Chickens!

Things I like about chickens:

• if you call, "kuur, kuur, kuur!" they all come running
• they have dinosaur legs
• and beedy little eyes
• sometimes the fluffy yellow ones will hop on their mother's back and balance there
• the mother hens look like they should be made out of ceramic and sold in a gift shop
• the roosters look like gentlement in waistcoats, with dinosaur legs
• you can eat them.

=)

Sometimes the students make me want to scream, but sometimes they make me smile.

From the day I returned the grade eleven homework:
Bakary: Miss Jallow, who put this here? [Bakary points to the sparkly, blue smiley-face sticker]
Me: I did. Do you like it?
Bakary: Yes!
A few minutes later...
Bakary: Miss Jallow! Muhammed is trying to steal my this!

From the same day:
One of the students: Miss Jallow, next time write "Bravo!"
Me: Okay, next time instead of "fantastic" I will write "bravo!"

From a lesson with the ninth graders, before it devolved into chaos:
Student: Miss Jallow, who invented maths?
Me: Many people invented maths. You know the people in the Middle East? They helped invent math. And the Greeks, the people from Greece. You know where Greece is? In Europe.
Another student: Maths is like science, it was not just one person.
Me: Yes! Exactly.
Yet another student: Miss Jallow, who invented colors?
Me: I don't know.
Same student: I think it was Isaac Newton. [chorus of agreement from the class that Isaac Newton invented colors]. You know Isaac Newton?
Me: Yes, but now it's time to return to maths.

20 Questions!

My host mother's sister, Wuri, was visiting for a couple of weeks, and we were sitting awkwardly and silently, so I attempted conversation.

Me: Tell me about Senegal.
Wuri: Yes, I'm from Senegal.
Me: I know, tell me about Senegal. Does Senegal have electricity?
Wuri: Yes.
Me: All of Senegal?
Wuri: Yes.
Me: Does Senegal have horses?
Wuri: Yes, Senegal has many horses.
Me: Does Senegal have hyenas?
Wuri: Yes.
Me: Have you ever seen a hyena?
My host mother, Nene, joins the conversation. 
Nene: Yes, I have seen a hyena.
Me: You've seen a hyena? I'm scared of hyenas. I think hyenas will eat people.
Nene: Senegal has a national park, it has many animals. It has hyenas, and monkeys, and ngiiru.
Me: I don't know, what is ngiiru?
Nene: Ngiiru is a wild animal [launches into explanation that I don't understand]
Me: Ngiiru has four legs?
Nene: Yes, ngiiru has four legs.
Me: Ngiiru is large or small?
Nene: Ngiiru is LARGE.
Me: Ngiiru eats grass?
Nene: No, ngiiru eats meat. Ngiiru eats [list of animals I do not know]
Wuri: And cows.
Nene: No, ngiiru does not eat cows.
Wuri: It doesn't eat cows?
Nene: No, it doesn't eat cows.
Me: I don't know!
Nene: Wait, if Amadou comes he will tell you.

We wait until Amadou comes.


Me: Nene, I forget, what is the animal I don't know?
Nene: Amadou Boy, come here. Tell Binta what ngiiru is.
Amadou: Ngiiru? It is lion.

Macaroni!

Here's a conversation I had with Mariama from the market:

Mariama: Will you eat rice?
Me: Yes, I eat rice.
Mariama: You eat rice? Oh! I thought you would only eat macaroni.

Smuggling kids in suitcases!

The following is not the first smuggling-kids-in-suitcases conversation I've had. But my training villae family thought it was hilarious, so after my host-sister Fatou asked if I'd take her 2-year-old son Pate to America when I went home, I took the opportunity to repeat it.

Fatou: When you go home to America, take Pate with you.
Me: Okay.
Fatou: Okay?
Me: Okay.  I will put him in my baggage. Because the fare is expensive, but if I put him in my baggage...
Fatou repeats what I've said to the other women sitting with us.
Fatou: But America is far. Won't he die? In the baggage?
Me: No, because I will put Pate in my baggage and I will put food in my baggage and I will not [I pantomime zippering the suitcase shut] and the wind will come.
Fatou repeats what I've said to the others, except she uses the actual Pulaar word for "close" instead of pantomiming it.
Me: But if Pate cries, or if he talks, the people will hear, and they'll come and see him and say "Ah! You have a child in your baggage!" and it will be bad.

So now my suitcase will have Sarjo and Sainey (my training village brothers) and a monkey, and Pate, and a chicken--a few weeks prior to this conversation one of the boys in the village told me that when I return to America I should take a chicken with me.

Baby-man!

I may or may not have written in a previous post that I'm the fourth or fifth Peace Corps volunteer that my family has had. My host mom has learned a few English words, and is always asking to learn more. One night, after proudly showing that she remembered the words "man" and "woman" she told me she forgot the word for "child," so I told her, and then told her the word for "baby," too. After which she announced, "Baby man! Bobo gorko!" In Pulaar, that's how baby boy would be translated. Maybe I should have corrected her, but I just couldn't.

D.I.Y: Repair a chair!

Materials: 2 broken plastic lawn chairs, some wire/string/rope/skinny piece of fabric 

Step 1: Examine your materials. The chairs need to be broken in different places, e.g. one is missing a right leg and one is missing a left leg.

Step 2: Stack the chairs on top of each other. There should be little or no space between the seats.

Step 3: Use wire, string, rope, or a skinny piece of fabric to tie the chairs together at one or both of the arms.

Step 4: Enjoy your new chair!

A super-fabulous day in my life!

Not all of these days are this super-fabulous. And at the time I am writing this post, I don't know if November 15 will be super-fabulous or not. But September 29 went like this:

• I went to school and the teachers spoke English nearly the entire time I was around them (during my first few days at school this hadn't been happening frequently, so it was pretty exciting)
• One of the teachers gave me a lesson on the history of the ethnic groups in The Gambia, and then directed me to a book in the library, so I met the librarian for the first time
• Walking home from school I met a little elementary school kid who called my name and started talking to me in flawless English. Here is part of the conversation we had: 
• Me (greeting the compound we're walking past): Nyallejam.
• Him: Oh, you speak the vernacular?
• I went to market and bought some peanut butter in a bag from my friend Mariama and learned where to buy bread. I sat and ate my peanut butter sandwich and learned that the reason part of the covered market they're repairing is sectioned off and has a separate door is because it's where they sell the meat. 
• I bought bananas. 
• Kids called my name and ran to hug me as I returned from market.
• Went with my friend Isatou (the mom to some of the kids I usually play with) to visit the hospital. I'm not sure why we went to the hospital, but I hadn't seen the hospital yet, so it was a good experience
• Witnessed the following glorious scene returning from hospital: Isatou's maybe-five-year-old daughter Fatoumata is semi-skipping along the dirt road leading back to our compounds. In one hand she's holding the ripped-off piece of cardboard box she found earlier. In the other hand, she's got an empty powdered milk tin that she's filled with broken bits of ceramic tile and placed in a plastic bag. She's shaking the bag and humming a tune. Snot is running from her nose. Her little sister, Hawa, is trying to catch up to her. Hawa is wearing pink shoes that squeak like a dog toy when she walks.

Conversations with Rugi: Corn!

This conversation took place back when the corn was just coming into season and people were roasting it ALL THE TIME. I'm visiting with Rugi's mom (Fatou) and her dad (Alaji) is also there.

Alaji: Binta, will you drink ataya?
Me: No, now I will not drink ataya.
Fatou: If Binta drinks ataya now, she will not sleep. She drinks it in the morning only.
Me: It's true. If I drink ataya now, I will not sleep.

A few minutes later:

Fatou: Binta, will you chew some corn?
Me: No, I'm full.
Rugi: If you chew corn, you will not sleep?

Eating ground-up cous with milk...

is like eating sand.

Fokkiti!

So for the first several weeks I was at site, I thought everyone around me was really angry all the time. Nope. Turns out "fokkiti" is the Pulaar for "setting off," as in, "I'm setting off for market," or "I'm setting off for school."

