To all who read this- many thanks and greetings to the students at Arcadia school, I hope you read the letter/email I sent your teacher. I hope all your questions were answered, if not please ask more. To the rest of America, I figured out how to write blogs on my internet phone. I just want to write a small small note while I am thinking of you all, as the holiday season is coming now now. This, inshallah, will be my last christmas in Africa, or for at least a while. (forgive my english, I've been gone far too long and have adapted Gambian english). I know Thanksgiving was the time of giving. We, as people living and working in Western societies, would like to give to others who are in need. But how to give and what to give is often the problem, am I right? (As i type this, I have a young man asking me for lunch, which is kinda funny.) Where to send the money or what organization to give to to assure your hard earned money goes to the actual people in need? Do I give domestically or abroad? All good questions to ponder, which leaves some of us not giving at all, because of the many questions to ponder prior to the act is even made. Well, Ill give you my opinion. I have seen where aid goes, if it is UNDP or World Food Program or USAID, here in The Gambia. This Christmas season, if you want to give, give to the UN or Peace Corps. From what I gather these two major organizations will utilize your donations more effectively then others. So enough talk about money. How are you all doing back home? I am well, hanging in there. Holidays are not fun when you are hot and away from people who love you. Still trying to get my work in a position that is stable so when I leave it will continue. Also I am still trucking along planning out my future after pc. Anybody out there want to offer me a full-time job in April til end of summer?? Almost every night now I must use a blanket to stay warm enough to be able to sleep. It is nice to have that option to alter the temp of my surrounding, if only just a little. Ill make this short so I am able to up-load this via my phone. With much peace and love. Trav

The count down is now

Folks-
I have not written on this thing for a while, for that I apologize. I went back to America for the month of Aug, saw many people and ate some good food. I may be difficult to live and work again in American after being here for so long. I got back at the beginning of Sept after spend a few days in Dakar, Senegal- -having meetings with PC staff and volunteers up there in hopes of creating a volunteer based collaboration between Senegal and The Gambia (which I am told after the fact is basically already in place but I don't see it because that only involves the 'higher' volunteers in country).
When I got back to The Gambia, it was really hard to adjust back to life here after being in America for 30-ish days. In America, one can purchase anything of need at any time of the day at nearly any story near your house of record. That doesn't exist where I live here; I have to plan weeks ahead of time to buy a package of noodles to make spaghetti. Think about it if you have ever traveled to even Mexico, it's a shock to come back home, to your couch or your pet dog and your latte at your nearest Starbucks. Needless, I still haven't recovered from after I got back, and it may be difficult coming back when I am done in April.
Since Sept, I've been getting my work restarted and off the ground again, at the same time trying to get the work and project sustainable so I can leave it behind in 5 months, and at the same time thinking about, reading about, and starting to apply for my life after Peace Corps- -which that in itself is a terrify thought. Getting a real job? Grad school? Extending here? Extending somewhere else? Volunteering for the UN or some of aid agency? As of this past week I am pretty certain I will get a MA in International Sustainable Development, and get a certificate in Peace and Conflict Studies. (by definition it means this, hit this link: http://www.iisd.org/sd/). 'So, what will you do with this Travis?' you rightfully ask yourself as you read this. Well, I have no clue. I have ideas, but my grad schools will most likely keep me in the States, but work and my passions may take me abroad. Work may be working for USAID or for UN (like UNICEF or WFP), I feel that aid money is being utilized is unnecessary with costs us as American millions a year. I want to change how aid money and community development is implemented. So there's that.
Work is going. My Boys Club fell apart, simply because the boys don't want to meet anymore. My road project in my village is still at the beginning stages, and will most likely be that way til I leave. The road project with Engineers Without Borders is going as well, with the engineers coming in Jan to start fixing the road. Overall, the powers that be are not utilizing my experience and knowledge of being here and in development work, so I will just put in my time with the project and wash my hands of it. The bike pedal powered millet milling machine, well, I had a meeting about that with my counterpart today actually. Turns out that I don't think we can reproduce the entire machine here in this country, this creating another road block...I think I have a solution because that is what my Dad taught me and that's how my brain works...but it that project is, like the others, are still in the beginning stages. My main projects here never lifted off the ground, funny how much that happens in West Africa. I wont blame anyone or anything. I feel accomplished. Just tired, burnt out, ready to move on with my life. I've been here from almost 2 whole years now, away from the people that love me the most and who understand me the best. I am sure you all have missed me as much as I've missed you.
The rainy season is done, then it get really got in sept and oct. Nov should be cold, like 85 during the day and 75 at night, thus using a blanket at night which will be nice. My host family is well, my parents back in the States are helping me to assist two of my host siblings pay for their fees,putting them through school...education is above anything else is invaluable, which anyone can carry with them throughout their lives. (thanks mom and dad!)
what else is going on. oh, I am assisting in training the new PCVs that are coming tomorrow, they will replace my group when we leave in April. I am training the Trainees in culturally appropriate condom demonstration, and bed net dipping and how to make a local mosquito repellent. should be good times, hopefully leave a mark on new volunteers as the embark on their 'saving the world' journey just before I end my own.
there is an All Volunteer meeting mid this month, and then a few days later i'll do my session to train the new Trainees, then go back to site. I will most likely spend Thanksgiving at my village, we will have a big Thanksgiving dinner during out All Vol meeting. Nov is busy, it will fly by. Dec may calm down a bit, but a lot of volunteers will go home for the holidays.
i'm drinking cold water right now. it tastes amazing. earlier I had a cold water, a cola flavored juice mix and some gin from a local gin packet (which are rancid). I may invest in some cashew liquor. anyway, cold water is lovely, I'm tired of semi-cold water.
love you all, keep me in your thoughts
Trav

