Well Project Update

To all of you who have contributed to the school well project, I need to give you a huge thank-you and an apology for not keeping you informed of the project's progress sooner. It is finally finished! Almost. I have left village, so I won't personally be able to drink clean water from the well before I leave, but it now only requires a day of work for the final pipes to be installed, and I expect to hear of that happening very soon.

Everybody at the school is extremely happy, and they have just recently started their dry season garden beds in anticipation of the well's completion. Both communities are also very thankful for all of your assistance, and every day I was told to thank all of you and also appologize for the project's tardiness. This will be a huge help for the school and the women of the village who will be the primary fetchers of water there, and the students will now have a chance to learn gardening without the labor (and danger) involved in their fetching water from an open well a long distance away. So thank you from me, and thank you from the school staff, the students, the school committee, and the two communities - Dembanding and Fatako - for your help.

Its been a bit of a rough ride getting to the final completion of this well. I expected that when the money was transfered into the hands of the well contractors it would be a matter of one, maybe two weeks of work. But the months that its taken so far have seen lots of frustration and waiting, and at times it was tough to believe that the work would ever get done.

After the first initial payment, the workers were brought together and they brought in the drilling equipment fairly quickly. Drilling was going smoothly until they hit a depth of fourteen meters, and ran into a rock. They started busting the rock up with "the missile," a large, pointy welded mass of metal, and oops! They forgot to tie a rope to it, and when it separated from the metal rods it was attached to, it decided to stay happily right where it was, fourteen meters down and wedged in tight, even after two full days dedicated to its removal. The crew then left, dejected, and planned to come back near the end of the rains when the workers wouldn't be disturbed by the labor on their farms.

When they finally came back, later than expected, they brought old and faulty equipment. But they worked through it and started digging again at a new spot in the first week of November. The drilling went fast again, all the way to nine meters, even with the bolts and pins regularly shearing off in the drilling rods. But then the wrong bolt broke, and the drill was left again in the bottom of the hole, and again nothing worked to get it out. On to the third hole, still with the old equipment breaking regularly. At one point a steel rod sheared right in half, slicing one of the worker's hands and again nearly dropping the whole apparatus into the hole. Luckily it didn't fall, but then something else did, at about eleven meters in the third hole, with no hope of getting it out. In a stroke of luck they were able to move back to the second hole and hook the drill to pull it out. When they got back to it they labored until they hit 14 meters, at which point they had seven meters of water, and called it good. There is now a wheel pump secured to 14 meters of pipe in the ground, sitting on a concrete base, surrounded by a concrete drainage with a large reservoir tank for optional use in the garden. It exists, and I have the picures to prove it, which will be up shortly.

So thats the status of the project that you've all helped to get finished. Thank you again very much and I appologize for my tardiness in reporting on it. But now we have good news and a reason to be happy about what we've accomplished.

I now have a little over a week left here and its been a crazy last couple of weeks. Its tough to put any of it into words, but I'll try--soon, when I'm ready for it, but not quite yet. Take care you all, and I can't wait to see many of you back in the states soon! - Alex

August 25th Update:

Hello again everyone!

I guess its been a little while since I’ve updated this thing for everyone. Has it been a year? Well, better late than never I suppose, but man where do I start?

I’m still here, and The Gambia is still here, more or less how I found it 23 months ago. I’m not sure if I’ve changed, and if so how, but I’ve definitely racked up a bunch of experiences that will be with me for the rest of my life. I’ll start with the easy big things that you should be able to recognize in the pics on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexgambia/ .

My family came! Last November around Thanksgiving time, I met my dad, mom, brother and my brother’s other, Kate, at the airport in Banjul, and then we had a great time traveling the country, seeing the sites, being tourists and taking a little peek into the life of a volunteer; me. The few days we spent in my village were one of the highlights of the trip, and the trip itself was one of the big highlights of my stay here. The Gambia actually has some pretty cool stuff to offer, if you’re looking in the right place.

