Update and Site Assignments (written Dec 4)

First, a couple random things I've been meaning to mention:

1) There are baas (goats – gotta love that one), and thus baby goats everywhere in our village and they are absolutely adorable. See a picture of one below. Among other cute things, they love playing king of the mountain with other baby goats and when they get hungry, they just stop where they are and baa in their tinny little voices until their mother comes and finds them. As soon as they catch sight of their mothers, they run to them, baaing happily and start nursing (is that the word you use for animals?).

2) Most of the kids here know at least a few words of English from school and it seems like they all know the phrase “What is your name?” However, unfortunately, it seems like most of them think that the phrase means “Hello.” This results in daily calls of “Lamin Koli!!Fatoumata Koli!!...What is your name?” If we ask “What is your name?” back in English, they just stare at us blankly. Sometimes we try to clarify, other times we just shake our heads and laugh. NOTE – Apparently this is not a new phenomenon...Mark Hudson references it in his book I mentioned in my last post.

3) Daily life is physically demanding here. Of course I expected this to some extent, but I am still constantly impressed with how physically strong people, especially the women, are here. Everyday activities like pumping/drawing/carrying water, pounding rice/millet/groundnuts, chopping/gathering firewood to farming, etc are all quite challenging, and it's mainly the women who are responsible for those activities. So not surprisingly, the average woman here is pretty jacked.

Here are some assorted pictures taken over the past couple weeks:

Bobo, a pet baboon in our village...oh and it has a pet puppy...don't ask

How you know you're in a rural community


Jacob getting some help pumping water


Host sisters and cousin - Nymandi, Isa, Mandi, Baby


Baby and Isa - I love these girls


Isa in all her adorable glory


Sire from the compound across the way - oh the irony


Toubabs are SCARY!


Giant termite mounds like this are all over the place


Mosque near Tendaba

Now, site assignments! Last night our trainers announced our permanent site assignments. Unfortunately, it was a bit anti-climatic for many of us (myself and Jacob included) because anyone who is replacing a current volunteer will not get to see their site books (and thus a detailed description of our sites) until Christmas. I am not allowed to post the name of our site here, but it is a mid/large sized village a few kilometers from Soma, a relatively large village in the center of the country on the south bank of the river. It is maybe 10k from our training village, so we actually won't be going very far. We've been to Soma twice, so we know it has a good market, electricity, several internet cafes (prices and level of connectivity unknown at this point), etc. Supposedly there is a lot of good work being done in the Soma area and quite a few NGOs have offices there, so there will be plenty of options when it comes to projects – should be good!

Site presentation

As an added perk to an already exciting day, we had a past Gambian PCV and his wife come talk to us about the business they are trying to start here selling solar lamps. They are still in the testing phase, so they gave us all lamps to try out and give feedback. On one day of sunlight, depending on the model and the setting, the lamps give 4-15 hrs of light. One of the models is compatible with our cell phone chargers (and thus one that can be powered from an outlet as well as the sun (and one that will be available in Jan will be able to charge our cell phones! We are really excited about this, partially because we will literally use ours every day, partially because this could be a great opportunity for the Gambia (and many other places as well). Since there are only about 12 hours of daylight year-round here, productivity essentially halts and sunset (between 6 and 7). People also go through a ridiculous number of cheap batteries to power flashlights, which then end up all over the ground, tainting the soil and becoming toys for children. The couple working on the project aims to make the lamps as affordable as possible, so we really look forward to seeing what happens!