Winter’s A Go-Go under an Eternal Summer’s Sun

Cool. Calm. Collective. Okay, so two out of three aint so bad. It’s blazin hot and every time I happen to glance over at my little battery operated all-in-one digital clock/calendar/thermometer I find an exponential increase of numbers in all respective categories. I still shouldn’t complain too much about the heat A) because I’m not all the way up country where a flame is not the only thing that makes a candle drip wax and B) I found myself cast in the “poor college student” role in those Oklahoma August days and limited the AC as much as was tolerable, so I should be somewhat more acclimated than my fellow PCVs who spent most of their days in more temperate climates, right? Well, all of that logical thinking gets thrown out the Gele window like the empty 1 Dalasi bags of what once contained 45 flavorful seconds of enjoyment in the form of frozen Baobab juice, known locally as “icees”. All of that gets left behind like the school child trying to learn math in a language that is rarely spoken back at the compound. All of that gets trumped when you get ill. I was working on a record of 5 months clean of parasites, fever, dysentery, skin irritants, etc., but the winds are blowing and it’s hot and sand and dirt and bacteria and viruses find themselves into every part of your world, including your cells. It’s strange, too, because you can feel it coming on, but you can’t quite exactly tell how under the said weather you are. You start second guessing yourself: maybe it’s just the heat; I can still manage that bucket of water on my head so it can’t be that bad. I’d be sweating this much anyway, right? So you continue overexerting yourself until someone rational suggests recuperating in more familiar comfort (but still not THAT comfortable) like that of the PC hostel and then you realize you’d be silly to compromise the overexertion back home and take those small, but important steps to convalescence… And then it’s still hot.

Gambia seems to exude this “way” (some might call it playful if wishing to anthropomorphise the country- I’ll just call it special) of deciding things for you. Let’s take, for example, the time of day conducive to blog-writing mood: 1:30am. Of course, I went to bed for the first time hours ago, but thanks to Africell, the nocturnally noisy compound dog who takes it upon himself to protect us from even the crickets in Bafuloto, I soon became wide awake. I should note, though, that I was laying on my outside bed, writing under a sky that might cause Van Gough to emerge from the grave with canvas and paint brush in hand to create what would make his original one obsolete. I’ll refer you to the previous paragraph of temperature for the explanation of this semi-permanent camping decision. Ironically, this too, turns out to be one of those romantic inconveniences as soon as the sky opens its taps, automatically creating the only occasion in which all of Gambia has running water, as the rainy season is once again upon us.

A typical conversation opener among fellow H&CD PCV friends:
“Is that ringworm on your lower leg?” my endearing friend, Chris asks. Naw, I explain, I just got a tattoo in the form of a Rorschach ink-blot gratis from a jellyfish a few weeks ago (a few days after this conversation, someone really did ask if I’d gotten a tattoo gone badly). “Did it hurt?” Yeah, it stung for like 2 ½ hours. “Did you pee on it?” Considered it, but decided to go with a soap and water approach instead (which made it clean, but did nothing for the pain). You think I should get this fungus on my toes checked out; or is it maybe just a blood blister under the skin…?

Lately I’ve been spending more of my time on the cultural aspect of service. The Roots homecoming festival took place a couple of weeks ago and I managed to catch the part towards the end of the week where it was held at the President’s home village of Kanalia. I arrived by Gele, meeting another volunteer who came on bike, just as one of the first major rains ensued. The festival began and continued full speed ahead with Guinean dancing and marches with masks, then the man himself arrived and the focus shifted until past our bedtime, so we adventurously made our way to our sleeping arrangements at another volunteer’s home a few villages away. I’m sure we were deep in Larium induced dreams by the time the supposed fire dancing and knife ingesting activities commenced.

In Bafuloto, my focus has been on appreciating the ability to try to make things grow. Thus far I’ve been pretty successful with my leg hair. Haha, just kidding (sort of). My host brother helped me fence in a small area behind my backyard bathroom, as well as dig a compost pit, so the last month has been dedicated to getting bacteria to grow and break down the cow poop, grass and food particles I went around collecting on my head, in order to trick that arid sand into thinking it was living in northern California. I went ahead and sowed a few cashew, pigeon pea and Indian jujube trees (that dried fruit seed I fell in love with called Tomburongo), as well as some herbs, in polypots when I started the compost, so those are just about ready for out planting. Then, last week, I finally made my beds, with clean, fitted sheets of compost hopefully enticing enough for those romantic little veggie seeds to sprout. And no matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen it, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over the beauty of the growing, little eyes on the man on the moon; its gradual illuminating presence exudes a sense of peace and purpose over my dynamic and often vulnerable world.

Speaking of growing, ever since I began Peace Corps, I drew this strange comparison of likening the 27 months of service to someone potentially carrying to three full terms. Don’t even ask me where I came up with that thought, but now I can’t help but think that so far, somewhere, my service has coincided with two full terms which presumably resulted in new lives, leaving but one more term to be carried through to the end. Two thirds of one, 9 months of another; no matter how you slice it, there’s never enough to go around. How do you begin to explain the concept of buying enough of the government’s subsidized rice (until September, that is) to save and store when A) the compound is on a bag to bag budget and mindset, B) rice is considered a status food that even the most vulnerable aren’t willing to compromise, C) bio-fuel supply side economics is about as foreign as is equally detrimental as that donation of 25 REALLY ancient computers to a school with a generator with fuel only half the time and no IT instructor hired along with the donation in order to show the students how to use these archaic machines.

Alrighty, enough straining your peepers on this computer screen! Go outside and enjoy some fresh June air with a four legged friend who is itching run after something. Then come back and write me a letter and mail it. I miss seeing you guys; it’s already been too long.

Love, Court

BTW, I just finished reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost and found it a little too easy to relate to his travelogue. I’m recommending it because it’s another perspective of some things similar to my way of life, it’s pretty entertaining, and if you read it you’ll find yourself sending me random questions (anything to keep the communication going across continents!)


And I've uploaded more pictures.