Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Three Month Challenge (is finished)

The Three-Month Challenge is finished and I find it hard to believe that I left America almost six months ago. Six months here has taught me many things about myself, my peers, my country, and The Gambia. I have to admit that many of my notions about what this was going to be like have been proven false, to have been fantasies and preconceptions. Also, the ways I thought that I would behave and react have also been challenged. Blog entries up to now have been easy because everything that I’ve written are simple observations about the differences between here and the USA. But now that I am settling in, things don’t seem so odd, so crazy, so absolutely different. Now, to be crammed on a dusty, crowded gelegele banging along a bumpy road with goats tied to the roof, with children peeing out the windows, with chickens on your lap is commonplace. I’ve seen the change of seasons as the effects of the dry season have affected the vegetation and the contents of the food bowl. I am beginning to comprehend what is being said around me and understand the reasons for certain cultural mores and attitudes. Not to imply that I’m still some seasoned veteran now and that I am blending perfectly with my surroundings. I continue to be surprised everyday by something new and I look forward to adventures in The Gambia everyday.

Peace Corps is truly a remarkable experience and I am proud to be a part of this American institution. Sure, traveling to foreign lands and working in exotic locations is a unique opportunity. Of course, I am happy that some of my experience is benefiting others and that I am learning things I could never imagine if I had stayed home. But another aspect of Peace Corps is that it truly does make one appreciate what America as a place, as an attitude, and as a people have to offer. I miss it. It is very different from The Gambia in so many ways.

But all those years studying anthropology have left me thinking that one should try to be objective in his observations and try not to make too many comparisons. Obviously, we all know that that can’t happen. We all view the world through our own eyes and therefore all observations are subjective and filtered through our individual values, biases, and experiences.

What’s a typical day like in a Fula village on the south bank of the River Gambia in West Africa? For me, there haven’t been any typical days yet and so it is hard to say. Everyday is different. There are routines but I try to actively pursue a variety of activities so that I don’t find myself in a rut or becoming too comfortable. The nice thing about being an Agriculture and Forestry Volunteer compared to one working in education or health is that there are no real strict definitions of what I am supposed to do day in and day out. I can work in a variety of locations and do many different jobs each day. One day I might be found in a small forest with my machete and the next I could be teaching students about compost and bush fire prevention. Today I am working at the National Beekeepers Association demonstrating how Dadant hives function and tomorrow I might be slogging through a rice field on the border with Cassamance. Yesterday I was sipping a pina colada on the beach and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and in a week there will be a naming ceremony in my village wherein a small child will receive the accolades he deserves for surviving the first difficult months of his life in the harsh Gambian bush.