your tax dollars

We just an an All Volunteer meeting during the 4th of July, where we found funding to stay at the Sheraton, The Gambia. This is my room...WAY different from my hut at my village.

the 'pipeline'

This is a video of a main street in Kombo area within the city of Faraja, where the PC office, US Embassy and the PC hostel (where I stay). The video was taken while I was walking (sorry Dad) thus is a little rocky but I think you can tell what is going on. Hope the sound turns out ok. I wont be writting very many posts because of political reasons, sorry

I'm older but in Africa

1 Year Officially in The Gambia!

Holy cow, I’ve been an actual volunteer now for a year, and gone for a year and three/four months. How crazy is that?! Nuts, I know. On to the blog, lots has happened since I last posted
I have two road projects currently. I took over a road project from a volunteer who was done with her third year of service here (she extended for one year). This is a road that is in the middle of the region in live in—Central River Region (CRR). The volunteer, Kellee, applied to have Engineers Without Borders (EWB) come and fix the 14-ish k. stretch of road leading from the river to her village. EWB came in January 2009 to do an initial survey, I met the engineers at that time to asked questions about what they were going to do here because I am interested in doing the same thing to the road coming from my village to the highway (more on this later). It was then that I and another volunteer, Bill, agreed to take over the project when Kellee would leave. The EWB team is actually a group comprised of one comprised of a university professor and three students. This project is going. Bill and I are working with the country’s National Road Authority (NRA) to find where we can rent heavy machinery, local quarries, etc. My job is to play liaison to EWB and the village on the ground. In the next few weeks I will travel to the village and find the local quarries, take pictures, and gather rocks to be tested by the NRA so we can give this information to EWB. I also have to conduct a Health and Transportation survey to all compounds in eight villages. This is no easy task, and will take at least a week. Lets see how far I get. EWB say they will come back January 2010 to start fixing the road. This will be an exciting time.

The other road project, that I will dub ‘my road’, has just lifted off the ground. My road is a 9k bush road that is all dirt and gets hammered during the rainy season and blown away during the dry season. After trying to meet with local government officials to ask for assistance, we finally got through. The governor of the region agreed to have two tractors (w/ trailers), that are owned by the president of The Gambia and were currently assigned to plow local rice fields, come to my road for two days to ferry gravel to bad spots along the 9k stretch. Well, do to miscommunication or something, we only could get the tractors for one day….but on that one day the tractors showed up at the site at 1:00pm = way late. By the time we got the tractors to the local quarry, everyone had to eat lunch. (oh, the road committee for my road took it upon themselves to travel to Bansang a few times to gather donations to pay for food for the volunteer workers involved…yet I am not sure where all that money went to). Needless, we only got 6 trailer loads of gravel put in specific places at the beginning 1/2k. It was really cool watching the villagers of all ages and both women and men hand loading these trailers. In the states we would at least use shovels to load gravel, or most likely a tractor with a bucket. But all the villagers had were maybe buckets to load gravel, put the buckets on their heads, and dump it in the trailer. Luckily, many hands make small work. We plan to apply for assistance from EWB as well, but EWB has recently posted a notice that they are suspending applications from Africa and Asia, and we will reopened later in the year…hope there is time.

