Wow! I nearly forgot I had a blog.
Well, months later, I suppose I'll begin.
Thankfully (through the support of my parents), I now have a computer and thus can log info into its ears anytime I feel like it--- or whenever I have the power.
Alrigh. SO! I arrived in The Gambia July 2, 2009. Today's date is March 10th, 2010. For the past 8 months I'm sure you've biting your nails waiting for information and wiping that sweaty brow only when my mom's emails arrived in your inbox.
I'll give a little run down month by month of what I've been doing for the last hundred days or so, that way you know what life is like over here for me.
July: Defrost of culture shock. Honestly, I over-prepared and over adjusted for the beginning few months. The first few days I said "Assulaamhulaakum" to every stranger on the street because I heard it was rude if you don't. That's like a foreigner hugging everyone on a busy street in New York City. This month was also dedicated to feeling familiar around our new Peace Corps trainee family. I had 13 other Peace Corps trainees and my "older siblings" Travis Reece and Chris Chapman and then "mother hen" Anne Larson our PCVLeader. All three are not great friends of mine. Chris and Anne are leaving in a few months and Travis left a few weeks ago for medical school. Anyway, alright, those are the main volunteers that helped train us. We also had the Administration side of Peace Corps which consisted of our education "big boss" Program Manager Linda Murgatroyd from the U.K., Gisele from Benin who was the most motivating training manager and person, actually, I have ever met. We also have Mike the Country Director who is the "president" of PC/The Gambia and two other Program Managers for the Agroforestry and Health sectors but they aren't that important and they really aren't my bosses. We also have the Med Unit with Barbara and Aminata. Barbara is this women from Georgia who married a man from TG and has lived here for 30 years. Aminata is a Gambian nurse. We have many other admin that have offices in the Peace Corps office, but Patty- ''the boss's boss" in charge of pretty much all affairs and if she isn't, she becomes involved anyway- and Fatou Sowe (my favorite Gambian) are the only others worth mentioning in the July section. The weather was hot, but like before, I over estimated the heat. It rained about every 5 days.
August: I became a Fulaa!!!!! We were tested in all languages to see which one we could pronouce best. I couldn't do ANY of them . . . but didn't mess up as badly with Pulaar. Plus I was going to be in a Fulaa village and that's the deciding factor. So we lived in a Fulaa village with my only other Fulaa trainee, Evelyn Dunyeki. Our master and father of Pulaar and everything Gambian was Boboucarr Sallah. We had lessons every day on the language and he was our teacher.
September:
October:
November:
December:
January:
February:
March:
The near future: