From the Bush to your computer screen!

July 8th- Hello to all at home. I trust your 4th was fantastic. Mine was spent traveling. On the 3rd I met a fellow PCV (who lives near Basse) in Bansang, and together we traveled to Kerewan to stay w/ another PCV. The following day (the 4th) we got a free ride to our PC hostel in Kombo. We could have traveled one day to get to Kombo but that would have taken the entire day and our bodies would be mush by the time we got there…so making the travel in two days makes is less stressful. I have come into Kombo for a few reasons: 1) there are new PCTs here who are for the Education sector…so I wanted to meet them because I know what its like to be the frosh-rookie and I want to make them feel welcome. 2) I have an In Service Training that runs from July 8-17th-ish…where I’ll get more training on how “to be a more successful volunteer”. 3) The US Embassy here has a little bank account for funding for community projects. The Headmaster at the school in my village got a hold of the form to request funding and I am responsible to turn in this form. The funding is for a brick fence that will encompass the school’s campus and three gates with locks. The school will have 1 new school building and 2 new teachers quarters finished w/in months, inshallah (if god wills it). Thus a new fence would finish off the schools new additions nicely. And, a gated compound will hinder animals to enter the schools campus and wind cannot blow in trash = a cleaner compound for children to learn. And it will make theft from the school less likely. 4) Buy supplies, get $ from bank, type a blog for you all to read, and have a cold one.

I have received a generous amount of letters and many packages which is all greatly appreciated and a loving gesture. It’s amazing how much support I have back home. In the letters/notes I’ve gotten, a few questions come up more than once…which is perfect so now I know what to type on these blogs. All boxes that I knew were en route have come, in one piece and not open on purpose from theft or inspection (one box had a rip in the corner though). Sending tuna and also protein powder is much appreciated. Also, sending any magazines my way that you feel would interest me would be awesome. Basically, any and everything I receive in the mail just shows how much support I have back home…which is vital to know when I have my bad days/moments. My fan club keeps me going. My village (which most of you know where that is by now) is a fula village--which people speak Pulaar-but ¼ of the population there is Mandinka--who speak Mandinka. So, I was trained in Pulaar…but I am forced to learn the greetings (at least) in Mandinka…I can also respond to being asked my name and where I’m from. Fulas will learn/speak other native languages (ie: Mandinka and/or Wollof), but in my personal experience…Mandinkas wont budge and wont speak other languages. Which makes it tough when I greet some people in my village (and the response normally to the greeting is ‘jam tan’) but the person I’m greeting just stands there and looks at me like I spoke German to them…it can get frustrating. So, I turns out that I’m now learning two languages. Here in The Gambia there are 3 major languages spoken (Wollof, Mandinka, and Pulaar) and 3 minor ones (Serehula, Jola, and Jahanka- -if I remember correctly). AND different regions of West Africa AND different regions of The Gambia may have different dialects of specific languages listed above. Luckily the dialect difference from what I was trained in wasn’t too much different from what my village speaks. (There are hundreds of dialects of Pulaar) No need to send over bug repellent. I will be conducting a community meeting when I get back from Kombo on how to make a local mosquito repellent (which is cheap and easy to make) and I should be seen putting on this cream to set the example. The lotion itself works fairly well so no worries. I’ve received a few questions about if the music on my ipod is being over played and ‘getting old’,and if there is any way for people back home—if they send music cds—for me to be able to play the music. I have found a way to put music from a cd on my ipod…I actually stole a bunch of music from other PVCs. THUS, send over any new music you think I would like. Speaking of music, the only type of music I had in my little hut at village was the radio and my headphones hooked up to my ipod. Well, radio is used from the BBC, and putting on headphones can only be done at specific times…because then you cannot hear one name being called or something going on near my compound when headphones are blasting ‘Karma Police’. Basically, I was going crazy with having no music. The last time I was in Kombo I vowed to myself that I must find small speakers for my ipod…for some background music when I’m writing in my journal or making coffee in the morning. I found small speakers but they take 4 AAA batteries. The ‘having ‘em take batteries’ is a bummer but I have my music. I’ve always said that my music is my savior…and is really is here….to hear something familiar, something you can jam out to, something you can sing along to now and then later on (because only a small population of people in my area speak English), something to drown out the chickens crowing and donkeys braying and children yelling. I am a little less crazy with my newly purchases speakers. (I hope this isn’t a repeat of anything I’ve posted on here before).

So my three month challenge is up…so now I’ve proved to myself and my bosses that I can live at site and have no worries (yet). With the new PCTs here, I am no longer the ‘newbie’ in the PC community…and that feels pretty good. Its been 5 months folks—only 22 more months to go. The days go by slow but the weeks go by fast…which is a plus.
July 19- I stopped writing before because I couldn’t figure out what else to type. My In Service Training (IST) is finished, and I plan to travel back with some friends tomorrow morning. We have to leave very early if we want to make it back to site in one day. Plus I need to stop in Bansang to pick up some gifts for my family and my new bike! (When I started trained as a PCT, I got a ‘training bike’- -which is a Trek bike but is a few years old and hammered. My group was supposed to get brand new bikes right after we swore-in but the shipment was late. So finally, after being a volunteer for 3 months, I have a new bike. For folks back home who knew my bikes…my new bike is very comparable to my mountain bike back home (I miss my bikes, single tear L) ) So the entire day of travel will be costly and long…but it happens. As they say here, ‘it’s not easy’.
During IST we learned about community assessment, grant writing and where to find funding, met the rep for the World Food Program for The Gambia, etc. Lots of info and now I feel better prepared to be a PCV; and I have many new ideas for my community.

