A couple of old entries

10 October 2009: New Challenges

We have been in Kerewan for two full weeks now (minus one trip to Kombo/Kartung). It has been better than expected. The facilities are good, the food selection in not bad, the people are lovely and as a bonus Paul has internet at work! Also, some of the challenges I was having in Kombo are not a problem up here – notably, we do not get those big, horrible web spiders. Also I haven’t had any weevils or worms here yet. The ‘Toubab’ thing also seems to be less of an issue here. Most children shout “What is your name!?!?” and it’s such a small place that kids quickly learn our names and shout that at us instead of “Toubab”. Some of the Kombo challenges, however, have been replaced with new, upcountry challenges. Specifically, we have large and small scorpions (eek!) and big horrible cockroaches (ugh!). I have not yet seen a scorpion but Emma had one in her latrine area yesterday!! The cockroaches, however, are abundant (though Emma has apparently not seen one!). There are many cockroaches down in our pit latrine – I know this because I have shined a torch down it and seen them. I think they prefer darkness to light because I rarely see them in the daylight. I only ever really see them when I need the loo in the middle of the night and they are crawling on the walls of the latrine. That was ok with me (though it wasn’t great) because they were outside. Then, we moved some furniture the other day and found three large cockroaches behind our dressers. I waged chemical warfare which did nothing but scatter them in three different directions so I had to focus on one at a time – and I’ll save you the details but I did manage to kill all the little buggers.

It probably sounds as though I do nothing but concern myself with insects since arriving here. I can assure you that this is not the case. I have been trying to learn Mandinka, attempting to remember all of the names of the people on our compound, exploring the town, making curtains and cushions, trying the local cuisine, shopping at the market for vegetables, admiring the night sky here, looking for paid/voluntary work, attending traditional ceremonies, etc.

Also, to celebrate Geri and Emma’s birthdays we went to Sandele near Kartung last weekend. That was a real treat. We went with all the other new VSOs and Geri and Maurice and Felix. It is a lovely hotel with an amazing beach and it really was a fabulous break. Back in Kombo, however, someone attempted to pickpocket me and we had a generally unpleasant time. We were relieved when we finally made it back to Kerewan.

Mostly, though, over the past week I’ve just been wishing I were back home in the USA. We received word last week that Grandpa Norm has passed away. He was ill for quite some time before, but I think deep down I’ve always thought he was invincible and so this news hit me quite hard. Grandpa Norm was a good man – full of life and fun and mischief and pride and love. I loved him dearly and really hate that I was not able to be there over the last week to mourn the loss by mostly to celebrate his life with my family.

25 September 2009: We have new names

After a bit longer than expected, we made the trip upcountry to Kerewan yesterday. I went in the pickup truck with the drier, Alieu, and Paul, Andrew and Emma rode their motorbikes. It was incredibly hot. We arrived in Kerewan at around one o’clock in the afternoon. Alieu helped us set up our water filter and gas cooker before heading back across to Banjul on the ferry. We started cleaning and unpacking – commencing with the fridge. We had a crowd of onlookers – mostly kids aged one to eighteen as we cleaned the fridge on the veranda. We plugged it in after cleaning it but we were then reminded that the electricity would not be on again until the evening. We have electricity in the mornings from 9 am to 2 pm and then again in the evenings from 7 pm to 2 am. Thus, we cannot actually keep anything properly cold in the fridge, but it is good for keeping the bugs out of our food! Paul was my hero several times yesterday – ridding the house of various spiders. It really is a nice little house. There are two rooms, a front veranda and a back patio. The back patio joins with our neighbour’s back patio. vSO rents our neighbour’s house as well, however no one lies there at present. There is a small covered area out back where we have put our gas cooker and a small storage unit – as well as our tins of food. There were some termites in the storage unit, but we dealt with them through chemical warfare. Before long we were unpacked and satisfied with the cleanliness of the house. Andrew and Emma came round to take us on a tour of Kerewan but before we could leave, we needed to meet our landlord – the head of the compound. He gave Paul a Gambian name – Bakary. I had already been given a Gambian name – Tida. We were, both given the Gambian surname Ceesay. There are probably about 40 people living on our compound but we are the only Tida and Bakary.