tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5077434679242721462024-02-19T02:54:27.727-08:00Africa? I thought you were jokingBen and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-13925956891660702462013-02-11T08:48:00.001-08:002013-02-11T08:48:49.792-08:00Saying Good-bye<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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As our time here is quickly coming to an end, we started
saying our good-byes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good-byes are
always hard, and here it is especially hard because we never know when we
will see people again. We went back to our village to say good bye and it was
bitter sweet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>We are very excited to leave but the thought
of not being able to see people again is sad. There are a lot of things about
life here that we wont’ miss: being a ‘toubab’, eating rice, transportation,
heat, lack of education, lack of equality for women, some cultural practices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there are also things we will miss: </div>
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<br /></div>
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Wonderful people</div>
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Ridiculous, funny stories </div>
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The Beach </div>
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Peace Corps community </div>
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Lack of American stress – no bills, no traffic jams, etc</div>
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Free to choose our work </div>
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Travel</div>
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<br /></div>
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As we are leaving the Gambia in 3 days, this will be our
last blog post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for reading and
most importantly thanks for the support! We’ll see ya soon! </div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-82744432472708765322013-02-11T08:18:00.000-08:002013-02-11T08:41:47.603-08:00Accomplishments<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Starting to reflect on the last two years, we realize that
it’s been really good, sometimes bad, and above all - different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course these past two years in Gambia will
be thought of often as we return to our lives in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at the moment we can’t wait!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I have a feeling that once the
power, hot showers, delicious food, and family and friends become a normal occurrence
in our lives again; we’ll think back to our time here in Gambia and miss
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether our accomplishments are big
or small, they are certainly different from our American ones so I wanted to
share them: </div>
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<br /></div>
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Planted 150 fruit trees in schools</div>
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Primary school Library</div>
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Successful and sustainable women’s cooperative </div>
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Achieved advanced level of African tribal language</div>
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Communicated daily with people who can’t speak English</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ben’s high score of 20,202 in snake</div>
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Kate successfully learned how to pickle <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Navigated local transport to 3 other West African countries</div>
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Watched Megafauna in East Africa</div>
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Read over 100 books including: Game of Throne series, War
and Peace, Anna Karenina, the Good Earth, and various Hemingway, </div>
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Survived two years with no significant illnesses or accidents</div>
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Taught classes to numerous Gambian students</div>
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Learned how to live cheap, real cheap</div>
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Lived in the African bush! </div>
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And the best one: we made friends from all different parts
of the world</div>
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Learned how to bee keep</div>
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Bike in sand – (don’t mock until you’ve tried it, its not
easy!)</div>
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Our cultural adaptations – food, etiquette, endurance,
‘okayness’ , humor </div>
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Ability to hear the differences between African accents </div>
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<br /></div>
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More seriously though, the volunteers we served with did a
lot of awesome things and projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t
begin to describe how difficult it is to get things done in Gambia; it is
inexplicable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 25 people in the group
that we came with did some amazing things in our time here and 6 people are
extending their time! Here are some of the accomplishments of our group: 2
womens community gardens established, 3 live fences, 5 school gardens, 2 womens
health groups, 2 solar water systems, 3 wells, beekeeping training, garden
trainings, cashew tree trainings, and a community pit latrine project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s only what I can come up with off
the top of my head. I’m sure there’s more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’re real proud of group and what we’ve all done in the past two years!
</div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-68550244452221917142013-01-02T04:44:00.001-08:002013-01-02T04:44:13.555-08:00Travels to Guinea<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Back in November, we used the last of our vacation time as
volunteers to travel to Guinea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
traveled with 4 other volunteers overland from Gambia, through Senegal to the
mountainous region of Guinea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guinea is a beautiful country with
green hills and waterfalls everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The people that live there are Pular which are also in the Gambia but
slightly different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traveling in West
Africa is difficult, especially for white people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this area of Africa it is not at all
dangerous, except for the cars and roads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We started the trip in Basse, an upcountry town in Gambia where there is
a transit house we could all stay at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
tried to negotiate a car for the next morning and thought we had secured one
for a reasonable price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We arrived at
the car park the morning of at 6:30 to get a head start, however, no one was
around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We waited for an hour or so and
found someone who was in charge of the Basse – Guinea cars (there were all of
2).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They did not remember the previous
nights negotiations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After extensive re-negotiations
and walking away twice, we agreed on a price (that was not a great deal for us)
and set off on the long journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
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<br /></div>
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Our
driver did not speak any English, and our French was pretty rusty and our pular
is non-existent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We made it through the
borders and ferry crossing in record time and reached the city we were going
to, Labe, in a mere 15 hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The road
from to Labe, Guinea is probably one of the worst roads in West Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are winding dirt roads that are just mudd
during the rains with wooden rickety bridges to cross, complete with a ‘wind up’
old ferry at one river crossing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
only cars that travel there are huge trucks and station wagons that are
supposed to carry 7 people but actually are carrying 11 inside the car and as
many as can fit on top. It is a crazy thing to witness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we arrived in Labe, it was 3 o’clock in
the morning, really cold, and we had no idea where we were or where we should
go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we call a Peace Corps volunteer
in Labe at 3 o’clock in the morning, as a long shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She answers, and has her host brother drive
her over to us and take us all in his car to a hotel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incredible!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We sleep and the next day we head out to the village Doucki, a small
pular village in the mountains where we stayed at Hassan Bah’s camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Highly recommended!</div>
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Pular Villages in the mountains </div>
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<br /></div>
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Vulture's Rock </div>
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Hassan Bah himself! </div>
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Our lodging at the camp </div>
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The Guinean Grand Canyon </div>
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Beautiful! </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Careful</td></tr>
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Labe </div>
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Walking around Doucki </div>
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Swimming at Vultures Rock </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhxsjWDV41zt9B8U5Iw-XEXMhzOS0IVtEBBrVf_Jsk0ZPtDRdfYDH8ordTn7bDU5qNWBnYfS2TWq7ccd7BytBNivyAYpJz5VRta9qS1jtqirrtzURwKt6Fm-ffqjDgWwGx9g0ZaNoOPlQ/s1600/IMG_7194.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhxsjWDV41zt9B8U5Iw-XEXMhzOS0IVtEBBrVf_Jsk0ZPtDRdfYDH8ordTn7bDU5qNWBnYfS2TWq7ccd7BytBNivyAYpJz5VRta9qS1jtqirrtzURwKt6Fm-ffqjDgWwGx9g0ZaNoOPlQ/s400/IMG_7194.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caves</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The whole group with Hassan</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Deter!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_GG14a31MmoZ_iKbb1VbXjAipCcvO0Cy1pEhVyRtitojeuAjYka-MmX6CcbBaMwoMw0BhO3bcX8762TaEgiYHyNnIYwhKalnPC72s0dqdPs4SXNiorokM51iVpwHgzCtw_UzAtaIuI8/s1600/IMG_7386.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_GG14a31MmoZ_iKbb1VbXjAipCcvO0Cy1pEhVyRtitojeuAjYka-MmX6CcbBaMwoMw0BhO3bcX8762TaEgiYHyNnIYwhKalnPC72s0dqdPs4SXNiorokM51iVpwHgzCtw_UzAtaIuI8/s400/IMG_7386.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing down mountains with waterfalls</td></tr>
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Hassan Bah is a fantastic guide, born in Guinea but moved to
Sierra Leon where he learned English and went to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He spent his younger days on a Spanish
shipping boat with Chinese men so he picked up Spanish and some Chinese as
well!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He moved back to his mother’s
property in Douki and started his ‘camp’ which is actually visited by a lot of
people from everywhere, and a lot of peace corps volunteers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is funny, entertaining, and gives you a
hiking experience you won’t ever forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The area is beautiful and we stayed there for 4 days exploring his many
trails.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is a link to his website
that Guinea Pc Volunteer made for him (he has actually never seen it):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> http://hikinginguinea.wordpress.com/about/</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><br />
