the Apeironian

School resumes

Despite the continued absence of a headmaster, school resumed today at
Diabugu Upper Basic and Senior Secondary school. The teachers wanted to
assemble the students in the big hall, but nobody could find the key, so we
did it in one of the classrooms, which was fine because there were only
about 100 students of the 500+ they are expecting this year. I introduced
myself at the assembly, then spent the rest of the day observing three
different teachers teach 7th grade.

I came home during break to find my family harvesting the corn from the
backyard garden.

After school at 2 I came home, made some mac and cheese, got called for
lunch by the fam halfway though the m+c, ate that too, finished the m+c,
and now I’m listening to Girl Talk feed the animals and writing this.
Here’s me sweating and disgusting with my delicious food – deal with it.

Now I’ll probably sit out front and read the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Mc

Mailing address

I swear people actually asked for this and im not just soliciting donations of food, underwear, or pricey electronics to my underprivelaged cause. But i will take them.

Michael Clervi, PCV
c/o Peace Corps/ The Gambia
P.O. Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa

mc

Posted by Wordmobi

Rainy night still no school

Man it rained cats and dogs last night. In my hammock, my head is right by my front window, so when the wind kicks up it slams the shutter right in my ear and I’ve almost lost it a couple times and ended up on the floor. I really need to look into securing that shutter. School still hasn’t started. The new principle (principal?) is here, but understandably doesn’t want to conduct any official business until power is officially handed over. Obama rolled the same way, so I figure it’s legit. There were a couple of questions about my family and food, so here goes: Father: Dabo Jallow, mom 1: Jompuro Dansia, mom 2: Hatou Sisow, bros: Morey 19 Ibrahima 12ish Buba 4 and Mussa 3, sisters: Kumba 15 Numma 7ish (N should have tilde over it but cant find it on the french phone keyboard) and Isetu 1.4ish. They are all very nice. Food: breakfast is either soombi or huumbi they are rice porridge or coos porridge respectively. Sometimes there is dege (peanut butter ish stuff) in both. Lunch and dinner are eaten out of communal family bowls with the right hand (just your hand no utensils). The boys eat with boys and girls with girls, but sometimes it is mixed. It’s usually rice with some kind of sauce pool in the middle, but sometimes it’s coos with sauce. The coos looks and tastes like sand. The sauces range from tomato base to peanut base and sometimes there’s mystery meat in there which is usually filled with chips of bone and sometimes it is unidentified organ meat. Yummy. The sauce usually contains mushed up veggies of various kinds and sometimes there are veggie chunks which is nice. Overall it makes me full for the most part and i’m not sick ALL the time so no worries That’s all for this morning folks catch ya later on down the road….

Koriteh

Koriteh

Ramadan is over, although for the people of Diabugu it lasted a day
longer than it did on the coast. Nobody here saw the moon, so they
fasted for an extra day. Koriteh is the feast at the end of Ramadan,
involving lots of food, new clothes, and boom boxes. Oh yeah,
everybody breaks out the boom boxes straight out of the 80s (where do
they come from??) with tapes, only tapes – very few CDs. Some of them
are rigged to plug into car batteries, and have extra speakers grafted
onto the sides Frankenstein-style. The kids get super excited and run
around a lot. Everyone walks around the town at night in a festival
atmosphere, and the boom boxes abound. Sometimes there are three or
four playing different music in the same place, and nobody seems to
mind. I should note that the electronics and lights and whatnot are
specific to (relatively rich) Diabugu – the surrounding towns don’t
have that stuff for the most part.

So I pretty much hung out with my host fam, ate a lot, drank a lot of
attaya (really strong chinese green tea with too much sugar in it)
with my host brother and his friends, and finished the book Walden. It
turned out pretty well – didn’t blow my door off the hinges or
anything, but definitely solid.