D.I.Y: Make a 2-in-1 toothpick and Q-tip!

Materials: Feather

Step 1: Gather your materials. A feather can likely be found around your feet, or you can send a child in search of one.

Step 2: Pluck the feathery bits off of the feather, starting at the base. Leave about 3/4 inch remaining at the top.

Step 3: Use the pointed end of your 2-in-1 toothpick and Q-tip to clean your teeth. When you're finished, turn it around and use the feathered end to clean your ears!

Note: If you cannot find a feather and only need to clean your ears, do the following: Walk to the nearest hut. Break a small piece of thatch off of the roof. Now clean those ears!

Flies!

There are probably as many species of fly in The Gambia as there are species of birds, but as I am not a whatever-the-fancy-name-for-someone-who-studies-flies-is, I can only divide them into three categories: 1) the surprisingly beautiful ones, 2) the ones that are ugly in a beautiful sort of way, or at least aesthetically entertaining, and 3) the ugly ugly ones.

On September 9, the day before I originally wrote this post, I saw a surprisingly beautiful one. It was so surprisingly beautiful, I considered making flies one of my new favorite insect. I contemplated what a fly-shaped necklace charm would look like. Then I remembered that they eat poop. Still, it was really beautiful! It's exoskeleton (yes, I still remember words like exoskeleton) was iridescent emerald and its red eyes were perfect spheres and not too bulging.

And the day before that, I saw one of those so-ugly-as-to-be-beautiful-in-a-hilarious-sort-of-way flies. It was fat. And had small eyes that were kind of flat.

But mostly I just see the ugly ugly flies. The most common type of ugly ugly fly is murky greenish-blackish-browinish in the portion of the body before the wings and a dirty beige-ish gray in the back. It's also fuzzy, which grosses me out. And the eyes are a dull red.

Games to play with stones!

Game #1: Gather a handful of stones. Scatter them on the ground. Toss one in the air, pick one up from the ground, then catch the falling one. Put the one you picked up from the ground aside. Repeat until no stones remain. Scatter all of the stones again. Now repeat the tossing and picking up steps, this time picking up two stones with every toss. Scatter the stones again. Repeat, picking up three stones with every toss.

Game #2: Toss a stone in the air and clap once before catching it. Now toss it in the air and clap twice. Now toss it in the air and clap once and tap your chest. Now toss it in the air and touch your toes. Etc.

Game #3: Toss a handful of stones gently into the air, flip your hand palm-side down and try to catch one on the top of your hand or your fingers. If more than one lands, ask someone to remove the extras so there is only one resting on the top of your hand/fingers. Now, keeping that stone balanced where it landed, pick up the scattered stones one by one and place them to the side, using the hand that is balancing the stone. When all of the stones are aside, toss the stone balanced on your hand into the air and catch it. Put the stone aside in a different location. Repeat from the beginning with the remaining stones. Continue until all of the stones have been set aside.

Switzerland!

Regretfully, Switzerland is no longer a part of Europe. Or any of the continents, actually. And I have proof.

One afternoon I was talking with my brother and his friends and trying to explain that America was not a part of Europe and that Sweden and Switzerland were not the same country. The world map I drew with a stick in the dirt wasn't helping much, so my brother brought out an old exercise book from last year that had a world map on the back cover. This exercise book was small, maybe half the size of the average spiral notebook, but this map was detailed. It mentioned that Greenland was a territory of Denmark, or wherever Greenland is a territory of. It labeled every island in every ocean and every country in Africa, including The Gambia and Lesotho. But when I searched for Switzerland, I could not find it. About half of Europe was a blank, unlabeled blob with some squiggly lines. Germany and Slovakia were also missing.

In the map's defense, the disclaimer at the bottom said, "The boundaries on this map are not authoritative."

More goats!

The Gambia has a lot of goats, which is why you are reading another post about goats. My school also has a lot of goats, which wander around the grounds and eat the crumpled up pieces of paper that the bean sandwiches come wrapped in. In one of my first days at the school I asked one of the teacher's about the goats:

Me: The school has many goats.
Teacher: Yes.
Me: Why?
Teacher: Because the school owns them.