When I was in training, I was thinking of how I could transport items via my bike. The bikes come with a platform that is just above the back tire but that can only hold so much. I thought about how to make a bike trailer. I could buy one online from REI.com and have it shipped over but it would most likely be hammered w/in a month here and then I’d be out of luck. And it would have shown that the toubab (white person/stranger) has too much money- -a topic I’ve discussed before. So, I thought about hiring a local welder (yes, welding does happen near my village, in Bansang) to piece together a metal frame for a trailer. But then I’d probably have to pay a lot and it would be very heavy. Plus, if I had made a trailer and people in my community liked the it, they couldn’t copy the idea because they most likely afford to do so = isn’t helping. So I was determined to find a way to make a bike trailer made from local materials. I researched online and sure enough I found instructions on how to make a bike trailer from BAMBOO! “But where is Travis going to find bamboo, he’s in Africa not Asia?” you all are asking yourselves as you read this. There is a compound in my village that has a bamboo tree in their backyard, and I am friends with one of the young woman in the compound (I make sure her 6 month old son is healthy), and I hope to get some saplings from her. I want to start growing bamboo, lots of bamboo, in my village/area. I had a meeting with the director from the Agfo-sector in the PC office and he told me that few PCVs have attempted bamboo growing. He felt it would be a good idea, and was an untapped resource in this country. Bamboo does and can grow here; you just have to water it during the dry season. Gambians living in the middle-north region of the country make bamboo beds and furniture but I think all of that bamboo is imported. For the trailer, I need two bike wheels, some nuts and bolts, and sheet metal…all of which I think I can find in Bansang or Basse (there is a thrift store in Basse- -a man fills a huge container with stuff from Holland and ships it here to sell…in the shipments are bikes that were taken from a University campus that no one claimed…I think I can find tires there). SO, if my plan goes well…I can make a trailer out of local materials at a cheap cost, thus others who are interested can follow. This will be beneficial for people (if they copy my idea) in my area because: it will cut down on cost to bring supplies from the main road to the village, one can make the trailers and sell them (micro-enterprise!!!), and possibly this may be solution on transporting people quickly in an emergency, for healthy reasons, to the main road (by making a trailer fit for transporting a person). There are many possibilities with this idea; I just hope people are receptive.
During my stay here in Kombo, I received a random phone call from the PCV who was in my village prior to me. He said had come back to The Gambia to visit and found out there was another PCV in the village he was in and wanted to meet me. We arranged to meet in Kombo; the meeting was brief but good. The village we both stay(ed) in speaks highly of him, so it was good to put a face to all the stories. I hope to keep in contact with him during my stay here.
I trust many of you have seen my random pictures and videos I’ve posted online. Hope there is no troubles with that, and if there is, please let me know. I’ve always has a small interest in photography but when it boils down to it, I’m just too lazy to take many photos. So, I’ll do what I can to take pics and post them in a timely fashion. There is currently no internet that I know of up-country...and I have no idea when I’ll make it down to Kombo again…so it may be a while before I post anything more on this blog.

Many of you ask about how the language is going, and I respond “it’s going” or “I do what I can”. I recently had another language test, score: Intermediate High (one level above from 3 months ago). So, its coming. I find myself understanding more of what people are telling me but I just can’t respond. My hut is disorganized…I get a bookshelf this weekend (I hope, inshallah)…so then I can put away books and what-not and then feel organized enough to study my language more.
I was recently asked “at this point in time do you think [I] made the right decision in joining [the Peace Corps]?”. I responded in saying it was the best choice out 2 I had in front of me (after being rejected from grad school). In all reality, I’m living my dream: living/integrating into a foreign culture AND helping others in need. But does this really make me happy? The two above dreams sound good on paper, but when you are actually doing them in a “Third World Country”…it’s a different story. Development work is very time consuming; much patience is require, the whole process and/or when visible progress can be seen could take decades. Undoing years upon years of “fill-in-the-blank-here” seems to be going nowhere…and I think this is pretty much universal aspect that all PCVs will find out. Would I be happier anywhere else right now? Sure! I’d love to be in Lake Stevens with my family…out at the local pub for a brew with friends…eating Taco Bell and meat everyday. But then again…I don’t thing that the basic American life isn’t/wasn’t for me…and I feel that many of the people who know me best (including my parents) would agree to that. I’m not saying that what the average American does on a daily basis isn’t justified, it just not something I wanted to dive into yet. I’m not biding my time…I having the best experience of my life and will use this experience to better myself and other around me until I leave this earth. So did I make the right choice in joining the Peace Corps, I say yes…but I’ll leave that up to you all to answer and you can judge for yourself. I’m sure I’ll be a changed man when I return. Hope this answers the question.
I would not be here if it wasn’t for my support group back home… I love you all!! If you want to try to help in the work that I’m doing…donate funds to UNICEF, Peace Corps, and/or World Food Program. Also, drive less (or better yet sell your car), eat local foods (or better yet grow your own garden), and stay informed about global issues. The world is changing, here and now, and it will be written in the history books; it is up to all of us to dictate what is written in those books—for better or for worse (I’d prefer better).
*the above is not preaching….just strong words from your trusted family member/friend.

Videos on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYj_25ZekN4
hit link above for a video of my sister and another girl pounding coos. sorry for the camera angle and the end of the video. below is another video of girls dancing

pics

hope this works...hit the picture below of the children to view pics. while in that page...find My Photos and there you'll find more pics. hope this is ok

africa