working on gambian time

sitting in an internet cafe on monday ... enjoying the air conditioning and window back to the 21st century that i've been staring into for the last three hours. i am sometimes embarrassed at my dependence on technology to keep me sane, but i can't help it. i'm a glutton for the world wide web.

on a project update: the nursery is coming along nicely, though the funds i've secured won't even cover the half of it, if it is to be done properly. and there's nothing i hate more than a half-assed job. so very shortly, my friends, i will ask you to dig deep into your pockets to donate money to a very worthy cause! i'm just calculating what i'm going to need to finish this project, both inside and out, and will post up here how you can help me. i'm currently setting up a paypal account for donations. i feel a bit like sally struthers, but just think, you get this blog instead of shoulder pads, a bad perm and a 20 minute infomercial, and isn't that nicer!? i'm thinking big here because i trust that you will too when the time comes! no holds barred for these kids!

we broke ground yesterday and 40-50 villagers turned out and in true gambian style, began the work! and when i say 'we' - i really mean them. and when i say 'them' - i mean about four of them at any one time (there were only four shovels) with the other 35-40 standing around for support and waiting patiently in the hot sun for their turn to dig. we dug the toilets out, 2 6-foot holes in the ground to be covered with cement next week (don't ask what happens when they're full, i have no idea, but will try to find out), and also prepped the floor of the classrooms which entailed soaking the crumbled dirt and then whacking the crap out of it to make it flat. i've got pictures to show eventually. next week the cementing will begin and the following week we'll do the painting. i hope that by the end of march, the external building work will be finished.

throughout the day, young boys were continuously making and delivering attaya (the very very sweet tea they ceremoniously drink) and i bought a bunch of packets of jolly juice (like cool-aid) and made buckets of sweet orange drink for them. i was amazed that so many people turned out, but in fact, at a meeting we had with the village elders after the work was finished for the day, they expressed disappointment that MORE people hadn't turned up to show their support and lend a hand. (true meaning of the 'it takes a village' proverb!)

it was really interesting to be invited to sit in on the meeting. it began with what i can only think was a prayer, perhaps asking allah to be present in the meeting, i've no idea, it was just a mumble in arabic. and then the villagers spoke out in turn, in mandika, so i only got the quietly translated version every so often. they spent - honestly - the first 45 minutes of the meeting repeating each other saying how grateful they were to me, and to mondo challenge for supporting them, how honored they were to have me there to help them with this, how important it was to listen to what i had to say and to let me guide their efforts, how important this was for the future of their children, how the entire community needed to get involved and show their seriousness, and as mentioned, how disappointed they were at the low (!!) turnout, and how next week would be better. i nodded my head graciously, but after about a half an hour of this, i wanted to interupt and move things on to talk of ACTION because clearly they were preaching to the choir and time is (somewhat) of the essence here. but of course, that's not how things work in the gambia. so each man had his turn to express how serious they all should be taking this, and FINALLY i was able to say a few words and get a game plan together for the next few weeks.

when they realized that i was only here for 2 more months, they voted to bring in some professional masoners outside of sundays so that more of the prep work could get done ahead of time so that there was more they could do when the sunday's did come around. this costs money, but very likely money well spent, lest this project drag on and risk incompletion. so hopefully by next sunday, the cementing may actually be finished so we can give everyone a paintbrush. (oh wait, we didn't budget brushes, hopefully there's a few in the village!)

so i'm feeling very positive about the nursery. i've told them i'm devoting april to the teacher training. so if anyone has any idea what the heck nursery school is about, what a typical day looks like, what the point of it is, how i should structure this training .... i'd be most grateful! i seem to continue to land myself managing projects i know very little about. emailing me would be best!

