arrest you soon.

Q: What is Software?
A: Software cannot mix with soap.

Q: What is a system?
A: Is the way it is

Q: What is hardware?
A: Hardware is something that is very difficult

Q: What is technology? Give examples.
A: Football technology, Basketball technology, computer technology, dancing technology, jumping technology
A: to collect nologi from different parts of the system. computer.

We were supposed to have an All-Volunteer meeting in Kombo (the capitol/coastal area) last month, but it got indefinitely postponed, due to the arrival of a new Country Director. Apparently I was the only one of my group and the only volunteer in the entire upper river region that did not attend the concurrent and un-cancelled Thanksgiving feast. Oops.

Another book by the Dalai Lama: Don’t remember the title. Something about spirituality. Once again, good info on Buddhism, and clear, enjoyable writing. He talks a lot about Compassion, especially as a motivating factor for self-cultivation. He does not discuss the dynamic tension between his stated altruistic goal of universal compassion and the necessary self-focus to develop the skills to implement this compassion. I find this to be a weak point in the overall message. How can you preach selflessness to the extreme, yet spend most of your time in self-cultivation and development? I don’t see this conflict as a moral or ethical one, but a logical one having to do with the nature of the concept of altruism.

Soon after reading this book, I started helping Heather edit a paper she was writing on this topic. I would like to publish it here if she will let me, because I think it turned out really well. I also have some stray thoughts on the subject floating around, but they aren’t sufficiently congealed to spew forth at this exact moment.

On the Road by Jack Keruac: Been meaning to get to this one for a while. I waited too long. This book is not a bad book, but it was a book for its time and place. And we’re talking about 50s Americana here. The things Jack writes aren’t wrong, they’re just not the whole truth. I would have gotten a lot more out of this one ten years ago. Still recommended to anyone that hasn’t been exposed to such ideas.

I finally got a teaching counterpart!! I’ve been working on this since I got here, and the result is highly satisfactory. The school administration staff did an excellent job of selecting a counterpart for me. I had requested a teacher, but there were two major problems: first, they are swamped with teaching core material, which I wouldn’t want to take away from. Second, they are transferred all the time – sometimes every year. They ended up pairing me with the librarian, who is a very nice Fula woman named Jainaba Ba that has excellent English and some background working with computers. She is attached to the school and will not be transferred, which is great.

Two Fridays ago we ran the generator most of the day and had practical classes for grades 11, 12, and 8. The classes weren’t particularly well organized, but the students were happy to finally use the computers, so I call it a success. We just did some typing in Word and had some of the faster students start a typing game. A couple of cocky kids from America kept complaining they wanted something harder to do, so I asked them how fast they could type. They said “fast enough!” I started the typing game for them, typed a few screens at 70-90 words per minute, and told them to get back to me when they could type that fast. They eventually picked their jaws up and started typing.

The time came for me to ride to Basse on the Gele Gele (bush taxi). I walked to the town center at 6:30 in the morning, waited until 8:30 for the car to show up, then fought my way onto the large van/truck/small bus. As I attained my seat, they started loading the baggage, including three huge rams, onto the roof. They were tied down and kicked the roof a lot throughout the trip. I didn’t see any excrement invade the passenger compartment, but another volunteer named Ian was in a septplace (car with seven seats – senegal french etymology) with a goat on the roof all the way from Basse to Kombo, and it pooped on him through the broken-open window the entire time. Anyway, I arrived in Basse without incident, took care of a few errands, and headed to the one shop known to carry decent solar panels. I greeted the dude, who was a Sarahule, asked the price for the 50 watt panel, acted shocked and chagrined, and indicated I would return later. I did return later, sat down with the dude, and bargained for one and a half hours. I succeeded in reducing the price from the idiot tourist price to what was probably the idiot local price, but no further. The 7500 dalasis (just under $300) I paid was probably too much, but I got a sweet panel and there wasn’t anywhere else to get one – so it goes. I returned to the Gele, waited a few hours, and rode home in squished, hot, dirty discomfort. It was worth it – I have sufficient and reliable power now.

