World Teachers’ Day

World Teacher’s Day took place on October 29. Region 4 hosted a big celebration at the Regional Education Director’s Office.  Political dignitaries (their wives), education officials (their wives), and everyone who’s anyone in our region were invited.  Who wasn’t invited?  The majority of the teachers at my school.  I tried to cheer up my slighted teachers with logic: why spend a day listening to boring speeches and schmoozing with people you complain about every other day of the year when you could be changing the world, one student at a time, in your classroom?  But I couldn’t deny the blatant irony in the fact that the teachers at my school were missing out on a day that is supposed to be all about them.

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So, intent on making their day special, I channeled my inner elementary teacher/camp counselor and figured out something small to do for my teachers.  I colored a poster, blew up some balloons, and bought fancy cookies and punch.  Instant celebration!  I went around to each of the classes and interrupted the real teaching and learning that was undoubtedly taking place (ahem) and taught the children a song to sing to their teachers.  After some rousing renditions of “Thank you Teacher,” the students posed with their teachers for photos that I hope to print.  It was silly, but we had a little fun which is often lacking in classrooms at our school.  The teachers still complained, but they also licked the wrappers of their chocolate cookies clean.

We’re enjoying (just a little).

Rose’s Buds: World’s Youngest Peace Corps Volunteers

Colorfully decorated notebooks

Personalized inside cover

Colorfully decorated notebooks

Personalized inside cover

Colorfully decorated notebooks

Personalized inside cover

Personalized inside cover

Personalized inside cover

Colorfully decorated notebooks

Volunteer project for Rose’s Buds and City High School

Over the summer, I received a care package from home.  On the customs form, I usually advise package senders to write something generic and inexpensive like ‘school supplies’ to deter thievery.  When this package arrived, the customs form read, ‘notebooks.’  Good one, Mom.  Who would want to rip off a bunch of notebooks?  Imagine my surprise when I opened the package and found that it actually was full of notebooks!  It turns out, Rose’s Buds Childcare had been doing some volunteer work to help support my work in the Gambia.  Unbeknownst to me, my mom had students from my former middle/high school donate their “lightly used” notebooks at the end of the school year.  Then the buds redecorated the covers with colorful duct tape and signed their names on the inside cover.

As there are far too many students at the school in my village for me to think of a fair way to distribute the notebooks, I decided, instead, to give the notebooks to the teachers I work with. The teachers in Misera often struggle to afford or have access to teaching materials.  They were extremely grateful to receive notebooks to write their lesson plans in (something they are required to do for every core lesson, every day.)  One teacher in particular received a notebook from one of my special buds and now asks how Riley is doing on a daily basis.  One of the most valuable tools I have in the work that I do, training teachers, is building relationships with those teachers.  Thanks mom and Rose’s Buds for helping me to strengthen those relationships.

Teachers with their new notebooks

Thanks Buds!

Summer of Training

This summer, I wasn’t able to blog very much for several reasons (excuses!).  Mostly, my reasons stemmed from my involvement in training the incoming education volunteers. Remember back to my own training?  I recall daily language and culture classes, formal training sessions on safety and health, and a lot of technical education sessions to reinforce skills and knowledge necessary for my work: training Gambian teachers. It is amazing to think that my PST ended over a year ago.

My Fula training group at the end of my own Pre-Service Training (PST)

My decision to join the training team was not automatic.  I did not want an obligation that would pull me out of my school and village too often.  But I was interested in supporting new volunteers and sharing my knowledge from my education background and me experience from my first year of service. In the end, I decided to join the training team because I knew summer would be a slow time for me and I wanted to keep busy.  My decision was also made easier by the fact that the new Peace Corps training site is located 20 km from my site, a bike rideable distance.  So, at the end of June, three other trainers and myself found ourselves dressed in a ridiculous asobi, headed to the airport to greet 18 brand spankin’ new volunteers (plus one guy on his fourth Peace Corps tour of service!).

Our training team dressed in our asobi for greeting the trainees at the airport.

Being involved in the training of new volunteers brought some unexpected joy to my life. I love the Gambia and my life here.  I was able to share my home with a bunch of eager and excited trainees.  Seeing the Gambia through their eyes was seeing the Gambia through an old, familiar lens that just needed a good spit shine.  I was reminded of my own reactions to seeing fruit vendors on every corner or a herd of cattle being paraded down a city street.  I was also reminded of my initial fears and apprehension and was pleased to find out that a lot of those fears have dissipated and in their place, I feel confidence and efficacy.  This struck me particularly when my friend Brie and I made a trip to the bank which was, at one time, a daunting expedition.  Easy enough transport, minimal harassment, and back before lunch.  Yeah!  We got this!

My role in training was to lead sessions that are critical to a volunteer’s work as an education volunteer.  I taught (or, in most cases, reinforced) concepts like phonics instruction, early childhood education, supporting and mentoring teachers, building libraries, conducting read alouds, and more.  I also supported trainees as they practiced teaching in a Gambian school and participated in a workshop with their future head teachers or principals.