A few weeks later I asked another teacher about the goats, and he was able to provide more information. He still couldn't tell me why the goats are there, or how they got there, other than that they're used sometimes as a learning aid for the agricultural science classes. I asked what they did with the goats, whether the teachers ever ate them, or anyone ever sold them. He said yes, sometimes they sell the goats and use the money to help out the neediest students. So, yay for goats!

Shopping!

I'm still in front of a computer, and the bugs are still not flocking to the computer screen or landing on my hair, so those are both wonderful things. Outside people are blowing whistles and cheering; one of the other volunteers at the Basse house told me it's probably a football game. And now the call to prayer is sounding, so it's an interesting combination of sounds.

Today the workshop ended right after lunch, actually, it ended before lunch but we stayed for the food. If I'd wanted to, I could have quickly packed my things and probably caught a car back to site...but I didn't want to. No one is expecting me home until Sunday anyway.

Here's what I did instead of spending two or possibly three hours squished in a vehicle: I re-visited the market. If you'll remember, my last trip to market was unpleasantly overwhelming. I mentioned the not-being-allowed-to-simply-browse aspect, but here's what else went wrong:

• the owner of one of the larger Mauritanian bitiks got mad at me for spending a lot of time looking around and then only buying 5 dalasi worth of goods. I could not tell if he was actually mad or only pretend mad (so I haven't returned) but either way it is not my fault his shop didn't sell the crackers I was looking for and if I decide I don't actually want oatmeal after all. In fact, I only bought the soft chocolate cookie with chocolate syrup filling because I didn't want to walk away without buying anything. Plus I like chocolate.
• I told a lie. Several times. I just wanted to find my way out of the part of the market selling bicycle inner tubes and stacks of plastic cups and other goods equally deficient in aesthetic value BUT every shop keeper I passed wanted to greet me and THEN because I correctly responded in Pulaar the greetings went on longer and I had to say my name and where I'm from etc etc. even though I just wanted to find the fabric or vegetable section.  So when the "etc etc" included "how is your husband?" or "where is your husband?" I said "he's fine" and "he's in America" because if I'd replied truthfully I probably would've had to explain why I'm not married and why I won't marry you, which I was NOT in the mood for. But now, even if I meet someone incredibly handsome and wealthy enough to buy me a new baby goat whenever the previous one grows ugly, I won't be able to marry him because everyone in Basse would know I'm a liar.
• I bought a chicken sandwich like I'd been wanting to do for weeks, but it was only semi-delicious because half of the chicken was just fatty, cartilage-y bits.

Today I returned to the market because I needed to buy some vegetables and I was also hoping to leave Basse on a more pleasant note.

Success!

Here's how today's market adventure went:

• I left for market around the time when most people were eating lunch, so the streets were less crowded and I did not walk around in constant panic that a motorcycle or donkey cart would hit me.
• No one shouted "Mariama!" or "Toubab!" One person called out, "Fatoumata Binta," which was half-way correct, and a few people actually remembered to call me Binta!
• I remembered the way to the vegetable section of the market without first wandering through the bicycle inner tube and plastic cups section
• Most of the ladies at the vegetable stands had left for the day, but I found one lady selling carrots and eggplants, so I bought some. At my site I can buy eggplants at the Sunday market, but I have yet to see a carrot
• I wandered the jewelry stands again (mostly plastic stuff from China) and this time when the ladies said "Hodum faalda?" I didn't even try to reply in Pulaar. In English I said, "I'm just looking" and then the ladies would point out the square earrings with the rhinestones in the middle or the square ones with rainbow stripes until I moved to the next stall. I finally bought some blue, glittery, over-sized flower ones that will hopefully distract from the hideous pattern on my Tobaski compelet.
• Speaking of Tobaski, today's market adventure did not include a "ram trade show." It either happened before I came, after I left, or not at all. I did, however, see a man walking a herd of rams in the direction of the market as I was leaving. They are probably destined for slaughtering because I've never before seen a herd of sheep that didn't include ewes or little lambs so cute they could be a pillow.
• Returning to jewelry, the lady who sold me the earrings also convinced me to buy some beaded bracelets, but she did not convince me to buy powder for henna or the necklace with the large beads that look like dried prunes
• I also bought some flip-flops because everyone else is going to have new shoes for Tobaski, plus the green and white ones I originally bought for bathing but now sometimes wear around village are 1) ugly and 2) not usually worn by women, who have better taste in shoes. The flip flops I bought today have a fish on each strap, and each fish has an iridescent rhinestone for an eye, so they're pretty fabulous
• I stopped at the Mini Mart on the way to the house and bought more of the biscuits with the Arabic writing on the wrapper and some coconut cookies for the kids

After the market I washed some clothes, and it was amazing because I could fill up the buckets with water from the tap and if the water became too soapy, I just poured it out and filled it again. And when it came time to hang the clothes to dry, the clothesline was waiting for me above my head. Washing clothes hasn't been this easy since I had access to a washing machine, a.k.a. since I before I left America.

And after washing clothes I cleaned out my backpack and read some and waited for the power to come so I could write these posts.

Now, farewell! I'm honestly not sure when you'll have another sitting-in-front-of-the-computer post...possibly not until December... I don't think anyone is going to Basse for Thanksgiving, it sounds like most people will be going to the Kombos. I've been promised cornbread if I will stop being a site rat and join them...but it takes a day for me to reach the Kombos from my site and I would be repeating the trip less than three weeks later for in-service training in mid-December.

But I really really love cornbread...

Apologies!

The lengthier, more-entertaining post I promised yesterday never happened, and also I forgot to move the post I scheduled for today (goat names) to a later date, so sorry for the confusion and lack-of-promise-keeping. Yesterday when I began writing the second post, the laptop I was typing on went into sleep mode, and then the charger refused to charge, so really it wasn't my fault.

So tonight I am back on the computer in the bug-infested room, which is possibly less bug-infested because we made sure to close all the doors completely and turn off the lights. However, because I have turned off the lights I have no way of actually seeing the quantity of bugs present.

Anyway, yesterday I'd just been planning on giving you the highlights of my day, so here's Yesterday:

• Breakfast = a french fry, hot dog and canned beans sandwich with a cup of tea
• Breakfast conversation = I chatted with one of the VSOs (sort of like Peace Corps Volunteers, but from England, so they have better accents and also they get to ride motorcycles) and learned the following:
• my accent is not one of those horrible ones that makes you wish the person would shut up
• his thatch-roof hut is like mine except with a refrigerator
• his hut is so large, "you could swing a cat around in it." this is a phrase I have decided to incorporate into my daily vocabulary, once my daily vocabulary returns to English
• After the workshop = I thought about going to market, but changed my mind and didn't go farther than the Mini Market. The Mini Market sells the following:
• Powdered milk
• Nescafe
• Ovaltine
• Canned chicken
• Canned salmon
• Soap
• Insecticide
• Hollywood Chewing Gum
• Chocolate wafer cookies
• Strawberry wafer cookies
• Gingersnaps
• Coconut biscuits
• Bags containing 80 dalasi worth of candies
• Room-temperature banana milk
• SpaghettiAnd a few more things along those lines, but not very much more
• Dinner = Room-temperature banana milk and some biscuits whose wrapper I couldn't read because I don't know Arabic. And then later I also cooked up some spaghetti with canned chicken.
• Sleep = Deficient. The hut at my permanent site may not have a fridge or enough room to swing a cat, but it is designed to allow the cool night-time air to flow inside. The Peace Corps house in Basse, on the other hand, was designed to require fans to keep its inhabitants cool. Unless the inhabitants are sleeping on the bottom bunk, in which case the inhabitant will give up attempting sleep and read several chapters of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time instead

More goat names!