I’ve been hiking in the bush quite a bit. There are lots of trails around the area used for inter-village transportation and for fisherman to access the river. I have seen various wildlife on my treks, including lots of really cool birds, some monkeys, a small crocodile (ran across my path at top speed into the river), and a big pack of funny unidentified marsupial-looking animals with subtle horizontal stripes. They have pointy noses, bigger back legs than front, are light/dark brown and run on the ground. Who knows. I have a crappy pair of binoculars that came free with a pocket knife. They work, but I’m going to upgrade. Nature here is worth looking at. One hike took me to the top of some nearby bluffs about 10k out of town. The view is awesome.

I accompanied my host brothers Moree and Ibrhaima on a firewood gathering expedition into the bush. We hitched up the donkey cart and headed to the family fields about 6 or 7k north of town. When we got there Moree told me this is the field he farms, pretty much by himself. It was huge, which I indicated. It’s not just this one, he said. It’s this one, that one, that one, that one, that one, and that one. The area this guy farms, by himself, is absolutely gargantuan. I have definitely seen much smaller private farms in the midwest that use fully mechanized processes. Moree does everything with his hands, a hoe, and a machete. The dude is robust. Anyway, we found the firewood, spent a couple hours cutting it, loaded it on the cart, and took it home.

My family made me peanut butter. I bought the shelled peanuts from a woman for 125 Dalasis (like 5 bucks, for a LOT of peanuts), my family roasted them, separated the inner shell, and took them to the squishing machine. I paid for the machine use and double what my host sister asked to make the stuff. I ended up with about two gallons of fresh peanut butter and it cost me about $7.

An old Mandinka woman came to the school one day to negotiate with the deputy head teacher regarding school fees. Her english was pretty decent actually. At one point she very confidently described New York City as “groovy,” despite never having visited the states. Totally straight face too. She’s the only Gambian I have ever heard use that word.

I accompanied the family to one of their peanut fields (close to town – not part of Moree’s fields) to finish the work there for the season. We spent most of the day separating huge piles of peanut plant material from the peanuts themselves, then bagging and transporting the resulting peanuts. Good lord is that tedious. The kids did lots of funny stuff.

One night my moms and sister and a couple friends and I were sitting around a fire in the compound and the little boy Buba (pronouced booba) squatted in front of one of the houses and produced an enormous and cacophonous bowel event. The entire audience exploded in laughter, followed by lots of poop jokes (of which the only word I understood was ‘huru’ which means poop).

The important Muslim feast called Tobaski happened recently. The family killed a ram for the occasion, which was a lot cooler and less gross than I thought it was going to be. We stuffed our faces with meat and various other food over the next three days. After one particularly impressive devouring session, my host dad said in English: “when you go to America your people will tell you: Lamin you are big now!!” They call me Lamin here. Warning – the pictures and video are gory.

My little host sister Isetu is about one and a half, and can’t say “Lamin.” Instead she calls me “ma ña,” which means bad, or not good. One day she was standing on the step/porch outside my front door hitting it and trying to say my name. As it was looking at her, and without breaking stride in her hitting and calling, she released a niagran torrent of urine all over herself and my porch. I guess it could have been worse – see story about Buba above. I waited for it to dry before I left the house.

You might remember the misunderstanding involving my host mom, my site-mate Kasey, and the ducks. Well, I finally got four ducks from Kasey, and they live in my back yard now. Well, four of them did live there. This weekend we ate the biggest one. Sorry Lilly – it was hideously ugly, does that make it better? It was delicious. They think it’s a dirty animal apparently, so after she took it apart, my host mom scrubbed the pieces of meat with salt to clean them. Hmm… Lunch that day was outstanding, and rivaled the quantity and quality of the Peace Corps Training Village Lunch Food Bowl, which is saying a lot. In the middle of lunch the family momma goat busted through the curtain on the door and almost spilled the whole food bowl before being chased back out of the house. That was a close call. After stuffing myself with duck and starting back to my house, they handed me a bowl of meat just for me. I ate it in my house. I usually throw any leftovers into the back yard for the ducks. Not this time.