In March, six friends and I took off down to Guinea Conakry (http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/countries/Guinea-Conakry.html), in a Peugeot filled with 10 people and with several people piled on top (that’s a lot for a little piece of crap station wagon). Bumpy roads, several break downs, sleeping by the side of the road at borders, and maybe 36 hours later we reached our spot. We had gone through the large city of Labe to get to a small mountain village called Douki, all of this in the Fouta Jallon region, where everyone speaks a dialect of Fula, which meant that Cam and I could communicate! Douki was set at a few thousand feet up, where a short walk took you to Guinea’s version of the grand canyon, with huge vistas and sheer cliffs dropping forever. Longer hikes took us through thick green jungle and to waterfalls and boulders, where we could play like little kids on all the topography that we’d been missing for the last year and a half. If you’re a mountain person, spending a long time in a place like the Gambia will make you appreciate any little bump in the land that can give you a wider perspective, and to make a long story short, this was an amazing trip and a great release for all of us.

Morocco. It ' s sweet. If the mountains in Guinea were amazing, these were incredible. Big, snow capped in places, with wonderful little Berber villages packed into all the valleys where water has been found and directed in ways that create beautiful green oases among the harsh dry peaks. But that was only one leg of our trip. We went there in late May, which was carefully planned to avoid the crappiest, hottest weeks here in The Gambia. We were able to hit most of the country – Essiouira, Marrakesh, the High Atlas mountains, the Middle Atlas mountains, Fes, Cassablanca, Rabat, and lots of other stuff along the way. We camped, hiked, ate well, met great people and saw a lot of a beautiful country with a thick, real culture. And we bought lots of cool stuff. At least it seemed like a lot on a Peace Corps budget. Anyway, it was amazing.

And here we are, back in The Gambia, with three months to go before I and most of my group are outta here. Most of my time, obviously, is spent in village, which is the place where I feel most at home and comfortable, and where the people are always great. Well, mostly great. Sometimes the culturally ingrained dishonesty gets to you, but if you can get past that… But I guess my point is village is by far the best thing that this place has to offer. Peace of mind, warm people, and LOTS of time to think and reflect and whatever else you want to do. The comforts are not there, the food is sometimes tasty but mostly devoid of nutritional value (I’m freaking skinny), its hot as I’ve said before, and there’s lots of down time, which if you’re not careful can manifest itself as boredom. But past that it’s become a home away from home, and the day I leave will definitely be tough.

I don’t think I’ll be replaced there by another volunteer, which is probably for the best. Trying to get work done there is like banging your head against a wall. The village has all kinds of hidden infighting, stuff that you learn only after being there for 24 months and that makes group projects impossible. Fighting between villages and an underlying tribalism also make the people discourage your work elsewhere. And working with the host family, which I made the mistake of taking as my main project, only works when you have healthy, honest, hardworking people around you. I don’t. I have a blind host father, who is the most motivated of the bunch but unable to work. A drunk host brother, who despite his good intentions always ends up fucking up. Another host brother that is just plain incompetent, and a host mom that again despite her good intentions, mainly just ends up causing problems. I love all of these people, and they have helped me here in ways that no one else has, but work has been a struggle. I’m forced to admit that this experience has been far better and bigger for me than for any of the people that I naively thought I had come here to help.

All that said, we’ve been working on a well project at the local nursery school that I will be overseeing in my last months here. To all of you that have contributed to this project, the two villages involved, the students, the school staff, and of course I, send you a big big thank you. The well was attempted once already but encountered some problems about 14 meters down. So very soon the workers will be coming back with new equipment for a second try, and hopefully the school will be seeing a lasting supply of clean water by the time school starts this fall. Again a big thanks, and I’ll be updating you all on the status of the work, with pictures and all that good stuff eventually. In other news, the chicken project I attempted was going fine, until the price of chicken feed went up, negating the possibility of profits from the sale of eggs. This is because world corn prices have been driven up (mostly due to ethanol production I assume) and because Holland exports eggs to The Gambia at a subsidized rate that makes it impossible for local producers to raise their prices. Ahrg. I’ve introduced several new fruit tree varieties that have done well and are a hit among the people there, and I’ve planted several rows of fuel wood trees that people are less excited about, but hopefully will be when they start realizing their forest is disappearing. Lucky for them they’ve got a little while, but unlucky for them, because if history is any indication they won’t worry about environmental issues in any real way until they’re sitting in a barren wasteland. That’s very pessimistic, and there may be any number of other development workers and volunteers that will insist otherwise, but I’ll throw it out there anyway.

