the Apeironian

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

mmmm internet

I’m briefly back in civilization after two months in the bush. It’s been awesome so far. I’m pretty tired after spending 12.5 hours traveling about 160 miles today, so I’ll try to post some more detailed info later. I’m working on getting internet on my phone. I’ll have internet for the next week for sure, so I’ll update soon.

got a phone

Hey y’all I just got a cell phone over here, if you want to call or text. The numer (dialed from the US) is +2207849402.

im here!

No time to write. In Banjul, at the peace corps office. Everything is great, will have no internet for 2 months. Will update when I get it again. LATER!

The beginning of another adventure

I leave tomorrow morning for Peace Corps service in The Gambia. I’ll fly to Philly tomorrow, then Wednesday evening we’ll fly to Brussels, then down to Dakar and then Banjul. Should be there in plenty of time to celebrate the 4th. Not sure what the fireworks situation will be.

Since I’ve chosen a URL for my website that apparently nobody can remember, I also set up michael.clervi.org (which just redirects to this site), in case people want to follow along on my trip and just want to remember my name, not some seemingly arbitrary website address.

My mailing address when I’m there will be:

Michael Clervi, PCT*
C/O Peace Corps/The Gambia
P.O. Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa

*After September, change PCT to PCV – just do it, don’t ask.

I will get a cell phone, which will be reachable from the outside world. I’ll post my number when I get it.

I have no idea what the internet access will be like over there, except I do know I will have no access for about the first two months. Hopefully I can start posting stuff after that.

Wish me luck!

The end of one adventure…

As usual I put this off until the last minute.

Quick recap of the last part of my moto-roadtrip:

After the Mancation, I picked Heather up at the Palm Springs airport, and we hung out in Indio for a few days. We took the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up into San Jacinto State Park (from seal level to 8500 feet in 20 minutes), and went from 100+ degrees to 70 with drifts of snow remaining behind boulders.

We also went for a hike in Palm Canyon, which is a totally sweet area in the middle of the desert densely populated by enormous palm trees!

Next we drove to Orange, swung by my cousin Kim’s place, hit the beach at Santa Monica, then met Brian at Maya’s house in Hollywood. We walked down the road to the Hollywood Forever cemetery, where they projected Cool Hand Luke on the side of a huge white mosoleum in front of about 2000 people with picnics, etc. Then we drove back to Indio after hanging out at Mayas post-movie. Long day.

Brian swung out to the desert the next day and we chilled by the pool, then Heather and I hung out in Indio for a couple days until Heather had to leave. Overall, it was an awesome visit and we both had a great time.

Heather flew out at the same time my parents flew in (they said hi at the airport). My family hung out in Indio for a couple days before we all headed up to Santa Barbara for Chris’ wedding. Some pics:

Mom also took pics

I played golf with my dad and uncles a few times (first times playing golf). It was a lot of fun, and I lost a lot of balls

After that, it was time to head back. I loaded up the bike, and high-tailed it across the desert up to Utah, through Cedar City and Salt Lake on my way to Big Sky Montana, where I stayed with Uncle Terry’s buddy Ken. From there, I hung out in Yellowstone park for half a day (awesome), made it to Buffalo Wyoming that night, and all the way home the next day (a personal record 733 miles in one day – yikes!).

I made a google map of my whole trip. The only part that’s not accurate is the desert area that I rode through (Mojove national preserve) north of Palm Springs because google doesn’t know there are roads through it (there barely are!).

View Moto Road Trip in a larger map

The Adventure Continues

I’ll get the important stuff out of the way first:

• We didn’t make it to Mexico – our motor blew up near San Diego. We fixed it and returned to LA.
• I got my Peace Corps invitation to serve in The Gambia leaving the end of June.