Thru the contact of have with EWB, they introduced me to another professor at their university that has developed a wonderful device, well, at least I think it is. This professor, Beena, and her students have come up with a bike powered millet milling machine. Here in The Gambia we eat coos, millet, peanuts, rice, and corn. To prepare some of these staple foods, they have to be pounded or ground. Women and girls spend hours a day performing back breaking work using a mortar and pistol to pound the above materials (see video from months back). To ease their workload, aid agencies donate fuel-powered milling machines that greatly reduce the women’s work load. This is all fine and dandy until people have no money to pay for fuel and/or the machine itself breaks and there are no funds to fix it or no one locally can fix it. You see, this creates an issue for items donated being sustainable. With my work with the Community Driven Development Project (CDDP), every village we go to and asked ‘what is a problem for you?’ they always state that they want a milling machine because theirs is broken or they already have one that works but they want another one. My hopes is to, instead of giving the CDDP villages big milling machines, to propose to the villages that maybe we can give each compound within the village a bike powered machine. (*see specs for more info on the machine at http://users.rowan.edu/~bacher60/My%20Web%20Sites/Grain%20Crusher/EIWB%20Home.htm). I plan to meet with the country’s head of Community Development in Banjul with my PC boss Gibril to go over this idea. I want to make sure that we will not reinvent the wheel, so to speak, by trying to implement this bike machine. This meeting would be huge and go past my counterparts who I work with on the ground back in my village. I also want the head honcho guy to give me permission to go to local blacksmiths in Bansang and maybe Basse to manufacture the device so to have it sustainable here in country, and to give the blacksmiths guaranteed business. All in all, yes, this looks great on paper and I am waiting for a snag to hit. There is always snags in projects here. I may hit a wall soon.
Right after last rainy season my village nurse and I heard that our region and few other regions in the country would be sprayed with DDT. You may have heard about this chemical. This particular spray substance was developed, apparently, in Cuba. (There is a tight bond between the two countries here *cough). The plan is to spray every house in every compound in every village with this spray. When mosquitoes come into the houses and land on the inside walls, the insect would die on contact…well that’s the theory any way. Well, for some reason it was decided to spray other regions that don’t have many mosquitoes last season when we were promised it…which was bad news for us. Good news is that the spraying campaign came back! There was a three day training for spraying supervisors in Bansang one long weekend; the village nurse wanted me to be a supervisor but somehow I was not invited to the training. So how can I supervise a team of volunteer sprayers if I was not told what this campaign is all about? So I went out with the spraying team for three days and hit 10 or so villages, then I quit because my job was to basically baby-sit = not my job here as Peace Corps. The chemical spray was nasty stuff, but when I worked with the team I was not involved with the actual spraying, just asking questions to each compound and telling people not to enter the sprayed houses for on hour. Overall good experience but I won’t do any more volunteer work here that doesn’t involved training if I don’t know what I am doing.
People who know me back home know that I have a unique ability to listen to people and to give back feedback/advice from many different angles. I did this a lot in the States, and in turn it followed me here to Africa. I was/am the shoulder to cry on for many volunteers who need some support. Here within the Peace Corps circle, there is what is called Volunteer Support Network (VSN). These people are asked from fellow PCVs and PC administration to volunteer their services and give support to other volunteers when asked/needed. Well, some volunteers nominated me for a VSN spot, and I was voted in. Basically volunteers call or text me when they need a help or advice or support. Easy enough, right? It’s not a big job, just a new title within my job here as PC. Thus my job as VSN is to keep other volunteers from early termination (ET) = quitting PC and flying home. The ET rate for this country is pretty high compared to other African countries so my job is somewhat important…to keep volunteers who are already here to stay in country. I also will be expected to setup fun activities for PCVs I my local area so we can go out together and feel American again.
I recently had a birthday. Turning 25 in Africa didn’t seem like a big deal. In our society, turning 25 is the last right of passage; we can now rent cars. Yet, while I am here, I can’t even drive a vehicle…go figure. The actual bday was laid back, I tried to do as little as possible and listen to music. My family back home called around the day and that was nice. I traveled to Kombo on April 30th, and then on May 1st my girlfriend took me to an off-the-beaten-path lodge place. Basically we went camping on the ocean. It was amazing, cold, windy, and I was totally surprised. The next day some friends came, another huge surprise!! Hanging out on the ocean beach, making mac-n-cheese over the fire and laughing about the good times of being here = great African time. Hopefully I’ll be back in the States by my next birthday.
An ‘elementary’ school 9k away from me called me to their campus one day while I was traveling about the bush. They needed assistance to get their school funding/money for school development and to fix their water pump. I made it clear that I did not come here to give out money. They understood this….for the most part. So I gave then an idea to meet with them a few days later, when I would bring in an Environment PCV, and we would teach the school how to make mud stoves. (Mud stoves are made from cow dung, straw, termite mound dirt and water. Mixed together in equal parts and let to ferment for a few days, we molded the mixture around a cooking pot and left a little space for firewood to be fed thru. The idea behind the mud stove is to save wood, save time, save work, and not cut down trees in a country that has a huge deforestation problem.) During the mud stove demonstrations, we had the local women’s group come to support what we were doing and to approve the stoves. We would need them to approve the stoves so they would tell all the other women to buy the stoves and state why. The idea was to have the boys and girls of the school make the stoves for people who wanted them and then get paid for their services, and the money going to the school. I hope this is what happens.
I recently had my mid-service medical and dental checkup. As of now, I am free of : parasites, worms, bugs, cavities, and gum disease. Good times. Odd going to a dentist in Africa, yet the ‘dentist’ was a med student from Sweden, what the?!
My goat TJ died, or we think he has. He has not been seen for weeks. My family thinks we was eaten by a hyena while hunting for grass in the bush with his mom. I was so looking forward to eating TJ just before I’d fly home next April. Oh well, it happens.
And no bamboo trailer or bamboo grown, yet. I tried to grow bamboo in my compound but my host brother never watered it and it all died. And I still can’t find second-hand bicycle wheels here, which is crazy since the main way of transportation in my area is by bike. BUT a PCV in Kombo recently asked me about my bamboo ideas and now we will try to make the trailer here near the capital (there are more resources here). I’ll keep you posted.

