Sunday, i've forgotten what it's like

I've forgotten what it's like to live in a culture that actually recognizes a day of rest. (aside of course from clean the nation day).

We had a day with no major plans today so we thought we would head to a bookstore just around the corner from our lodge. We should have realized this by now, having been here for 4 weeks already, but silly us, with our Western perspectives, didn't think about it and ventured out anyway.

Most of the shops and stores still close here on Sundays, and often close daily around 2 pm for the Muslim prayer break. It's interesting being in a culture where that desire is so ingrained in the psyche of the population.

It's refreshing to be in a population that still holds outwardly their religious beliefs and faith. I haven't ever felt while here imposed upon by someone else's beliefs and have generally (within some levels of mutual respect) been free to go about as I normally would. In Canada, faith and religion is a very private matter that is often only expressed once a week by attending church.

It's like being forced to take a slow deep breath in the middle of a quick run. While for us, it's mildly inconvenient, at the same time, it's enjoyable to be forced to take a break at least once a week.

Sometimes I feel as though we are the backwards culture.

Pictures from London

hey everyone,

there are some new pictures from our 1 day mega tour of London. 

In the pictures slideshow at the very bottom of the page, there is a drop down menu that currently says "Pictures from Gambia", drop down and click "London Town" and you'll see all about our crazy day in London.

Hope you enjoy.

Justin

New Pictures

Ok, not too many, but there are some new pictures in my picassa album.

See the preivew at the bottom of this page and click on the pictures to go there.

Miss you all,
Justin

In Serrekunda - Back to School

Hey everyone,

Sorry I've not posted in a few days, despite having access for the next little while to wireless at our lodging, i've neglected my blog in the process.
I've added a few gadgets and fancy features to the blog, you probably noticed them at the side. There is a world clock, which if I've set it up correctly, should display the current time in both Toronto and Banjul, in case you're wondering how late in the day it is for me. There is also a countdown, currently to my birthday (sure i'm zealous, but I'm allowed to be every now and then. There is also a small slide show of pictures I've taken here. They're posted in a larger size on my picassa web album, which you can get to by clicking on any of the pictures.

We had a good last week in Sanyang, learning the language a bit more, trying to master my abilities at making Attaya (the green tea that is shared all over the place here, but requires a great deal of skill to make properly), and getting ourselves dirty with projects at the garden. If you look at the pictures linked on the right side of the blog, you can see me making attaya, and mixing concrete to form a new base around one of the water reservoirs. It was very arduous work, but one of the mornings Megan and I were both in a bad mood/missing home, and somehow, mixing concrete by hand in a wheelbarrow under the African noon sun lifted both our spirits. I also got to test out my driving skills.... Megan and I hired a taxi to take us to the beach one day after work. We happened to get a tourist taxi, which are generally more expenisive and somewhat nicer than the local taxi's. We were commenting how nice the taxi was, when the driver asked if we knew how to drive. I said "Sure, yea I do" at which point he put the car in netural, jumped out when it was still moving and told me to show him. So i jumped out of the back seat, into the drivers seat and off we went. When he returned to pick us up 2 hours later, he drove up, jumped out of the drivers seat and hopped into the passenger seat again. I paid 100 Dalasis to drive myself to the beach and back!

We also met with an organization called GamMol, which is an NGO out of Belgium that has a staff of local Gambians working on health, education and primarily water projects around Sanyang. The program works to dig boreholes, install handpumps and maintain the machinery for villages that are not on the municipal water supply and otherwise are relying on non-secured water sources (shallow dug holes, open wells, and open streams/rivers/trenches). We just met with the organization to determine some of the projects we can work on when we return to Sanyang again, and I'm incredibly excited about the opportunities.

We're back in Serrekunda now, and on Monday we started a course at WACD-TC; the West African Community Development Training Centre. the course is a certificate course issued by the Ministry of Education in The Gambia leading to a full diploma from the centre. We are being taught the second of four modules, ours on Human Behaviour and Development. It's an interesting opportunity to learn about the experiences and mode of problem solving used by our Gambian counterparts.

The course material is important and relevant to the Gambian classmates we have, although I feel I've been taught most of the material before. It is however interesting to see the decision making process and problem solving used by our classmates. It's a far cry from what I had expected, or how we would necessairly troubleshoot or solve a problem at home. I'm not enjoying the course material, but the interactions we are having are very beneficial for both us and the class.

I'll try to keep more posts coming, and thanks to everyone for following along and leaving comments. I smile every time I get one.

Petting a Croc

hey everyone,

here is the much promised picture from 2 weeks ago of me petting the crocodile.

2009-05-31 - National Clean The Air Day?

2009-05-31

We have had a very relaxing weekend here in Sanyang. We wanted to
start our beach day relatively early after a good sleep in, so we set
off at around 11:30. We walked out to the taxi-stand and asked there
about going down to the beach. We were told since it's the last
Saturday of the month, it's "Clean the Nation Day", when all work
other than cleaning, including any driving is completely forbidden
from 9 am to 1 pm.
So.. we went back to our compound and waited for 1 pm to come.
While we were waiting for a cab, we ordered Baobab juice at a local
restaurant. We've had it served a few times already here in a sealed
plastic bag, which you bite off the end, and squeeze out. We instead
were served our baobab juice in an old ketchup bottle and a
squeez-able relish container. For only 5 dalasis (about 20 cents),
what do you really expect.
We finally got to the beach and had a great time, our host-father,
just as we were leaving, shoved a JulBrew into each of our hands. So
we sat down to have a drink. We ended up drinking on the beach until
past 10 pm, getting pretty well tipsy with my host father, and
laughing long into the night, Megan and I, my host father and a Peace
Corps volunteer from the US we met at the garden.

I have to say it's a pretty awesome way to spend an evening, at home or here.

I have also discovered the precise moment in time when man decided
that Chicken would be a suitable candidate for food... I think it was
about 6:18 AM, the morning after God created the rooster.. Man
thought.... Yea, that'd go well on my dinner plate....

2009-05-28 - French ... Que?

Well who would have thought that I'd actually be using the French i
learned while in school. The Gambia is an old British colony, hence
the English as the national language, but Senegal, completely
surrounding The Gambia is a former French colony, and there has been a
great deal of migration between the two over the decades. As a
result, in the compound we are staying in, there are a number of
French speaking Senegalese nationals here, so I've had a few really
good conversations in French during our stay. It's actually a
sufficient buffer language, as I don't speak Mandinka/Fula/Wolof/Jola
very well, and they don't speak English too well, we've found French
to be a happy medium. Who would have thought.