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut: I have read this before actually, but read it again anyway. I found it to be acceptable. It’s kind of anti-society and anti-religion. It’s hard to tell if it’s pro-anything.

Oh yeah, Tobaski. It was sort of similar to Koriteh – festival atmosphere, lots of eating, everyone had new clothes, etc. The students were supposed to get three days off of school. They took two weeks. They stopped coming to school at the beginning of the week before last and just came back today. I’m going to Kombo at the end of this week for my group’s In Service Training, which will last for a week. Will let you know how that goes. I might experiment with shorter, more frequent posting. Not sure yet. I’m also hoping to upgrade my internet service while in Kombo.

Yesterday Mail Run came. I received a LOT of packages from my Mother. This is the email I sent her:

“Bet you didn’t know this, but christmas morning was moved up a few weeks this year. And I’m not talking about a recession christmas either – I’m talking mountains of presents under the (mango) tree boom economy silly grin delirious six year old wakes up the parents at five in the morning cant wait to open all these boxes christmas. Good lord, now I really do have everything. I received all 9 boxes, have been unpacking them all day, and I am completely blown away. When I recover from the shock and regain my facility of speech I will call and thank you. For now, please accept my preliminary email thanks. Thank you!!

I love you and merry christmas!

Yes, I put up the decorations. Motorcycle-Santa is hanging from the ceiling.

Michael”

I’m in Kombo for In Service Training right now. I will tell you all about that soon.

Till next time.

MC

Abiding

This post is long. Sorry.

I got a chalkboard in my computer lab! I asked if I could have one, and they had the plywood and blackboard paint so they hooked me up. I asked around in town trying to find sandpaper to smooth out the board, and thereby discovered a SWEET hardware store type place down a back alley that has all kinds of mechanical, electrical, and tailoring-related stuff.

As soon as I started planning to do a test-run of the generator and fire up all the computers in the lab for the first time, I realized (extremely belatedly!) that there was no way to plug them all in. There were not enough wall outlets, and many of the cords were too short. We needed a bunch of power strips/extension cords. I told the deputy headmaster and he was like yeah I knew that since last year. I was like uhh why didn’t you tell me and crap I probably should have realized this earlier. The principal was unimpressed. He was, however, shockingly willing to assist in the financial and logistical aspects of procuring said power strips. He suggested I meet him in Basse on Saturday (week before halloween) to get the strips we needed. I enthusiastically agreed. I left Diabugu a little after 6 AM Saturday morning. I used the excellent and somewhat excessive headlight my Mom sent me, as well as the clip pedals and shoes I brought. Those were weird at first, but eventually made a huge positive difference in both pedaling efficiency and smoothness. I made it to Basse in record time (just over two hours door to door including the river crossing). I went to the transit house to shower, then met Mr. Kanuteh in town. We scoped out a few shops before eventually settling down in one to embark on the bargaining and purchasing process. It took us about an hour, but we eventually ended up with eight chinese-made power strips of two different types, as well as 30 meters of wire, a switch, and two DC light bulbs for me, and one light bulb for Mr. Kanuteh. I even got a receipt for my portion of the purchase – a first for this country!

Other volunteers filtered into the Basse house during the afternoon, and Rachel, Ashley, Kasey and I cooked a late lunch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and baked beans. Don’t be fooled by the apparent normalcy of this meal – make no mistake: it was an epicurean delight! Later we all went to the bar and tried to have a couple beers. When asked to supply a second round of four beers, the proprietress brought only two and indicated that she was out, and there would be more if we waited. Apparently bars in The Gambia only stock one six-pack at a time, which is bizarre because they don’t even have six-packs in this country. The other two (warm) beers came about a half hour later. On the way back we got meat sandwiches.