oh the gambia...been here a year

Hello folks! I know it has been a long time since I’ve typed something out. Know and understand that I would have liked to type a little blog for ya ‘ol sooner, but the internet nearest to me—Bansang—is not reliable and is dial-up. Remember dial-up? The ancient way of checking your email? Yeah, very slow. I can get maybe two emails out within one hour time, if that. I’ll post when I post. I will post when I go to Kombo/Banjul, where the internet is free and much faster. I only go to Kombo when my ‘to-do’ list is long enough, due to the fact that it costs 1/8 of my monthly allowance roundtrip to go there, then paying for food and going shopping while I’m there. I now have a phone that is able to have internet access, so I can email you from the bush but that’s about it. Hang on if you haven’t read a blog in a while, I’m busy working. J
I local councilor in my region came to me after a meeting and told that he had a colleague who was working with PC to fix their village road. He wanted to see what I could find out what that PCV was doing, so possibly we could get help with our road. My village (which I cannot name on here) is 9k off of the main road. The road to my village is dirt and sand. When the rains hit, the road at times is nearly impassable for vehicles; when the hot season hits the winds blows the entire road’s sand everywhere but on the road. Somehow addressing the road has been a concern of mind since day one of me living in my village. Villagers living that far off the main road have only one clinic—in my village—which only has a nurse and a few medical supplies. While I’ve lived here, one person has died from complications because they could not get to the nearest hospital in time.
After finding out what PCV was working on their road, I did some research. Turns out the volunteer is in my region, and has applied for Engineers Without Borders (EWB)http://www.ewb-usa.org/ . Turns out the EWB team was coming in January for an initial assessment of the road and to do a health assessment. The PCV—Kellee—invited me to meet and help the EWB team when they came. Kellee’s village is populated mostly by Fula’s but their dialect was a little different than mine, but I got by with my Pulaar. Their team consisted of a university professor and three engineering students. The prof and one student assessed the road, and the two other students worked on the community health assessment. The road survey consisted of using GPS tracking every 50 yards over the length of a 10k road. The GPS data, I am told, would be taken back to their university and put onto a cad computer program to show all the different elevations and bad parts of the road. During the survey, I asked the university professor many questions…I wanted to know as much as possible so I could get a similar group to come out to fix my road. At the same time, I acted as translator of the team, which made me feel proud to show up my language skills. Saw a big family of monkeys cross the road, and then some dried hippo tracks as well…nature is exciting!!!! I was nice to interact with American’s fresh off the boat. Kellee was busy doing the health stuff for the team. It was a good experience. Glad to be of service. Kellee is an extendee and is almost done with her third year here. She leaves in May and the EWB tea has just started. It will take them a few months to come up with a few plans to reconstruct and fix different parts of the stretch of road. The team need a liaison at the village level, and Kellee’s village will not be replaced by a new volunteer for a while. So I made the huge commitment for the second year of my service ( I have officially been gone for a year this past week, oh wow). The village is not far from mine, I speak the village’s main language, and I’m interested in road construction at the village level here.
I went back to my area to talk to my people about the road. We set up a meeting to discuss how to approach the application process and to form a committee to sensitize the community about the road being fixed. Well, at this meeting, the people has other plans and just asked me to find them funding for other project. Thus, I’m not sure if my road will be fixed…but I’ll help fix the other road.
