As promised, my parents just posted their pics from their visit and our trip to Tanzania. I take absolutely no credit...my dad is a much better photographer than me, so I took the lazy route and just let him handle all the picture taking this time. Just click on the links below, and when the pictures come up hit "Slideshow" on the upper left corner of the screen to begin viewing the pictures. Enjoy!
https://picasaweb.google.com/ann.gardiner3/Tanzania11?authkey=Gv1sRgCP_U3eP746-MuQE#
https://picasaweb.google.com/ann.gardiner3/GambiaAndSenegal11?authkey=Gv1sRgCLbLhq2B-LffIg#
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
A poignant moment (written March 19)
This evening I was sitting on a mat outside outside our house reading a magazine like I often do, when our host sister Aja came and sat down next to me to look at the magazine pictures. This is a common activity for us here...magazine pictures are a great way to start conversations and teach people about the world beyond beyond The Gambia. This particular time, Aja happened to notice a picture of people protesting plans to build Park 51 at Ground Zero in NYC. As Aja starting asking me questions about what all the people were doing and what their picket signs said, I have to admit I felt myself flush with shame. How could I tell this 11 year-old Muslim girl who doesn't know what a terrorist is, much less 9/11, that these nice rich Americans were angry because American Muslims wanted to build a mosque, a peaceful and holy symbol that is at the very core of the only life she has ever known?
In the end, I told her that people had gathered in NYC and were protesting because they were unhappy, but I could not bring myself to tell her about what. Sympathetic to my sometimes less-than-stellar Mandinka, she assumed my hesitation was due to my language skills, and stated as much. I didn't correct her. Not a proud moment.
In the end, I told her that people had gathered in NYC and were protesting because they were unhappy, but I could not bring myself to tell her about what. Sympathetic to my sometimes less-than-stellar Mandinka, she assumed my hesitation was due to my language skills, and stated as much. I didn't correct her. Not a proud moment.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Peace Corps Descend on Kombo!
Last week we had a whole slew of Peace Corps activities in Kombo (the urban area around the capital for those of you who don’t know), including an all-volunteer Conference, more meetings than I can count, a swear-in ceremony and party for the latest group of trainees (it's hard to believe it's been a year since it was us standing up there!), a couples dinner at our country director’s house, an open mic nite, and much much more. While I couldn’t capture all of this on camera, I did get some pictures. Enjoy!
Matt, Rachelle and Rachelle’s friend Lani (sp?) who was visiting, out to dinner at a deeelicious indian restuarant for Rachelle’s birthday
The whole table
Sunny, Casey and Lucia at swear-in. Lucia’s hat was amaaazing!
Gibril, the Peace Corps health program manager, and the lovely Haddy, a Peace Corps language and culture trainer, the staff advisor for the gender and development committee, and an awesome person.
Our new Ambassador, Pamela White
All the newbies in their asobis (matching outfits), now official PCVs
Trainers in the training asobi (we were in Tanzania when they bought the fabric, so we didn’t get them even though we helped with training, but we’ll live)
Adam, Ida and Haddy, three of my favorite language and culture trainers, with Katie, the PCV leader for our sector
Kim making peanut noodles for the swear-in dinner in a Tupperware and mixing it with her hands. And no, no one saw any problem with this. That’s how we roll around here.
Wells manning the burger and kebab table at the swear-in dinner
Danielle manning (womanning?) the indian and thai food table
Matt, Rachelle and Rachelle’s friend Lani (sp?) who was visiting, out to dinner at a deeelicious indian restuarant for Rachelle’s birthday
Me with the birthday girl
The whole table
Sunny, Casey and Lucia at swear-in. Lucia’s hat was amaaazing!
Gibril, the Peace Corps health program manager, and the lovely Haddy, a Peace Corps language and culture trainer, the staff advisor for the gender and development committee, and an awesome person.
Our new Ambassador, Pamela White
Cornish, our country director
Scott, one of the newbies, giving the swear-in speech in Pulaar. Bravo!
All the newbies in their asobis (matching outfits), now official PCVs
Trainers in the training asobi (we were in Tanzania when they bought the fabric, so we didn’t get them even though we helped with training, but we’ll live)
Adam, Ida and Haddy, three of my favorite language and culture trainers, with Katie, the PCV leader for our sector
Kim making peanut noodles for the swear-in dinner in a Tupperware and mixing it with her hands. And no, no one saw any problem with this. That’s how we roll around here.
