Termites

Oh and just for fun and as an experiment, we destroyed a termite mound.

The first picture shows the mound, after it was cut, resting on a tree (it was about 6 feet high)

The second picture shows it upside down on the ground.

Of course four days later, they had already built the mound back about a foot and a half.

Morocco

I arrived back from a vacation to Spain and Morocco, and for the past couple of days I have been a little down. It is difficult to adjust back to life after traveling, but in the next couple of days I should get back into the swing of things.

Snake charmers in Marrakech

I had a great time walking around the cities in Morocco. There were some small problems such as my bag not showing up for four days and feeling sick for the first week, but I enjoyed taking a break from The Gambia and forgetting about my frustrations and concerns. Morocco was not exactly what I expected. I thought I would see tilework, arches and architecture influenced by the Moors. Instead I only saw it in the Marrakech museum.

Mosque in Casablanca

While I only spent a half a day in Casablanca, the mosque, third largest in the world, was an impressive site. Non muslims cannot go into mosques, but this one had an exception. The room with thirty some fountains was a creative and beautiful way to provide enough water for the people to wash their hands, feet, and face before they pray.

Shops in Chefchauoen

Another highlight was Chefchaouen, a town in the mountains, made famous by its blue doors and buildings. I had a great time wandering around the small streets admiring the buildings and views of the valley.

The walled medina in Essouira

Most Moroccan cities have a medina, a walled older section. The areas are packed with buildings and shops. Each city is unique, from the waves breaking on Essaouira's city walls to Marrakech's dates, spices, and freshly squeezed orange juice. Every place was interesting; if I go back I will spend some time in the mountains. We planned to go to one village in the mountains, but we had to cut it out of our plans due to our bag situation.

Work

During the raining season, people in village work a lot. It was almost as if the rains flipped a switch and everyone started to work. They have to do it because this four month period is when they produce all the food that will feed them for the rest of the year. What surprised me was the fact that people were also more interested in doing the environment projects I have been encouraging people to do. My counterpart built a fence out of branches and logs which is unheard of. He has been talking about it for four months, but since he never did anything I did not take him seriously.

Painting the library

One teacher and I painted the school library, and my jaw dropped when I walked in the library to see that the school folks had arranged the books without my knowledge. My father and I planted cuttings, branches of trees that when planted will grow into a tree, to make a fence, and he immediately agreed to help me plant my trees in polypots in the fields.

School kids planting cuttings

My excitment hit a brick wall when it came to planting rice. Before the rainy season my father said he would help me plant rice, but he only planted the rice after my counterpart chewed him out. I also worked overtime weeding the rice and my father only came a couple of times. My family started to help when I complained and asked why they were not helping. I realize now that weeding rice is more tiring than the other crops and my family does not want to do it. Also my host brothers already feel maxed out with their fields. I learned that next year I will not plant a field because my family does not really have the time or motivation to do extra fields.

Amadou in my garden

Rain, Rain, Rain

One night, I woke to the rattling in my roof. I lay in bed listening to the pounding of the rain and the increasing strength of the wind. My metal corrugated roof made so much sound I was convinced my roof was going to blow away. I flashed my light around looking for leaks. I found one spot where the water pooled and dripped through my rice bad ceiling. I placed a bucket to catch the water and tried to fall back asleep attempting to put aside my worries of the roof.

Storm clouds are approaching

In the morning I woke to find a skylight. One sheet of corrugate folded over causing light to shine inside my house. I considered myself lucky because when I went outside to survey the damage I saw one man's roof completely blown away and my host brother's grass roof fell off. My roof was an easy fix and I survived my first rain storm in village.

This storm was one of the many storms I have seen come and go. The rainy season lasts from June to September. During the month of August it rains almost everyday. I like the rainy season more than the hot/dry season. The rains bring a cool breeze and the barren wasteland turns green. Walking to the next village, I felt as if I was in a golf course due to the thin layer of green and scattered trees. Now the weeds are over head high. The rainy season is also the work season. Everyone plows, plants, or weeds the fields in the mornings and evenings almost everyday until the end of July.

Woman walking through a field

When it is rainy I usually go inside my house and read to wait for the storm to pass. Most Peace Corps Volunteers spend a lot of time reading during the rainy season.