Sometimes our role as trainers involves encouraging squat fights at the transit house.

I also acted as mentor and confidante for the trainees as they struggled to adapt to a new culture and climate and the rigorous demands of Peace Corps training.  I became particularly close to the Fula trainees because their training village is a five minute walk from my own.  Now that training is over, I miss the occasional drop by therapy and gossip sessions we used to have at my compound.

Me and the Fula trainees, my neighbors!

My summer was exhausting.  I spent a lot of time riding my bike between my village and the training site. By the end of training, a 10 week process, the trainees are ready to be finished.  They are sick of the training sessions and the lack of control they have over their own schedule and diets. As it turns out, I was just as ready to be done with training and back in my village.  I was ready to have the trainees to go to their villages, find how they fit in the Gambia and in the Peace Corps community, and become independent volunteers.  I was ready to not be a trainer/mentor/guru but rather, just a friend and fellow volunteer.

The training team in another fabulous asobi. This time, we are celebrating the Swearing-In of the Gambia’s newest volunteers.

They’re off now.  Off in the bush somewhere.  Struggling through their own three month challenge. I hope they are being challenged and that their training is being put to the test.

Rainy Season: What’s growing?!

It’s rainy season in The Gambia.  People in my village are farming peanuts, corn, and cous (millet). Green is popping up everywhere and really popping out visually against the gray, cloudy skies.  Stuff grows like crazy!  Here are some of the stuff that I’ve found growing this rainy season.  My dad weeding between our rows of cous.

The tape on my floor is for covering up ant holes.  A couple of plants have sprouted out of my floor.

I have a (sort of) compost pit in my backyard.  Lately, there will be gray mushrooms growing in it every morning. They all die somewhere around mid-morning. Any of my field mycologists able to identify them?

Plants are even sprouting up in the windows (on the inside!) of the gele I’m riding!

And let’s not forget all of those rainy season skin infections we all have growing.  We all try to stay clean and dry.  It’s not easy, de!

That’s all for now, tune in next week for a look at all of the roads that are being washed away and turned into small tributaries of The River Gambia.

 

What I Miss

When I asked my loyal readership to send all of their burning questions about my experience here in the Gambia, some exceeded my expectations and wrote whole lists of questions. I cannot fully express how much it means to me to have people back home take such an interest in what I am doing.  A lot of volunteers complain about not having people back home who are interested or really trying to understand what they are going through.  So, I feel fortunate to have family and friends who not only send their love and well wishes, but also their questions.  I could have tried to tackle all of those questions at once, but instead I am going to use your questions throughout the rest of my service as prompts for blog entries. 

The question I want to attempt to answer this week is what I do (and don’t) miss about the US. 

First, I’ll start with what I miss.  My initial reaction to this question was to think about specific foods or holidays or people that I miss. To avoid just creating a long list of specific flavors and moments, I’ll try to answer the question a bit more broadly. 

First, I miss my family and friends.  But I also have felt their presence throughout my entire service.  We talk face to face semi regularly, have emailed and sent letters back and forth.  There have been a few moments in my service, though, that I have really felt bad about not being physically present.  During the rough patches in relationships or family losses, it would really have been nice to be with the people who know best what those events mean to me.  We found ways to cope, of course.  But a part of me did want to be present for my own support and to support others.  Being away has brought me closer to some, though.  I regularly exchange letters with family members I had gone all year without talking to before.  I am grateful for the opportunity to become closer with my home people from far away.

I miss the changing of the seasons.  The change in weather is something to anticipate and to relieve weariness from the previous season.  And four seasons is a good number.  Rainy and dry are not enough for me.  I miss all of the traditions tied to the changing of the seasons, as well.  Fall comes to mind, in particular, with cider mills, apple donuts, hayrides, and pumpkins.  And I was just describing in a letter how, when I think of Michigan in the summer, I think of days at Lake Michigan, mowing the lawn, bike rides downtown for music, and camping.  And while I do miss actually doing those things, I know I will be able to do them again when I return.  What I miss, I think, is the anticipation of those events associated with the seasons that fuels my excitement for the new season’s arrival.  I suppose that living in the Gambia long enough, I would learn traditions and create some of my own that would have me looking forward to the next religious holiday or torrential downpour.  For now, though, the seasons seem to drag on and I don’t really know what to expect or anticipate this year based on my single year in this climate and culture.

Rainy Season

I also miss food.  I could go on and on about all of the delicious dishes I’ve been craving since I’ve arrived in country.  A trainee observed yesterday that 90% of Peace Corps conversations revolve around food.  But, lately, I have been craving specific foods less…or maybe I just am forgetting what they tasted like.  But, on those days when we uncover the food bowl and find domoda (peanut sauce) and rice for the third day in a row, the fifth time that week, and the twentieth time that month, I think that it sure would be nice to have some variety in the food bowl.  And by variety, I mean something other than the occasional piece of eggplant or bitter tomato. Before this gets complainy though, I will be the first to admit that I love Gambian food and I’m content sharing meals with my family.  I have regular access to the market so I even have some control over how much veg I see in our food bowl.  But volunteers only exaggerate slightly when they say there are basically three dishes in the Gambia: domoda (peanut sauce), chu (oily sauce), and benechin (oily rice). Pizza night is out of the question and side dishes are a foreign concept.  I miss having a varying menu every week.  I know I fell into routines with cooking back home; who can forget Speghetti Wednesday?  But I am really looking forward to the day that I can shop for and cook with diverse ingredients and make Mexican one night and Mac n’ Cheese the next.

