I Somma (pronounced "E Somma")

Means good morning. Well, I made it here in one piece, although it took about 24 hrs to get here. Two 8 hour flights, 1 four hour lay-over and 21 almost strangers scared and excited out of their minds sure makes for interesting company and confusing people watching.

There are still 21 of us! We are staying in Kombo, the main city center at a training facility called the Gambia Pastoral Institute (GPI). Our days have been filled with lots of mini sessions about culture, introduction to programs, clinic visits, language classes, 3 solid meals a day and running water and electricity. A few days ago, we had interviews and were placed into language groups with 2 or 3 other people. I was placed with Rachel and Chris, both have lived in Texas at some point in their lives and we are learning the Mandinka language. The Mandinka tribe makes up about 40% of The Gambia. The two other tribes and their languages are Wolof, that speak Olof and the Fula, that speak Pular. We will leave GPI on Friday to go to training villages with our groups for about two weeks or so, going back and forth between the training villages and Camp Tendaba, then back to GPI for the last week of training. In all, we will be training for 10 weeks. Once in the training villages, our Language and Cultural Helpers (LCHs) will be staying with us (even though Rachel, Chris and I will all be divided up and living individually with our own host families). I will be staying in the training village of Kiaaf, about 35k from Camp Tendaba. There we will be working on projects called Training Directed Activities (TDAs) to help us integrate some work into our language and culture adaptations. GPI is not necessarily representative of what the rest of the two years will be like. Once we get to training villages, I will have a better idea.

I am having a great time so far. A lot of my anxieties have decreased, and the people in this Health and Community Development group are amazing. It makes sense that we have stuff in common, but it seems people feel comfortable enough with each other to make an effort to get to know one another. The other day, our Associate Program Country Director, Gibril (ACPD) went over some goals and objectives that Peace Corps and The Gambian government have put together. Several of them were things that I am super interested in and I got pretty excited.

So far, I've only been in the Kombo area and it reminds me of towns in Costa Rica. Taxi's (called five-fives) honk at everyone, people walk the streets, vendors sell things and people yell things (tuubob is the word for for a non-African). A group of us went running today, down the one road that goes along TG, south of the river (there is one road north of the river as well) and we ran to the ocean and along a cliff line. It was absolutely gorgeous to see the palm trees and the cliff line for kilos and kilos.

Last night we met other PCVs at a restaurant called Come In. It was neat to talk to them about their experiences, see people who our group will replace and learn about their projects. New training groups come about every 3 or 4 months to replace the last group. The 3 groups working in TG are Agro-Forestry, Education and Health.

Today is a free day, so I'm off to the beach, then back home to wash some laundry in a bucket!!

I miss you guys and will try to get some pictures up soon. Keep in touch!