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While at Hassan’s camp, we met an interesting Belgium man named Deter
who went on all the hikes with us and even came with us to our next town that
we went to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first we were a little
annoyed at him as he didn’t really ask us if he could join us, but then he
redeemed himself by buying us all cokes – the way to a volunteers heart, free
anything made in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hike that was
particularly memorable to us was called ‘chutes and ladders’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This hike consisted of hiking up locally made
ladders through waterfalls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
incredibly scary, and awesome!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a
long 8 hour hike and at one point in the valley portion of the hike we stepped
in about 4 different ant swarms at separate times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those Guinean ants were relentless!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not fun, but watching everyone run
away through the bush was pretty funny. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Hassan’s we hiked for 4 days straight with
some hikes being around 18 kilometers! </div>
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Indiana Jones </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6_KpYbHHkdd4GmRIOc8188Kwe9zh7koFLnpBb8YFROWGbx8GwNVEJchN0QizWCSo8l534cthSO34hWBbxfdlBZCrB5IgANhM_PaD5yT9Rtgfs5Ac99TkXae3iN5yqK6FlqbDE421SOs/s1600/IMG_7818.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6_KpYbHHkdd4GmRIOc8188Kwe9zh7koFLnpBb8YFROWGbx8GwNVEJchN0QizWCSo8l534cthSO34hWBbxfdlBZCrB5IgANhM_PaD5yT9Rtgfs5Ac99TkXae3iN5yqK6FlqbDE421SOs/s320/IMG_7818.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">traditional Pula Putas</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXP7DTdvljlWUrhDfJOXEhGLpV_yTNp0ZEg0_ALXAmv61J0wACeqaBuku-tjxZnl80HbyR567pjMgrfk6qhXvMlbsK_23tWWo5y2xsJsgcnGkWqBNe69VdPzjOballNP_8WklUjn06TAE/s1600/IMG_7836.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXP7DTdvljlWUrhDfJOXEhGLpV_yTNp0ZEg0_ALXAmv61J0wACeqaBuku-tjxZnl80HbyR567pjMgrfk6qhXvMlbsK_23tWWo5y2xsJsgcnGkWqBNe69VdPzjOballNP_8WklUjn06TAE/s320/IMG_7836.JPG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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On the way back we drove 15 hours with a motorcycle on top of our car</div>
<br /></div>
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After Hassan’s camp we went to Dalaba and hung out with a
couple of Guinea volunteers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were
able to see the town and this volunteer’s house which was really nice, in the
mountains, and completely different from lifestyles in the Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Dalaba we went to see more waterfalls and
just toured the small mountain town where rich Guineans build their houses in
the hills – nice houses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like America
nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is kinda strange, but
beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We left Dalaba and drove down
to a big city outside of Conakry called Kindia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There, we went to an artisanal fair on a palm tree farm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The owner is named Chico and he has
established an organic farm that he hopes will attract tourists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lived in America for about 20 years but is
Guinean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was so nice!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we arrived he gave us free crepes, banana
chips, lunch, drinks, showed us around the farm and later asked us to stay for
a free dinner of bbq chicken and palm wine surrounding a bonfire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Afterwards we went back to Labe to secure a car for our ride
back to the Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our ride back to the
Gambia took a little longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We made it
through the mountain pass to the Guinea – Senegal border to find that it was
closed until morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point,
everyone was out of money so we couldn’t really get a room, and the taxi driver
refused to take us there anyway so we didn’t really try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, we slept on hammocks by the border,
inside the car, next to the car, and ya – anywhere we could find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben and I slept on hammocks and then I got
too cold and moved inside our car where I slept sitting up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next morning<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at 6:30 our driver woke us up and hurried us
through the border crossings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And shortly
after we arrived back in the Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
things considered, a great and memorable trip!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-75633362868524511322013-01-02T03:35:00.001-08:002013-01-02T03:35:41.951-08:00COS Conference<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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We made it – to our ‘Close of Service’ Conference!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>COS conference is the last Peace Corps
conference of our service where the administration discusses things you need to
do to in order to end your service and prepare to leave the Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only for the volunteers leaving in the
next 3 months so it was almost all the same people we came into the country
with, which made it really fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
discussed the highs and lows of our services, gave tips to how to improve Peace
Corps Gambia and discussed writing our ‘Description of Service’, resumes,
etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peace Corps brings in a panel of
‘returned volunteers’ to discuss re-adjusting to life in America and we were
given the opportunity to ask questions and listen to their stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all said it was a little overwhelming in
the beginning and that upon their return they talked about their experiences as
peace corps volunteers a lot more than anyone in America wants to hear about!
It was a good conference and it was nice to hang out with all of our friends
that we began our service with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peace
Corps threw us a nice dinner party where a lot of staff got the opportunity to
come and give out completion certificates. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We had a great Christmas Eve at the Ambassador's house! Christmas Day we ate bacon and breakfast tacos and spent the day on the beach! Christmas dinner we had a peace corps party and ate cheeseburgers :). </div>
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<br /></div>
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At COS conference we set our official leave date too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will be leaving the Gambia on February
14!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will be awhile before we make it
to America however.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are traveling to
Dakar – Morocco – Spain – Portugal – London and taking a transatlantic cruise
from London to NYC!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From NYC we’ll fly
back to Texas sometime in Mid-May!!! We are excitedly planning our trip and are
equally as excited to finally make it home (although it still seems like a long
ways away still). Family and friends we cannot wait to see you again and thanks for
being patient with our absence and gypsy-ness <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">:)</span></span>! </div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-80008239810445368362012-11-17T06:55:00.000-08:002012-11-17T06:55:15.930-08:00Visiting Berefet and Ndembang<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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In order to finish up my food security project, I got the
chance to go back to our village of Berefet and a neighboring village of
Ndembang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another volunteer and I judged
the success of the tree planting at each school, gave each child who
participated a certificate, and awarded the best school with 150 exercise
books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trees looked good for the
most part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our village, the area was
not weeded so all of the citrus plants were eaten by caterpillars! Hopefully,
with maintenance, the trees will survive and the non-citrus trees all look to
be doing better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The upper basic school
in Ndembang looked outstanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The area
had been weeded and almost all the trees appeared very healthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Arabic lower basic school in Ndembang
looked good; however, they also had some insect infestation and a few of the
trees did not have tree guards surrounding them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We decided that this school needed the
materials much more so than the upper basic school so we rigged the competition
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</span>Lamin, the head gardener, was very happy and ensured us he would keep
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Handing over the certificates to Lamin</div>
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<br /></div>
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On a separate occasion Ben and I went to visit Berefet for the
day with our Spanish friends Luis and Maria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was really nice visiting our family and villagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We gave the children balloons and gave people
some pictures which they always enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We got the latest gossip from everyone and the rice has already been
harvested so people have plenty right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The men are still going to the farms to protect their millet, peanuts,
and watermelon from the monkeys though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a few weeks everything will be harvested and the villagers will be
enjoying what looks to be a very good harvest this year with all the rain we
got.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The air is cooling down slowly as
we approaching our winter so this is a really good time of year. </div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-32167085890352770712012-11-17T06:52:00.001-08:002012-11-17T06:52:20.961-08:00Baboon Island / River Gambia National Park<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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This past weekend, we got to take a day trip to Gambia’s
best wildlife area, known as River Gambia National Park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This park is well known for one inhabitant:
wild chimpanzees!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Historically, chimps,
elephants, lions were all found in Gambia but exterminated by habitat
destruction and hunters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back in the 70s
two primatologists, Janis carter and Stella (?) founded this park on 6 islands
to re-introduce chimps into the wild.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Chimps they re-introduced were previously held in captivity in Europe and the
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of these chimps was a famous
chimp named Lucy who was taught how to use sign language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Janis came to Gambia to help Lucy and the
other chimps adapt to life in the wild.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
did this by living on the island with Lucy, alone, in a cage, teaching her how
to forage for fruits and nuts – for 10 years!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Too absurd to be true? Google it!</div>
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The river was so still inside the park</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7yDOY25mgb2C1cRLk5Jbkq2x9JgAWcfGHYt6_MY7IOinE4VZxF5kJc_bq2mipT1Yaf2rsFf54vTsStuuKG72NBekTgTnwwuOmsTdASGEFPHZ2l4hpt5Citt3DBBAZf3Rxwsvw26NZaA/s1600/550907_10101729825138400_1476097670_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7yDOY25mgb2C1cRLk5Jbkq2x9JgAWcfGHYt6_MY7IOinE4VZxF5kJc_bq2mipT1Yaf2rsFf54vTsStuuKG72NBekTgTnwwuOmsTdASGEFPHZ2l4hpt5Citt3DBBAZf3Rxwsvw26NZaA/s320/550907_10101729825138400_1476097670_n.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
