It was one year ago today

This has nothing to do with the blog except that reading on the couch with Slobs has become one of Zack's favorite weekend activities!

 
So it's May again already and we have officially been here 1 year and 3 days! On one hand the time has flown by but on the other Gambia is starting to seem like home to us now (well our little circle of Gambia) and it feels like we've been here forever. This weekend last year we could hardly believe we were here. After waiting for nearly 2 years we had finally made it to this small West African country, ready and excited to experience our first posting. Today everything is so familiar, we know people when we go to the supermarket, we know how much a banana should cost, we know our way around the area - OK that last one not so much, I don't think 10 years could teach us the intricate web of narrow dirt roads that wind through the residential areas.

 

We've even experienced the month of May before so I feel I can say... "oh I just love mango season" or "yep, those damn jellyfish are back AGAIN" or "what a relief all those tourists have left, I'm so glad it's just us locals now!" and other such ridiculous things that I now feel qualified to comment on. Which reminds me, the rain will be coming soon. I have entered a bet at the Fajara Club where I play tennis (yes it is like an old colonial country club from the 50's) that the rain will start on June 13th. If I win I get hundreds of Dalasi - which probably only equates to about $10 but I'm not complaining.

I think my memories of rainy season are fonder that reality because I find that I'm actually looking forward to the rain. I love those huge storms that roll in and send floods of water across our yard. Then they disappear as quickly as they came leaving steaming puddles that soon sink into the endless piles of sand.  Of course we're lucky enough to live in a reasonably solid house - I say reasonably because compared to most houses it's as sturdy as a bunker but in actuality there are new cracks in the walls every day and sometimes plaster crumbles from the ceiling.  We're hoping to move house before the rain gets too bad. As you may remember from last October, our house isn't properly grounded (probably because it's built on what should be a sand dune) so when the ground gets too wet we have electrical problems and everything in the house capable of conducting electricity does.... oh I can't wait for the rainy season! In the mean time we're enjoying the last of the coolish, not too humid weather. It will only be a few more weeks until it's too hot and humid to sit outside for our Sunday brunch of banana and peanut butter pancakes!

A Day in the Life

 

We are woken at 6:40am every morning, not because Zack’s alarm goes off but because our cat is sitting under our bedroom window crying for food. Since we’ve adopted him he has transformed from a skinny outdoor cat living on small bony smoked fish to a chubby fluff ball that needs constant attention and tinned tuna. As Zack gets ready for work I usually sleep or read my book, preferring to read Jane Austen repetitively rather than start my essays on community planning.  Zack leaves around 7:45 – despite having the same routine every work day, he is always running late – I put on the kettle and turn on the computer, wondering how long I can procrastinate before starting my work (in truth this can sometimes be hours). The time difference to Australia is pretty good so many mornings I Skype my parents or friends who are usually having dinner before I’ve even had breakfast. Around 9ish I often wander over to the crazy lady in the tiny shop across the street, she's actually very friendly but did not want to smile for the photo. Every time I go over to buy tapalapa (baguette type bread that is sometimes so fresh it is still warm) we have the same conversation that generally consists of smiling, laughing, nodding and mumbling – I speak no Fula and she no English but we generally get the gist since my purchase never changes. After my usual yogurt, fruit and vegemite tapalapa I retreat back to my study where I stare blankly at my computer for a while before managing to get some work done. My work and study schedules are pretty flexible so every day seems the same but different – simular tasks in varying orders. 

 I also have a project with WWF (as previously mentioned) so during the week I periodically wander in and out of the office, sometimes just staying for a couple of hours to chat with someone other than Slobs and eat the lunch. Every day at the office a big silver bowl arrives around 1-2pm. Inside is always a mound of rice topped with various Gambian sauces, mostly comprising of palm oil and msg flavouring, sometimes good sometimes not so good. My favourite is domoda, the peanut butter based sauce. We all sit around the same bowl and eat, I only catch bits a pieces of conversation which is generally in Wolof and often the food gives me a stomach ache but I enjoy these lunches and I think I entertain the others by asking stupid questions such as “what exactly are we eating?”. 

 

Zack and I are not organised enough to do a weeks (or even 2 days) worth of food shopping at once so nearly every day I visit the vege stands and supermarkets. Food shopping generally takes a while, especially if I need something particular, every supermarket is only slightly larger than a 7/11 and a product seen one week may never appear again. So the combination of having to visit many shops, chatting with the vege sellers and making sure to always have enough cash, makes food shopping a much longer, drawn out, partly entertaining, partly tiresome but always interactive activity than simply going to wholefoods!   

On days when I meet Zack at the embassy we sometimes go to our favourite local bar. Bakau Guesthouse is not really a bar it’s more of a deteriorating restaurant and hotel that is perched precariously on a small cliff overlooking the Bakau fish market. Arriving soon after 6pm, our timing is usually perfect to sit on the balcony with a Jewlbrew and watch the fisherman come back with their daily catch. The market at this time is a crazy mash of noise, colour, smell and more noise. As the small wooden boats come in, kids run into the waves to collect the fish for selling, or sometimes stealing! Women sell and cook fish to locals, expats, restaurant owners and tourists. Sometimes if we’re feeling brave enough we venture up the tower, a long dark winding staircase that takes us past floors of half open hotel rooms, decrepit hall ways and squatters quarters to the open roof where we can see to the horizon in all directions and watch as the sun sinks into the haze. 