Domoda – Peanut Sauce on Rice

Finally, I miss anonymity.  The Gambia has made me more empathetic towards celebrities because I now understand what it is like to have everything I do publicly under intense scrutiny and become a thing of unfounded fascination.  Fetching water, chopping onions, holding a pencil, you name it.  It is all the subject of wonder and laughter when I am doing it, no matter how hard I try to do it just like them.  My village fame can come in handy, too, though.  It is satisfying to have people in my village correct strangers by telling them that she is not called “toubab,” she is Yassin, and she is our sister/daughter/niece.  There have also been a few instances when someone lets me know that I am bleeding or have a strange rash before I even know.  Weird.  But helpful. 

Carrying cous on my head like everyone else…notice all the stares.

Things I do not miss about the US?  I don’t miss transportation and access to certain amenities in the US. I appreciate the lack of access and the difficulties the transportation system here impose because I have really enjoyed being more conscious and intentional about my choices regarding such amenities.  I am highly aware of the water I consume on a daily basis because the water must be fetched, bucket by bucket, from a well.  I spend my time on the internet (for the most part) choosing the most important interactions and leaving the rest.  I don’t have electricity so I don’t use it unnecessarily.  And I take my bike whenever possible.  I don’t take my bike because it is healthier for me or because it doesn’t emit harmful toxins into the atmosphere (well, maybe that is a small part of it).  I take my bike as much as possible because, for me, it is the easiest option and the option with which I have the most control.  For the past week, I had to help with a training event in a village 20 km from my site.  There was Peace Corps transport available for me both ways, which I took advantage of in the rain.  But I realized that I prefer the freedom of taking my bike, stopping at the market if I choose, and not waiting for other people or worrying about other people waiting for me.  Logistics are a tricky thing and they’re less tricky when I can just transport myself.  I’m also supported by the fact that time and being on time is never a huge concern so I don’t have to worry as much about the additional time that biking costs.

Bucket bathing! I know exactly how much water it takes to bathe now. I skip washing my hair a LOT more often.

I do not miss the attitude in the US.  This is hard for me to articulate since lumping an entire country as diverse as the US into one general attitude seems impossible.  I suspect the attitude to which I am referring is more prevalent in New York City and less so in small southern towns.  Though I am not able to put my finger on exactly what that attitude is, I can identify what it is not, here in the Gambia.  One of the things I most appreciate about the people of the Gambia is their spirit.  People are always greeting, always joking, always dancing.  And I’ll admit, sometimes these same things really get on my nerves (my American attitude, I guess).  Sometimes I just want to go into the market, buy some vegetables, and not chat with every seller that remembers my name (all of them).  Sometimes, I am just annoyed that you proposed marriage (again) or asked me to take you to America (again) and it is hard for me to see the joke there.  But most of the time, I am in awe of the friendly, jovial nature of an entire people.  Gambians work hard.  There is a lot of work that goes into just the cooking, cleaning, farming, and washing of daily life.  And it is monotonous.  But Gambians sing and laugh while they do the work.  There is always a smile and a good chat waiting for me when I get to the compound.  I feel that the Gambia, as a people, has been able to capture an attitude I would like to adopt in my own life.  It is definitely something I will miss when I return to a country that values independence, hard work, and productivity sometimes at the expense of interpersonal relationships and happiness. 

My cousin Rokey. Big smile, as usual.

Well, there you have it.  There are things that I miss and things I don’t miss about my life in the US.  I intend to write a similar blog about the Gambia before I leave.  Because, as much as I like to complain about my frustrations with working here, fitting in here, and dealing with Gambians; I actually really love my life here and will be sorry to leave it.    

Is It Rude?

This question used to be so easy for me to answer.  A student interrupting another student speaking is rude.  Picking your nose, though sometimes necessary and even satisfying, is rude.  Smacking your gum at an obnoxious volume is rude (or did that just annoy my mom?)  Well, I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you that, in a different culture, different behaviors are considered rude.  So let’s see if I can surprise you.  Below is a list of behaviors for you to decide what you think is rude or not rude in the Gambia.  Read at the bottom of the page to find out how you did.

1. Snot-Rockets
2. Not Inviting Someone to Eat
3. Nose Picking
4. Spilling Food
5. Spitting
6. Talking at Mealtime
7. Littering
8. Interrupting a Conversation/Meeting to Greet a Passerby
9. Calling Someone a Liar
10. Cutting in Line
11. Not Answering Someone Who Calls You
12. Making/Taking Phone Calls During Conversations/Meetings
13. Reading Over Someone’s Shoulder

 

1. Snot Rockets: Not Rude.  In fact, these are encouraged for all those children running around in the dust all day with snot dripping into their mouths.  Simply go to the side of the house, blow out through your nose with as much force as you can muster, scrape the remaining snot off your face, and wipe it on the side of the house.
   