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All of us in front of the cabin on the river where we ate our meals </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So now Janis does chimp research and work here in Gambia,
northeastern Senegal, and Guinea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
park was awesome!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are four tents
that hold 2 people and we filled them up with all Peace Corps volunteers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To get to the camp you take an hour long boat
ride where you see birds, hippos, and monkeys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The tents are like the ones found on safari’s in East Africa that have
showers, toilets and sinks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The food was
delicious, and your tents are situated on one of the few hillsides in the
Gambia that overlooks the water and the park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We went on a 2 hour boat ride to watch the feeding of the chimps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we got to see a lot of them which was
really cool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best thing we saw was a
mother chimp kissing and tickling her baby, so sweet! We also saw different
varieties of monkeys, birds, and hippos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To all of us it did not feel like we were in the Gambia because it was
so heavily forested and there was so much wildlife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinmwQM_KDhMoqC6BxlNY34qs__pJYWyq2xp_QlKAMnehBCYqerRRM54Gj4JmaaGU_6vpaqrfi1Qvv1pT3LuwhpxoeSv8lraQUhY50EAFfuWnEnlu27yRXPI6Sz841OBhmDGvZ0ycTI-fk/s1600/DSC_1276.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinmwQM_KDhMoqC6BxlNY34qs__pJYWyq2xp_QlKAMnehBCYqerRRM54Gj4JmaaGU_6vpaqrfi1Qvv1pT3LuwhpxoeSv8lraQUhY50EAFfuWnEnlu27yRXPI6Sz841OBhmDGvZ0ycTI-fk/s320/DSC_1276.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
chimps!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Our tent!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It took us so long to go to this park because it is at least
a 7 hour travel day, and because it is expensive on our Peace Corps
budget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was well worth it though; we
are very happy to have visited it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
even our traveling days went about as well as they could – no flat tires, the
ferries were working, and we got a nice vehicle with ample leg room the whole
way there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-67126242162004370232012-11-17T06:45:00.002-08:002012-11-17T06:45:47.039-08:00Tobaski<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The holiday of Tobaski / Eid is the biggest muslim holiday
celebrated here in the Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore, the slaughter of millions of rams, goats, sheep, and cows is
accounted for on this one day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gambians
tell you if you are not eating meat on Tobaski, your holiday is not sweet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year we had Tobaski in the city in our
new compound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was very nice and Ben
helped hold the ram while it was being killed and helped Bala, another member
of our compound butcher the ram.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will
spare you the gory pictures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the
whole day we sat around and had a ram bbq in our compound which was great! We
tried many different parts of the ram that day – liver, kidneys, heart, and
testicles are the ones we could name. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honestly, it wasn’t bad and we’ve eaten a lot
worse here (namely cows foot, ew).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the evening of Tobaski everyone dresses up in their newest, nicest outfits and
walk around town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is also the time
when children come around asking for ‘saliboo’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Saliboo is directly translated to prayers; however the children are
looking for money, not prayers and are quite upset if you only give them a
prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tobaski lasts about 3 days, and
we saw ram in our lunch food bowl for about a week! </div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-18649837392391633402012-11-17T06:43:00.001-08:002012-11-17T06:43:31.805-08:00November Update<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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As our time left in country has started decreasing, so have
our blog entries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think because we’ve
become busy and also accustomed to life here in Gambia so it makes it hard to
come up with different things to write about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ben is still working with IRD; he’s currently working on a cashew
processing manual while the office is in between project phases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has joined a city football team named
‘Culture’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are currently in a city
tournament in the first round.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben goes
to practices and has suited up as a goalkeeper for one game but had an injury
for the game the past weekend so he couldn’t play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The team plays in a big stadium in SerreKunda
so it’s a little different from playing on the village team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben didn’t get to play in the game he suited
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I am now officially a “visiting instructor” at the
University of Gambia. I am co-teaching an Introduction to Agriculture course
with a Gambian lecturer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be
teaching this course until the end of the semester, am currently writing the
Agriculture departments catalog, and also writing curriculum for two
environmental science courses that will start next semester.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will also be co-teaching those courses next
semester if the University has enough funding to start the program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Co-teaching is going really well and I’m glad that I am
co-teaching because the University is different from a University in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our class has approximately 45 students and
is considered a large class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
often not enough chairs for the students so they spend the first 5 minutes
finding chairs in other rooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
no projector, or dry erase board, only a blackboard, and teachers are not
expected to provide any materials to the students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I type up a hand out each week to go over in
class and after class give it to the students to make copies or share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I also make use of the blackboard, which
leaves me with chalk flakes all over my clothes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The students are generally very eager to
learn and participate in class which makes it enjoyable and worthwhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have also found a group of Gambians who
play beach volleyball every Tuesday and Thursday so I’m having fun doing that
as well! </div>
Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-58706011841216768412012-10-01T07:54:00.000-07:002012-10-01T07:54:50.647-07:00Change of Scene<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our big news for the past month is that we officially moved out of our village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was sad, but after Ben’s tie & dye group got disbanded by an NGO, we decided that two Peace Corps volunteers and two NGOs are too much for a village of 200 people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we asked Peace Corps for a site change, and moved into a new compound in an area called Kanifang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We took over another volunteer’s house after she left in August.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have 3 rooms, a bathroom, kitchen, power, and a TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is certainly a change from our village!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Packing up and leaving our village went really well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The women had their final tie & dye meeting and gave us some really nice fabric they made with us in Somita.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Peace Corps car came, all of our neighbors came over and helped us move our things out and said good-bye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was easier for us to say good-bye because we knew it wasn’t for good and that we’ll come back to visit often before we leave Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was really nice and our Host Father said a prayer and talked about how we came in peace and are leaving in peace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ben started working with an NGO called International Relief & Development (IRD) on their Cashew project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is working on the Gambia River Basin Cashew Value Chain Enhancement Project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The project promotes local cashew production with farmers and tries to link them with local cashew processors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is going well for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was set up with a teaching position at the University of Gambia; all the necessary procedures were approved, but the University is having problems with the department I will be working with and I haven’t been able to start work yet. Right now, I am keeping busy by working on two manuals for Peace Corps. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are still settling in to our new place, and it is really different from our previous experience in village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The compound we live in now is very large with four separate houses in it. 2 other volunteers live in the other houses, and our landlord and his family live in a big two-story house in the compound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We eat lunch with the family when we are home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Fridays we eat a good Gambian dish called ‘benechin’ which is fried rice with vegetables.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our compound benechin is the best we’ve tasted in the Gambia and other volunteers come over to eat it with us when they can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also have lots of chickens. It’s great, and we are enjoying our last few months that we have left! </span></div>
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Our living room</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwGrKvUUbEO6fPjtR_IQEjoZtK0vc1CsbbUhyphenhyphenILny3BJO5bqqIgkDSIkD6pPlv6817mfA8Ml5l593amwBGaz-_tDO8lEAwSiQn7aCs4r-LRBF0RTk1-_3XwnKKHN2-FGZ1T1YgNSSENM/s1600/September+2012+010+(Large).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" kea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwGrKvUUbEO6fPjtR_IQEjoZtK0vc1CsbbUhyphenhyphenILny3BJO5bqqIgkDSIkD6pPlv6817mfA8Ml5l593amwBGaz-_tDO8lEAwSiQn7aCs4r-LRBF0RTk1-_3XwnKKHN2-FGZ1T1YgNSSENM/s320/September+2012+010+(Large).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The compound entrance</div>
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hallway to our house</div>
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Our landlord sells eggs, and sometimes chicken</div>
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Kebba! </div>
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Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-78810705968253162642012-10-01T07:39:00.001-07:002012-10-01T07:39:42.677-07:00Village Olympics<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We thought we would not be able to see the majority of the Olympics this year, so we decided to bring the Olympics to Berefet! (As it turned out we got to see a lot of the Olympics, but Berefet Olympics was fun anyhow).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people of Berefet didn’t know what the Olympics were so they were pretty confused, but they had fun with it anyway, especially the children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had fun going around and getting kids to help us with our little Olympics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enjoy! </span></div>