Alright, I’ll wrap this rambling up. Hope everyone is happy and healthy and doing well wherever you are. I can’t wait to see you all after I get back. You all and your mountains and all the other wonderful things we all take for granted back there. Till another time, hopefully not too too far down the road –

Alex

Here's a link to a set of over 300 pictures from my family's recent visit to The Gambia, and their stay in my village site in the Upper River District:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimschuknecht/sets/72157603429063975/

TIP: If you use the slideshow feature, click on Options in the lower right corner and select "Always show title and descriptions".

Life in the Gambia

Letter of 8/16/2007

Hi Everybody!

Maybe I’ve already expressed this frustration; but my inspiration to write continues to wane. In some ways I feel like I’ve said it all, and in some ways I haven’t really said anything. Priorities change, attitudes change, life changes. What happened or mattered a month ago might not matter anymore, or it might be the exact same thing that happened today and every day, which means it’s just life. So I could talk about my chickens and ducks, or the goat I just bought to fatten up before some November festivities, or the garden or the farm. I could talk about the failures and frustrations, or the outlook of my “projects,” whether they be positive or negative. But that’s not what matters to me today. Today I’m thinking about the people I’m surrounded by and the relationships I have with them. Cheezy Peace Corps bullshit, right? Have I resigned myself to being unproductive with my two years? Has my altruism waned? Will I then fail as a Peace Corps volunteer?

What I’ve realized, at least today, at least right now, is that life here, just as it is back home, is more complicated than can be measured in projects and progress. Two years from now I’ll look back on today and think that I was out of my gourd, but right now I’m looking back on when I first got here and feeling like I actually have a clue now. I came in as an outsider, perceiving problems from my own point of view, devising plans to combat them, creating and becoming excited about my own project ideas. For a while I was determined to help these people, no matter if I had to fight culture or work ethic. Now “these people” are my friends and family. Their problems are my problems, and my problems theirs. Or at least to some degree. Lack of money is not a problem I share with my host family, but is poverty a problem or a symptom? Or is money even an adequate measurement of impoverishment? I don’t know, I think not.

Maybe my problem with this blog is that I can’t imagine an adequate anecdote from here that would be interesting to both a reader and me, the writer. It’s all just life. Maybe that means I’m immersed, or maybe I’m out of touch. But rest assured, my perspective will continue to change, as life in the Gambia continues to be just life. All the troubles and all the wonderful things that make life life everywhere else, they’re all here. Can I help alleviate some of the troubles here? Maybe. Can they help me with my own troubles? Definitely. Anyway, life is good.

Alex

A short update – 7/17/07

This is a letter home and also a blog entry. When I’m in Kombo I sit at the computers and I’m too overwhelmed by everything to think of anything to write. Plus honestly I can’t remember my blog password. So I’m sitting here in my hut, writing to stave off today’s boredom, and hoping beyond all hope that the breeze I hear outside will pass through my door and cool my body, if even for a few seconds. Is the heat getting worse, or is it just slowly starting to boil my brain and make me go crazy?

It has been “the rainy season” now for over a month, but I can count the number of times it has rained on one hand. The good news about the rainy season is that it’s beautiful. After eight months of brown, the weeds look like heaven; after eight months of blue skies, the clouds make you feel whole again. I’m being melodramatic, but it’s true. But now it’s different things that come to stress me out. I watch the clouds come only to dissipate. The thunderheads form only to pass by quietly a little to the east. When will the rain come? I worry about the tomato seeds I planted yesterday, the tree I transplanted two days ago – is it against principle to water in “the rainy season?” I think so. I worry about the weeds overtaking my corn field before it has had a chance to emerge, and the cows that, for lack of water in the bush, come to the well to drink – passing by all my cashew trees, chomping, chomping all the way. And the mosquitoes are back, the invisible little horrible bastards.

