Zabeth

Zabeth left for Japan last week to teach English for the next year. She left from El Paso, so my dad once again got to say goodbye to somebody he loves at the airport. Her first week in training was in a hotel in Tokyo and I was in town for training we got to talk every morning for her and every night for me. She left a few days ago to travel towards where she will be working, and I haven't heard from her since she made the move. Since I don't have access to the internet for a few weeks at a time when Im in Sami Koto I understand, and realize its a lot easier to be the one without internet rather than the one waiting to get word. Stamps for mail to the US are 25 dalasi, but I don't know if many letters go to Japan from The Gambia so it will be an experiment finding out how much it costs to send something there. When people are doing their greetings, they ask about the family, the home people, and then how my wife is doing.  I did say she is in America, but soon she is going to work in Japan, and then in one year she will come to visit Gambia. There are a few people that I think really understand what I’m saying, so I am anxious to finally tell them no longer is she in America, but now she is in fact in Japan.
Update: I talked to Zabeth this morning, I think shes in her apartment and doing fine

Zabeth (In Las Cruces)

Zabeth (In Japan!)

Business

This is our counterparts processing honey. You jest cut off the wax caps and let the honey drain off through a poplin cloth into a bucket.

 This is a big huge tree with several hives in it.

Me and Malcolm sitting on the back porch of the house in Basse.

 Darin, a volunteer, and Ballah the trainer who taught all the bee-keeping lessons finishing up the class with honey tasting.

My brother Bakary cutting honey.

Gift Horses

While we were in Basse I was lucky to receive three huge boxes from my mom, my dad, and cousin Megan. Normally, I would either have to come down to the city to pick them up, or every other month they will get delivered by a vehicle on whats called mail run. While we were in training though, our Dr. (Dr. Dziwa Blessing) decided to take a trip through the country to see where everybody lived. He brought all the packages for people that lived past Basse, and so when he pulled over for the day in Basse he gave me all of the packages. I took them out into the garden with my headlight so that I could open them away from the group. The first box I opened was from my mom, it was full of the stuff that mere mortals would refuse to put in the mail, but not my mom. She sent me two huge jars of Nutella chocolate spread, girl scout cookies, tons of peanut butter crackers that were smashed in transit but proved to be just as good when poured as crumbs into my mouth. I asked for toothbrushes, and toothpaste, and got enough to last me and a handful of villagers until Christmas of 2015.  I also asked for something about El Paso to remind me of home, and my mom gave me the finest hardcover books ever published on the city, but just to have something to compare it to she also sent a magazine on New Mexico, the West in general and five or so National Geogrpahic's, just so I would have a sense of place. The box was heavy, expensive to send, and full of luxury items that only my mom would ever send and I can never say thanks enough for. My dads box was economically packed full of good(i.e.)s centered around a new pair of shoes. He included a million instant coffee packs, which are actually the kind of thing that is really popular here and works good for me. He also included one fine bag of real ground coffee, which I will probably keep in Basse and drink only when I am on a mini vacation there and have nothing to interrupt my coffee drinking. To fill in space between coffee and shoes, he also sent a lot of packs of tuna and pink salmon, and some beef jerky. One plastic bag of beef jerky was compromised by rats in the mail room, but not compromised enough to keep me from eating it right away, and then finishing it up with girl scout cookies. For everyone who knows Megan, or Judy, or if you know anyone cool, a description of her box will come as no surprise. Its a retro green hardcover box, and my address is printed on graph paper. Inside the box is no regard for economical packing, or sense of desperation that space is running out. There are items, and they speak for themselves. A bag of beef jerky, a pack of salmon, a bar of dark chocolate, and perhaps the coolest thing ever sent across the ocean… a bag of kettle cooked barbecue potato chips. My moms box is a 4x4 pickup truck blaring country music with the windows down on a lift and huge tires, my dads box is a Prius bringing home 50 pounds of oatmeal and tri-tip from the Costco, and Megan's box is James Dean cruising his motorcycle down the alley. No matter what comes or doesn't come, whoever is checking up on me means so much and makes me a pretty lucky guy. Thanks So Much!

Training in Kombo

We got to the city on Friday, which is called Kombo - (the capital is Banjul, but the connecting towns and villages are all referred to as Kombo) including Fajara, the name of the town where the Peace Corps house that we stay at and office are. Immediately everyone went to the beach, and I lucked out by getting to play some volleyball. Then, Saturday through Monday were all sitting in the office and getting affiliated with Peace Corps policy, until Tuesday again when we had more village representatives come for training. This training however was on honey bees. Its considered a, Agricultural Program goal because honey can sell for alot of money, thereby increasing farmers incomes. The problems though are that people who do like honey often just burn down a hive and then harvest honey but also dead bees. The product is smoky, cant be sold, and kills the colony. My brother Bakary came along with one person from everybody's village and from Tuesday until last night we went to training at a place called Beecause. They are a non profit that actually travels around the country teaching people how to catch bees, manage them, and then harvest and sell honey and wax. They have a small property with tons of beehives on it. First, they talked about how bees live, whats on the combs, and where you put hives and organizational stuff like that. Then around six pm we all got into bee suits and went out and actually opened up the hives, collecting honey and repairing unhealthy combs. We harvested a little honey, and then the next day was all about processing it, making candles, soap, and of course eating honey. Yesterday we got to go back in the evening to go out bee keeping again. This has definitely been the highlight of training because... they feed us a huge dinner when we get back, but also because it was really neat just sitting around on this beautiful property from the afternoon until the evening. We all just hung out chatted, and napped, because you wait until night when the bees are all back in the hive before you go and check on them. Since we werent going out until around seven, we would get back around nine and then dinner would be waiting for us, along with raw honey comb for dessert. We got home all nights after nine, but if youve been fed, harvested honey, and enjoyed a nice cool night outside theres really nothing to complain about.

Training in Basse

For the past two weeks we have been in training again. Our first two months were all about learning language and culture, the most important things. But they called us all back together to learn the more technical and hands on stuff were encouraged to be doing in the village. Last last Monday I and the eight other Environment volunteers all met in Basse. There is a garden there at the Peace Corps house so we have free reign. Monday was all lectures, paperwork signing, and making sure that everyone had a good first three months getting used to their site. On Tuesday they actually had one representative from each of our villages come to Basse as well to go through garden training with us. Its not so much that as volunteers we need to be taught how to loosen up soil and plant seeds, but bringing somebody from the village around to see a formal training and giving them the chance to ask questions straight to our Program managers about things just gives a little bit of legitimacy to the fact that a stranger is there to help work in the garden or on the farm. Tuesdays training including digging garden beds, transplanting vegetables, but also planting and transplanting trees, as well as selecting, cutting, and then grafting trees together. Wednesday was how to treat and store seeds, how to make fences out of trees, and more grafting practice. Our village representatives went home on Thursday, and then we shifted to doing paper work and listening to some more lectures. I asked the garden master from the Arabic school to come as my counterpart (his name is Omar, hes in one of the pictures), but since he has to teach on Tuesday and Wednesdays the school sent a woman named Mariamma who is a teacher in training, which means she just hangs around the school and helps out however she can. Aside from the knowledge and practice, the coolest thing about bringing people from our village with us was just the way everyone had fun in a huge group. At all the break times all of our Gambian counterparts would just go sit under a mango tree and drink attaya, so even if they didnt learn anything they were having fun. Peace Corps also put them up in a hotel, and provided all of the breakfast, lunches, and dinners, which are huge, diverse, and full of the produce that you cant always find in the village. Friday was a travel day, and we all loaded up in the huge Peace Corps van and got a free ride to the big city for some more training...

Photos

 This is my nursery the first week I planted it, in January.

 This is the side window in my hut with my new orange curtain up.

 This is Mustas on the left and Omar on the right, they are putting peanut butter into a smaller jug... one spoonful at a time. They are both teachers at the Arabic school/

 On the far left are my aunts Sona Sanne and Damba Balise, the little baby is Musa and he mostly doesnt like me. The boy driving is my quasi brother, or maybe cousin, he lives in the compound, his name is Maddie. The other woman is from another compound.

 This is the back door to my hut, after my brothers built a porch for it

 This was my nursery last week

 This is me and my brother Bakary, in his hut

This is at a conference that I came to in Basse called Environmental Best Practices Knowledge Fair