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Sana is in lane 4</div>
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But failed to make it to the Semi's</div>
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Binta did so well on balance beam / water pump style</div>
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Samba may be my favorite weight lifter</div>
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And its up! Go Samba! </div>
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Foday on Javelin</div>
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Our shot put Ebrima didn't enjoy the games as much</div>
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Donkey equestrian anyone? </div>
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Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-54992416627823463482012-07-24T08:22:00.000-07:002012-07-24T08:22:36.051-07:0080 Kilometer Coastline Hike<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
I joined three girls in an 80 km (50 mile) hike along the whole Gambia Coastline in the beginning of July.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took us about 3 ½ days and although tough on our feet, shoes, and legs, we had a lot of fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we got to see the Gambian coastline in its entirety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We finished on the north bank in a national park called Ginak Island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of us had been there and we stayed with a Peace Corps employee’s family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To get to the island you take a small canoe and it was really pretty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Highlights of the trip included seeing the presidents new mosque which looks like a hotel, meeting a British man who claimed to have been an advisor to the president 20 years ago, seeing a washed up big turtle, the ‘cliffs of Tanji’, being chased by multiple sets of children, and being followed for 6 hours by 2 stray dogs. </div>
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Move Cows, get out the way</div>
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The Sheraton Gambia wouldn't let us in for some reason...maybe it was the stray dogs following us up to the pool? </div>
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Crossing the river to Barra</div>
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Coastline</div>
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Ginak Island</div>
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The start! </div>
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A nice village outside Kartong</div>
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The Abby's </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif";">Our Triumphant Finish</span></div>
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Our feet were not as happy</div>
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</span>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-31562781105665544112012-07-24T08:07:00.004-07:002012-07-24T08:07:58.699-07:00Rainy Season / Ramadan<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have now reached the time of year in the Gambia where our sahalian, sub-tropical savannah shrubland turns into a tropical forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this year is different because it is raining a lot! This is nice because it cools off faster and the rain is a nice change from the hot hot sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, with the added rain come added creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a lot more bugs this year than last year!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you have to be more vigilant where you walk and grab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last week, I was taking our laundry off the local palm stalk fence and almost grabbed a green snake taking a nap under a pair of Ben’s shorts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told the old man walking by to be careful, a snake is here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looked down and quickly decapitated it with the machete he was holding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was just a common bush snake though, we are lucky not to have seen cobras or puff adders like other volunteers. </span></div>
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It is dead</div>
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Samba, our neighbor, helping his Moms collect firewood</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have also just entered the month of Ramadan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ramadan is nice for us because we get a good meal of noodles, spam, oil, and onions for “break fast” right after sunset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Break Fast is supposed to be really delicious meals, usually with tea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For our village that means noodles and canned meat, and we are not complaining!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither of us are observing the fast, but we don’t eat or drink in front of anyone in our village during Ramadan. </span></div>
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Shierrifo, Binta, Alpha and me enjoying some rainy day popcorn</div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-88785046589078435122012-07-24T08:01:00.003-07:002012-07-24T08:01:58.069-07:00USAID Food Security Grant<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Back in February, I started working on a USAID food security grant to plant 50 fruit tree seedlings at three schools in our area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One school is our village’s lower basic school and the two other schools <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are in Ndembang where Jessica lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The previous month I have been working to make arrangements for this project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things move slowly here and although we were supposed to receive the money in April, we did not receive approval until June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After approval was granted, it took me another month to actually get the money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By this time, I had a very short amount of time to purchase the seedlings, fencing materials, and get them to the schools before school let out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we managed, and thus far all the schools have planted the seedlings and protected them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each school received these types of trees: coconut, Cleopatra mandarin, lime, sweet orange, sweet grapefruit, avodaco, sweet/sour soup, and two different varieties of mangos. </span></div>
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Measuring correct spacing</div>
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Bakary planting a sweet orange tree</div>
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Head Master, Head Teacher, and Jerreh fencing off a lime tree</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The diversity of these trees are not found anywhere else in our area (excluding perhaps an NGO) and will help the schools and community for years to come by increasing nutrition, money, and adding a variety of trees planted in the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Citrus fruits bring in decent money right now in the Gambia so we made sure to get ample supply of citrus seedlings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the schools were very happy with the selection and I hope that will aid in the success of maintaining the seedlings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tree planting is hard work, but maintenance can be a frequent problem in the Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I have allocated extra funds to have a completion between the three schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kaddy & Fanta’s Tree Competition</i></b> will give the school with the best orchard 3,000 Dalasi (approximately 100 USD).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students who maintain their tree guards will receive certificates, and students who keep their trees alive will receive a prize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at each school, the student with the best managed tree will get a prize worth 300 Dalasi (about 10 dollars).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because Jessica (Gambian name – Fanta) is finished with her service and going back to America in August, I will check up on the schools in October, and award prizes in December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The students seem to be excited about it and I hope they will keep up the enthusiasm throughout the next school year. </span></div>
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Jessica/Fanta and Lamin talking business</div>
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Coconut trees</div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-20652562619679265592012-07-24T07:53:00.001-07:002012-07-24T08:32:53.359-07:00Kaddy Getuh’s Library and Resource Center Open!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It seems that all my projects are wrapping up nicely and came about in the span of these last 2 months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first one of these was the library project at our school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was finished, painted, and opened right at the end of the school year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked our site mate Jessica to come down and talk to the head master and help us organize the library. Jessica has worked on a couple different libraries in her service and she helped us catalog and sort out our 750 books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We organized the books by easy picture books, medium picture books, advanced fiction, non-fiction, textbooks, magazines and teacher resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jessica also suggested having a volunteer from the village run the library instead of a teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The head master took her suggestion and it is going well so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kids seem to really like the library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I’m there kids ask me about pictures, words, and a few like to hear me read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially Dr. Seuss’s ‘One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish’ which they call ‘fish fish fish’. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We color coded all the books by sections and the students and teachers both seem to be getting the hang of putting books back according to color. Thanks to everyone who sent books, they are being put to good use! </span></div>
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Students help to clean up</div>
