Before this trip, I had never... (Part 1)

- had permanently dirty feet
- sweated from my forearms
- drunk more Coke than you can shake a stick at
- wore sunscreen as body lotion
- enjoyed homemade peanut butter from home-grown peanuts
- painted my own chalk board
- included air-conditioning as one of my best friends
- been woken up by the sounds of roosters, sheep, dogs and Whitney Houston all at the same time
- had my very own class of 25+ students who call me "Miss Brandy"

Toubabs go to the Market

I'm learning the ways of the market! Bought myself a nice little carving at the Fajara Craft Market yesterday after the beach. Asking price: 750 Dalasi. Sale price: 350 Dalasi. Oh yeah. It was a long process though and even required a phone call to the sellers uncle. Then I had one guys follow me around the rest of the time trying to sell me a wooden turtle. Does anyone want one? I know where to find 'em.

Fridays are Mosque day. All the men dress up in traditional outfits and come out in droves to go to the mosque. There were hundreds of them on the main street. Every night the mosque plays prayers (?) and we can set our clock by it. Last night we were sitting around doing work for classes and when I heard the mosque I said "Is it quarter to 8 already?" and was exactly 7:45pm. Haha.

I'm running out of time!
Bye for now,
love, b

Champions on the Street

Some Gambian men will pretty much tell you anything to get your money. Today on our way to the beach, some guy was following Vanessa and I down the road trying to talk to us. It's hard to be rude but you have to be or else they will bother you forever. Anyway, in a last ditch attempt to make us stop and talk to him he says "You look like....champions on the street!". Hahaha.

Yesterday we had our first day without a meeting and Burris (our NSGA boss from Halifax) had business to do down near the Senegal border (south of Fajara). So 18 of us set off on a little road trip to Kartung. First stop, Tanje Village Museum where a guy has set up a traditional Gambian village and has a bunch of info on the flora and fauna of The Gambia. It was pretty cool. Next stop was at the sacred Crocodile Pit. Gambians go there to pray for something they really want - pretty much anything from passing an exam to curing an illness. There was one croc that kept popping his head up out of the pond but that's the only one we spotted.

The last stop was probably the craziest experience I've had to date. It was a privately owned reptile farm run by a French Polygamist. We think he may have been taking advantage of the Muslim belief that you can have up to 4 wives :) Anyway, he had a pet baboon tied up in front of his house that was too dangerous for us to go near but apparently not too dangerous for his kids to play with. He had all kinds of snakes mostly. A HUGE rock python (not a bad band name) in his front yard - caged of course - and a bunch of other snakes (both poisonous & non). He told us his 2 year old son wasn't very afraid of snakes so he let a non-poisonous snake bite him to teach him a lesson. Uh huh. Gambians are really afraid of snakes and it was pretty funny watching all the men running away everytime he took one out.

It was a great day! Today we had a meeting in the morning and then we just spent 4 hours at the beach. No complaints here.

l8r sk8rs,
b

Toubabs in The City

Toubab (too-bob) is what Gambians call white people. Mostly you just hear it from the kids though. They always call us toubabs and wave when we go by. Funny.

Anyway, Allison, Melanie and I are enjoying our little house. It's small but great. We have a grapefruit tree in our yard. They make a huge noise on our tin roof when they fall and we've taken to yelling "grapefruit!" everytime we hear the bang. Our maid (we're spoiled) brought us in one the other day and we were enjoying it immensely until I found a worm in mine. Blech. So I'm currently off grapefruit.

Our neighborhood courtesy of Google Maps:
http://www.google.ca/maphp?hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=13.464182,-16.688517&spn=0.004022,0.004989

More soon...
b

Hey all!

You pretty much all know how terrible I am at e-mailing so I thought I'd attempt a blog. Ha! Now the pressure is on to be clever and witty :) Just wanted to write a quick note to let everyone know we made it to The Gambia. Thanks for all the e-mails, messages and phone calls before I left!

Our first stop was in London for three days. Whirlwind but great! We ended up there during a heat wave. It was a primer for Africa since it hit 37.7 degrees there one day. It's actually cooler here in Gambia. Well, maybe not today. I feel like I might be melting... It's amazing what you get used to though. I've been saying that it feels like I opened up the July issue of National Geographic and climbed right in. The country and the people here are beautiful! And there are butterflies everywhere.

We've been doing a lot of work since we arrived - meetings everyday. Teaching starts Monday and I'm getting nervous but excited. Our Gambian colleagues are super and have been a lot of help. Now if only I could remember all their names.

I have lots of write about but I'll keep this one short for now.
Feel free to e-mail :)
love, b