That said here is a page from my journal dated February 23. “I am awake very early, still dark. I lie listening to the braying of some foolish donkey, the territorial meanderings of too many roosters. I need to get up, catch Molaafi [the gelegele driver who goes everyday through here to the Kombos] and get him to take my empty propane tank to Brikama and exchange it for a full one. But I stayed in bed with a flashlight reading the last pages of Angle of Repose and then I drifted off again. On the edge of a dream that reminded me of so many panicky childhood nightmares where the overwhelming feelings of insufficiency remain long into the waking world: the stable where the donkeys stay [of course, in real life there is no stable and they just sleep standing wherever they are] has just burned to the ground killing the village’s 23 asses and I’m expected to rebuild it and breed new stock. I begin to feel overwhelmed when I’m roused back to waking by the sound of a banging honking vehicle on the road half a k away. I jumped up and pulled on some clothes, ran from the house with my tank to the korosama [junction, waiting spot] but when I got there it wasn’t Molaafi and I didn’t know the dryaber or the apparante and so didn’t want to give them either my tank or the 250 dalasis it would take to exchange it. So he drove off and I waited and waited. Finally the orange and blue gelegele from Kampassa drove up and I recognized Sulyman who said he’d take it but that he wasn’t coming back until Monday so I decided to wait on Molaafi. And wait. And wait. Besides, as Sulyman sat there idling waiting for people and chickens to pile into the van a huge puddle of petrol was forming in the dust beneath them. I waited. A Mandinka woman from Kamamadu tried to tell me that no others would come today. Finally though I heard in the distance the familiar puttputting of the white and blue Kangsambu van with “Alhumdidlihi” painted across the grill and Molaafi arrived. I handed him my dalasis and the tank was hoisted to the roof and he told me “Basi ala” [no problem in Pulaar]. As I was walking home in the dust stirred by the rising of the sun I thought to myself “Basi ala, basi ala. Things always work out here. That’s what I’m here to learn. Be patient. Be positive. These people are. Basi ala.” These thoughts trailed after me as I re-entered the village. I wanted next to water my garden beds and to sow lettuce and carrot seeds but I searched everywhere for the seeds that I had bought in Kombo two weeks ago and couldn’t find them anywhere. Why not? This house is so tiny. Where did they go? I looked everywhere. Also the garden rake was gone. So I gave up and took my water bag to the deep open well in the garden but after hoisting three loads the rope snapped and the bag began to sink. I ran home and grabbed my jallo [handhoe] and tied it to the frayed end of rope and fished around until I finally caught the bag and brought it back up. I tried to untie the knots but they were too tight so I went home and got my knife that I had noticed on the floor next to the bed but had neglected to bring along. I came back and started to saw at the rope and instantly cut my finger wide open. My finger bled and bled as women stared at me. So I went home and wrapped my finger with a bandage. I went back and finished the job but with my finger throbbing my heart wasn’t in it. Walking home I kept thinking that today seems strange. At home I had to scrub some clothes in the backyard and wait for Conteh to come so we could work on the constitution of the Mangana Area Beekeepers’ Association. Molaamin came over and said he’d brew attaya for us but then never came back. Conteh showed up and after a few minutes of working said that we ought to have some tea so I sent a small boy to find Molaamin but he came back with Gallo instead who sent the boy with five dalasis to the bitik on Conteh’s bicycle for another glass which is strange because as long as I’ve been here they’ve always used only one even though just last night I noticed Molaamin was using two. Gallo started brewing but I noticed that my bottle he was using to take water from had blood on it from this morning. Sitting there I kept thinking about that morning two weeks ago at the PC hostel when Becca came in the room where nine of us were bunked and asked if anyone had a tampon. I pretended to be asleep but now I wished I had told her that I had just used my last one. Anyway, Conteh was writing and I was offering some ideas and Gallo was brewing and listening to some French broadcast on the shortwave. I looked at my heel where the dry skin had cracked and was red all around and I wondered how long I could stave-off infection. Landing walked over and our worlds collided because just two nights ago he had berated me for putting too much into the beekeeping stuff and not enough into our village. He plopped down on a prayer mat and listened to Conteh and I but he never said anything. Just smoking a cigarette and sipping attaya. Then I noticed a huge plume of smoke north of the village blackening the sky just beyond where Gallo’s garden and my beehive were. Both Gallo and Landing got up to look but Conteh never batted an eye which seemed strange since just four days ago we were teaching students together about bush fires. Five minutes later I said out loud that it seemed like the fire was coming closer. But nobody budged even as an eerie calm settled over the village. Jonkong and Sanna were under the big mango tree unloading bamboo poles from a donkey cart that they had just cut in Cassamance. I noticed an ass dolefully licking the earth where some river water had been poured several days ago and had left a salty crust. He was remarkably content; his ears cocked, his big stupid eyes dreamily happy, his ugly whitish tongue lapping over and over again. I felt a strange compassion for him. I can’t stand these ridiculous animals for all their farting and late night braying and violent territorialism and shitting piles all around my house. But at last I saw the Buddha-nature of the ass and was happy for him, for myself, for the world. Molaamin came over and saw my book at my feet which was a biography of Ian Curtis [lead singer from Joy Division]. Since he is a ninth grader in Sintet he can read so he started to turn through the pages and got to the lyrics section. I have probably heard “Love Will Tear Us Apart” a million times since I myself was a ninth grader so I asked him to read it and see what he thought. How weird to be sitting here like this as he in staccato robot African English reciting formally: When the routine bites hard And ambitions are low And the resentment rides high But emotions wont grow And we’re changing our ways Taking different roads Then love, love will tear us apart again Why is the bedroom so cold Turned away on your side? Is my timing that flawed, Our respect run so dry? Yet there’s still this appeal That we’ve kept through our lives Love, love will tear us apart again. And I am utterly sad. What will Molaamin ever know about any of this? He grinned. For a boy growing up in the African bush what could these words even mean? Now, after hearing them sung for years by a man who killed himself shortly after recording them and just before his daughter’s second birthday, I would never hear this song the same way again. I smelled smoke and got up to see the fire better and started to think that the garden and beehive were bound to be consumed within an hour so I asked Gallo if we should do something. The whole village was becoming concerned and people were heading out to try to fight it back away from town. Men, women, and children armed with machetes and green leaves and buckets of water attempted to turn this insane thing around. The heat was intense as the dry grasses were engulfed, fueled by hot winds from the sahel. Our faces were scorched, arms and hands and feet singed, choked and crying. Wind surged and flames leapt and people scattered with charred earth chasing them back towards the village. The air all around was stifling and black-yellow like a bruise. Suddenly the wind died and it was as silent as the time after a sonic boom. No birds, no roaring flames, no cracking trees. The spirits of the people were lifted until the wind would kick up and the flames would explode again. All these skinny people in torn clothes fighting for their lives and their homes and their animals with ridiculous tools. We were actually beating it. Then it was beating us. Then we were beating it. For hours people worked against the flames. It was enormous and all we could hear, see, or feel. The village at our backs and branches in our hands. Blackened teeth, reddened eyes. In the middle of it I received a text on my mobile from Kate: PC mailrun had come to her house and delivered a box from her family in Tucson but something in it had rotted and maggots were crawling all over the contents. She burned the whole thing. Finally, the fire had been beaten down with our efforts. Not stopped but now going off in another direction. Everything smoldered. The sour smell, the strange elation that we had beaten it but had lost so much in the process. I dragged myself home and thought about my garden which would need watered and the tank that I’d need to pick up at the korosama whenever Molaafi returned. I drank some attaya, washed my face. You never know if or when a gelegele will come by so I wandered out to wait. And wait. Finally I hear a vehicle in the distance but as it comes closer I see that it’s the Sulyman who said he wasn’t coming back for a few days. He blows by and doesn’t even wave. I wait. And wait. Nothing. Finally I decide to ride to Molaafi’s house a few kilometers away. His brother is there and tells me that they are not coming back today. Maybe tomorrow. I came home and poured buckets of water over my head. Now I am ready to sleep. Goodnight.”

So I guess that that is sort of what things are like here. Sometimes. It’s a great place to live. It can be discouraging at times and emboldening at others. Three days ago several men came together and we built four Kenyan Top Bar Hives for our beekeeping program. I have taught a few classes at two different schools and another to the women in our garden about composting. Coming to Kombo is such a different experience than living in village. I'd like to describe some of those differences but I'm out of time and have to catch the gelegele before I miss it. Unless its not going today that is. I hope that you all are well. I think of you often.

Foniatto.