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</div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-3826946142460261952012-07-24T07:47:00.001-07:002012-07-24T07:47:18.140-07:00World Food Program Trek<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In June, I had the opportunity to help another volunteer coordinate a trek across the country with World Food Program (WFP) and the Ministry of Agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trek was to train head gardeners in schools participating in the WFP school garden program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WFP provides schools with fencing, tools, seeds, training, and books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This trek went to all 5 regions in the Gambia where we trained participants on the following: garden prep, composting, Moringa, live fencing, incorporating the garden into lesson plans, nutrition in the garden, pest control, action plans, and record keeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I helped co-manage the trek which entailed teaching sessions, distributing per diems, keeping time, and coordinating the guest lectures. The trek was two days at each region and lasted 10 days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a lot of fun seeing the whole country and hanging out with volunteers I don’t normally get to see at site, but afterwards I was completely exhausted! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The sessions I led were on Moringa, live fencing, and incorporating the garden into lesson plans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another more informal task I had was to keep my Gambian counterparts on subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Gambians are gifted speakers and can talk at length about any subject at anytime, and are often more than willing to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This can often allow speakers to get completely off topic and go on for any amount of time given.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to constantly remind speakers to remain on topic and of time restraints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To give good examples of this, I kept a list of quotes that were said at some point during our 10 day trek:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is the worldwide web. Nobody would be mad enough to put something untrue on here!</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All work and no play make jack a nonsensical girl….or boy. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hunger is a 3<sup>rd</sup> religion challenging Christianity and Islam – and football too, is challenging. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We dissolved 4 cubes of jumbo (a bouillon cube) in water and a donkey drank it and was immediately castrated. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pest control lesson: You can use birds to peck insects. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Spain is going. Greece is gone. France is going down! You will all have to be farmers. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To drink cold water is bad for your diet, but hot water is okay. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Using a rake can increase children’s ‘Psycho Moto’ Skills. </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Inexplicably hostile live fencing argument: There is nothing more beautiful than watching a tree grow. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can’t make this stuff up! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My favorite story from the trek was when I went to see how the bed preparation was going and found my counterpart and participants chopping down a tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I arrived at the moment where the tree was falling and watched about 5 grown men dive out of the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said, “Mr.Barry, Why?!” and he responds quite passionately, “We need the seeds Kaddy! They will take them back and they will plant them!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Mr.Barry avidly teaching garden bed preparation</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-85862609575094485142012-07-24T07:41:00.000-07:002012-07-24T08:02:15.293-07:00Ben Blog<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Soooo its time for another Ben Blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure you all have missed me since my last blog and been patiently waiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been some ups and downs over the last few months so I will just fill everyone in on a few of the things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First of all, beekeeping season is over. I know, I know, very sad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The season ends when the bees hunker down for the rainy season and stop making honey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luis (who is the boss of the beekeeping) wanted to wait until the people who paid for the project came here to harvest so they could participate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came at the end of June and we spent a few days harvesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately things did not go great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bees behaved themselves and everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main issue was that there wasn’t as much honey as we were hoping for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when we were going to get the honey I had to gather the village folk who were supposed to help us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After gathering them up we sat around waiting for some kids to bring the donkey in from the bush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We needed the donkey to transport the honey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That only took an hour or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We finally got out to the boxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did the harvesting thing and returned to a donkey cart WITH NO DONKEY! After all the waiting around to get the donkey, the donkey apparently had to go home before we were done harvesting the honey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was unaware the donkey had a curfew but apparently it did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luckily we had a team of donkey cart pulling small boys and solved that problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, when we finished with everything we noticed that we did not have nearly as much honey as last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Spanish beekeeper guy who was here helping suspect (based on experience in Spain) that thanks to a poor rainy season last year we had a poor flowering season this year and had poor honey production.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I confirmed that honey production was poor in other places around the country with a beekeeping friend who spends a lot of time going around the country with his NGO helping beekeepers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I guess in the end that was a little disappointing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The good news is that so far this has been a really good (really rainy) rainy season so hopefully that will mean they will get a lot of honey next year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In other news of Luis he successfully had a marabou (traditional healer/witch doctor) fix his little problem of having a bad juju (curse) put on his farm from a guy he fired…close call right!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luis has a “farm” he is constructing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It involves a lot of concrete walls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He suspected the guy in charge was stealing bags of concrete and selling them on the side to people in the village so he fired that guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I assume some other people in the village informed him that this man then put a curse on him and his farm and that he needed to see the local marabou to reverse the curse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a good Spanish-African he did what he was told.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on the fact that nothing terrible has happened to him I guess it worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the marabou did whatever it is he does he told Luis that he had to give charity (this is normal) and he had to cook some specific amount of rice and kill a duck or two and feed people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were around at the time of the charity so we go to attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The funny part that I noticed was that the people who attended the small charity meal were the very same people that Luis suspected of buying, at a discounted price, the stolen concrete and had been using it to construct a wall at their own compound. EVERYONE’S A WINNER! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally, sadly, my tie-and-dye project is finished and it was a pretty disappointing finale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is the basic story of how things unfolded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we first came to village there was a compound run by a Women’s Health NGO called Bafrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the year and a half we have lived in the village we have never seen them do anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The facility was a really nice phone charging station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the real story is that they had some funding issues and had to put a stop on their program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will give Bafrow credit for being the organization who gave the initial tie-and-dye training that helped kick off my project but they also get credit for killing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you will recall from my blog about this group that there were a few women making and selling dyed fabrics in the village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those women had been trained through Bafrow’s project a few years back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We (me and 32 women) then started the group I had been working with for the last 10 month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire project was funded by start up cash that these women put up last year and we were doing quite well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The group was working on registering with the government, we were about to invest in some of the materials necessary to make more kinds of tie-and-dye and it was going really well…then Bafrow returned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came back to restart their project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The women told them they had been doing tie-and-dye and Bafrow said great, they could help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I went to the compound I saw that they, the Bafrow people, had purchased and brought a bunch of the materials used for dying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a little worried because it looked like they were giving the women a bunch of the stuff that I had worked to get the women to buy themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I went to the women running the project and asked what their plan was with their project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They explained that this was not a new project; they were continuing a project they have been doing for 10 years (even though they haven’t been there for the last year and a half).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took some explaining to get them to understand that the current tie-and-dye group was not a continuation of their project but something we set up ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My pitch to them was that it was great they were there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would welcome training and even some help with materials but they had to understand that these 32 women had made a financial commitment to our group and the work of that group needed to be treated separately from the Bafrow project which is for all the women of the village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After some confusing discussion they decided that this was not possible for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, they were not starting a new project that had any obligation to work with my project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were continuing a project for all the women of the village that has been there for 10 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that unsuccessful meeting I knew things were not going to go my way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to call a meeting for my women and explain the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could continue our project, do all the same things and keep working but it was completely separate from what Bafrow was doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would still have to invest the money in materials needed to continue on our own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end the group decided that they should work with the Bafrow project because it was for all the women of the village and (I agree) there isn’t really a lot of room in a village of 250 (mostly kids) for two projects to make and sell tie-and-dye so we shut it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t really blame the women who made that decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They just did what they thought seemed right and I didn’t expect to be able to compete with an NGO giving away free materials when I was always asking them to invest their own money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end each woman who put in 150 dalasi last summer is going to get about 700 dalasis once all the money is collected so that’s good I guess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Those are pretty much the highlights of my recent past here in The Gambia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That and as soon as I get my hands on it I will be finished with all the currently published books in the Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones for you Americans who don’t/can’t read) series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want to talk about Jon Snow and the war in Westeros call me.</span></div>