on another note ... being the animal lover that i am NOT, i feel the need to have a small rant about the fact that i am essentially living on an effing FARM, excuse the french intention. can i just say that i am SO over the whole roosters-as-my-alarm clock thing and i really really hate, no loathe, crickets. death to them all, i say, forget about the karma. about the only thing i do like are the lizards because i think they are eating the crickets that creak from my rafters. were it not for them, and the nest of what i believe to be owls for all their who-who'ing, i would spray my room so thick with insect repellent i'd probably inadvertently kill myself too. and the donkeys - oh the donkeys - seem to go wild in the night with their procreational frolicking - though it sounds neither pleasurable nor fun and i pity the poor female who seems to be screaming in pain. (i imagine her 'hee-haw' to be saying - 'get off me you big jerk') and the prepubescient goats have been out far past their bedtime of late, encouraging their friends the roosters to discipline them with their crows. africa at night is just far too noisy for me, hence my trip to the 'big city' of fajara. it doesn't help that i'd been sick, so sleeping much of the day and thus not being tired when the sun goes down. i took a benadryl and convinced the antihistimine to knock me out before i knocked the donkeys out. (though didn't fancy being kicked in the ass by an ass in the middle of the night.)

ok. rant over.

in even other news ... i did my own washing on saturday by hand. normally, i pay 100 dalasi per month, plus 7 dalasi each wash for the soap, and jainaba does my wash. but she's been really sick this week with some sort of stomach pain, and i ran out of clothes to wear so did my own. (i know, i'm sure you're feeling sorry for me at this point.) it's a fairly drawn out process because i had to get my own water from the pump - though fortunately, the other jainaba (ebrima's wife) came with me because there is no way i can carry the water i need on my head, so she kindly offered to carry it for me.

but when we got to the pump, we were clearly the first people of the day to get water because there were 18 (i counted) baby calves waiting for someone to turn on the spiggit so they could drink. every time we tried to fill a bucket, we'd have 18 calves competing with bobbing heads for a slurp. so finally we gave up trying to fill it for me and just continued to fill the bucket for them. this took about 10 minutes and continuous water flow to the bucket before they had each had enough and sauntered away lazily. so then we took my saliva-covered buckets of water back to the compound so i could wash my clothes (!!). i've given up trying to be clean and/or hygenic here, but that's an entirely separate blog, coming soon.

so i set about washing my clothes. unfortunately, i made the mistake of combining my orange peasant skirt with everything so now have quite a few pink tops - but i'm trying to look at that as an opportunity to wear a NEW outfit, instead of simply a discolored old one. 'look at this lovely pink shirt, where EVER did you get that?, i haven't seen that before!'

about half way through the wash my phone fell into the water. i shrieked and fished it out, dried it off and assumed it was fine because the front display stayed the same and i have a plastic cover that didn't appear to soak up any of the water. but when i tried to use it a few minutes later, i realized it had gotten water inside and was not working. i panicked. my ONLY window to the outside world and it was ruined. i quickly opened it up, set it in the sun to dry and left it for 5 minutes to scorch in the heat of the day. i should have left it longer because it still wasn't working. this time i FREAKED out and nearly burst into tears. (can i just say, this is the morning AFTER the night with the donkeys, so i was NOT in the best of moods). i set it out to dry again and tried to calm myself down and be rational about this. and fortunately, after twenty more minutes in the sun, the phone was dry and it WORKED! hallelujah!

i felt a bit ridiculous for my reaction and how upset i'd nearly gotten. but honestly, without knowing that i can communicate if i need to, or if anything is wrong, or if there is an emergency, i'd feel very suffocated and land-locked. but there was a minute or two, between the freak-outs, where i calmed myself down and tried to be in the moment with the experience. i couldn't control this one. let it go. let it go. let it go, i kept repeating. difficult, but i tried. but this was definitely an instance where i thanked god for the heat in africa that was drying out the phone.

ok ... and i'm off. for another day of reading on the beach. i'm taking a bit of time today and tomorrow to work on the nursery project, but why sit in the heat of the village if i can do the work on the beach? i may get back to the internet tomorrow, but after that, i'll be village-bound for awhile.

love to you all, thanks for reading!