Lolo's' views of life in village

A few highlights about what I (Alex's Mom) understand of life in village:

• Alex’s family is from the Fula tribe, which are typically not so dark (even though his family seems very dark to me). They speak Pulaar and Wolof in the village. Alex was taught Pulaar, which is not as spoken as Wolof; he says he wants to learn Wolof (used for business) too. Folks speak many of the languages/dialects. African languages are not written, thus very hard to learn.
• Families live in a compound, i.e., multiple houses or shacks – some are individual, some are long houses, with multiple single rooms. They are organized in a circle or square with room in the middle for the mingling.
• Multiple family compounds make a village. Alex’s village has 7 compounds, thus, very small. They have only about 60-70 people.
• Men and women don’t live together. Boys >15 and men have their own “houses (or rooms)”. Women sleep with their children in one “house”. Women visit their men during the night; I don’t know the protocol among the wives.
• Each house has one room, fairly small, sometimes with a separation to make it into 2 rooms. Their one piece of furniture is a double bed typically covered with pretty African cloths as bedspreads; they all have it. I think the clothes are kept in trunks; no tables nor chairs. Alex had 2 chairs for us.
• When we entered Alex's room, we were greeted by 4 frogs and 1 big gecko... I guess they come in during the day time (since it is too hot out) and go out in the night. I could hear rats scurrying in the roof in the middle of the night. His roof is corrugated aluminum with rice bags and straw in the inside to break the heat, I believe.
• Typically a family compound houses families of 2 brothers.
• They are muslims, thus polygamous (can have up to 4 wives). In Alex’s host family, his host father has 2 wives and his uncle also has 2 wives. Between the 4 women there are 24 children. So, there are kids galore, of all ages, mingling around and playing in the dirt
• Women cook, clean and take care of the kids. Men plant, buid houses and fences. Kids do all kind of chores. Women and boys fetch the water from the wells.
• There is no running water nor electricity.
• Food is mostly rice or coos (i.e., millet) with some sauce and a small fish – for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• They eat with their right hand out of common food bowls; the left hand is the “dirty” one used for cleaning their privates. Men have their own separately from the women and children. Alex eats with his host father (who has a separate bowl in his family) and they gave us our own food bowl (most times we actually had two big food bowls which gave us a problem since we were supposed to eat well to show we liked the food). I have to admit we did use spoons most of the time when we ate in Alex's room (except for Alex).
• They do very little between 11am and 4 or 5 in the afternoon during the dry season; mostly lie in bed or sit under the mango trees in the shade – it is too hot. In the raining season (June through October) they plant and weed.
• In the late afternoon and evenings they sit outside, each family together, near the Dad’s shack; teen boys can sit by themselves in another location. Don’t know the schedule for cooking between wives but they prepare the food and bring the food bowls. Since there are no lights, the stars are bright; it felt like camping… beautiful. People sit together and sometimes chat. They either sit/lie on mats or benches until midnight or so (but I think they also sleep during this time since they get up early for prayers).
• They cook in small stoves in the back of their houses, using wood for fuel; typically in a covered area. The backs of the houses have a little area which is fenced. There is where they cook and wash clothes and themselves; they use buckets or large basins.
• I don’t know where they go to the bathroom; Alex says they are supposed to go on the fields. In Alex’s village there are 2 pit latrines: his and his Dad’s. His is in the back of his house, fenced. His Dad’s is a separate building. While I was there I never saw anyone peeing or pooping (a mistery).
• They drink lots of ataya, a very sweet version of a green tea, which takes a long time to prepare.
• They chew a type of stick that is good for their teeth; they don’t go to the dentist and most seem to have good teeth.
• They sweep their rooms twice a day and, at the end of the day, they sweep/smoothen the area inside the compound. During the day the kids play around and the animals (goats, cows, chickens) roam free during the dry season; so they were all amongst us.