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Ben's Game of Thrones reading being interrupted by Adama, Howa and Fatou. </div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-25869739175557664692012-05-02T04:09:00.000-07:002012-05-02T06:07:21.376-07:00Tying and Dying<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thought it would be a good time to write a Ben post and let those of you who are anxiously waiting know how my work with the women’s tie-dye (henceforth known as tie and dye) group is going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you might have expected from a genius of my caliber, we have had a 400% increase in our assets since we started about 8 months ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After simply helping a few women last fall figure out how much money they actually make from doing tie and dye work they came to me and wanted to form a Kafo (group).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We sat down and figured out how many women wanted to be in the group, figured out how much our first job would cost and split that up evenly and got started.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our first three jobs just involved dying fabrics and solid colors and selling those.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our last job was our first batik job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best I can and will explain batik is that you go through a slow process involving a lot of dye and wax and make up designs and multi-colored fabrics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those are the fancy ones and cost a little more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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finished batik</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last week three of the women, as well as Kate and myself, went over to a neighboring village to figure out this batik.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two of the women had previously had training so knew what they were doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nya Nya, Kate and I didn’t really know so we did a good deal of “helping”/watching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The village we went to is home of the district training center (fancy name for phone charging compound) and they have a really good community development coordinator named Seedey Sey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seedey and a few women from that village really know what they were doing in terms of making batik so they definitely took the lead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a pretty productive two days for sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got all the work done and gained a good deal of knowledge as to what we can do with our little Kafoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said Seedey is really good for one main reason at this point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I talked to him when we were there less than a week ago about registering our Kafo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He explained to me the details and the process and said he would help do everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generally speaking here in Gambia, that would mean he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">may</i> help eventually if at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Within a week, and without any effort on my part he scheduled a meeting to come out to our village and go through the entire constitution writing process to get things going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we had that meeting, which took a good few hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We worked out the goals of the Kafo, the rules of the Kafo and the women have been assigned to discuss who they want to make the officers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the mean time we are finishing up those batik fabrics and they should be sold off here in a few days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The biggest hassle of this project is collecting money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone here buys everything on “credit”…I will take it now and you can hunt me down for the money later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I have somewhat become the enforcer, which means I am constantly reminding people to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The women take the request well and sometimes reminding them actually gets a few to pay here or there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once we have a little more cash we will move on to the next job and make some more fabrics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon enough we will be registered, have a bank account, have cash to expand the work we do and be eligible for women in the group to get trained through the community training center in other things, including business management.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s pretty much it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully a few pictures of batik fabric accompany this blog and more importantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have some fabric for sale…batik is 800D, plain is 600D, everything comes as a 5 meter piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We accept no major credit cards or checks and shipping is not included (no guarantee item will successfully ship).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Email with orders and allow up to two weeks for reply. Thanks.</span></div>
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dyeing the fabric</div>
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working under the mango tree</div>
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<br /></div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-4498140415149636112012-05-02T03:22:00.000-07:002012-05-09T04:47:03.897-07:00Library and Resource Center<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The work on Berefet’s newest and only library is almost complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We received the money from FROGS and started work before I left for Senegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon my return, the mason work was completed!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The project went extremely well, with receipts and all money accounted for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are horror stories of working with Gambian contractors and village workers to complete building projects and I was extremely happy that it went so well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FROGS executive director, Sally Reader, came out to see the work on Thursday and she was very pleased too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The teachers and students made several signs and held them up for her and her husband upon their arrival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all chanted ‘welcome, welcome’ and it was a lot of fun for everyone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next phase will be to replace the roofing, paint, build shelves and desks, and buy large mats to put on the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then my real work will begin of managing, and teaching a Gambian how to manage a small library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And thanks again to those who have sent or are sending us books! They are often the best ones the school has, and people here really do enjoy looking at / reading them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And know that people here do enjoy your gifts and your generosity is appreciated.</span></div>
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Fixing the House</div>
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Mason work completed, its Nice! </div>
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Thank you!</div>
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Taking the books out of the closets</div>
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Waiting for Sally outside the gate</div>
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Welcoming Sally</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Another unanticipated activity I’ve been doing at the school recently has been helping the kitchen ladies fix some food sent to us from America!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My friend Lauren Grayson, and her middle school students from Irving Texas, sent our school a large box full of mac & cheese, ramen, and other food they raised together at their school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had days where I would help prepare the food for the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were all happy to eat food from America! It was a lot of fun and some of the kids really liked the food while others…not so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks again Lauren!</span><br />
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Eating Mac n Cheese</div>
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Biggest pot of Ramen noodles I've ever seen</div>
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She liked it. </div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-51493414083548722772012-05-02T03:03:00.001-07:002012-05-02T05:48:05.921-07:00Changes<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">While I was in Senegal, a couple of changes occurred for us in village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, our host mom, Mariama-Sibou, moved back to the city taking Yaya, her baby, and Al San, our favorite kid in the compound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her sister moved to Spain and asked Sibou to take care of the compound in her absence (which could be for the rest of her life).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sibou told me before I left for Senegal but I was hoping to be back before she officially left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although strange for American culture, this is a fairly normal thing here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While this is very sad for us, Sibou is much happier living there as she is not expected to work the farm, garden, fetch water, and cook three meals a day at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her tasks now include cooking meals and cleaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also is selling a local tea called Wonjo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We visited her new compound last weekend and found her very happy and quite well off<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by Gambian standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She made us a delicious chicken benechin lunch and we drank cold wonjo afterwards! That type of lunch was impossible for her to provide in village, so it was really nice for us to be able to do that with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The worst part was when we were leaving, she and the children walked us to the road and I carried Al San on my back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they had to stop, I put Al San down and he started bawling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although there are still lots of children in our village and compound, we will miss the little guy too. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other change is similar. Our counterpart who helped us with anything in the village, Ebrima-Solo, also moved out of the village while I was in Senegal. He too had been planning to move to the city to find a job, but a large village fight set him off and he decided to move quicker than he had planned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what happened:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ebrima and I had been working on a food security grant for a village tree nursery and to cap the open well adjacent to the future nursery spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tree nursery was going to be on the compound designated as the Youth Association building that we cleaned up last October.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, while I was in Senegal, the Imam who lives in the neighboring compound built a 7 foot cement wall around the area, taking the Youth building and land as his own and cutting down the trees there (that did not belong to him either).