My Life this April

(Sorry no pics this time...)
Wednesday March 31: Rise at 5am, travel to Barra with Amadou in his gelly-van. Highlight: Farrafenni Chicken Sandwich!

2nd Highlight: Getting into Kombo with the whole afternoon.

Thursday April 1: Lesson plans, beach, Frisbee. Prepping Bokashi compost juices- yum!

Highlight: Dancing at the Kora. Pool (Billiards), Chillin with friends, meeting various new friends. Roll into bed somewhat late/early in the am…

Friday April 2: Visit Gambia is Good farmyard with Adrian. Spend a great day at the garden getting ready for IST.

Bummer: Got in a car crash on the way back/our gelly rear-ended the one in front of us. No damage, the drivers quickly checked, yelled and then drove on. Early bedtime!

Saturday April 3: Happy Birthday Jonathan! Lesson plans all day. NCAA Basketball Tournament at night! Woot! Start time: 11:00 pm. End time: 4:00 am? Early.

Lowlight: Lost the tournament pool very badly, and lost a bet to Scott… goodbye 300 dalasis.

Highlight: Basketball! In the Gambia! And beer.

Sunday April 4: Church at Bakau Methodist Church. The church is on the ocean at a beautiful site. It was full and there was an incredible drama presenting the easter story. 11 PCVs attended church. Lowlight: the longest sermon ever- church was 3 hours long. I think I’m about churched out for a few months… Highlight: He is Risen!

Also: lesson plans, Julbrew Party at Fransiscos. Won a sweet Vimto soccerball for the Hella Kunda boys team! Shenanigans ensued… Yet another early morning…

Monday April 5: More lesson planning and preparation for IST. Friends coming in for IST. VSN meeting with Co-Coordinator Leah. Serrakunda Market for sweet jeans and fukajai (aka dead white people clothes) with Adrian.

Tuesday April 6: First Day of IST! Rise and shine with the Ashley Wake-up call!- Sweet morning tunes and a kind good morning notification. Breakfast at Fransisco’s, Sifoe for beekeeping. Highlight: Co-Officer of Fun with Adrian. Crunchy rice for lunch special. Cashew fruits (Stripes and Bjorn). Early to bed.

Wednesday April 7: Another awesome wake up call by Ashley. Bee- Themed day at Sifoe. Using my mad creative skillz I constructed a smoker suit with an emergency blanket. It was quite a hit. Taught a session, made friends with the Sifoe crowd.

Highlight: Great run down Bakau Road! So needed in my life at that point. Early to bed again.

Thursday April 8: Ashley Wake up call. Sweet tunes. IST at Wellingara. Great sessions, some VSN work, seed exchange, Adam Njie. Dinner at Bamboo Garden- Chinese food, yum! Casey claims to be my musical soulmate. Sweet.

Friday April 9: Ashley Wake-up call. Awesome tune-age. IST at Wellingara. PLASA tree planting. General Rocking at life. Dinner at the always tasty Bakau Guest House. I had a delicious ladyfish filet.

Saturday April 10: Ashley Wake-up call. Music for the soul. GiG garden day! My big day with gardening/composting sessions in the am and Integrated Pest Management in the afternoon. I think they went well. Then off to Safari Garden for some Pool Time! Then some Dinner Time! And the night was just getting started! On to Churchills for the ancient art of karaoke! We sang ALL the songs. All of them. There were none left to sing. Made friends with the DJ. On to Kora for some dancing and general rollicking good times. And other stories. I may have gotten home late.

Sunday April 11: The Ashley Wake-up call was somewhat late, and the tunes were usurped by another Ipod. Oh dear. But we carried on and made it to IST at the empty stodge house. Paperwork, catching up, coffee and dark sunglasses all morning. Also, co-officers of fun gave the best trivia game ever for Fabulous Prizes! Seriously- a KTB hive and a solar cooker! What’s not to love? Then the afternoon: Sandplover beach! Woot! Lazy on the beautiful beach. After dinner an elite group of fun havers journeyed to Mamba for delicious cocktails and beers. And then to WOW for dancing. Early am…

Monday April 12: Day off, but there is still work to be done! Banjul and the Forestry Dept with my tooma. Julia (aka we are both Adama!) That was fun. Then what… probably nothing, just catching up on work. Making certificates for the IST venues as thank-you’s. Early to bed/fell asleep on a chair.