I was assured that school would resume on Wednesday (Koriteh started
on Sunday), so I went there this morning. I found one teacher awake,
and I think he was still in his PJs because he didn’t want to talk. I
found another one later that said well, we have no students and no
headmaster, so maybe we’ll start next week when we get those… I
suppose starting Wednesday meant wednesday, African time. So instead
of doing work I hiked to the river again. Heather requested some pics
of the muddy and watery trail there, so they are included.

Today I started reading a book called “Not by chance” that attempts to
refute the theory of evolution. Dude here lent it to me. I stopped
after a quarter of it because it sucked. The guy is a total amateur
reactionary that doesn’t even know what he’s talking about and should
give up science and go be a principle at one of those southern schools
that insists upon teaching intelligent design.

ANYWAY, while I was reading that, some kind of tumult erupted between
host mom #2 and a neighbor lady. Soon they were yelling at each other
at the top of their lungs and gesticulating wildly. I ran inside for
cover. Various spectators (all women) gathered, and the thing went on
and off for about half an hour. I wouldn’t mess with any of those
women. They are very strong.

My Hut

My Hut

My family compound consists of five round huts and a two-room
rectangular one. I live with my host dad, his mom and two wives, four
little brothers (3,4,12,18) and three sisters (2,7,15).

I live in a round mud brick hut with a thatch roof. It’s quite large
and comfortable and I like it. It has a corrugate awning with a little
wooden platform under it out front, which is highly luxurious. I have
a full size bamboo frame bed inside, which I never use, and a hammock/
bug-net combination which I sleep in every night. It’s easy to pull
out of the way during the day, too. I store my stuff in three large
metal trunks and the Pelican case I brought with me. I get my water
(or most of the time, my family gets it for me) from the tap down the
road (solar powered pump only comes on in the afternoon), and store it
in big yellow “bidongs” which are used vegetable oil containers. They
are 20 liters each. I take baths from a bucket, and poo in a hole in
my backyard “bathroom”. I get my power from two solar panels, and have
one LiIon battery and one large sealed lead acid battery (with a
charge controller) to store it. I power my stuff using 12 volt power
supplies where possible (one phone, laptop, NiMH battery charger,
fans, speaker), and using a small inverter if not (other phone,
camera, beard trimmer, etc.). I need to upgrade to a nice big panel
and a big battery that is in good condition (unlike mine now, which
has trouble holding a charge). Logistics and finances dictate that
will not happen for a few months. I get my internet via GPRS mobile
phone service using a nokia n97, which is great, and I tether it to
the computer sometimes using wifi. It’s slow but occasionally usable.
I have to pay for internet by the byte, so I have use various
bandwidth conservation strategies.

I can’t think of anything else important about my house or compound.

Hilarious african child

Quick story:

I was reading outside my hut under my awning (swank i know) and i had a strip of duct tape sticky side up on the porch to catch flies. I was showing the effectiveness of the system to host mom number 2 when Bubba my little bro who is about 4 took a keen interest in the flies stuck to the tape, concentrated, took aim, and smacked those flies as hard as he could. When the tape (and flies) stuck to his hand he FREAKED OUT and started screaming and thrashing around as his mom and i busted out laughing. I took the tape off of his hand and picked him up off the ground where he had been rolling around, still screaming. Man, we couldn’t stop laughing despite his continued anguish. I think there’s a german word for that… Schadenfreude?

Enter Diabugu

I’ve been in Diabugu for about five days. Frankly, it wasn’t much fun at first. Despite my week of Sarahule lessons, I couldn’t really communicate with people. I was hot, sweaty, had no clean clothes, my house was a disaster, and I had no idea what the heck I was supposed to do at this school I’m supposedly going to work in.