All that said, life is good. A little bit of farming, a bit of gardening, the world is green and beautiful, and I’ve decided my village is odd, but wonderfully so. And the time has come that if I want work I can usually find it. I have two ducks sitting on eggs right now, and every morning I greet the 21 hens I recently brought from Kombo (yes, that was a pain in the ass) with a kilo of food, while they attack my legs trying to peck off any scabs that might have formed from an infected mosquito bite or yesterday’s work in the field. Those feathery little eating machines will soon provide me with fresh egg omelets, and my host Hawa will reap the monetary benefits, in shiah allah (sp?) But for now, eat eat eat.

The cultural differences don’t get to me as much as they did. Mainly I just laugh and wonder, same as they do with me. But they’ve made me realize that development on “western” terms, for a village of 300 illiterate subsistence farmers, is a bit out of left field. Got to resist taking on projects that make one feel good about one’s self and reality do little more than that. Start slow, rewind, learn, take things one thing at a time, one person at a time.

Thank you to everyone who’s written letters, emails, sent packages, or otherwise supported me in any way. I miss you all. Have fun in the sun and stay happy.

Alex

Update: As of 8/8/07 it was raining on a daily basis.

I'm trained!

I'm back in Kombo after a week of being put up in a lodge, catered for, and driven around in relative comfort. And learning. And the weather here? Unbelieveable. I actually have moments where a breeze will sweep through and I'll find myself shivering. I soak those moments up!
Have you ever woken up, unable to move, soaked to the bone in sweat, convinced you're dying of malaria or some other unexplicable African disease, only to realize minutes later that "no, I'm not actually dying, its just for some reason hotter than the center of the sun in my hut!"? Well, I have. I've got a new roof now, as you may have seen in the pictures, and that is supposed to keep the heat out a little, but one things for sure: it does a really good job of keeping the heat in at night, after the walls have heated up to a good 115 degrees or so during the day. I can sleep out in my back yard under the stars now, which is much better (and necessary), but the point I'm trying to make is that its freaking hot up there. And really nice where I am right now.
The first part of training was the beekeeping, and it was so intense and fun, I think I may have to just get some hives myself and make people go harvesting with me, even if the practice is unlikely to stick in little ol' Dembanding village.
The honeybees here, let me remind you, are African. As in African killer bees. When we did the actual beekeeping practical we dressed up in our thick full-body bee suits and went out after dark, when the bees were supposed to have settled down. I was to be the one wielding the knife, while one person worked the flashlight and another held the brush and the honey bucket and our trainers directed us. Before I stepped up to the hive, the bees had come out and were buzzing all around us, acting a little unhappy, but not yet actually pissed off. Then I stepped up, and while trying to act casually like my heart was not about to beat through my chest, took the lid off and examined the hive. It was a big one, turned out. Filled from end to end, likely tens of thousands of bees. I tapped on the first bar to see if it contained a comb, and sure enough it did. About this time is when the buzzing turned to a roar, and my hands started vibrating with bees. I sloppily stabbed the knife in to begin cutting out the first comb, and watched as hundreds and hundreds of bees converged on my hand and the knife, intent on inflicting death upon whatever was disturbing them. Then I got a couple stings, and together with the buzzing in my ears and the vibrating on my arms, I started thinking about whether these bees were in fact in my suit (they weren't). I got kind of flustered, and Nick took the knife. He hacked away at the thing like a pro, harvesting a bucket full of beautiful honeycomb, much of which we later took back and ate (so, so good).
After walking around for a good ten minutes, letting the bees disperse, my heart stopped pounding and a sense of accomplishment set in. They say the first time's the hardest, and already I can't wait to do it again...
Along with the beekeeping we practiced grafting mango trees, and we learned about poultry and livestock production. Ideally I would like to use all of this knowledge productively, but as always I fully expect to get stuck all over again by a different, less optimistic reality upon returning to site.
For now I'm happy for the break, and happy to have seen everyone in good spirits, and again I'm ready to go back and attack this village. Get some work done before the rains, and give some tough love where needed. As usual I miss you all, enjoy the beginnings of summer and fill me in on life when you can -