Sunday morning I packed up all my stuff, including the 8 enormous power strips, into my bike saddle bags and headed out. It had rained heavily during the night and continued to sprinkle. Right away there were problems, primarily involving the lack of clearance between my heels and the heavily-loaded saddle bags perched on my rear bike rack. I kept kicking them, which caused them to fall off, to the detriment of the bags, their contents, and my forward progress. Modification of my technique allowed me to reach the river, which I crossed and promptly had problems again on the other side. Frustrated, I tried to move the bags farther back on the rack, but bending them so they could go farther back caused them to rub against the rear wheel. I stopped again and tried to use a couple of straps I brought to prevent bag-to-wheel contact. This worked for about 5 minutes until the straps slipped (first one then the other) causing the bags to violently interact with the spokes, ripping the plastic shielding on the bags but fortunately not rupturing the bags themselves. In addition to my problems with the bags, the repeated dismounts had caused both the clips on my shoes and my pedals to become clogged with the ubiquitous mud caused by the rain the night before. I performed a last-ditch mechanical surgery to the rack mounting points on the bike to raise the rack and change its angle to keep the bags away from my heels. This failed utterly, but resulted in the eventual destruction of the threaded support posts for the rack by the time I got home, because I had to loosen it too much to achieve the maximum angle. I ended up removing the bags from the rack entirely, and after a couple failed configurations, strapped one bag to the top of the rack and the other one to the back of my tiny camel-bak backpack. Riding this way was uncomfortable and difficult, but it was all I could do. After three and a half hours I arrived in Diabugu, completely exhausted. I rode into the town with my rack clattering, destroyed, behind me, rode into some unavoidable deep sand, and immediately toppled over. I had painstakingly managed to get my shoes clipped into the pedals despite the mud, which at this moment failed to release, and so I laid on the ground, halfway under my bike, covered in sand, unable to get my feet off the pedals, surrounded by people curiously examining this oddly-dressed tubab flopping around in the sand. I escaped with much effort and no dignity, and walked the bike back to the house. I haven’t touched it since.

To make myself feel better psychologically, after physically recovering from my ordeal later on Sunday, I installed the wire, switch, and bulbs I had bought in Basse. The final result, including previous work, is a total of five lights – three inside and two in the back yard. One of them is controlled by a switch on the wall reachable from my hammock, which also controls a ceiling-mounted fan pointing at said hammock, and the rest of them are controlled by a switch on my desk. All the inside lights have yellow cloth hung in front of them as shades. The lighting and cooling in and around my house are now outstanding.

I installed all the power strips in the computer lab at school, but have not tested them yet because the wonderful new generator we got is not working. When you turn on the big switch, nothing happens. I tested the battery and it’s good. Apparently the generator in Bansang, which is the same as ours, is having the same problem. Personnel were supposed to be here ’soon’ to fix it (as of last Tuesday), but they have not come yet.

I was listening to the BBC world service on SW frequency 11.765 Mhz at 7:51 AM on Oct. 22 when the station cut out and I heard a voice with a Gambian english accent say “President Yaya Jammeh has ruled The Gambia with an iron fist for 15 years now but is the opposition really demo- … ” at which point the BBC came back on, indicated they were having technical difficulties, and continued with programming. I am not supposed to comment on the politics of this country, so I will stop at a literal reporting of what I heard on the radio.

Last Wednesday I received a visit from Linda Murgatroyd (director of the Education sector for PCTG), Anne Larson (PCV Leader), Alpha Jallow (PCTG safety and security dude), and John the Driver (AKA big donkey man). Linda, Anne and I met in my hut where I briefed them on the status of my activities here and presented my primary concerns to be discussed at the meeting with the school principal later. We then went to the school and had that meeting, where we discussed the lack of a dedicated Gambian IT teacher at the school (a prerequisite for my presence), and the lack of both fuel for the generator and funds for fuel. The school is trying to collect an “IT fee” from the students to buy fuel, but it is insufficient. Linda will be discussing the issue with the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education when she sees him at an upcoming function. Linda will hopefully also be able to twist the right arm at the regional office to get an IT teacher sent here.