• So the compound is clean but the areas outside the compound have all kinds of trash. Apparently they have an area delineated for trash (which I think they burn once in a while) but keep in mind they don’t have much, thus very little trash. And they use/reuse a lot.
• When the wind picks up, there is sand/dust everywhere.
• The kids are filthy because they play in the dirt but I think they are washed at night because I have seen many of them pretty clean except for the feet.
• The girls have their hair in braids most of the time and the women wear the head turbants.
• Women wear long skirts all the time but shirts are optional; since most of the women are feeding babies most of the time, exposed boobs are no big deal.
• Greetings are very important in their culture. Every time they meet someone, they spend about 3-5 minutes in greetings (How are you? How is your family? How did you sleep? etc)
• They spit a lot; it is part of the culture.
• The women and girls carry the young in their backs, with a piece of cloth that ties up front. They do their chores (carrying water in their heads or pounding coos) with the babies in their backs.
• They ask for things all the time (it drives Alex nuts), like food, candy, band aid, ataya, etc… and they ask each other too.
• The school is in the next village; unfortunately, only 5 children from Alex’s village go to school. They feel there is no point since there are no jobs around.
• Schools are taught in English; they also teach Arabic. Children wear uniforms and walk to school everyday; they provide lunch but the kids are supposed to pay a token fee for lunch, and also for the school year. Girls can go to school for free, if they choose to (order of the government). Their schools are not very good; they learn everything by recitation. Alex is now helping at the nearby school, teaching them math; he started math’atons to get their interest raised. The school buildings were built by NGOs (external help to Africa).
• When we visited Alex's school, they put up a play about a Gambian wedding - lovely.
• Many of the villages have mosques and they wake them up for prayers at 5:30am using loud speakers. Alex’s village didn’t have loud speakers.
• They have leaders, the village alkalo; Alex’s Dad is the alkalo of his village.
• They have community groups but mostly to discuss issues. There isn’t a sense of community to improve their life style or their villages. We found them very complacent, with no motivation for improvement.
• Their knowledge of the world is almost none since they live so isolated. But things are changing. Alex’s oldest brother lives in the Kombo area and works as a manager for a hotel; so he left the village and now has a better understanding of the world; besides, he makes good money for Gambians. He brought a solar generator for the village and installed in the younger brother’s house. So they have some electricity and can charge all kinds of things, including boom boxes. They have an old black and white TV that the children watch 2 nights a week (powered by an old car battery); the problem is that the programs are either in French or English which is not spoken in village. So, they mostly watch the images; however, as they watch more TV, they will start learning the language and more about the world (then the culture will start to change, or at least the desires).
• Most of the older guys have cell phones, which operate with bought cards.
• There is dust everywhere due to the sand and wind around the area. Everything in the rooms have a coat of dust; it gets into everything. Alex is keeping his camera in Ziploc bags inside a trunk.
• They are extremely friendly. They love music and to dance, especially the women. They play drums with pots and pans, gather in a circle and they dance, one at a time. We had a chance to hear and dance with them. They also asked us to dance and Karina suggested the macarena, done by 4 PCVs, K and Lolo and the children also joined us - fun!
• They have so little that anything is of interest to the children, like a magazine, a toy, or candy. They are extremely curious. We brought some pictures and they just loved them.
• If someone goes out of the village, it is customary to bring some present back, whether a mango, kola nuts, or a vegetable.
• Most of them are very good looking, with some women with beautiful features.
• They laugh a lot; they seem quite happy most of the time, especially the women.
• Even though we couldn't talk to them due to the language barrier, they were very hospitable. We had heard that the gambians are a very hospitable people; any visitor gets food and board.
• We really enjoyed visiting Alex's host family and experiencing his day to day life in the Peace Corps. It will stay in our memories for a long, long time.