The baby goat stopped being cute and adorable a few weeks ago, so I've stopped giving it a cute and adorable name each day. But here is the continued collection of names from before I stopped:

Sneeze, Flotsam, C.C., Fluffernutter, Little One, Snuffles, Filibuster, Jacob, Rhombus, Bobo, Scout, Bric-a-Brac

Maths!

I am sitting in front of the computer, and I will write a lengthier, additional post, but first I have a question:

If you are/were a math teacher or know someone who is/was, or if you are/were a student in a math class: Would you mind sharing any math games or activities with me? Preferably ones that require no materials, or at least not materials for which I can find no substitute in The Gambia. For example, Buzz! is a great game to practice multiples that until recently I'd completely forgotten. The games/activities could be for topics like fractions, negative numbers, factors, simple linear equations...

Thanks!

Internet!

This post is actually being written on November 4! The same day it is being posted, amazing!

So even though I just finished spending the weekend in Basse, I'm back again. Tuesday morning the vice-principal of my school tells me that there is a workshop I should attend at the regional education office in Basse. Starting Wednesday. At 9 am. Until Sunday. I can't be too upset with him though, because he didn't find out himself until the day before.

The good parts about being back in Basse for this workshop:

• it's a science and math workshop
• I get free breakfasts: Wednesday was a scrambled egg and French fries sandwich, and today was a tuna fish or sardine sandwich.
• I also get free lunches, which has been benichen for both days. And I get to eat with my hands, which I haven't done since training village
• I have time to wander the market
• there's internet
• and soda
• and showers
• I'll be around for the "Tobaski ram trade show" on Saturday

The bad parts about being back in Basse for this workshop:

• the room I'm writing this in is swarming with bugs
• the room I will be sleeping in will be too hot
• no one knows my name, so everyone calls me "toubab" or Mariama
• if I pause longer than a second at a market stall, I'm repeatedly asked what I would like to buy, and then the lady will walk around from behind her stall to ask if I would like these earrings, or maybe those ones and I do not know how to say "thank you kindly, but I'm only browsing at the moment" in Pulaar

Maaji!

In my first few days in village I played a game with the children where they'd hand me a dalasi and I'd hide it in my hands and pretend it had disappeared. Or I would hide it behind my back. It was like a magic trick, except I don't actually know any magic tricks. But whenever I would tell them the coin was not there, they would say, "Maaji!" so I thought they were saying, "magic."

Nope. It turns out "maaji" is the Pulaar word for "lost." Even the kids didn't confuse my coin-hiding for magic.

Conversations with Rugi: Laundry!

Rugi, you will remember, is my hilarious host-niece who thought the water filter in my house was a tap. Here's another conversation with her:

Adama is washing laundry while Rugi and I watch her. The laundry makes a squeaky-squishy noise.
Rugi: Did you hear that? The laundry farted!


So, actually, this really wasn't a conversation...but it was hilarious!

More stuff I've missed!

So recently I've gotten better about not imagining meals more delicious than sliced okra and rice, or craving freezer doors. But here's a collection of the stuff I missed at random points during the past six weeks:

• the television aisle of Wal-Mart in December when all of the T.V.s are on the burning-log channel
• 7-Eleven
• plain M&Ms (even though I like peanut ones much better)
• fruit-punch flavored juice (which I do not like at all)
• soft-boiled eggs (which I also dislike)
• a plain bagel sliced in half with cheddar cheese slices melted on it via microwave
• the Barbie aisle of Toys 'R' Us
• the way Home Depot smells

Meeting!

A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of the PTA. The principal wanted me to come so he could introduce me to the parents. Here's how it went: I don't know. It was conducted entirely in Mandinka, except for a few of the very important parts (the cost of school fees) that he translated into Pulaar in order to be certain that all the parents understood. Here is the extent of my Mandinka vocabulary: morning, afternoon, peace, name, children, work, they're there, slowly.

Even though I still haven't mastered Pulaar, people still want to know why I don't also know Mandinka. Or French. Which reminds me! As I was biking to Basse on Saturday I came across a yellow triangular sign bordered in bright red with a large, black exclamation point in the center. With some French words below it. So what I was being warned of, I have no idea.