The weather is starting to cool down during the night. It’s fabulous. I’ve even had to sleep in my bed a couple times when the hammock was too chilly. It did rain this morning though, which is pretty weird for this time of year I guess.

Funny things happen here because of language. Two weeks ago Kasey was at my compound and was talking about how many ducks she has (‘burro’ in Mandinka). Mandinka isn’t my host mom’s first language, but she speaks it pretty well, so the two of them could talk. Kasey asked her if she wanted any of these ducks, and she said sure, bring three. Last week I was sitting outside and my host mom asked me where Kasey was with those ducks. It took me forever to figure out what she was talking about, but when I did I called Kasey, put her on speakerphone, and let the two of them discuss. Mom now wants four. How many male, how many female? Laughs. Two of each. Ok, will bring them tomorrow. Ok, thanks. Some time later, my host brother is laughing a little and mentions something about bread in english. The mandinka word for bread is ‘mburro.’ At first I thought he was kidding around, but after sustained, hilarious investigation it became clear that my host mom had heard ‘mburro’ the entire time, thought she was getting four loaves of bread tomorrow, and through Kasey was joking when she was talking about males and females! I was laughing so hard at one point I was embarrassing myself and had to go in the house. I brought up a picture of a duck on my phone, showed it to her and said ‘ang ke lahi bang?!’ (do you want this?) to which she replied ‘HANI!’ (NO!). I called Kasey back, explained the misunderstanding, and indicated that she should abort the duck-delivery operation.

On Friday the students cleared the football field at the school. A 9th grade boy decided it would be a good idea to set the field on fire while everyone was working on it, which caused general confusion and lots of burning. The wind was strong.

An unusually enormous rat similar in size to my American family’s miniature dachshund has been visiting me at night. It crawls down the roof, roots around in everything, and generally keeps me awake and annoys the crap out of me. I tried chasing him around my house with a giant kitchen knife one night but I couldn’t get him. I got some rat poison and put it out, but I haven’t seen him lately and I don’t think any of it has been eaten. Watch your back buddy. I think I’m gonna get a cat.

I have read two books recently: “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror” by Mahmood Mamdani, and “The Universe in a Single Atom: How Science and Spirituality can Serve our World” by the Dalai Lama.

“Good Muslim, Bad Muslim” examines the roots of modern terrorism (including 9/11) in American actions (both direct and proxy) during the cold war period, including in Aisa, central America, and Africa, and culminating in Afghanistan. It also seeks to distinguish between discussing Islam (and Christianity) in Cultural terms (Culture Talk), versus Political terms, and point out both the inappropriateness and the widespread practice of using Culture Talk for political discussion and analysis. The narrative Mamdani presents lays a lot of the responsibility for the development of much of the motive and opportunity (idealism, infrastructure, training) for modern terrorism at the feet of the United States through its cold war era covert operations and proxy wars. The book is concise, and primarily served to show me how little I know about American cold war history and the operations of the CIA in particular under the Nixon, Reagan, and first Bush administrations. It also made me feel less good about my government. I am glad I read this book and I recommend it.

I wanted to follow that one with something a little more uplifting, so I picked up “The Universe in a Single Atom” by the Dalai Lama. This one is the Dalai Lama’s shot at reconciling modern science and Tibetan Buddhism. It turns out there aren’t many contradictions or incompatibilities (no surprise for me there). There wasn’t a lot in this book that I hadn’t gotten before from other places, but I did enjoy reading it mostly for the descriptions of various meditative techniques used by the Tibetan Buddhists and other information specific to that particular sect, as well as the discussions about what does and does not constitute a worthwhile philosophical and scientific inquiry into the nature of consciousness. This one is also recommended, especially if you have not looked into the relationship between Buddhist thought and modern science (relativity and quantum mechanics).