   One of our compound’s best little snot rocketeers.

2. Not Inviting Someone to Eat: Rude.  You’ll get a lot of flak for forgetting to invite someone to eat.  This is because no one will approach the food bowl without being invited, so if you forget someone, they’ll go hungry.  This invitation is to be extended to anyone in the compound and whoever passes by the compound during mealtime.
3. Nose Picking: Not Rude.  Like snot rockets, this is perceived as a necessary house-cleaning task in a world without Kleenex.  What do you say when the person you’re having a conversation with picks their nose mid sentence?
4. Spilling Food: Not Rude.  As we are usually eating rice with our hands on the ground, it is no big deal to spill the food you’re eating.  I’m still a very careful eater and try to retain every morsel (thanks Mom).  My family, however, eats in a manner that has chickens excitedly pecking grains of rice underfoot the entire meal.
5. Spitting: Not Rude. Women are often scraping their teeth with chew sticks and spit out any plaque, food bits, or wood splinters.  Spitting is also a part of ablution performed before prayers.  And then there is mealtime.  I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t spit out all of the rocks and bones I encounter in our food bowl.
6. Talking at Mealtime: Rude.  Squatting around the food bowl is a time for shoveling food into your mouth.  Talking is to be done after you are finished.  The other day, a girl was reprimanded for even looking at something across the compound instead of eating.  There is an exception made for me and I take full advantage by talking and asking questions throughout the entire meal.
   

   The food bowl is for eating, not lengthy conversations.

7. Littering: Not Rude.  Though this happens all over the Gambia, mostly due to lack of proper waste receptacles, the hardest adjustment for me is the littering in the compound.  Sure, the compound is just one giant dirt surface, but the women still sweep the compound regularly.  This makes the fact that everyone drops trash, fruit peels, peanut shells, and other refuse on the ground hard to take. But I’ve been laughed at for my hesitancy to throw trash on the ground.
8. Interrupting a Conversation/Meeting to Greet a Passerby: Not Rude.  In fact, it would be rude if you didn’t.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve become completely confused because someone greeted me during a conversation and I continued to speak with them, thus carrying out two different conversations simultaneously.  Five or ten minutes is added to each staff meeting because of the time it takes to greet everyone that happens to be passing by.  If it is a prominent male community member, this often involves coming to shake every male teacher’s hand.
9. Calling Someone a Liar:  Rude.  This is a huge insult and should be used sparingly and probably never to an elder.  We often use the same word for farting and lying, I think as a way to soften the blow.  I still will not call my Grandma either of those words, despite our joking relationship.
   

   Grandma, Ma Bambi. This women might give me the hardest time, but she is always there with a smile, a prayer, and conversation when I have no one else to talk to. Ma Bambi is definitely a mooring post for me in the crazy experience.

10. Cutting in Line: Not Rude?  I’m not sure about this one.  But based on the number of times it has happened to me, I am guessing that it is not considered rude.
11. Not Answering Someone who Calls You:  Rude.  The word “come!” grates on me for this very reason.  No matter what I am doing, no matter how important of a mission I am on, if I hear, “COME!,” I am paralyzed by the decision to continue on with my business, potentially insulting whoever called me, or to report to the caller to have a conversation.  Probably about the sun being hot.
12. Making/Taking Phone Calls During Meetings: Not Rude.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have sat in meetings where the person leading the meeting continuously answered his phone and took calls in the middle of the meeting.  It was not until my most recent staff meeting that I witnessed someone actually making a call in a meeting.  He didn’t make an effort to conceal the call or move to a more private location.  In fact, he spoke louder because he couldn’t quite hear the callee, what with the meeting that was in progress.  What call was so important that he could not wait until the conclusion of the meeting to make?  Talking to his brother about whether or not his second wife had arrived yet.
13. Reading Over Someone’s Shoulder: Not Rude.  Though this has happened to me many times, it did not occur to me to add to this list until it happened to me while writing this very piece.  As I was typing “reading over someone’s shoulder,” the curious reader’s only comment was that, my, I am a fast typer.

Being immersed in a new culture with entirely different social norms, I am slowly developing a different gauge for acceptable behavior.  What is scary about this is that not only am I learning to tolerate and accept behaviors I once perceived as rude, I am also starting to adopt them myself.  Sure, this helps me to feel more integrated here in The Gambia, but what am I going to do when I return to the States and have a two-year nose picking habit?

Vacation in Senegal: A Transportation Analysis

Recently, four Peace Corps friends traveled to Senegal for vacation.  Little did they know, just getting where they wanted to go would be half of the adventure.  We laugh, we cried, we covered our faces, we bumped our heads, we questioned our safety… a lot.  Next trip, I going by plane or by bike.

The following is an analysis of each leg of our journey.