I visited Brian in Irvine last Friday night. We had a great time; here is some visual documentation:

Saturday I rode up to Marina Del Rey and met Evan at his boat. The rest of the dudes flew in throughout the day Saturday, and we cast off Sunday morning. Overall, the trip was astoundingly successful. Here’s the rough outline:

• Sailed all day Sunday, stopped at Dana Point that night.
• Monday, sailed/motored towards San Diego, but got mired in a kelp field at dusk. The kelp plugged the water inlet on the engine, and it overheated, blew a gasket, and crapped out. We barely made it to Mission Bay, and got a guest slip at the Hyatt.
• For the next two days, Evan and Chris completely disassembled, cleaned, re-sealed, and re-assembled the motor, on the 3 foot wide dock next to the boat, while Jim and I gathered gasket sealer, various required fluids, and photographs of the relevant pages of the only copy of the honda outboard repair manual in the entire San Diego area (at a public library a mere $100 cab ride from the marina).
• The next morning we headed out for the return trip. We stopped at Dana Point again that night, and made it back the next day. The motor ran flawlessly the whole time.
• Jim and I got a 4×4 animal style, with animal style fries at In n Out after we got back. The other dudes got lesser meals. In retrospect my GI tract wishes I had too.
• Saturday, we met up with Brian and Maya at Venice Beach, attended some establishments, etc.

Here’s a sampling of photos:

On Sunday I visited my Uncle Chris and Ramona in Santa Monica. Some pics:

On Monday I picked up Heather from the Airport in Palm Springs, and she and I are hanging out in Indio now. Details to follow.

Heartland -> West Coast (almost)

I’ve been putting this off for a few days, so It’s going to be kind of long. I’ll try to keep the information to word count ratio as high as possible.

MONDAY

Left North Platte in 40 degrees armed with my new $1 Wal Mart long underwear top, headed towards Denver. The temperature failed to improve, and it started to drizzle. I was, as expected, freezing the the ol’ n*ts off. I reached Colorado, but the weather didn’t get any better. This caused me to belligerently increase my rate of travel (in the hope that the increased friction of the wind on my hands would cause them to warm up), with which Colorado’s finest were thoroughly and enthusiastically unimpressed. Luckily, the bucket of change I cashed in before I left more than paid for this little fiasco.

In retrospect, it turns out I rolled through Denver mere hours after they received about 9 inches of snow. I’m not sure where all of it went, because there was only a trace on the ground when I got there. In fact, it was in Denver that I finally started to thaw out a bit. From there I went south, and eventually made it to Trinidad, CO.

I walked around town, cruisin’ for some grub, and located a fairly righteous mexican restaurant, at which I procured an enormous beef and potato burrito (at the recommendation of the waiter). The establishment had a sauce hotness description page on their menu. I ordered it medium. It made me cry a little bit.

TUESDAY

Tuesday was the biggest total miles day. 563 miles from Trinidad CO to Flagstaff AZ. I don’t have a ton to report from this day, except that it got deliciously warmer as I headed south and west. Long day of riding.

WEDNESDAY

After droning down the highways for several days, and being within spitting distance from the west coast, I decided to treat myself to a more scenic and recreational riding experience. I headed south and west from Flagstaff towards Sedona. This brought me through Oak Creek Canyon, which is a beautiful red rock canyon, accessed by a ridiculous series of switchbacks that made for a challenging and intense ride. Here’s a little media:

Here’s the google map of the road heading down into the canyon. Yowza!

Here’s a couple panoramas from the top of the canyon:

From there I continued along 89A southwest through Cottonwood, Jerome, and Prescott. Here’s a google map of the road going down the mountain south of Jerome:

And the panorama from Jerome:

Needless to say, the riding yesterday was [explitive]ing SPECTACULAR! The mountain roads were incredible, challenging, and awesome.

After the mountains, I headed for I-10, which took me straight to Indio, where I eventually located my Uncle Terry’s place within the maze of gated community homogeneity. I wasn’t even off the bike before he handed me a chilled beverage, and happy hour subsequently ensued. Then we came back to his place, where we grilled steaks and hung out. His buddy Ken from Big Sky is also visiting. Separate incidents.

Today I’m taking it easy. Went for a run, hit the pool, and currently gearing up for some mexican food. Tomorrow I’m planning to swing over to visit Brian in Irvine, then on Saturday I’ll meet Evan and the dudes at Marina Del Rey (near Santa Monica). I’m a little worried about a tapping noise the bike engine is making – might end up having to check the valve clearances and the timing chain tension, but I hope not because that’s kind of a major deal, as I understand it.

Anyway, here’s a sampling of photos from this latest batch: