With my brother Mamadou and sister Jeenaba

 Me and Ebrima.

 With Mr. Suarreh

 My little sister Amie first day of school. I was a very proud sister this day.

 Kayjiatou and her first day at school. 

 Watering my tomatoes. 

 Amadou watering the garden beds.

 Jeenaba Cham x2

 I am exited that they are now going to school.

Scout training. 

 Our lettuce from our garden beds. 

 Me and my little sisters.  Love these girls.

 Me sisters with me at the Suduwol Interhouse Competition.

 Me and my counterpart Amadou working on preparing for our Baseline Survey for our village. 

 Me and Amadou with the Alkhalo of Sare Alpha.

 Namaku (Peppers)

 Amadou working hard.

 My little brother Mamadou wanted to come with his big sister to work and help out weighing the babies.

 Cant function without the Attaya. 

My little sister Jeenaba watering her garden bed in the school garden.

It's now official.

 

I did it I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer.  After two months of intense training I was able to say my oath and earn my pin & certificate as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Today was a great day, our ceremony was held in the beautiful backyard of the United States Ambassadors house overlooking the beach and ocean.  We were surrounded by current volunteers, our whole trainee staff, and important Gambians.  All 18 of us all dressed in the same Gambian attire had made it through the tiresome days of long lectures, through the food poisoning many of us got, through the language tests that we all felt we would fail and through the long days of waiting for our transportation to arrive, it was a great day of accomplishment and relief that the last two months was all worth it. 

Last day in Sare Musa

I thought that today would be easier than it was.  Today was the last day spent in my training village (Sare Musa).  I spent most of the day sitting around with the family chatting and taking pictures.  Lizzie, Michael, Becca and I all decided to out on our Gambian ceremony attire and parade around the village and say our goodbyes to everyone.  Everyone seemed so excited to see us in our complets and wanted to take photos with us and of us.  Since it was my last night here I had decided to buy a chicken for the family to eat for dinner.  I sat around and helped my sister-in-law prepare the meals and chatted with the family.  We all gathered around as I played the film Monsters University on my laptop, which they loved and laughed at so much.  Since it was in English many of them didn’t understand what was being said but the pictures was good enough for them.  I decided to stay up later than usual as well as the children even though they had school the next morning.  Everyone seemed very sad and told me that I shouldn’t leave and I should just stay there for the next two years.  I told them thank you for everything and that I was going to miss them but I would be back to visit often and then headed to bed.  Sare Musa is crazy and full of energy but it is a great village in which I will definitely miss. 

 

Model School Presentation

Today we went to a school and held a presentation on a health topic.  The topic that Lizzie and I choose to discuss was Personal Hygiene and Hand Washing.  We prepared our presentation with visuals on rice bags and props such at a bucket water and soap.  We discuss the importance of why, when and how to wash your hands.  We taught the children a song to sing while washing their hands and had them practice it.  The children all seemed engaged in our presentation and really enjoyed it from the smiles on their faces.  We made sure that there was participation involved and questioned them in the end so that everything was clearly understood.  Lizzie and I had a great time doing this activity with the kids it really shows that the little things such as hand washing can make a difference.

Our Lovely Garden

One of our activities during training is to learn how to build a garden.  Our garden was held in my host family’s compound.  My host father worked really hard on building a fence to keep all the animals out.  We planted three garden beds and build two compost piles.  We transplanted mentu (tomatoes) and botanse (eggplant).  We direct seeded carrots, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, peppers and okra.  This was a great learning process and our garden is doing well.  The days that I was gone in training my host mother would help water it because when we leave to our permanent site it is theirs left to be cared for.  I can’t wait to build my own garden in my backyard because it will probably be the only source of vegetable for me to eat.  

Visit to the School

During my three days at site visit I was able to meet many people.  I met the Alkalo, Imam, Tradition Birth Attendant, teacher from the local school and many others.  One day I decided to walk to the school to check it out and some of the children were on there break eating their snack.  I introduced myself to them and tried to speak to them in the local language, I told them to sing and dance and they did.  I decided to whip out my camera to snap a photo and the whole crowd went crazy pushing and shoving to get in the picture knocking eachother down, it was hilarious.  I showed them the photo and then decided to go on my way home.  I told them goodbye but somehow they didn’t get it because they all followed me home singing and dancing all the way to my compound.  I arrived and sat in front of my house thinking of a way to get rid of them.  I kept saying you guys need to get back to school but they just stood there and starred at me.  Finally one of my host brothers came out and yelled at them to leave and they all squirmed out back to school.  It was funny.  Kids you just got to love them. 

 

Suddu am he Sare Alpha

This is a picture of my house in Sare Alpha.  My little hut.

Patience

One thing that I have learned from being in Africa so far is patience.  I now have the skill of waiting patiently especially for transportation.  Today we are on the journey of visiting our permanent site for a few days.  We just finished a two day workshop with our community representative and are heading to meet our new village that we will be living at for the next two years.  My community representatives name is Amadou Jallow and he is a community health nurse that lives in Sare Alpha.  He is a very nice guy and I know he will be fun to work with for the next two years.  We headed out from Jenoi where the workshop was held around 8 oclock and had been waiting to catch the bus for about 4 hours.  Many buses had come but there was never enough room to accommodate all us trainees so we kept on waiting.  We finally caught a bus at noon and headed to Basse which was about a 3 to 4 hour ride.  This bus ride was very bumpy and scary at times.  You see in Africa there are many animals such as goats, sheep and cows that like to cross the road while taking there time so many times the bus would have to honk or swerve around them which does slow up the ride.  There was one point where the driver had dodged a heard of goats and the bus almost tipped over, many people screamed and were mad at the driver.  I like to describe the public transportation just like a ride in an amusement park.

With my Host Brothers from Training Village

This is a picture of my host brothers and I in Sare Musa.  We were out watching our older brother play football (soccer), starting from the left is Mamadou, Me, Abulai and Gibi.