Soma to Basse

Number of vehicles: 3 Geles

Time: 2pm to 8pm (6 hours)

Person per seat: 1 (+bag)

Condition of Clothes after the ride: Soggy with sweat and wrinkled

Highlights: We saw the empty bus that we opted to not take (because we would have to wait too long) pass us on the way.

 

Geles in the Gambia. As colorful as they are rickety.

Basse to Dar-Salam

Number of vehicles: 3 Geles

Time: 9am to 8pm (11 hours)

Person per seat:  First Gele: 1; Second Gele 0.3; Last Gele: 2

Condition of Clothes after the ride: Wet and covered in red dust

Highlights: Women climbing over us to get in the gele despite all of the seats being taken.  After insisting that our bags were not actually seats, these women opted to sit on each other’s laps while eight or nine men stood on the bumper and clung to the back of the gele.

Protecting ourselves from the dust. This is before the women piled in on top of us.

Dar-Salam to Kedougou

Number of vehicles: 1 4 wheel drive pick-up truck

Time: 11am to 1pm (2 hours)

Person per seat: Hard to say as there was just one long bench in the bed of the pick-up.

Condition of Clothes after the ride: Probably cleaner than the start of the ride because of all the wind

Highlights: Being unprotected from the wind and the sun.  The sensation of having the wind knocked out of me every time I tried to talk.

 

This was one sunny, wind-blown ride.

Around Basari Country

Number of vehicles: 1 4WD SUV

Time: A couple of hours each day

Person per seat: 1

Condition of Clothes after the ride: Covered in red dust which was surprising considering the windows and doors were all closed.

Highlights: At one point, our driver got out of the car to peer around a corner ahead.  Our guide informed us that this was a very difficult part of the road.  The driver came back to the car and gunned it up a rocky gully which, to me resembled the side of a mountain, not a road.

 

Dindefelou to Basse

Number of vehicles: 3: 1 4WD SUV, 1 Sept-place, 1 Rusty sardine can

Time: 9am to 7pm (10 hours)

Person per seat: SUV: 1; Sept-place: 0.71; Sardine Can: 1.65

Condition of Clothes after the ride: Very wrinkled, some rust stains, and hints of BO and whatever cologne those musicians were doused in

Highlights: Piling in with a group of musicians for our last leg over the border. The front door was tied shut with a piece of twine, there were large holes rusted through the floor, ceiling, and sides, there were no exterior lights, and the front console was devoid of everything but a steering wheel.  Another highlight was bumping my head during a rough part of our first sept-place journey.

 

Sept-Place #1: When you buy out the extra seats, you ride in comfort!

One brave soul climbing into the rusty sardine can (Photo Credit: Cara Sandquist)

Four people sat up here, in the front seat. The driver stuck his head out the window to see. (Photo Credit: Cara Sandquist)

Basse to Soma

Number of vehicles: 1 Green Bus

Time: 11am to 2pm (3 hours)

Person per seat: 1 (we were not among the unfortunate people forced to stand in the aisles)

Condition of Clothes after the ride: Some dampness around the armpits

Highlights: Learning our lesson and just sticking with the regular schedule and comfortable seats in the green bus.  It was a nice way to end the trip.

The Story of the Room that Would Become a Library

Twice a year, Peace Corps Volunteers have to fill out a report card about all of the projects we have been working on at our sites.  Part of the report form asks volunteers to tell a success story.  The following is the story I wrote for my Peace Corps Report Card, and since I won’t be able to make it back home for our traditional Report Card Dinner at Pietros, I guess I’ll share it here.

When I first visited the village that I have come to know as my home, I was a guest.  I had not moved my stuff in yet. I was only there to visit my future host family, future school, and my future village.  My future host father and the current head of Misera Basic Cycle School spent a morning showing me around the school.  I saw the office, the staff quarters, and the classrooms.  I saw the school garden, grown over with flora fed by the rains and ignored by students who were physically and mentally on summer vacation.  Finally, I was brought to a door with a lock that was jammed shut.  My host father had to find a sizeable rock to force it open.  This room, however, could not be overlooked as it was the room my fellow Gambians were most eager to show me.  The metal door swung open, and I stepped first into a dimly lit, dusty, stale room.  Tables and benches were placed haphazardly around the room.  There were stacks of wood planks covered in spider webs.   Books were scattered everywhere, on the tables, benches, and floor.  A few papers pasted to the termite infested walls told of an organization system that may have been but was clearly no longer in use.  Welcome, I thought, to the library.  When do we start?

My first look into the library

It was an organizer’s dream

After this first visit, I returned to my training village where I completed my Peace Corps Pre-Service Training.  On Swear-In Day, the day of my transformation from Peace Corps Trainee to Peace Corps Volunteer, I felt well equipped to head back to my village and tackle the room that had left such a big impression on my first site visit.  As part of the Education Sector in The Gambia, I knew that improving the literacy education practices at my school and improving the library resources was directly in line with our project plan.  I had a flash drive full of resources, including a library manual that a former volunteer created.  I even had a book about how to manage and organize a library.  Confidently, I volunteered to work with the library committee at our school’s first staff meeting.  Our committee met and made a plan to start working right away to organize the books currently in the library and at least make it usable by the classes.  What’s the point of having a library if you are not going to use it?