Reunion

So here we are, all back in Kombo, most of us. Our IST (in service training) will start tomorrow, so we'll be fed decent food and have showers available to us. And the training should actually be pretty cool. Tree grafting, bee keeping, animal husbandry... All of these skills will potentially be very useful to the people we are each living with, and the hope is that we'll be able to teach these skills in village. Of course what we now all realize is that there are dozens of obstacles involved in imparting even a single skill. Well, I guess that's what we're here to figure out, each on our own, each in our own way.

It seems now that a large part of my energy will be focused on figuring out my host family. Hawa, my host father, is very nearly blind. This makes it nearly impossible for him to do any meaningful work as a farmer/house builder/compound head, and the way he is experiencing the whole thing seems to have him in a very demoralized, helpless state. He and his wife were only able to have one child, and though that may be an ideal thing for overpopulation, it means that it is much more difficult to get crops grown, fences built, houses raised, and food in the bowl for the family, as he relies on his brothers and the village boys to do his work for him, usually for a small sum of money. And while many people respect Hawa for his personality, it is invariably not the same respect that would be granted to a healthy man. So restored sight would be the ideal answer, but the long term problem, sadly, is how to help a blind man become self sufficient.

And then there's the rest of the family. A wife that can't be trusted, a brother that drinks too much, another brother that desperately wants to be a "big man," a "borrowed" niece that amusingly has no respect for her elders, and a daughter that is in Kombo for schooling, but in all likelihood will soon be wedded to her 35 year old uncle in Spain. But that's ok, because the family will then be sent money to build a nice line house with corrugated roofing; every Gambian's idea of success and status...

I have found other opportunities for work, as I've said before, and with the rains coming, I will soon see if these opportunities are real. The time for work has come. The garden is finished, staked and delineated, 198 five meter beds, divided amongst 17 compounds. And now it's sitting there. The 120 degree sun bakes the hard earth and the termites can at all times be heard inside the wood of the fence, ticking, eating away. I've got some seeds to sell to the villagers, and with the rains will come easy gardening, though they'll all be working in the fields at that time anyway. Wait and see.

The headmaster of the local school is still working his ass off to try to develop the children and the school, while managing an orchard in his home village a little way down the road. The village and school have started building a donkey stable for a donated donkey and cart, but they don't yet believe its coming. And they can't imagine the minds of the NGO that stated the requirements for this donkey's stable: a 3 by 3 meter mud-brick house with two 1 by 1 meter windows and a door, each to be covered by mosquito netting to protect the donkey from tse-tse flies. Many of them would likely be happy to have such a home themselves. But this donkey can potentially be quite useful to the school - they will be able to transport school supplies easily (building materials and food), to take their produce to the lumo (market) to raise school funds, to initiate an income generating rainy-season farm, and they will be able to expand their fencing to enlarge the garden and start an orchard.

I've talked to a few people who are very interested in planting trees in their fields ("cashew is money!") and the people that hope to start orchards and gardens of their own are happy to have my help, but like I said, we'll see when the rains come. Other than all this, however, its easy enough to stay sane. I've gone back and forth and back and forth with my feelings for just about everyone I meet. The people I thought I could trust I can't, and the people that were sketchiest of all have come to me with honest and intimate admissions(sp.?) that I can only love them for.

I'll be in Kombo after training, to add a little more if I can, but I'll leave it at this for now. I hope all is well in that sweet sweet land of America. Springtime is there, flowers are blooming, but guess what: you're all missing mango season here. Take care -

(And check my PHOTOS link for a few recent uploads.)