the Apeironian

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