"Why is this road made out of dirt?"

I find it difficult to sit down and just write about whats been happening the last month. How do I sum things up for the readers back home? In one sense not a whole lot has happened these last couple months. In another though so much happened in that I am living in Africa which you may be suprised to find, is in no way similar to America. Instead of rambling I have decided to just copy some journal entrys. I went back and read a couple and I think they sum of my experience pretty well.

Journal Entry 433:

Had an interesting conversation with my host dad today. I was hanging out with my dad today, reading a book like I do everymorning before I break my fast. Lately I have been reading Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett (great read). I set it down to crack open some groundnuts. My father picked it up and started examining it. "The Bible?" he asks. "Nightwatch," I reply. He looked confused. "It was written by Terry Pratchett" I explain  "he writes novels." My dad knows enough English to know what I am saying, yet he still appears confused. I show him the picture of the author in the back of the book. He starts to laugh "This man looks just like you!!" (he doesent look a thing like me). He stops laughing. "Wait, this one man wrote this whole book by himself?" he asks. I tell him that it is true. The look on his face suggested that I had just succesfully blown his mind. (side note: if you try hard enough you can blow a Gambians mind on a daily basis. Tell them Americans have been to the moon or that Tupac is dead, works everytime.) "So these are Christain stories?" he asks. I tell him no, how am I supposed to explain the adventures of Sammy Vines to this man. Long story short my father had only seen one type of books in his life. The Koran and books relating to the Koran. He had only heard of one other type of book in his life, The Bible. He basically assumed that all books were copies of these texts or that all other books would be religious based. It was an enlightening conversation to have.

Journal Entry 212:

Today I was walking in my village and came across a girl of maybe 12 to 13 years of age. She was doing dishes by the pump. As I walked towards her she causually glanced up at me. Her eyes got huge as she was clearly astonished to see me. Her look of astonishment was quickly replaced by a look of pure, unfettered fear. She started to run away and only stopped when she looked back to find me laughing hysterically. She gave me a cautious smile and I left her alone. Now I am accustomed to children running and screaming in fear of me but that was the first time a girl of her age had ever reacted that way, which leads me to believe I was the first white man she had ever seen in person. Got to love being a twobob (white man) Speaking of twobob.....so being called a twobob has gone from cute to infuriating at times. You see the children here (who are not terrified) run after you yelling "Twobob! Twobob! Twobob!" and in the urban areas "Twobob Minty! Twobob Minty!" (white tourists love to throw candy at children). I loved the attention at first, but now its a constant reminder that I am a stranger. Its funny when you think about it though. Its like a blackman walking down the streets of Port Angeles with a group of white children chasing him yelling "blackman, blackman!" or singing "black man is here, black man is here!" (yaaa they do that to). Or its like a mexican strolling through Seattle with a group of twenty white children screaming "Hey Mexican, Tortilla....Mexican Tortilla!!!!" Hahaha oh man its so funny to think of like that. The best way I have found to combat this is when you have a group following you, turn around and say in the local language "Where is the white man?" and then look around as if your ready bolt when you see him. They stop and usually become extremely confused. I can just hear them thinking "He is right here.....right? He is white.....isent he?" The smarter ones will piont to you at which point you say "I am not white, look I am as black as coal!" 9 our of 10 times they are speachless "Wait a sec did he just say he was as black as coal? Is he speaking Mandiken? He thinks he is black.....is he?" I can usually walk away at this point with a bit of peace of mind.

So there you have it folks a day in the life of Alajie...I mean Seth! Now last blog entry I asked you guys to post some questions and I will now respond to them. Someone asked about the wildlife here and the other asked about funny stories from the bush. I will answer both of those questions with one story. After I touch a bit on wildlife first. Gambia used to have all the works: lions, elephants, zebra, etc...but thanks to our good friend deforestration and desertification they no longer dwell here. However there are hippos (have yet to see but trust me I will), Hyenas (wake up to them fighting in the night every once and a while), crocs (no desire to see one) and lots of monkeys and birds (gorgeous birds). And a whole bunch of baboons.

So I was walking down the road toward this camp. There was a bunch of babbons trying to figure out how to get into this small water tank. They look occupied and I had a lot of my fellow trainees around so was not really afraid of them. Now its common knowledge that baboons are not really afraid of humans. As we were walking this medium sized baboon crossed in front of me. He slowed down and made eye contact with me. He was no more than five feet in front of me and my gaurd was up as was his. Finally after what seemed like minutes he made a move as if to charge me. Now on my person I possessed a hat (pretty useless right?) a nalgene bottle (its pretty hard and would hurt to get wacked by) and a knife (sharp!!!) I think you already know what I did. I grabbed my hat off my head and was prepared to fight with it. Luckily for me and my hat he was just teasing me. He only came foward about a foot or two before heading back into the bush. It was a test of dominance and we both knew the winner. He smelt my fear. I swear I heard him laughing as he strutted back into the bush.

Anyways hope this is not too much to read, hopefully will have another update in a month time. Tell me what you think....and please post any questions you may have.

Dobong Kunda here I come.

So I would like to talk about my permanent site, Dobong Kunda. Training is finished and I head back to village soonish. I’m pretty excited to be able do what ever I wish now. No more schedules, no more waking up early, and no more supervision. The village itself is hard to explain for you peeps back home. Its a smaller village, with only about sixty compounds (living areas). Umm ya, I live in a round mud hut with a grass roof. We have two shops and a blacksmith in the village. Things are pretty basic there (no electricity or running water in my compound), the nice thing about my village though is that its only 3k away from Bansang, which has a fairly decent sized market and all the basic stores. The village people are pretty chill, my alkalo (mayor) fell asleep during my meeting with him.

My host family is awesome. My dad is a marabou, which is basically an African fortune teller. But he is not really a fortune teller, its more like heeee....man its hard to explain but I guess you could say its like a Muslim mystic. Oh and he is awesome, he refused to let me pay for a mattress he gave me and will tell everyone he sees that I am his new son. The family is smaller which is nice because it means I will get to sleep in. He only has one wife and has two kids. One is a little two year old girl named Animata, who may be the cutest little child I have ever met. The other is my namesake, Alajie. He was born three days before I came to visit. The father also has about six students staying with him that he is teaching the Quran to.

Lets see language is going to be fun, very few people speak English in my village so I am going to have to get good and Mandinka. On top of that my family in particular is Jahanka so I will have to learn the finer points of that language (they are extremely similar). The one positive is that my work counterpart does speak English pretty well in addition to also knowing Spanish. So I will be able to communicate pretty well with him at the very least.

Already lined up a coaching gig at the local school in Bansang. They have a basketball court and one of the volunteers has already recruited me to help him out with his basketball  program thingy he has going. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this opportunity. I know it wont be coaching in any way, shape, or form like it is in America but its still teaching people basketball.

Life is great here, my village has so much open space to explore and work with. I live close to the river so I am hoping to take up fishing. I have a lot of support on any future projects and I am overall just really enjoying everyone I am surrounded by, both PC volunteers and Gambians.

The people here are amazing. They are incredibly hospitable and love to chill out. They will spend a half hour at a time greeting each other. This is so refreshing come from a culture where we refuse to even make eye contact with one another. Did I mention they like to chill out? Seriously I came to the right country. Its funny there is this thing called Gambia Maybe Time (GMT)...get it? Greenwich mean time....GMT....anyway the point is, if you say be there at five then you should expect people to start showing up around five thirty, five forty-five. People just come and go as they please. People don’t let time control the flow of their lives and I love it.

Well I am sure I could go on and on and on with the post but you would be bored out of your mind. There is so much to talk about so in the future, if you guys could maybe post comments asking me specific things you want me to post about it, that would be great. That way the blog will be less babbling and more pointed. Anyways I am off to take a nap. Peace out. Cheers. Salud. Foo Waatido.

Quick and Dirty

They now call me Alajie Bombo Mussa Ceesay, which roughtly translates to "Man who took a Hajj, Crocodile Man, Moses....Ceesay" I am no longer Seth, I no longer respond to Seth, I only respond to Alajie......I was absolutly shocked when I saw a white guy in my village the other day, I was thinking to myself "What in the world are you doing here?" Yep im pretty much Gambian now.

The langauge learning goes great, I can finally tell someone "I farted" "You are as fat as a donkey" and "I am the best dancer" so I am pretty satisfied with my progress.

I will admit that the food is rough. Rice, bread, and fish is what I have evvvveeerrydaaay, whenever I get a chance I will tell someone how amazing hamburgers are. Every once and a while when things are rough I will stare at the picture of a hamburger I have hanging up in my room. I will just stare at it and imagine what it tastes like, drool will slowly drip from my mouth....ya I am only a month in guys. No worrys though, I did something about my burger craving and went and got some beef grounded up and made some little burger sliders...twas great!

Got super sick last week, there was a point were I was afraid I would never experience a solid poop again. But yesterday morning I finally had a solid movement and you would not believe how excited I was, I seriously started dancing.

Training goes great, I found out my permanment site.....Dobong Kunda.....which is by Bansang.....for those who want to look at a map. I will be doing beekeeping, poultry managment, and really whatever I feel like taking on...maybe some teaching, hopefully sports....awesome right? I am really excited to get done with training and go to my site. Anyways all is well folks.....sorry it was so quick and dirty but I had a certain brother who was complaining and what not. :)

Once I get to my site I promise a nice and detailed post, until then I am off to practice my Mandinken!!! Cheers! or uhhh Fooooo Waaatido!!

Packing and other thoughts.

So I suppose I shall start a blog, apparently this is what people do when they join peace corp. I initially had no intentions of blogging, but my family and friends thought that was a terrible idea, so here I am.

Many of you are probably wondering whats going on in my head right now? Hows packing? Am I nervous? Excited? Terrified? Crazy?

Well packing goes pretty good, I have most of the big stuff but I am just trying to nail down all the little things I take for granted. Like toenail clippers or cue tips. I am semi worried I will forget something important but as long  I got a good pair of shoes and clothes on my back I will be good. Oh and my ipod, if I forgot that I would be devastated. By the way I am still working on my 'music I wont get tired of after two years' playlist so any suggestions you guys have would be great.

As far as what is going on in my head, well it may not be what you think. At the moment my days are pretty much consumed with coaching. I have found it really hard to focus on peace corp when I am in the middle of assistant coaching both the girls and boys basketball teams. We are installing a new offense, which has been pretty time consuming for us coaches. My approach for this whole trip is that I am not going to seriously think about whats in store for me until I get on that plane and everything gets real. For me it is silly to try and predict what to expect over there. There is no precedent in my life for this event, ya I went off to college and lived on my own for four years but I was surrounded by my fellow Americans. Ya i went to Mongolia but that was only for one month. All I know is its going to be a life changing event and that in all likelihood times are going to get tough for me. I think knowing that much should suffice.

I like lists by the way so i will end this post with two lists:

Things I am excited for:
1. Learning a new language
2. Assimilating into a new culture
3. Meeting new people
4.Learning some new things about myself
5. Using my skills to help a less fortunate group of people.

Things that scare me:
1. Seafood
2. Giant terrifying bugs
3. Getting sick
4. Culture shock (its impossible to prepare for in my opinion)
5. Getting my ipod stolen