Teaching, etc.

I’m spending a lot of my time teaching. I made a deal with the administrators that I would teach the IT classes, at least for the first term, as long as another Gambian teacher was present for every class to absorb the lesson and get used to the material. My priority is teaching the teachers, not the students. This has largely not happened, and I’m teaching almost all the classes solo. I am working on ways to rectify this situation. I teach grades 7-12, and each grade has two classes of students except for 12 which has only one, so I teach every lesson 11 times. I have planned and taught 4 lessons so far. The first two were in the classroom and covered “what is IT?” and “why learn computers.” The second lesson basically consisted of: what exports does The Gambia have? Not much. Will The Gambia be economically successful by continuing current economic activities? No. Does she have the resources required to provide IT services? Yes. Your country’s only chance for economic growth and development is IT because you don’t have any other resources. That’s why you should learn computers. The most recent lessons have been introductions to the lab and parts of the computer.

When I was teaching my “why learn computers” lesson to grade 12, the principal attended the lesson. It went rather well, and I think he was impressed, because after the lesson he indicated that he had “found” a small amount of fuel for the generator and I could use it with a few days notice.

Ah, the generator. The one we had was enormous and new, but we had no fuel for it. The educational bureaucracy, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to replace our generator with a bigger one, but still give us no fuel. The new one arrived and was installed yesterday (pic below).

I started an impromptu computer club at the lower basic school close to my family compound. There’s a very helpful teacher there that helps teach. We only have two working (old) computers at the moment, but they have a solar power setup and are expecting more donated computers soon. Attendance is wide open to anyone at all. This seems promising.

Last weekend I biked to Basse (the big-ish town across the river) to see some people, visit the Peace Corps transit house there, and do some banking and shopping. I left before 6 in the morning on Saturday in pitch black, almost got lost going out of town, and rode for about 40 minutes before it got light. The trip there was just under 2.5 hours, and it was pretty burly. I tossed the bike into a row boat operated by a dude and crossed the river to Basse. The transit house is actually pretty nice and a heck of a lot more chill than the Fajara transit house near the coast. Less people is good. There is a shower, and they even have power some of the time. Sleeping is never as comfortable when I’m not in my awesome hammock, but it was tolerable. I’ll bring the hammock next time. I met Ian, Josh, Ellie (briefly), Katie A, and Brendan there.

Ian, Katie, Brendan and I visited a pal at the MRC campus (medical research council) – they have a little slice of western civilization carved out down there – A/C and everything. Swank. We had Korean food and beers and it was glorious. I hung out there again the next night for nachos. After returning to the house, I became sick, blew up from both ends most of the night, and did not return to Diabugu the next morning as planned. I rested Monday and rode back Tuesday morning, then passed out for most of Tuesday. I was feeling pretty well by Wednesday.

At some point I probably mentioned that the big battery I got from dude for my solar power setup was bunk and I needed a new one. After one and a half months of charging the battery by solar panels I have successfully revived the battery to working condition, as well as identified the source of my problem running my laptop and inverter (separate incidents, man!). I won’t tell Jim and the Brain Trust this, because I asked those engineering dudes for help with this issue, and they’ll think I’m an amateur if they learn I was using insufficient wiring in my female cigarette lighter adapter plug for the amperage I was trying to draw. I re-wired the behotch and it works like a champ now (pic below). I can run my laptop, my inverter, two fans, two lights, and some speakers all at the same time now. I still want to get a sweet solar panel, and plan to do that asap.

I finished the Fountainhead. I would like to retract my previous statement regarding “fine literature and popular fiction,” not because It’s completely inaccurate, but because it is a low quality statement that does not provide useful information.