The day after I arrived I worked on my bike and arranged the house a little. I have a brand new Trek 3700 mountain bike, which is pretty humble by American standards, but it’s somewhere between a Ferrari and a Hummer by Gambian standards. I brought one pair each of tire liners and thorn-resistant inner tubes with me from the office, which I attempted to install. The front went fine, but the back wouldn’t hold air. I patched the obviously defective valve stem, but it still leaked. I gave up and re-installed the stock tube with the liner. I should get a new thorn resistant tube on the next mail run. The rear rack was installed with inappropriately long brackets, so it sloped back and down. I raised the rack up way too far and bent the crap out of the brackets, but at least now it’s flat. Hopefully they can find some correct brackets and get them to me.

The single best thing that has happened to me since I’ve been in Diabugu is the hammock Heather sent me. It’s a nice one from Eagle’s nest outfitters made of some nylon material. I hung it in my hut, load balanced from a total of six roof supports (three on each side). Sleeping in that bad boy at night has made for the most comfortable nights I’ve spent in the Gambia, especially temperature-wise. I may never sleep a whole night in my actual bed.

The next day I went to the school, met with the current principle, and the one who is replacing him (surprise!). We discussed my role at the school, and immediate future plans. Naturally, they had me scheduled to teach computer classes pretty much all day, every day, by myself. Of course, that would be no problem, except that it would defeat the purpose of my being here. The idea is capacity building; I should leave behind greater teaching capacity, in this case, than I found. I told the principles that I needed to have a specific Gambian teacher assigned to each computer class I would teach. They told me they would have to rearrange the whole teaching schedule. I was fine with that. They’ll get back to me when school resumes after the Koriteh break.

The day before yesterday I gave my dirty laundry (all three tons of it) to my host mom to wash, took all of my crap out of my various trunks, and organized and re-packed everything. I also hung the rest of my bags and random stuff either on the wall or from the roof beams. This made me very happy. Then at the end of the day I received my clean clothes, which completed my rapture.

Yesterday morning I woke up early and went for a hike. I knew the river was close, and I had tried unsuccessfully to bike to it the other day (too much water on the paths in the rainy season). It started pouring rain as soon as I left the house – I was fine with that. I ended up taking an extremely roundabout path, but eventually (and with the aid of my watch-compass – thanks Treats!) I reached the river. On the way, the roads/paths were often totally submerged for long stretches. The water was sometimes knee deep. I wasn’t sure what was swimming around in there, but I figured if I made enough noise and splashed around enough, it wouldn’t stick around to eat me. I emerged unscathed every time. I’ll have to wait at least a month to be able to bike there. When I returned, I ate a delicious breakfast of reconstituted freeze-dried scrambled eggs and bacon, provided via the postal service by the wonderful Heather.

Here are some pics of the river:

I then returned to the school, which was not in session because of the Ramadan/Koriteh break, to scope out the computer lab, to which I had previously procured a key. The lab is immaculate by Gambian standards. There are 31 new-ish Dell towers (P4), with appropriate desks and layout. There’s no projector, and no chalkboard, so I’m not sure how I will distribute information to the class, but beggars can’t be choosers. The other challenge is power. The school has a really good generator, but has to pay for gas out of the school budget, which means it will only be run when absolutely necessary (and sometimes not even then, I predict). I’ll hope for the best.

After a long ordeal, I have successfully achieved an internet-connected mud hut in the middle of nowhere (GPRS internet on a Nokia n97 and access on the computer via wifi through the phone), which lead directly to my current biggest challenge – power. I procured a used 88 amp hour sealed deep cycle battery from a current volunteer, along with a small panel, a nice charge controller, and some odds and ends. I combined this stuff with my existing solar panel, and …. have been struggling ever since. I neglected to pick up a 12 volt power supply for my Nokia, and the little inverter I have is apparently SUPER picky about input voltage, because it refuses to run from my partially charged big battery. The small battery I came with is dead, and is apparently refusing to charge as well. I’m pretty puzzled and frustrated by all of this. If you are reading this, I have been at least minimally successful, since I have been able to upload this post. I hope to nail down an extremely robust solar setup ASAP.