The work was hard and slow.  I knew the value of working with counterparts on a project.  I knew the value of a shared interest and responsibility in the project.  I did not expect that sharing this project would mean having to sacrifice some of my standards for organization and cleanliness.  I also did not expect to have to teach things like the proper way to stand a book up (with its spine facing out) or the difference between fiction and non-fiction to teachers.  Eventually though, our library was set.  We had rules in place.  Books were organized according to reading level, in stacks on tables because we had no shelves.  The cobwebs were minimal and all of the old, damaged books had been cleaned up off the floor and stored to give away to students. We were ready for classes to begin using the library.  And they did.

I observed how the library was used this first term.  Some teachers would use the library during their scheduled time, some would not use it at all.  Some would plan lessons or activities for their library period, others would not.  Some would help their students find appropriate books to read, others would not.  After every class held in the library, the place was left looking disheveled but used.  This is good, I thought. Having a library that is messy because of use is a good problem to have in a country where reading, libraries, and literacy are all challenging, unfamiliar concepts. But I admit, it was frustrating to come in day after day with my library monitors to see the work we had to restore the library to some semblance of organization.  It seemed like, as the term went on, the students and teachers were becoming more relaxed or less engaged in the library and being sloppy with the upkeep.

Fortunately, a former volunteer had arranged for 24 boxes of books from a charity called Books for Africa to be sent to my school.  I used the arrival of these books to close the library, reorganize, and have a fresh start.  This time around, the process was slower and I tried to be more intentional with changes we made.  I worked with the school’s administration to work the purchase of new shelves and mats into the budget.  The shelves were metal and therefore more sturdy and resistant to age, rot, and termites.  The library committee implored the students to bring in old 10 gallon bidongs (plastic oil containers).  These bidongs, in various states of decomposition, seem to be everywhere in the village.  I wanted to cut the bidongs in half to use them as bins for the books so that students could see their covers when looking for books instead of the spine.  The bidongs were slow to arrive at the library.  Though, once the village children realized we were trading each container for two of the old or damaged books in our library, they began flooding in.  Long lines of children waited outside of the library with bidongs and half of the library was stacked high with them.  Great!  We had shelves, mats, hundreds of bidongs, and 24 boxes of books.  It was time to get to work.

But just when I felt a rush of motivation and momentum, I hit a hard, cold brick wall in the form of no teachers being around or willing to help me.  I scheduled one weekend for the library committee to come in and work.  Somehow, most of the teacher managed to be travelling that weekend.  The two teachers that were around were busy with who knows what right up until the moment that I decided to go home because it was ridiculous to be working by myself.  The following week, I reluctantly agreed to another work weekend.  Teachers assured me that they would be there and we would get the work done.  I guess when they were promising this, they forgot about the religious celebration and circumcision ceremony that they were all attending that weekend.  So, yet again, I found myself alone in our library working half-heatedly and questioning whether or not I should just abandon the project since, clearly, I was the only person invested in this library.  Yet, I was inspired by the work and success other volunteers were having in their libraries.  And I knew that improving the access to books and literacy was a cause worth working and struggling and being let down again and again for.

So, I decided to give it another shot.  And this time, I decided to do everything I possibly could to get teachers to show up.  Bribery, I decided, was an acceptable way to get them to come and then, I was convinced, seeing the fruits of their labor and feeling pride in our work would be reward enough after that.  I reminded everyone I saw during the week again and again.  I promised candy, I promised juice, I promised China green tea, and I promised music.  I promised that it would be more like a party than work.  It worked like a charm.  Saturday morning, five teachers, including the Principal, joined me in the library and we got to work unloading books, stamping and sorting them, cutting bidongs, and putting books in their rightful spots.  We listened to music, drank juice, and were delighted by some of the books we found.  Knowing that Gambians’ enthusiasm for work is directly related to the time of day and the heat of the sun, I was not expecting my counterparts to work past two o’clock prayer.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the momentum we had established working all morning lasted throughout the day and well beyond 5 o’clock prayer.  We moved all 24 boxes of books into the library that day.  And at the end of the day, I could hear the excitement and pride in the voices of the teachers as the poured over all of the new books and resources we had.  “We have a standard library now!” I heard again and again.

Hard at work (finally) in our library

After a few more weekdays of work (each time, I was helped without having to ask, beg, or bribe) the library was ready.  Books were organized into sections.  Bidongs lined the tables filled with books with their covers enticing young readers.  Bright, colorful mats invited students to sprawl out with their books.  Posters and pictures transformed the environment into a place of learning and opening one’s mind.  Teachers and students kept coming by to see our new, “standard” library.

Our Standard Library

Our Standard Library

All that remained was to train our teachers how to use this space.  I did not want the library to have the same fate as our library from first term.  I believed that if teachers understood how to use the library and how to properly care for the books there, they would be better equipped to teach the students how to use the library.  So, with the help of four other volunteers, I conducted a library training divided into three parts.  Teachers learned the classification system in the library and which books are found in each section.  Teachers learned how to properly shelve and care for books.  And teachers practiced checking out books from the library and using them to inform their lesson planning or even as the lesson themselves. The training went extremely well.  I suspect that the most enjoyable part for the teachers was sitting on the mat and being read aloud to.  Who doesn’t love a read aloud?

At our library training, one teacher explains which section his book belongs to and why

At our library training, teachers race to put books from the return box back where they belong in the library

At our library training, my colleagues are captivated by a read aloud

The transformation of our library took most of second term.  The true test of our new library and our newly trained staff will be third term, and the years to come.  But already, I feel successful.  I succeeded in motivating teachers to take part in the library project.  I saw the results of their involvement in their enthusiasm for the work and the pride and satisfaction as they referred to our library.  I feel successful because I trained all of the teachers in my school in the use of our library.  Now, my hope is that these teachers will be able to better use the resources in our library and better guide their students. I will measure the lasting effects of this training by observing the teachers who use the library in term three.  I will pay attention to how they are using the books, how they are conducting their library lessons, and the state of the library after each lesson.

There are so many ways to measure the immediate and short-term successes of this project.  And I believe there will be long-term effects that are impossible to track or measure.  I like to think that each of my teachers now has knowledge and skills to use a library and maybe even conduct their own library project at any school they may end up at.  I believe that this library can changed the reading culture of the teachers and students in the school.  I believe that as these children grow older, they have the capacity to change the reading culture of our community.  It would be great to see, somewhere in the future, children checking out library books and reading at home in their compounds.  It would be wonderful to see students picking up books for fun.  I would love to see the students choosing more and more challenging books.  Eventually, maybe they will even start to choose books based on favorite authors or favorite series. For now, though, I feel successful because we have a “standard” library, its transformation was a collaborative effort, and the teachers have the knowledge and skills to use the library and make some positive changes in our community.

My host father, a teacher and an influential community member, shares the vision for our library

A Cockroach on My Wall

I returned to my hut one evening to find a cockroach on my wall.  The cockroach stood out against my whitewashed wall because it was three times larger than any cockroach I had ever encountered back home.  This wasn’t my first African cockroach, though.  Another time, I had noticed but ignored a cockroach because I was safe in my mosquito net and, let’s face it, too lazy to leave the comfort of my bed to do anything about it. Eventually, a lizard crawled down from somewhere in my rafters and ate that cockroach.  I was annoyed that there was a lizard in my hut but I also recognized that a lizard is a preferable roommate.

This time, I was not in my bed; I was ready to take action and well equipped with my Chaco sandal to exterminate this guy.  Smacking my white wall with that shoe gave a gratifying crunch and the cockroach corpse fell to the floor.  Satisfied with my work, I went to bed, knowing that I could take care of the cockroach when I swept my hut the next morning.

Mysteriously, the next morning, the cockroach was nowhere to be seen.  That is, until I swept the opposite corner of my hut where I found the body being dragged by hundreds of little ants.  Equipped with my bug spray and broom, I attacked this new infestation with much less gusto than I’d had when killing the cockroach the night before.  Problem solved, at least, until the next cockroach appears on my wall.

***

Having recently listened to a rather cynical Ted program about the shortcomings of aid work in Africa, I was quick to identify the parable in my battles with domestic pests.  Safe in the confines of my bug net, I observed the ecosystem on my hut wall functioning as it would whether or not I was there.  Sure, a cockroach and a lizard in my hut are not favorable.  I have precious foodstuffs sent from America to protect! But there was no denying a natural order to things that, if not ideal, was at least manageable.   When I interfered, I felt powerful and proactive.  It felt good to take action and kill the cockroach and seemingly solve the problem.  But, as time went on, my solution created hundreds of unforeseen micro problems that were annoying to address.

And in my parable, I play myself, the Peace Corps Volunteer who, at first was safe in the US, a casual observer of how Africa managed its problems (or maybe did not even see them as problems?)  But eventually, I arrive in Africa, I am trained and feel empowered to attack problems (Chaco sandals and all).   But alas, my service is two years so not only to I get to implement projects, I also get to see projects fail and the new problems that are crawling all over my floor the next morning as a result of my actions.

I am not at a point in my service where I am questioning my even coming to Africa.  The skills I have learned and shared, and the relationships I have formed, have already made my service worth the trouble it took to apply, commit, and leave so much behind.  But bearing witness to a friend’s bitter failure last week gave me pause.  Sure, helping children in my compound wash their hands the right way is great, but how much of the education system and the teachers in The Gambia can I (or should I) change?

To be fair, Peace Corps preaches integrating and learning from the people we want to help before implementing any programs.  They preach watching the cockroach and the lizard for a while before stepping in.  (And maybe asking the lizard how best I can support its efforts?)  Still, any action I take is based on a rather limited understanding of the complex systems in place and the inevitable consequences of such action.  Unfortunately, this argument would have me stay under the bug net observing for the rest of my days which is an existential stance I cannot support.  Nor do I feel comfortable using US tax dollars to simply hang out with my new friends in Africa for two years.