Wells manning the burger and kebab table at the swear-in dinner
Danielle manning (womanning?) the indian and thai food table
Couples dinner at Cornish’s house (the blue checked fabric was the western region asobi for all-vol). Huge thanks to Luke for making an amazing thai meal despite a busted-up knee!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
A naming ceremony in our compound (written March 5)
I think I’ve mentioned that naming ceremonies (kulios) are a pretty big deal here. A kulio is basically like a Muslim christening or bris/t, followed by a huge party, often with most of the village in attendance. They are supposed to be soon after the baby is born, but they are expensive affairs, so sometimes they are delayed until the family can pull together enough money (in that case, the baby is given a unofficial name for the interim). If the family can’t afford a kulio, there are also smaller versions of naming ceremonies they can do instead, but if at all possible, the family will try to do a kulio. This particular baby was our host aunt and uncle’s first child first son and the compound had been actively planning for the kulio for at least a month.
While there is a brief element of praying for the baby’s future and officially giving the baby its name, like pretty much every other community event, the main focus of a kulio is on exchanging money and gifts, wearing fancy clothes and matching outfits, eating a lot of good food, and dancing. Here are some pictures from the kulio:
The rainbow of women greeting the new mother, Jeneba
Jeneba in her finest, surrounded by family and friends
Jeneba with her escorts, Alima and Fatoumata
Umie with Muddy Jamfata (literally Tall Muddy)
Hawa with Muddy, who, of course, was completely oblivious to the fact that he was the reason for all this fuss!
Me and Jacob in our asobis
Me and Jacob with Lucy and Ellie, two VSO volunteers (the British equivalent of Peace Corps) living nearby who came for the kulio
They had hired a camera guy for the kulio and he brought a flood light, so I was able to get some really cool pictures of the women dancing
More dancing
And more
Me with Sonka and Umie
Me with Ramo and Ida
Me, Fatou, and some other girl I don’t know
Jonyi with her friend whose name I can never remember
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Little victories
I've written before about the importance of little victories for any Peace Corps volunteer. The little victories really, truly are what get you through the tough times. You absolutely have to celebrate them and milk these little proud moments for all they are worth. They are what Peace Corps service is all about. Here is my latest one (hopefully this translates...I think it will):
First, two important bits of background information.
1) Gambian money is disgusting. Especially the small bills, which of course are what are used the most. Every once in a while you'll run across a crisp new one, but 99% of the time, these bills are grubby and a little smelly and crumbled and torn (tape and/or staples are commonly used to repair them). The bank seems to pay no attention to the state of the bills when you take out money, but many shopkeepers refuse to take the most tattered ones. This results in most Peace Corps Volunteers carrying around several disintegrating bills that they can't seem to get rid of.
2) The smallest unit of currency that is worth anyone's time here is a 50 butuut coin, which is worth about 2 cents. 50 butuuts will buy you a cheap minty (a cough drop that people eat like candy here) or two 50 butuut coins will buy you a small icy (maybe 1/2 cup of kool-aid frozen in plastic bag). However, left over from days when they were worth more, there are 25 butuut coins floating around, which no one ever wants, because they're really pretty useless. Like a penny basically, except most people don't carry wallets regularly here, and most of the coins are pretty big, making coins in general even more annoying than they are at home.
Ok, so now the story. I was in the market this part week buying some vegetables for lunch and when I gave the girl running the vegetable stall my D50 bill, she refused to take it because a small corner was missing. Now, in the past, I would have just sighed, given her a different bill, and made sure to fold up the bill carefully before I tried to use it again. However, for whatever reason, that day I decided to fight it. In my slowly-improving Mandinka, I told her in no uncertain terms that she knew perfectly well that all Gambian money looks like this and it's certainly not my fault and she was being ridiculous. To my surprise, she (and the other vegetable women) laughed, agreed that Gambian money was "not good," and she took the bill. As I was waiting for my change, I watched her dig around in the bottom of her container of money to give me by D2 change in 25 butuut coins. I swear she had a smirk on her face too...she was clearly messing with me. Usually I just roll my eyes and take the coins, but not today. Before she could even try to give me the offending coins, I called her out on what she was doing and said that I knew she had D1 coins in that container somewhere. Again, to my surprise, it worked! The women erupted in laughter again, told me I was a Mandinka woman now, and I walked away my vegetables and my two D1 coins on top of the world. :-)
First, two important bits of background information.
1) Gambian money is disgusting. Especially the small bills, which of course are what are used the most. Every once in a while you'll run across a crisp new one, but 99% of the time, these bills are grubby and a little smelly and crumbled and torn (tape and/or staples are commonly used to repair them). The bank seems to pay no attention to the state of the bills when you take out money, but many shopkeepers refuse to take the most tattered ones. This results in most Peace Corps Volunteers carrying around several disintegrating bills that they can't seem to get rid of.
2) The smallest unit of currency that is worth anyone's time here is a 50 butuut coin, which is worth about 2 cents. 50 butuuts will buy you a cheap minty (a cough drop that people eat like candy here) or two 50 butuut coins will buy you a small icy (maybe 1/2 cup of kool-aid frozen in plastic bag). However, left over from days when they were worth more, there are 25 butuut coins floating around, which no one ever wants, because they're really pretty useless. Like a penny basically, except most people don't carry wallets regularly here, and most of the coins are pretty big, making coins in general even more annoying than they are at home.
Ok, so now the story. I was in the market this part week buying some vegetables for lunch and when I gave the girl running the vegetable stall my D50 bill, she refused to take it because a small corner was missing. Now, in the past, I would have just sighed, given her a different bill, and made sure to fold up the bill carefully before I tried to use it again. However, for whatever reason, that day I decided to fight it. In my slowly-improving Mandinka, I told her in no uncertain terms that she knew perfectly well that all Gambian money looks like this and it's certainly not my fault and she was being ridiculous. To my surprise, she (and the other vegetable women) laughed, agreed that Gambian money was "not good," and she took the bill. As I was waiting for my change, I watched her dig around in the bottom of her container of money to give me by D2 change in 25 butuut coins. I swear she had a smirk on her face too...she was clearly messing with me. Usually I just roll my eyes and take the coins, but not today. Before she could even try to give me the offending coins, I called her out on what she was doing and said that I knew she had D1 coins in that container somewhere. Again, to my surprise, it worked! The women erupted in laughter again, told me I was a Mandinka woman now, and I walked away my vegetables and my two D1 coins on top of the world. :-)
Why do I want to do international work?
Ever since I decided to go into international public health/development work, people have been asking me why I want to go work so far away and live in uncomfortable conditions when there are countless important problems to be addressed in my own country. There are a lot of ways to answer that question, but the simplest one starts with the following (from The Audacity of Hope, which, yes, I am still slowly working my way through):
"It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services - electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances - that are still unattainable for most of the world."
I would add to that list: emergency health care; social security; welfare; medicare/medicaid; affordable public education; libraries; the internet and the enormous wealth of information that comes with it; safe and reliable public transportation; a functioning legal system...the list goes on and on.
In most developing countries, someone who has even half those things is considered very, very wealthy and/or fortunate. Puts things in perspective a bit, doesn't it? Yes, there are problems in the US that affect a lot of people's lives and absolutely deserve attention, I don't deny that, and I'm very glad that they are smart, motivated individuals working on those problems. Someday, maybe I will even become one of them. However, I strongly believe in the importance of being passionate about your work, and right now, at this point in my life, the problems being faced by people in the developing world are the ones that speak to me the most.
I was lucky enough to be born into an extremely privileged life, and I feel a deep responsibility to give back by helping those who who were not so lucky. The way I see it, it's logical to start with the people in the world who are the most unlucky, and to me personally, that means people that are poor and/or underprivileged by the standards of the developing world, not the Western world.
"It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services - electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances - that are still unattainable for most of the world."
I would add to that list: emergency health care; social security; welfare; medicare/medicaid; affordable public education; libraries; the internet and the enormous wealth of information that comes with it; safe and reliable public transportation; a functioning legal system...the list goes on and on.
In most developing countries, someone who has even half those things is considered very, very wealthy and/or fortunate. Puts things in perspective a bit, doesn't it? Yes, there are problems in the US that affect a lot of people's lives and absolutely deserve attention, I don't deny that, and I'm very glad that they are smart, motivated individuals working on those problems. Someday, maybe I will even become one of them. However, I strongly believe in the importance of being passionate about your work, and right now, at this point in my life, the problems being faced by people in the developing world are the ones that speak to me the most.
I was lucky enough to be born into an extremely privileged life, and I feel a deep responsibility to give back by helping those who who were not so lucky. The way I see it, it's logical to start with the people in the world who are the most unlucky, and to me personally, that means people that are poor and/or underprivileged by the standards of the developing world, not the Western world.
We're back!
We just got back from a wonderful trip to Tanzania with my parents, which is why I haven't posted in a while. My parents came to our site for a few days, then we all went to Tanzania together to experience a completely different part of Africa. Among other things, we did several game drives where we saw elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, and many other animals. We also had an opportunity to spend some time in a Maasai village in a conservation area. It was a great trip for a lot of reasons (not least because I got to spend almost two weeks with my parents!), but the most blog-worthy part was seeing the similarities and differences between Gambian and Tanzanian cultures. Here are a few random things that stood out to us, in no particular order:
Similarities
- Communal cultures
- Importance of greetings
- English is widely spoken (particularly by civil servants and other educated people)
- Mud bricks are a common housing material, but Tanzanians fire them in a way that makes them much more resistant to rain than the ones in The Gambia.
- The cuisines are somewhat similar, with a lot of sauces and fish and beans, although they also have a stiff porridge called ugali (sort of like polenta) and plantains that they sometimes substitute for rice. They also have more curries and other spices, as well as chapatti bread, which are apparently more common near the coast where the Indian influence is stronger.
- Domesticated animals (goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys) are everywhere.
- Tension between the increased influence of Western culture (in everything from education to clothing to entertainment to individual freedoms) and the desire to preserve the traditional cultures.
Differences
-Tanzania has two rainy seasons, making the land a lot of lush and fertile.
-Tanzania has mountains!
-Tanzania seems much cleaner than the Gambia (at least in the area we were in), possibly because there are enforced laws against littering.
-Tanzania generally seems better off financially (at least in the area we were in), partially due to a well-developed tourism industry, and partially due to natural resources and agricultural exports (coffee, cotton, cashews, tobacco, tea, sisal, gold, diamonds, tanzanite).
-Tanzania has 120 different ethnic groups!! They are united by a single language, Swahili, which is taught in primary and upper basic school - they switch to English in senior secondary school.
-Tanzania is equal parts Christian and Muslim. They keep the peace by equal representation in the government - even the presidency alternates Christian and Muslim!
-Even small markets take US Dollars (as well as Tanzanian shillings) in Tanzania, apparently because US Dollars are a more stable currency.
- People do carry things on their heads, but not nearly as much as in The Gambia. They also carry some things, like firewood, on their backs with a strap across their forehead, similiar to the technique used in Asia. I'm guessing this has to do with the difficulty of carrying things on your head over mountainous terrain.
Ok, that's enough for now, but feel free to post any questions you may have. I'll post a link to pictures as soon as my dad gets them up on Picasa.
Similarities
- Communal cultures
- Importance of greetings
- English is widely spoken (particularly by civil servants and other educated people)
- Mud bricks are a common housing material, but Tanzanians fire them in a way that makes them much more resistant to rain than the ones in The Gambia.
- The cuisines are somewhat similar, with a lot of sauces and fish and beans, although they also have a stiff porridge called ugali (sort of like polenta) and plantains that they sometimes substitute for rice. They also have more curries and other spices, as well as chapatti bread, which are apparently more common near the coast where the Indian influence is stronger.
- Domesticated animals (goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys) are everywhere.
- Tension between the increased influence of Western culture (in everything from education to clothing to entertainment to individual freedoms) and the desire to preserve the traditional cultures.
Differences
-Tanzania has two rainy seasons, making the land a lot of lush and fertile.
-Tanzania has mountains!
-Tanzania seems much cleaner than the Gambia (at least in the area we were in), possibly because there are enforced laws against littering.
-Tanzania generally seems better off financially (at least in the area we were in), partially due to a well-developed tourism industry, and partially due to natural resources and agricultural exports (coffee, cotton, cashews, tobacco, tea, sisal, gold, diamonds, tanzanite).
-Tanzania has 120 different ethnic groups!! They are united by a single language, Swahili, which is taught in primary and upper basic school - they switch to English in senior secondary school.
-Tanzania is equal parts Christian and Muslim. They keep the peace by equal representation in the government - even the presidency alternates Christian and Muslim!
-Even small markets take US Dollars (as well as Tanzanian shillings) in Tanzania, apparently because US Dollars are a more stable currency.
- People do carry things on their heads, but not nearly as much as in The Gambia. They also carry some things, like firewood, on their backs with a strap across their forehead, similiar to the technique used in Asia. I'm guessing this has to do with the difficulty of carrying things on your head over mountainous terrain.
Ok, that's enough for now, but feel free to post any questions you may have. I'll post a link to pictures as soon as my dad gets them up on Picasa.
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