Muffin! I wish...

Muffin! I wish...

Once in awhile, such as when I'm drinking ground-up cous with milk, I will randomly crave something I have no hope of seeing for another two years. Drinking ground-up cous with milk, by the way, is like drinking sand. Recent cravings (as of September 18, the day I'm writing this post):

• Muffins
• Eating Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries in a diner
• In-line skating
• Sweaters
• And, just this very instant, I've realized I crave the sensation of opening a freezer door in a supermarket. And not just the sensation of a freezing cold breeze--the whole experience of tugging open the door with its suction-y suction! Why? I don't know!

Photos!

So I'm at the Basse transit house and this afternoon the internet was working so awesomely that I uploaded some photos! Now it's evening and I've returned to write some captions.

Shortly after receiving the name "Binta" at our naming ceremony in training village. The woman sitting next to me was my host mom.

One day we took a bike trip to the beach, and here's a photo I took. If I knew anything more about trees and/or geological formations, I would share that information here. 



The storm brewing during our trip to Janjangbury. I can't remember whether I even wrote about this trip, but this is the river we saw a hippopotamus in. I would include my photo of the hippo, but it's such a small speck, you would just think your computer screen was dirty.





These were some of the girls that lived/played at the compound where my language teacher stayed. As you can tell, they were incredibly awesome.



The younger brother of two of the girls in the above photo.



Probably my most favorite photo EVER.



If I were the ambassador, this would be my backyard.

Birds!

This is another post that was not-so-secretly written in the past. But it may or may not be the first of these such posts that you are actually reading.

The actual date is August 31. But this is irrelevant because I am not writing about stuff I've done today, like eating ice cream at Bamboo Garden. I am writing about birds, briefly. Today, August 31, I found the Rough Guide to The Gambia among the books in the Stodge's library. And among the pages of this guide I found a bird identification section, that will allow me to identify 36 of the over 560 bird species found in The Gambia.

Birds I know I have seen:

• Village weaver. I was told by a reliable bird-identifier that these were what I had seen. I don't actually remember seeing the bird, but I do remember their nests, which were awesome. You can probably find a picture on Google.
• Red-cheeked cordon-bleu. These are AWESOME looking and I saw them all the time in Yuna. The males have these bright red dots on their cheeks that make them look girly and adorable.

Birds I may have seen:

• Hooded vulture
• Palm-nut vulture

I know I have seen a vulture of some sort or another. If The Gambia contains more than two species of vulture, it's possible I've seen vultures of neither the hooded nor the palm-nut variety.

Birds I wish I would see because their names are beyond awesome:

• Little bee-eater
• Beautiful sunbird
• Exclamatory paradise whydah

Birds I wish I would see because their blue feathers look like silk and they have yellow, bulging eyes:

• Purple glossy starling

Goat!

My host family owns several goats, one of which is tiny, adorable, and has a colorful piece of fabric tied around its neck. I have decided to (secretly) give it a different name every day. The names so far: Clover, Fleur, Button, Sneeze, Bounce.

Also, I'm writing/wrote this post on the day before yesterday. I love this publishing to the future feature!

More Photos! And Words!

View from my window the morning after the Marathon March

Note: These photos, and those from yesterday, were not posted in any sort of chronological order. Or any order at all, really. 

View of Banjul from the July 22 Arch

I wanted to upload some more, but the computer/camera is being disagreeable. So I'll write some. I need to leave in a few minutes anyway to grab a bean sandwich for breakfast and catch the car back to my site. Lessons start tomorrow, but as I won't actually be teaching a class (I'll be doing more teacher-training stuff) I'm not stressing. Officially, school started last Thursday, but students mostly attended assemblies and cleaned.

Words!

I've been at site two weeks now. I want to tell you everything, but I'm at real risk of saying nothing at all and instead wasting hours thinking of beginnings and then shutting the laptop shut in a fit of overwhelmed panic.

Okay.

Grrr...

Oh! I'll start with my squirrel story! It is a short story: I saw a squirrel. I didn't know squirrels existed in The Gambia, and for all I know it wasn't actually a squirrel, but that's what the driver told me, and it looked enough like one for me to believe him. Here's a transcript of the conversation, as remembered two weeks later:

A squirrel dashes along the side of the road and into the bushes. 
Me: What was that?!
The Peace Corps Driver: A squirrel. I should have run him over!
Me: I did not know The Gambia had squirrels!!!
Driver: There are squirrels in America?
Me: Yes, there are squirrels ALL over America.
Driver: And you do not kill them?
Me: No.

Yes, yes, I know squirrels end up splattered on the roads in America all the time, but do we aim for them? Not usually.

Here's another story, because maybe you can piece together these stories puzzle-style and form a picture of my life. Or just ignore this post and look at the actual photos of my life.

Rugi, my maybe 5-year-old host-niece, is in my hut watching me fill my water bottle from my filter. In Pulaar:
Rugi: You have a pump!
Me: No, this is a filter.
Rugi: No! It's a pump, it's a pump!
Me: No.
Rugi: Pump!
Me: No.
Rugi puts her mouth to the tap of my filter and starts drinking. 
Me: Stop!
Rugi smiles. 
Me: Stop!
I pull Rugi away and we go outside. 

3 days later, sitting under a tree with Rugi and her older brother, Mamadou. In Pulaar:
Mamadou: Do you need to fetch water from the pump? I will help you. [at least, I imagine he said something along those lines. I didn't actually understand his exact words]
Rugi: No! She has a pump in her house!
Me: It's not a pump, it's a filter!

And those are all the stories for today.

Field Trip!

Today we went to the museum and saw fascinating stuff like old passports, coins, tools (actually, old tools don't fascinate me), costumes and an intricate paper-and-wood lantern shaped like a boat.

Then we climbed to the top of the July 22 Arch. I was briefly reminded of climbing the Bunker Hill Monument in 8th grade, except the staircase in the Arch was wider, better-lit, and not covered in slime.

Also, several weeks ago an albino fly landed on my notebook.

Incredible!

What is incredible is that I have nothing incredible to write about. I spent most of the day in training sessions and then on the walk back from the office to the Stodge my brain melted. Therefore, I am incapable of remembering any interesting adventures from the past to write about.

However, I feel obligated to write something, and at the same time, to write something quickly so that I don't hog the computer. Therefore:

Stuff I've recently learned:

• scientists suspect the pink color of Amazon river dolphins is due to scar tissue
• there are also river dolphins in India
• the species of river dolphin that lives in China is functionally extinct

Stuff I've recently read:

• a June 2009 issue of National Geographic