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.