Hello from Gambia!

Happy New Year!

Hard to believe it is 2010 and even more hard to believe that I have been living in Africa for 2 months. Tomorrow morning we are officially done with training and will be sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. For the last seven weeks or so I have been living in a village named Fula Kunda with 5 other volunteers. I was placed in the Jallow compound and quickly learned to love my host family. A few days after arriving in village we (all the trainees) had a naming ceremony. My family choose to name me Musukeba Jallow after one of my sisters. On facebook, there is there is a picture of me during my naming ceremony. Typically a naming ceremony would be done 7 days after a baby is born. A village elder shaves the baby's head and a goat is slaughtered at the same time, during a traditional ceremony. At our ceremony they mimed shaving a little hair and then we danced with our host mother. Our host families also provided an outfit for us to wear. I will have pictures up eventually. (unfortunately I forgot my camera adapter in my village) In village, we had language classes everyday with our Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF). I am learning to speak pulaar seeda, seeda (slowly, slowly) My class was held underneath a Mango tree in the middle of our village.

In village after classes were over for the day I hung out with my host family. They helped me work on my pulaar and spent a lot of time laughing at all the crazy things I do. One of my family's favorite stories is from sitting around the fire one night. All of a sudden something ran through the fire and then right underneath where I was sitting. My reaction of course was to scream and pick my feet up off the ground! We laughed for a long time about that and host family likes to inform everybody that "Musukeba susani ululu!" (Jenna is scared of a cat!) It would have been funny if you were there. The head of our compound passed away a few years ago so now there is are two co wives and their children living their. I became fast friends with my host sisters Musukeba, Hebi and Dado. These are also the three people that made it possible for me to survive because they carried water for me! The working water pump was far from our compound and I am weak there is no way I could make it back with a 20 liter bedong on my head! Actually the one time I tried I was wobbling so much that Dado made me put it down before I fell over and she came back to carry it for me after taking the huge bucket of water she was carrying home. She still enjoys doing the impersonation of me not being able to walk! I'll have you know that I can now carry a small bucket of water on my head and repeat in my head seeda, seeda (slowly, slowly) which is what Dado repeated to me as she followed me to make sure I didn't die!

While in Fula Kunda we celebrated Tobaski. Tobaski is a muslim holiday that fell just after Thanksgiving. A lot of family from Kombo (city) comes to celebrate with their families, so my compound took on an extra 10 people or so. One of them was my host brother, Modo, from Kombo and he brought with him a ton of food including the live goat that was to be slaughtered after prayers on Tobaski. Unfortunately the night before Tobaski the ram somehow got untied and it ran away. My family searched that night and the next morning informing all the neighboring villages that they were looking for a ram, but it was not found. My brother kept telling me that he was very confused because he has "had many Tobaski's but never has he lost his ram." It is unheard of to celebrate Tobaski without slaughering a ram so he somehow found another to purchase and we ate that as part of our Tobaski feast. Two days later Modo heard from a neighboring village that they found our ram! Unfortunately, I mean luckily for me (not), we had ram twice that week. All of the trainees were able to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas together at a tourism camp. For thanksgiving Peace Corps imported food so that we could make our Thanksgiving favorites. Our dinner was so delicious! On Christmas Eve we did the Marathon March (hiked 30 km) and on Christmas Day we were able to take a boat ride through part of the Gambian River.

Just before New Years I was able to visit my permanent site for a few days. Within a few minutes of arriving at my site my family asked my name, decided it was very funny and renamed me Isatou Bah. (Isatou is my first name and Bah is my surname) The family that I live with is very small. I live with my host mother, Egatou, and two host sisters Isatou and Egatou. They live in one room of a 4 room row home. There is just one other person who rents a room from them also. I have my own one room square hut adjacent to their house. I am so excited that i have a thatched roof now! I also have a private backyard with my pit latrine and slab for taking a bucket bath. I am also really fortunate that there is enough space that I can put my own garden in my backyard.

I am the first volunteer in my village so part of my job will be introducing them to all the "crazy things tubabs (white people) do!" While in village I was able to meet my family and be introduced to a lot of people in the village. I found out that they have an awesome school garden and tree nursery. As well as pretty big animal husbandry projects going with sheep and goats. I am going to have a high learning curve to catch up with that one! Tomorrow morning all of the trainees are being sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. I am so excited to be done with training and to be able to move out to my village and get to know as much as possible about it! Next time I have internet I will be able to tell you all about it (and add some pictures!)

Take care

~Jenna