Settling In to My New Life

I've been at site for a month now, and it feels good to finally be settling in somewhere. I can finally unpack all my bags, put up pictures, paint and make my house feel like my home. Of course, even though I've unpacked my bags, I still don't have anywhere to put all my things because I haven't been able to buy any furniture except for a bed and 2 chairs so far. So all the things laying on my floor may look disorganized to the untrained eye, but are in fact organized in a very complex master plan of floor space use.

In some ways, the last 4 weeks have been very eventful and in other ways very little has happened. I think it mostly feels eventful because I have been learning and adjusting to so many new things, but in fact I have more free time than I've ever had in my life... and I like it. I stay busy; I've never been one to get bored. First, let me describe my site a little. I live in a town called Kaur that is about halfway up the country on the North Bank. When I say town, I really mean town. Kaur is probably about 4,000-5,000 people, but of course I'm completely guessing because nobody really knows. The town is situated near the Gambia river and used to be a bit of a port town with a peanut factory, cinema and night clubs. But over the past decade or two, the old businesses have shut down and died and many people have moved to the capital region on the coast, called Kombo. Now, Kaur is a big town, but a sleepy town, with wide sandy streets, a daily market and many well-meaning NGOs.

The primary reason that I was placed here is to work with an organization called AVISU, or Agency for Village Support. They are an all Gambian organization, that used to be an offshoot of the UK Village Aid organization, but they are now trying to make it on their own. The thing that I love about AVISU is that it is all Gambian run. Other than two VSO volunteers that are also working at the office (VSO is another volunteer organization like the PeaceCorps), everyone who works there is Gambian. I arrived at site right around the holiday season (Muslim's celebrate Tabasci just a few days before Christmas) so I'm still trying to feel out what my role will be at this point. But I really like the people that work at the office, and since my house is just across the street, I spend most of my free time sitting under the mango tree and drinking ataaya with Solo, the security guard and my guardian angel, and some of the other guys from the office. We listen to Senegalese mbaxal music most of the time, but since I donated some tapes I brought from Goodwill before leaving the States, The Bodyguard and TLC have been thrown into the mix fairly often.

For the most part, life is starting to feel pretty comfortable for me. The language is still a struggle, but I'm improving "ndanka, ndanka" as they say. One of my difficulties with the language is there are three different languages spoken in my village. The part of town I live in is mostly Wollof which is what I am learning now, but there are also some Fulas throughout town. In fact, my host family is a Fula family, and even though everyone but the mother speaks and understands Wollof, when they're speaking to each other, they speak in Pulaar (the Fula language) so I have no idea what they're talking about. The other, and larger, part of my town is Mandinka, and since I don't know more than a few simple greetings in Mandinka, I haven't ventured too much into that part of town. Many people do speak English in Kaur. At the office everyone speaks English, and children learn English in school. Sometimes I wish they didn't speak English, though, because everyday I have to listen to "Toubab, how are you? how are you?" screamed by little children, and sometimes adults, as I walk through town. It can really grate on your nerves, especially when your walking down a sandy road in the heat, your dirty and sweaty, and you're already stressed just trying to adjust to everything. Toubab is what all white people are called here, and it's really not meant as an insult, but shouted at you a 100 times a day, it has the effect of making you feel isolated and even more different than you already feel.

Another thing that has been difficult for me to get used to is constantly being asked for things. And it has taken me awhile to understand that there is no polite way of asking for things in this culture, it is simply, "Give me". So everyday walking through town I have people say "Toubab, give me your bicycle", "Give me money", "Give me your water bottle", "Give me your sunglasses", "Give me your shoes", "Take me to America". I have to admit, that was probably the thing that I had the hardest time with when I first got to site. From my perspective, I feel like I'm already here giving my time and energy to help these people, and when you hear things like that, you feel like nothing you do will ever be enough to satisfy them. But now, I can see things from their perspective a little more clearly. First of all, asking for things is just part of the culture here, and once I realized that people do this to each other and not just me, it stopped bothering me nearly as much. Second of all, people here have a very rough sense of humor, and they tease each other mercilessly. So when they say "Give me", they don't really expect you to give them anything. They're just poking you to see how you'll react, and if you make a joke out of the whole thing, you gain they're instant respect and friendship. So now when a kid says "Give me money, I say "Aca!" which is what you say to shoo goats and they think this is hilarious. Or I start chasing them, which really catches them off guard, because a lot of kids are actually very afraid of toubabs (apparently our eyes glow red at night). Third of all, and this is on a more somber note, there really are a lot of toubabs and NGOs that come here and hand out money and free things, which is definitely well-intentioned and may help many people. Unfortunately, the downside of this is that many people here think that all white people are just filthy, stinking rich and here to give handouts. It does not encourage a "can do" attitude to say the least.

So, in a nutshell, I'm figuring out how to make things work for myself in my new life. And, mostly, I'm having a really good time. I'm also feeling out what work I want to do for the next 2 years that I'm here. I definitely have plenty of options between working with AVISU, schools, community gardens and individuals. And I'm staying busy. I'm starting a garden at my house, which I've never tried before, but I figure if I'm an Agriculture volunteer, I better start learning something about agriculture. I've been working with the Lower Basic school garden a little making organic pesticides from local materials. I've done a few things with AVISU so far, and I've been spending as much time as I can walking around town getting to know people.

I will be off the grid again for another month until I make it back to Kombo to do banking in February. But please email me or write me if and when you can. It really means so much to me to hear from back home. I hope everyone is well, and know you are in my thoughts!