Other days Zack gets home around 7ish, usually in time to walk down to beach, carefully ignoring the bumsters, before making dinner, watching TV and going to bed. The next morning Slobs dutifully wakes us up with his pitiful meows and we start all over again!

It's nearly been a year since we arrive in Gambia and I've barely written on my blog!

So as most of you know, Zack and I have just returned for our very belated honeymoon in Italy. I know it's difficult to believe but we were hanging out for a holiday... all this sand, sun and warm weather really gets to you after a while :) Zack has been working hard for the past year and I've been busy with my various essays and projects so it was nice to have a break and catch up with some friends and family back in DC.
A couple of months ago I started a volunteer project with World Wildlife Fund. The director was a little vague on exactly what it is he wanted me to do (something about dolphins, turtles, education, fishing etc.) so I have decided to (attempt) a project to increase marine education in the fishing villages along the  coast. It's actually pretty exciting because I am designing and organising the program myself which is something they would never let a random volunteer do in large WWF offices. So with the help of a local ranger and a very good artist, I organised some classes with school kids to increase the marine awareness (or "sensitize" as they say here) in schools. Despite living at the beach very few people - adults and children - know much about the complexity of a marine environment or the role that different animals play in the ecosystem. I was a little nervous about how the kids would respond to the classes but they seemed to really enjoy the games, did pretty well on the homework I set and with the help of Njogu (the artist) they drew some really wonderful pictures of different marine species.

So this is just a short blog to let you know what I've been doing but I PROMISE to write a more detailed one very soon!

Basse

OK I know I am probably the worst person to have a blog because I never get around to actually writing it (I just think about what I could write). So this blog is for the Bright people who told my mum to make sure I remember to update it, thanks for reading :)

As the land cruiser barrels into a thick cloud of red dust I hope that Coolie (our driver) has some sort of special x-ray vision that allows him to see what's ahead of us, because I certainly can't. There must be a car ahead somewhere because our headlights are unable to penetrate the cloud of dust it leaves behind. The sun set about an hour ago and since then we have been driving at 100km/hour into dusty nothingness. Every so ofter we are suddenly confronted with a Gelli - an old beaten up mini van carrying more people and luggage than is physically possible, how they don't fall apart at every pot hole must be a feat of magic. The Gellis are invisible to us until they are about 5 meters away, when we are forced to swerve quickly into the ditch. I suppose the Gelli driver doesn't want to risk stopping as it looks quite possible that the van will never start again.

We are on the road to Basse, the most eastern town in Gambia and a major thoroughfare for many people heading down to Guinea Conakry and beyond.  The embassy has made various donations to surrounding villages and Zack has been sent to check them out. I tagged along just for fun (or something like it) as I hope to see as much of the country as possible while we are here. Now we may live in Africa but as other embassy staff say, this is "Africa light", no war, no famine and a reasonable climate. We live in a peaceful country and although entertainment may be limited we have access to pretty much everything we need - I even found vegemite the other day! So going all the way up to Basse is quite an adventure for us, no tourists come up here, there are no supermarkets, very little power and we had no idea what it would be like. Zack made me pack boxes of food, sleeping bags, antibiotics and more bug spray than you can imagine! Despite our wild imagination, Basse was not like driving into the depths of the Congo Basin and we were staying in an apartment on the MRC compound (British Medical Research Center) that was nicer than our house. Although I have to say, for an organization that does so much malaria research you would think they would have mosquito nets and fly wire screens on the windows.

Although Basse is about as far away from Kombos as possible in Gambia, it is probably only a few hundred kilometers in distance. Yet the drive takes anywhere between 6 hours (driving at break neck speed) and 8-9 hours (if the ferries take a while). We drove up the north bank to avoid the terrible roads on the south but this involves many ferry crossings. Bridges here are rare and although they add hours onto a trip, ferries are the usual means of transport across the river - even if it is only 30 meters.

One of the main reasons we were up in Basse was to attend an opening of a community project to assist with education in sustainable farming and other such activities. In typical Gambian style it started 3 hours late and went for 4 hours but on the whole it was interesting - especially hearing about their plans for improving agriculture and industry. We spent the remainder of our time visiting villages which were recipients of embassy projects such as milling machines - grinding cous can take women hours by hand. To show off the new machine we were offered some freshly ground cous which is served with milk in a large communal bowl. Now I am very happy (and surprised) with the variety of food here but the one thing I really miss is fresh milk. Well this is proof that I should be careful what I wish for... this milk was so fresh that the cow was still tied up outside! Now you all may be accustomed to drinking unpasteurized milk but I am not and sipping fresh warm, sour milk (made slightly lumpy from the cous) out of a giant spoon was an experience. I hate to sound ungrateful for the kind generosity of the village but I am now much more appreciative of our imported long life milk from Belgium.

So we survived and enjoyed our adventure to Basse... times like these remind us of why we love living in such a different place, strange milk and all!