In my last blog, I mentioned harvesting of the groundnuts. Well, the people—we call them the ‘Cooperative’ and its funny to hear Gambians say that word in English—came and are now buying. Funny this is is the Cooperative buys the groundnuts right outside of my compound, at the outskirt corner of my village. All the area’s villagers come to my village to sell their groundnuts. For most people in my community, the main source of income comes from selling their nuts. A vehicle containing two armed policemen, a driver and two Cooperative workers came to the area where men bring their nuts. In the back of the truck was a metal trunk. The trunk contained 600,000 dalasi (Gambian currency), which is 20,000 USD. All of this money was gone within a week. More money came soon. This means there is/was about 40,000 USD floating around the area I live in = the villages will have enough money to sustain them until next harvest, that is, in theory. That’s a lot of money. The nuts will be brought to Bansang, where they are put on a barge, and then shipped to Banjul harbor and sold on the international market. I think the US buys from here; you may be eating peanut butter from nuts grown by my host brother.
My teaching at the school dropped just after the holiday break started and never picked up again. The Headmaster at my school just keeps asking for money/funding and that’s something I don’t want to do/give/find for them. It’s a good thing that the groundnuts are abundant, for another simple reason—my sweet tooth. After eating rice and coos all day, I need something sweet. I resorted to eating peanut butter sent from home. But that only lasted a few days. So I bough locally made peanut butter. I put it in a jar and mixed it with local honey. Oh wow is that good! I just eat it straight, spoon full after spoon full until I can’t move and have to take a few tums.
So congrats to us all American’s, we have a new leader. On that day he took office, I was listening to his speech on the BBC but was interrupted and had to assist in the finishing touches of building a pit latrine. I stayed in my village and didn’t travel to Basse or the US embassy in Kombo to watch the event on TV because I wanted to answer any questions my fellow villagers may have. Gambians LOVE Obama. I have scene, and purchased, locally printed Obama posters. Babies are being named Obama, and streets and roads are being renamed ‘Obama road’. People here say that he will bring change to the world and The Gambia, and I respond with ‘if god wills it’ (inshallah). And I do truly hope he does change; we know the globe needs something to happen soon.!!!
My pet goat, TJ, is still alive and kicking. I talk to it in Pulaar, which makes my host mother laugh. I joke with my host father about the goat being stubborn. I talk to TJ in both Pulaar and English but the punk doesn’t listen. Before I left for Kombo to type this up for you all, I think my compound gave me a puppy. I’m not sure. I’ll keep you posted. I don’t want a dog, Gambian dogs are dirty.
Just before our Christmas, we had Tobaski here, another Muslim holiday. This is the big big holiday where each compound has to kill a, preferably, a ram (but a goat will do if you can’t afford a ram), and eat meat all day long. My family bought a goat, I help slaughter it, no worries. We used most of it. Are the head. Ate the feet. Liver, ribs, and whatever else was edible. We don’t eat meat that often beside dried or fresh fish, so we ate what we could of the goat. I was given my own portion of fresh, and still warm, meat and I cooked it my way. After a little while the everyone got dressed in their new clothes that had to have made and went to pray. After prayer, we ate. I was invited to many many compounds and ate meat over and over again. I swear my body went into protein shock. I usually have to drink a protein shake and eat tuna sent from America to maintain a healthy lifestyle but on that day I ate straight fresh PROtein. Simply amazing.
The other day I was at another volunteer’s house visiting. He speaks Mandinka and is in a Mandinka village. But near his village is a Fula village, so we went there. Every time I am in a Fula village, I greet and then ask one question, “Do you have milk?” (A hebi kedam?) The rains have ceased thus there is less greenery for the cattle to eat, thus less milk production. The village said they didn’t have any. So we sat with a few families to shoot the breeze for a bit. As we got up to leave, because it was getting dark, one man said stop and wait a minute. The man came back in 10 minutes with a covered bowl, and handed it to me, the fellow Fula. The bowl was still warm. We took home to bowl and opened it: fresh cows milk. We pour it in cups and added chocolate milk mix. Instant surreal moment, drink straight fresh chocolate milk!!!
I may add more to the post soon