Tuesday April 13: Getting ready for all vol, I must have done something on Tuesday… A Ha! Serrakunda Market! That’s right. With Kasey. Found some sweet purple stilettos and bought them. Looked for asobe, but alas, none to be found. Got a great Gambia t-shirt instead. At night, Kora for pool with Kasey and Leah, Ricky and the boys. Other activities followed. Home rather late…

Wednesday April 14: Ashley Wake up call! This time to everyone, and at 6:30 am! Oh PC, we do love you so much sometimes… Off to the Sheraton for the All-Volunteer Meeting. In a conference room with no A/C for the am… lame. But, we had infinity pool in the afternoon. And lunch buffet. JulBrew Party at Francisco’s in the evening. Yours truly announced the contests and was generally hilarious. Note to all: You MAY NOT wear a horizontally striped shirt, and vertically striped pants and expect me to take you seriously. I don’t care how much money you make. Or who your friends are. Not gonna happen. Unless you’re blind, then we can talk.

Highlight: I am an awesome beer drinking contest MC.

Thursday April 15: Ashley Wake-up. All vol day 2. Early back from the Sheraton for Open Mic Night! Awesome performances by everyone! YaYa did an amazing poem, URR represented and fun was had. Adrian can sing, Brendan played the Kora and translated ‘Lean on Me’ into Mandinka! Rock On! Then we went to WOW! And danced all the dances.

Friday April 16: Last Ashley Wake-Up. Excellent Jamz as per usual. At All Vol Ambassador Barry Wells gave an excellent speech. We had some meetings and talkings, and then lounged by the beach during peer counseling sessions. A great end to all vol. Worked on my tan. Went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Saturday April 17: Sleep in! Worked on the newsletter with Adrian. Sat Night: Dress up as if for prom. Marnie’s friend Williams produced a beauty pageant, and in a gross oversight/boon asked Marnie and three of her friends to be judges. Me, Kasey, Marnie and Zach were 4 of the 6 judges at this high profile, cooperate-sponsored event.

We pre-gamed a little at Kora, and then walked over to the Jerma Beach Hotel where the pageant was held. Let me tell you people, this was the real deal. Folks were dressed up. Fancy. Like real fancy. We strolled in (pretty much the only white people!) and tried to convince the doormen that we were in fact the judges. They were not convinced, but we found Williams who confirmed that yes, he did get four scrubby PCV’s to judge. The pageant was a contest between 11 women representing the companies they worked for. Rounds included: Traditional African Dress, Casual wear, company presentation, talent (aka lip synching to a pop song) evening wear, question and answer. In between each round there was a ‘rap’ performance, or a ‘hip-hop’ group, and even a strange, very strange comedy routine.

The event was supposed to start at 8pm. It started at 12am. Then it went until 5:30. We got home at morning prayer call and finally fell into bed at 6 am.

Oh, and I was the Head Judge, since I volunteered. So when it came time, I added up all the scores with Marnie, and went up on stage to announce the winners. I’m just like Ryan Seacrest! The Queen of Africell won. Woot.

Clervi shot some video on his phone- check it out and you will see what I have no hope of explaining. http://apeironian.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=84469

Sunday April 18: Slept for a few hours and worked on the newsletter. Early to bed.

Monday April 19: Finish newsletter. Get surprise news that there will be a VSN meeting with OSS aka Peace Corps Washington. Spend the afternoon trying to make the meeting organized and focused. The meeting went well, and we should have a VSN training sometime this summer. Dinner with Clervi and Chris Chapman at the Thai restaurant in Senegambia. Enjoyed a few beers and met up w/ Ricky and Co for a few minutes. Bed.

Tuesday April 20: Today! My friends left today and I miss them. But I’m heading to site tomorrow. Wrote this fine piece of Literature for your reading pleasure. And as usual have about 12 other things still to do. They will wait for the next trip to Kombo. I’m going back to Hella Kunda.