So what then am I supposed to glean from my cockroach parable?  Do I go back to school and rethink the incentive program I created for the teachers at my school?  Or skip the competition for the best looking classroom and visual aids? Is it careless to just enjoy this feeling of taking action and making change, regardless of the consequences?  Or, is it enough to trudge forward just so long as I brace myself for the ants I will be sweeping up in the morning?

Bringing Up Baby (In The Gambia)

One exciting aspect of my new compound is that there are babies!  One is seven months old and my aunt’s child, the other is three months and my brother.  This has been my first extended exposure to baby care in The Gambia, so I thought I would share a few observations – especially for my early childhood friends out there. There are a lot of aspects of baby raising in The Gambia that I respect and even think would work well in the context of Western culture.  There are other aspects that I am still struggling to understand.  For now, I will just share my observations and maybe over time I will be able to provide a better rationale for the practices I am seeing here.

Baby brother napping on my bed

Diapering Baby: This happens rarely in my compound. When it happens, it often takes the form of a cloth from an old wrap skirt covered in a plastic bag tied twice around baby’s waist. Often, though, babies are diaperless and free to relieve themselves in the cloth they are swaddled in, the clothes they are wearing, or on whosever lap they happen to be sitting.

Baby Brother getting diapered

Silly Jacy, Diapers are called Pampers here!

Potty Training Baby: Since there is often no diaper and most children use the great outdoors as their toilet, there is no real defined start to potty training in The Gambia. A preferred method for training baby is putting the baby on top of the mother’s feet with the baby facing or even hugging the mother’s legs. The mother makes a V shape with her feet, heels together, so that the baby is straddling her feet in the perfect squat position.  The baby is then free to do his or her business, and if mom is careful, her feet stay clean.

Bathing Baby: This happens much like it does in America.  The baby sits in a shallow tub of water while the mom scrubs and rinses him or her.  The real difference is the drying process.  The babies in my compound are shaken dry.  Mom holds one arm after another, then one leg after another.  I have seen this performed gently and rather vigorously.  That is right, I have seen baby hanging from one leg, upside-down, being shaken.  Oh, and mom blows in the babies ears to dry those, as a final touch.

Feeding Baby: Breastfeeding all the way!  And they will whip those breasts out anytime, anywhere. I have seen women traveling on public transport, farming, cooking, braiding hair (you name it!) while breast-feeding. The stigma of breasts and breastfeeding just does not exist here.  In fact, I am told that in one of the local languages, the slang they use for breasts is “food sacks.” I have seen some older babies being feed baby food, or custard from a can in my cousin’s case.  As soon as children are old enough to squat next to the food bowl and scoop their food in their mouths, they eat what everyone else eats.  Mom might still pick meat off the bones for small children.

Babysitting: The baby is the mother’s responsibility. I have seen varying levels of paternal involvement.  That being said, mothers also are expected to keep up with their compound responsibilities, including: sweeping, cooking, farming, washing clothes, fetching water, bathing children, etc. So it pays to have a compound full of children to help with the responsibilities and to pass baby off to. I have seen vary small children (as young as 4 years old) toting around an infant. Do not let this worry you though, children are taught to be adults very early here, so most of the time, they are attentive to the baby they are caring for. If the mother goes to the farm, baby will either go with mom or stay at the compound with grandma until it is feeding time.  When baby gets fussy, he is strapped to a small child’s back and sent to the farm, or wherever mom is.

Posing for pictures and carrying around a baby? No big deal.

Toting Baby: I will try my best to explain the baby backpack, but if you have ever seen a photo of an African mother, you have probably seen the cloth wrap holding the baby to the mother’s back. In this baby toting wrap, the mother uses a rectangular piece of fabric tied at the top and bottom, wrapped around her and the baby.  I have seen babies at varying levels of comfort in this position, but there is no denying the convenience.  I think the most impressive baby toting I have seen so far was at a wedding.  Mom was dancing pretty vigorously with baby strapped on her back.  I thought surely this child must be terrified or wailing from all the shaking.  Imagine my surprise when she turned and I could see that the baby was fast asleep.

My cousins

Having babies in the compound has been a joy.  Babies do not know that I cannot speak their language fluently.  I love thinking about how much they will grow over the next two years and how they will have known me almost their entire lives.  I sometimes struggle with the child raising techniques I see, though.  On one hand, childcare has been my whole life and I know all the best practices and safe, loving ways to care for babies.  Yet babies in The Gambia are growing to be The Gambians that I have come to love in this country.  There are techniques in place here that I am not accustomed to but I am hesitant to judge too harshly or jump in with my “Western wisdom”.  As it turns out, my struggles with baby raising techniques are somewhat representative of my struggles overall.  My biggest challenge so far, has been deciding when to step in and educate or change behavior and when to accept and find value in the differences in customs and culture.

Trying my hand at toting my brother around