Update: charged the small battery enough today to charge up my phone. Also came to the realization that the 12 volt supply I have for my laptop won’t run on the new battery either. Super bummer. Logistics and funding are both enormous obstacles in the path of good power…

And, lastly, I have started reading Walden, by H.D. Thoreau. I like it a lot so far. If I find the gumption I’ll write up a quick reflection when I finish it.

snippet of training

I typed this in a rare fit of motivation at some point during training:

Thursday, July 23

We rode our bikes back from Tendaba this morning. I’ve recovered from my recent bouts of respiratory disease and the big D, and I’m feeling great. My host family in Bumari seemed pretty stoked to see me return after three days away. Maybe they miss me distracting the kids so they can get things done once in a while.

Over the weekend I was really feeling crappy. The weather, the sickness, and a bunch of work to do all conspired to drag a bunch of negative energy into my tournament. But you can’t let that crap get you down, man. I talked to a few current volunteers that visited us at Tendaba, got some excellent tips on setting up a robust solar power setup at my eventual site (which I find out on Monday), and received various encouragements and reassurances, which made me feel a lot better about this whole thing. I just swept about six pounds of orange dust and dead insects out of my hut, also.

Apparently today is “gardening day,” so a couple of those crazy AgFo (agriculture and forestry) volunteers are swinging by to teach us how to swing a ho and brew goat dung tea. Should be good, clean fun. It’s 10 in the morning and about 95 outside already, so that’s about par for the course. The weather here in the rainy season is truly brutal, especially since there’s no escape from it. It’s always either an oven or a steam bath outside, and its always somehow hotter inside that it is outside. Sleeping (kind of) in a pool of sweat is totally my idea of a good time. I’m addicted to my fan like the characters of “it’s always sunny in philadelphia” were addicted to crack. If it stops working or I run out of sun to charge my battery, I’ll probably have to go home.

Thursday, July 23 Evening

I went for a run this evening, and on the way back got hammered by a wicked african monsoon. It was the perfect cool ending to a scorching, sweaty day.

Tuesday, July 28 10:20 PM

I’m sitting in my hut right now, listening to a shortwave news program out of Washington D.C. (7.480 MHz) over the substantial noise of rain on the metal roof. We returned from Tendaba today, where yesterday we all learned where our permanent postings will be. I couldn’t be happier with my posting. I will be in Diabugu, which is about 30 K north and west of Basse Santa Su, in the Upper River Region. I’m the farthest up-country of our training group, although there are four or five volunteers currently posted farther out than I am. It sounds like this Sarahule village is pretty swank, with a spanking new school, and 30 brand new computers (!)

The computer is imparting an annoying buzz to the SW reception, so I’m going to kill it. Talk to you later.

MC

Arrival and Training recap

In order to bring this poor excuse for a blog closer to something resembling an account of my time in The Gambia so far, I will attempt to recount the past few months while being into to the whole brevity thing, to use the parlance of our times.

Brief recap of arrival and training:

Upon arrival, our group went to a small, newly built tourist camp/resort relatively near the coast. We did training sessions and hung out there for about a week and a half, after which we were assigned languages and training villages, and departed for said villages. There were two Mandinka villages and one each for Wollof and Pulaar, all located in the Kiang region (Western region, south bank). I went to Bumari (one of the Mandinka villages) with three others. One of them went back to the USA after the first night in village.

Overall, training was busy, hot, highly informative, occasionally disheartening, somewhat unhealthy, sweaty, and sometimes fun. I learned how to eat with my hand sitting around a food bowl on the dirt with the family, how to (mostly accurately) poop in a hole, how to deal with being drenched in sweat ALL the time, and how to speak enough Mandinka to get around pretty well (although this didn’t end up being as helpful as I would have thought…) My host family was pretty cool; we started getting along really well once they began calling me “big adult man” (kee kanang baa) when I ate a habanero pepper out of the food bowl at dinner one night.

Training consisted of language classes in the morning, outstanding lunches prepared in the local style, but with the best meat and veget