I thought the book was fantastic. Each of the major heroes, anti-heroes, and monuments to popular mediocrity maintain their representative accuracy and relevance 66 years later, and the ideological game of rock-paper-scisors the book’s primary conflict presents holds water, in my opinion. Egoism and nihilism hold a dynamic, equal tension until the nihilist finds reason in the ego, and flips inside out to form an ego of her own. Communalism or communism or socialism grows powerful by feeding on societal and personal mediocrity and thereby pulls the rug out from under fascism, which subsequently self-destructs. Egoism/capitalism eventually launches a frontal assault on communalism and defeats it on ideological grounds.

If they could meet, I think Henry D. Thoreau and Ayn Rand would get along.

The rainy season is coming to a close, and people tell me the cool weather is coming. I can’t wait.

Heather and I get to talk pretty much every day either by email, google chat or phone, which is awesome. It’s totally incongruous to sit outside talking with my host family while chatting on my phone to america. Heather tells me she reads this thing, so I’ll take this opportunity to conduct some empirical science: let’s see how long it takes her to notice I called her an enormous poo poo head right here on the Intermess for everyone to see. She also read the Fountainhead in like 3 days, while going to school full time(?). We try to read the same books – I know it’s adorable, you don’t have to tell me.

alternating feelings of oh man im sick, i miss home family burritos heather, and this is the best thing I’ve ever done.

School!

I taught a few classes this week. The students in a single class vary in ability from American-born native english speakers familiar with computers and the internet (2 of those) to 12th graders that can barely speak english and have never seen a computer (many of those). Needless to say, developing lessons is difficult. I will be teaching each class of grades 7-9 once each week, and 10-12 twice each week, along with the other teachers I demanded to be assigned to each class period. I’ve also been tasked with the position of Class Master for 8th grade Pink. There’s a green one too, but I’m pink. This means I take attendance, facilitate choosing a class leader and assistant, and facilitate developing a sweeping schedule for the classroom. I managed to get both a boy and a girl for leader and assistant, but the resistance to a mixed gender sweeping schedule was too great and it remained all-female.

The greatest challenge at the moment is securing fuel for the generator so that I can teach computers using… computers. I have written a lengthy letter to the administration extolling the unique opportunities of infrastructure and expertise, as well as made a speech along the same lines at the general staff meeting this morning – both aiming to encourage the budgeters to budge the budget in my favor. Frankly I doubt there’s any money in the budget for fuel in the first place, and some outside party will have to supply funds or we will have to collect them from the students directly, if we are to have power for the computer classes. This is disheartening. There is a sister school to this one in Bansang, equally well-equipped. The President (of the country) provided 10,000 liters of fuel to the school because he was impressed with their attendance and test scores. When he visited my school, which is in a Sarahule community notorious for their opposition to western education as an affront to Islam, he found one of the most expensive, well-equipped schools in the country miserably under-attended and was duly unimpressed. He gave the school nothing, in fact threatening to convert it to a military barracks if attendance did not improve.

Apart from all that uplifting stuff, I have been reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It’s definitely popular fiction not fine literature (what the hell is that?) but I like it a lot. It’s about as subtle as a super hero/villain comic book in depicting the spectrum of social, political, and philosophical structure in this country and the ultra-idealistic champions of the various terminal regions of said spectrum. I’ll reserve certain judgements until I finish it.

I attended a football game – one of the teams was the Civil Servants, on which some of my fellow teachers played. They won gloriously, and have another game tonight.

Friday was grounds maintenance day, so there were no classes, and students brought various field implements to school, such as machetes, hoes, and rakes. Each class was assigned an area of the school grounds to clear. This is what happens when there are no lawn mowers. Think that’d fly in the States?

And finally, on a more serious note – I spied my little brothers Mussa and Bubba wranglin’ this goat through my front door. Mussa is on the ground behind the goat in one of them laughing hysterically because the goat kicked him over. These boys are impervious to pain.