Silvester family adventure in The Gambia

John, Karina and Lolo (Alex's immediate family) went to visit Alex in The Gambia in June 2008, just as the school year finished in the US. It isn't the best time to visit - probably the hotest time of the year - but we had no choice. We were anxious to see Alex and visit the country. We had read Alex's blog and the blog of other PCVs and had chatted with Alex on his cell phone quite a bit, so we sort of knew what to expect (well, most of the time).

We had a great time but, we have to confess that it was an adventure, traveling by boat and "old" van (through good and horrible roads), seeing beautiful landscape along the river, watching birds (John counted 99 different species), seeing children galore and very dry and desert-like conditions where Alex lives. We saw very poor living conditions but no one starving; in fact the gambians are beautiful people; we saw very tall men (taller than 6 feet) and women. There is one major town, a few small cities with electricity, but mostly villages with no electricity, and wells for water. It appears that most of the country has cell phone coverage, so it will be interested to see how they evolve as they get more communication and global news. Solar chargers are starting to get into use in many of the locations.

We spent 13 days in The Gambia and traveled up river with Alex. Alex said other parents may want to travel there; thus, here was our itinerary:

• 2 days in the Kombo area
• One day going up river (car and boat)
• One night at Tendaba Lodge
• One day again going up river (boat, car and boat)
• 2 nights at Bird Safari camp
• 1 night at Chimpanzee project
• 3 nights at Alex's village
• 2 nights in Gunjur (south Gambia)

We used a travel agency called Hidden Gambia; feel free to check out their site at http://www.hiddengambia.com/ for descriptions of the tours and nice pictures of the area.However we did try to take the bush taxi from Alex's village; another one of our adventures.

Adventure story: We left the village in the dark (5:30am) and walked to the next village (bout 1 mile away), on the narrow trail, carrying our bags, to catch the gele-gele (bush taxi - a big van where you pay $1 per person for the 50 kilometers to the ferry crossing); our head-lamps and flashlights were put to use and the starry sky was beautiful. Unfortunately, the gele came full and half of the people waiting for it jumped in (we don't know how they fit). We sat on the sidewalk on their main square, and Alex said that, in the worst case, we would hire a donkey cart to take us to the main road where we could take another gele. We had no idea how we would end up traveling; some said another gele would be coming in a "little" while. About 20 minutes later, out of the blue, a very old car showed up and offered to take us for $2.5 per person... they know how to deal with tourists. We believe one of the locals called this guy. Well, the car made it and we got to the ferry safe and sound - another adventure.

If you want to see pictures of our trip, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/jasilvester

Instead of boring you with too many details, we will just post some highlights.

Overall impression. The Gambia is a small country with very few resources (mostly peanuts, tourism and fish); you probably know that it follows the Gambia river. It is a very colorful country, the people are extremely friendly (with a few exceptions, described below), its Atlantic coast is beautiful and the river is long and totally unused (from our perspective). The difficulty is to identify their possibility of growth; apparently most of their youth want to go to Europe or America to seek a better life. Deforestation is another big problem; they went from 85% forest to 15% in the last decade; and of course the poor farmers in village do not understand the issues. The agfo PCVs (like Alex) are doing their best to help them but it is difficult when they don't really understand it.

Highlights of our visit were the Chimpanzee Visitor Camp (described below) and Alex's village.

“Badi Mayo, the Chimpanzee Visitor Camp http://www.chimprehab.com/visitor_camp/) is located 270 Km up-river in the Gambia River National Park. It is managed by the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Trust (CRT) - Africa's longest running and perhaps most successful project for rehabilitating chimpanzees to the wild. The project was founded by Stella Marsden whose father, Eddie Brewer, was a forestry officer and a keen conservationist. He later became the first director of the Wildlife Department in The Gambia and was responsible for establishing the Abuko Nature Reserve. For a long time completely off-limits to visitors, Stella has recently decided to offer chimp-watching trips to small groups of interested tourists, in an effort to safeguard the project's financial future. It’s a thrilling opportunity to view habituated chimps in a pristine natural environment.” We paid $150 per person to stay there for one night (full board and boat rides), on a very fancy tent perched high up at tree level on wooded platforms overlooking the river.

The area was beautiful but it was extremely hot - it seemed we were in a sauna for 5 hours until late afternoon – that was no fun. The boat ride to the island in front to see the chimps, on the other hand, was great. No one steps on the island; from the boat, we fed one of the groups that had: a big guy, the Alpha leader, many ladies with their babies and other macho types and children (so cute). They fed them bread, beans and nuts. It was fun watching them. When they came by the shore, the boat was docked at a safe distance; one of their leaders pulled a couple of sticks (thick ones) from the trees and threw them at us – to show off his strength… They were pretty big branches… They also had baboons on the island that ate the leftovers of the chimps; they sat on the trees down river since a lot of food fell in the water while being thrown (and missed).
Then the boat continued navigating on small water channels they call little Africa; very pretty. We even saw a barn owl. John took great pictures of birds along the trip.
The food was great; the tents, perched on a hill, were beautiful but very hot. Definitely it wasn't the best time of the year to travel (we knew that) but it was a great experience.

We will talk about the village in another post.