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben saw this and told Ebrima that if the Imam owns this land then our grant will be canceled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a village meeting in which everyone yelled at each other and blamed Ebrima for not telling the village our plans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ebrima had asked the village leader (the Alkalo) twice about the nursery plans and gotten the OK both times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, the whole village saw the Youth Association working on the compound last October and previous months and were acutely aware of the nice lock Ben and I had donated to lock the door of the Youth building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never less, the fight caused Ebrima to move sooner than later before I came back from Senegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also visited him, and it was evident that he was still quite stressed about the fight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told us that the forestry department had come to our village and reprimanded the Imam for cutting the trees and said the Imam does not own this land that it is in fact the governments land, but Ebrima did not know if any actions would be taken against the Imam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, Ebrima is focusing his efforts to get a job in order to pay for his schooling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another friend we are sad to see leave the village, but happy he is trying hard to go back to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Gambians say “It’s not easy, man” but “we are managing, you know” </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. </span></div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-72326051501693791152012-05-02T02:50:00.000-07:002012-05-02T05:31:38.034-07:00Excuses why we haven’t blogged in awhile…<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This past month we have been going up and down again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We joined our site mate Jessica on a bike ride from our sites in Foni to the coast as south as you can go to Kartong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kartong is a really pretty little beach town where we met up with other volunteers and spent a couple nights at a lodge on the beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bike ride took us 7 hours and was not easy, but fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We made some stops along the way, one involved getting ice from a random compound and another involved someone using a local toilet which is a story you’d rather not hear about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As usual we had fun hanging out with friends and eating delicious (non rice based) food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lodge we stayed at is known as a ‘tree house’ lodge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This name is misleading as the ‘tree houses’ are really just huts on stilts consisting of concrete blocks so I wouldn’t necessarily think of them as tree houses per say, but you are not sleeping <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>directly on the ground which is more like a tree, and also a lot scarier. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the real clench is that it only costs 10 USD a night to stay in a tree house, which does not make it any less scary but does fall within our Peace Corps budget. </span><br />
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Our Tree House</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A couple weeks back, we went to another volunteer’s site up country to help her paint a health mural on her women’s clinic building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her village is a wolof village and very different from our mandinka/jola village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To us, they seem much more relaxed, have horses, grass roofs, and most importantly they eat coos more than rice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And coos is good! It is hotter there but while we were there we had a fluke rain which made it awesome.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-x1Ip9Bim_qL-CWZw8gyw-q0RaS9IKbfn6a4o0ZkHsqRDL3UVHdtOmLMcBU2zl8ERvqWreNGJZoOKRakI-qVUjCQ5HZrt5Gafv4g93RbB8OmjiliYoiffzbksoK5U_L3jmbd2fAQfcOI/s1600/April+2012+046+(Large).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" mea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-x1Ip9Bim_qL-CWZw8gyw-q0RaS9IKbfn6a4o0ZkHsqRDL3UVHdtOmLMcBU2zl8ERvqWreNGJZoOKRakI-qVUjCQ5HZrt5Gafv4g93RbB8OmjiliYoiffzbksoK5U_L3jmbd2fAQfcOI/s320/April+2012+046+(Large).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Walking through Shawn's village</div>
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Painting the health mural with an audience</div>
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Shawn painted herself in the mural</div>
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Road to Shawn's village</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> However, rain in March is a strange phenomenon that hasn’t happened for at least 7 years we were told.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inshallah, this means we will have a strong rainy season this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last year’s rain was not enough causing harvest yields across the country to be down about 50 percent from the year before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Department of Agriculture is asking the international community for food aid this year because of last year’s poor harvest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I also volunteered to help lead sessions for new trainees who arrived in March.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year they merged our Gambia training with Senegal’s training so I went up to Thies, Senegal to help teach sessions on advanced gardening, vegetative propagation, and cultural sessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thies is a really nice city (as far as West African cities go) and I enjoyed being there and helping out with training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peace Corps Senegal has a really nice training center that we Gambian volunteers are jealous of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The food was delicious and they have amenities like wireless internet, bathrooms, and showers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Completely different from our training experience.</span></div>
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New volunteers finding out their sites</div>
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Thies, Senegal</div>
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Ice Cream! </div>
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Shoes.</div>
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Entrance to the training center</div>
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<br />Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-66388534704822452942012-03-22T09:28:00.000-07:002012-03-22T09:28:08.356-07:00Back to Village<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Things have calmed down now and we have settled back into our village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben settled back into managing the bee project with Luis, and I was just approved for my library and resource project at the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> We started working on it 2 days ago! </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Recently we helped Luis harvest a wild hive from Luis’s friends’ restaurant in the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drove to the city, dismantled the hive, and the next day Ben and Luis took it back to his farm in a European bee box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All three of us ‘got got’ (stung) but it was still fun and the bees are doing well at the farm. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to explain why this is a crazy thing to do so I’m hoping the pictures will do a better job of it than I could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elma, Luis and Maria’s daughter, told us we looked like Ghostbusters. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTqFm04fBk7fFgiFq_lMJLBNrmpv8oHGHy9gvy2F-68WUbah5tcrV0WmPFwkOFGk32vOmYq90kTjjfRBnvxJBeWZMyynN5onZwMBwgdlQuI0Oh39evO1AoPjngPdfV6l4qR4jbsmJiTUc/s1600/March+2012+019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTqFm04fBk7fFgiFq_lMJLBNrmpv8oHGHy9gvy2F-68WUbah5tcrV0WmPFwkOFGk32vOmYq90kTjjfRBnvxJBeWZMyynN5onZwMBwgdlQuI0Oh39evO1AoPjngPdfV6l4qR4jbsmJiTUc/s320/March+2012+019.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Lots of bees!</div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ben had a few meetings with the women’s tie and dye group. They are having trouble collecting money from people who paid on credit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The money has been due for 2 months now so Ben had a meeting and explained that if they give back the fabric and allow others who can pay now to buy the fabric, then the kafoo will be able to do more jobs and at the end of the year would have more money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were surprisingly receptive to this idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I have also been helping with our school garden and another school garden at a neighboring village with our sitemate Jessica. I gave both schools seeds and instructions on how to plant an intensive moringa bed and made a small handout for one school to keep track of their produce.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwluIWxd1wiNTBzmpZUIExhdiZpJVRyreSshydMZYRjYpBDpoJdrKR_8ksdXYsiodkNqIV7NIx5PQJlYMXoFnw8MhonBEIUIwrG6JdeP0umzyye0NerHIGR57XZySk6VKta-Tiwb_pzr4/s1600/Feb+2012+140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwluIWxd1wiNTBzmpZUIExhdiZpJVRyreSshydMZYRjYpBDpoJdrKR_8ksdXYsiodkNqIV7NIx5PQJlYMXoFnw8MhonBEIUIwrG6JdeP0umzyye0NerHIGR57XZySk6VKta-Tiwb_pzr4/s320/Feb+2012+140.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Breaking ground (they all got stickers afterwards which they loved)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Also, we really appreciated all the care packages that came around January!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank you so much!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miss you friends and family! </span></div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-74185334404680108912012-03-22T08:27:00.000-07:002012-03-22T08:27:27.285-07:00"Going up and down"<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I like how Gambians talk about traveling or being busy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of saying you have traveled or went out they say ‘you have been going up and down’. And as I mentioned back in January we got to do some traveling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went to Dakar, Senegal for the West Africa International Softball Tournament (WAIST) and then flew to Tanzania to meet my parents for a safari.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both Dakar and Tanzania were great, and all our travels went smooth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WAIST was a lot of fun and felt like we were in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hung out with lots of other Americans, ate fajitas, cheese, ice cream, nachos, hot dogs, played softball, went to a mall, and to an island with a nice beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I realize this list of food may not impress most people reading this, but to volunteers, it is what we dream of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dakar is West Africa’s biggest city and it has a lot of good restaurants, venues, and beaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are excited to go back someday.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybZTm0QdHUAg9_Ur_MuWHrLv9O6m8iZH7crMDYZJdmxNbFaiD7aBDzHzLZlCuk_qYDj0d-tWU30sznjeJeM4ouucVme926WXxbf2DalNmY7nRV9ZNLYupSF8IoAZ6rsSzTphEyUwlwKQ/s320/Safari+001+(Large).JPG" width="213" /></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tanzania was also fun and cold, which we really enjoyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We stayed in Dar El Salam for our first 2 days and enjoyed walking around the city, going to the Indian Ocean, and eating delicious street food. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The food was a lot of Indian food with different spices and curry than we are used to here in West Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was delicious and fun for us just to walk around and look at everything that is so completely different from Banjul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From there we took a bus to Arusha where we met up with my parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From Arusha we took a 10 day safari! We took lots of pictures, and saw lots of animals!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is definitely something anyone can and should do!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our favorite thing was seeing the lioness with her cubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4xLPU6f222sB5_YQSh8jb4vduNzPixuYxJdqfMkzktIEf98Q1ScayuDQwLg9Wl0i2WiD5gspbWxoSZYDE8hs-LR0V0NL6nTkl_HIlIxoaj2kTxJ1wp4s6O_fbEABInWn9POcsuOvOny8/s1600/Safari+021+%2528Large%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4xLPU6f222sB5_YQSh8jb4vduNzPixuYxJdqfMkzktIEf98Q1ScayuDQwLg9Wl0i2WiD5gspbWxoSZYDE8hs-LR0V0NL6nTkl_HIlIxoaj2kTxJ1wp4s6O_fbEABInWn9POcsuOvOny8/s320/Safari+021+%2528Large%2529.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Indian Ocean</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBRAWvTTqurE-vj71lhn6SrocceozTiAJlB92Yl_n8beHxjpI6yFKp-CGln8n7isGoEtBtK5OBfB7JCtcXClsmLYF6VPgEtpAuK2-tNcbP4cc9Vjlu10AeuGQYfg2_C384wS6odjdxc5g/s1600/Safari+109+%2528Large%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBRAWvTTqurE-vj71lhn6SrocceozTiAJlB92Yl_n8beHxjpI6yFKp-CGln8n7isGoEtBtK5OBfB7JCtcXClsmLYF6VPgEtpAuK2-tNcbP4cc9Vjlu10AeuGQYfg2_C384wS6odjdxc5g/s320/Safari+109+%2528Large%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNEtgOFtsbh690rSQWweIaNT65kHqJ3iC6N567WzUfRbrAq3tRbf2f5trA-P-Fy6J8VHlDp1xNCxqbo2EbV9RfhQFk_aPHLSPf9EhNI1PN0-7tW1GSbrlXxPPEyUYzfW_kMDBj1e8Smw/s1600/Safari+229+%2528Large%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNEtgOFtsbh690rSQWweIaNT65kHqJ3iC6N567WzUfRbrAq3tRbf2f5trA-P-Fy6J8VHlDp1xNCxqbo2EbV9RfhQFk_aPHLSPf9EhNI1PN0-7tW1GSbrlXxPPEyUYzfW_kMDBj1e8Smw/s320/Safari+229+%2528Large%2529.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-QdvCnbeUQ151KoBI_13bi6NY8Q5oLvt_OjlnDd6HDUIVMu3EdDeUuUM8NYNSEGQ5IuoMRadTVeTgbfLL13-NWQVrs-T8sZfVyEGBUomgDZJ02LuH7Kn3jeCT6EkFX-5Nqfi-WSu524/s1600/Safari+237+%2528Large%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-QdvCnbeUQ151KoBI_13bi6NY8Q5oLvt_OjlnDd6HDUIVMu3EdDeUuUM8NYNSEGQ5IuoMRadTVeTgbfLL13-NWQVrs-T8sZfVyEGBUomgDZJ02LuH7Kn3jeCT6EkFX-5Nqfi-WSu524/s320/Safari+237+%2528Large%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidzviWHd9hygX5WiLNZd9XBlHkkONS0f4cVjWIjpUGcTF6XnNu1RyQn9ljqYzKrx3Csw_UDNfqErxcfPUMbI46CEH3CYR_d7Srl8xVqoMulgZSX8hlrMb6GFDeO4LadRuY70pjG7_uzQY/s1600/Safari+272+%2528Large%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidzviWHd9hygX5WiLNZd9XBlHkkONS0f4cVjWIjpUGcTF6XnNu1RyQn9ljqYzKrx3Csw_UDNfqErxcfPUMbI46CEH3CYR_d7Srl8xVqoMulgZSX8hlrMb6GFDeO4LadRuY70pjG7_uzQY/s320/Safari+272+%2528Large%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">one of our 'tented' lodges</div><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1vCnTQPYbOV0U3w4aBLRXvgwtvs1Qu8F3CVb0SBDq4yo5KYsKCWBmDBnyYdCcXzCWAScHWyDBjATRlubMoexOgojoHgGaBhrSgL_4UedPD1jBzrTSipgkhQrnYVn3pVEqTkvKg5WWhYw/s1600/Safari4+013+(Large).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1vCnTQPYbOV0U3w4aBLRXvgwtvs1Qu8F3CVb0SBDq4yo5KYsKCWBmDBnyYdCcXzCWAScHWyDBjATRlubMoexOgojoHgGaBhrSgL_4UedPD1jBzrTSipgkhQrnYVn3pVEqTkvKg5WWhYw/s320/Safari4+013+(Large).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">top of the crater</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKISNpRZdBPUxLD5arfg8py1LgZ5geq10us2ln5F_MoPY9CoalOZVBqTrL6bOQPZBy73Q05UKbxJaoX9TZUOI73wQK1y6W-UrG0NBr3fs210tuPRFYODAVKcS6mrsuxlfPmkN5IPNPM0g/s1600/Safari4+094+(Large).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKISNpRZdBPUxLD5arfg8py1LgZ5geq10us2ln5F_MoPY9CoalOZVBqTrL6bOQPZBy73Q05UKbxJaoX9TZUOI73wQK1y6W-UrG0NBr3fs210tuPRFYODAVKcS6mrsuxlfPmkN5IPNPM0g/s320/Safari4+094+(Large).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Lion cubs! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivj5ffNltqeYHKi7kPpRnc4EeZ8-TgSAcruwysCetWJcr55-zvTWKkmkfFpWXOc-RGwwahmRpDhVbPEqo2-dB2h8mjBz75L4Cl1rZYpv5awuskFLKk_2xxEctTDy-V0LjLkyn_Kw50rPs/s1600/Safari5+007+(Large).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivj5ffNltqeYHKi7kPpRnc4EeZ8-TgSAcruwysCetWJcr55-zvTWKkmkfFpWXOc-RGwwahmRpDhVbPEqo2-dB2h8mjBz75L4Cl1rZYpv5awuskFLKk_2xxEctTDy-V0LjLkyn_Kw50rPs/s320/Safari5+007+(Large).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Our ride</div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUYVXq9Wo7Dpz1VuxKiPFssf6N0rzS9sxArye1NNy9HtIzLNxk7FHhb8yyq4Gg50AoZbHoKer1QzPsBghDSEcI6tbZBV9ZAY3SsPcvznOmFmKrNJ8Ci7smaRUbuRFDVgQf9rOf7UFI_1c/s1600/Safari6+079+(Large).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUYVXq9Wo7Dpz1VuxKiPFssf6N0rzS9sxArye1NNy9HtIzLNxk7FHhb8yyq4Gg50AoZbHoKer1QzPsBghDSEcI6tbZBV9ZAY3SsPcvznOmFmKrNJ8Ci7smaRUbuRFDVgQf9rOf7UFI_1c/s320/Safari6+079+(Large).JPG" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Maasi women</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When we returned from Tanzania, my parents came back to Gambia with us and visited the Gambia coast and our village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The village really enjoyed seeing my parents visit and ask us about them; likewise, my parents really enjoyed seeing our village and listening to us speak mandinka.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right after my parents left, Ben flew to Georgia for Andrew and Sarah’s wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben had a great time with the Turner family and came back with funny stories and lots of food from America! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-30928989201418330412012-01-11T08:40:00.002-08:002012-01-11T08:40:49.595-08:00You go where?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So as not to disturb our friends, family, and random blog readers – we wanted to let you know that it may be awhile before our next entry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>January 12, we are traveling to Dakar, Senegal for West Africa International Softball Tournament (WAIST) with Peace Corps volunteers from all over West Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afterwards we are meeting my parents in Tanzania, and then my parents will come back to Gambia with us for a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right after my parents leave, Ben will be going to America for his ‘little’ brothers wedding (Congrats again Andrew and Sarah!). That said, the reason for the future blog hiatus will most likely not be due to illness, death, or natural disaster (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise), but because we will be traveling around Africa! </span></div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-21930322617614377082012-01-11T08:40:00.000-08:002012-01-11T08:40:00.182-08:00Christmas and New Years<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had a fun Christmas and New Years but definitely missed our family and friends!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Christmas we had a breakfast at our Peace Corps transit house in the city and spent the morning watching Christmas movies, had a white elephant exchange, and spent the afternoon on the beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For New Years Eve, Luis invited us to spend the night at their home in the city where we had a traditional Spanish new years eating shrimp, lobster, soup, cheese, fried cheese, chorizo, homemade sangria, and Spanish wines! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also partook in the Spanish ritual of trying to eat 12 grapes in one minute, a tradition where I failed miserably and Ben only kinda failed. </span></div><div align="center"></div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-507743467924272146.post-90704443119883350962012-01-11T08:38:00.000-08:002012-01-11T08:38:27.995-08:00Winter in Village<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are now experiencing the ‘winter’ weather that was present upon our arrival to Gambia, and we are enjoying it for sure!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have officially lived here for one year and are right at our mid-service point, which is also exciting. Right now in village our people are busy harvesting and drying their coos, and we are eating oranges off the tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the past 2 weeks, we’ve had 3 football games against neighboring villages with discos following the games that last until about 3 am; which frankly, is too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben has resumed his career as Berefet goalkeeper, no worries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve also had a couple of naming ceremonies as well, one of which also had a disco – I guess winter time is also disco time here in the booming cosmopolitan of Berefet. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUh4lLKtGejhPjL6sLBjgfYjNLQwlcMn8t9Oew65dzmrYKhebmtPLCp05bhnOv3rmcs3QsXFiFWp4byjTRJpUJHY6miWA-AdVrwnpYD-c29-ryxBckracrUPuhuwhwBWaD_EvgxGCbsh0/s1600/January+2012+002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUh4lLKtGejhPjL6sLBjgfYjNLQwlcMn8t9Oew65dzmrYKhebmtPLCp05bhnOv3rmcs3QsXFiFWp4byjTRJpUJHY6miWA-AdVrwnpYD-c29-ryxBckracrUPuhuwhwBWaD_EvgxGCbsh0/s320/January+2012+002.JPG" width="212" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sibou and Yaya's winter gear</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ1R6cl9D_kOc9XB_mKnNlEP3_B847JUMNCQovwk9e33f0YGaOC79xfg5il-VmsPDK0lhKu3qgUu69pl3oovwTl5q9H1rVMJbI6-44nYEshjpZIVVy1miSbMvDN3aeV0Nel4ycruj6iug/s1600/January+2012+031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ1R6cl9D_kOc9XB_mKnNlEP3_B847JUMNCQovwk9e33f0YGaOC79xfg5il-VmsPDK0lhKu3qgUu69pl3oovwTl5q9H1rVMJbI6-44nYEshjpZIVVy1miSbMvDN3aeV0Nel4ycruj6iug/s320/January+2012+031.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Palm collecter</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’ve been kept busy with bee work as well as tie and dye making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’ve had a good amount of bees colonized recently which means come April we will have lots of honey to harvest! Bee keeping in Africa is different in the sense that you try to catch wild swarms rather than buy or divide existing hives like in America. You ‘catch’ the wild swarms by putting out boxes with wax or good smelling things that the bees will be attracted to and then want to remain in your box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This past week we had 4 swarms on the sides of our boxes! Joerge, an industrial beekeeper from Spain who came this past week, was really impressed by this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He came to teach Luis how to rear queens but told him that we have so many bees there is no need to rear queens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right now is the flow period for the bees, which means their building up their homes, foraging lots and starting to make honey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also means that this is the peak time to catch swarms and we are definitely seeing that now. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The tie and dye kafoo recently did another job and are making a decent profit with Ben’s guidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s been thinking and discussing with Solo the groups possibilities for spending the money and came up with a great idea to have the women open a shop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would be great because there is only one shop owner in our village, and our women owning their own shop would be so beneficial to them!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been looking at a couple different school gardens, as well as our women’s gardens and giving tips and making plans for when we return as well. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgREX0AEgG6vpvTtyFRVeyOvZyvAlo8e-AUJ3iZanl6nnqt-LiOtebb3B071-uKNq3sx8BfNB7jOBwMBNwUfQHRgSVb5D_1kXALJen5U2m9vPEWuWdY8PmbeWhcgDfEpGh2d0BhewYkAgc/s1600/January+2012+047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgREX0AEgG6vpvTtyFRVeyOvZyvAlo8e-AUJ3iZanl6nnqt-LiOtebb3B071-uKNq3sx8BfNB7jOBwMBNwUfQHRgSVb5D_1kXALJen5U2m9vPEWuWdY8PmbeWhcgDfEpGh2d0BhewYkAgc/s320/January+2012+047.JPG" width="212" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Tie & Dyein</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2emHzp-q8h6eaBenRElZzld0Tf2yuEDv_0KvMB2L03y6UdjYBE1d8pZvgsbrnFMaf5z19yZV7_WzYRmzaROl8X7rbKke5SfEXMCR1LJInY7H2hSCBKmw9ivCu6TI2l1n6A5V35xLm5EM/s1600/January+2012+055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2emHzp-q8h6eaBenRElZzld0Tf2yuEDv_0KvMB2L03y6UdjYBE1d8pZvgsbrnFMaf5z19yZV7_WzYRmzaROl8X7rbKke5SfEXMCR1LJInY7H2hSCBKmw9ivCu6TI2l1n6A5V35xLm5EM/s320/January+2012+055.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Drying</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZgOniNeLP8iLuIjQZgBSMTAFZJb4hLQnYUsD-mfoinRFab3kpcMzv0ZE9YUYm4xle-4_xUoONo5ZoeZzohzoi677ZIFaiJWjqYXVnw5Y8_25SjKqZenWe_iktSvrRsIdLQJ1TcxFBLzI/s1600/January+2012+095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZgOniNeLP8iLuIjQZgBSMTAFZJb4hLQnYUsD-mfoinRFab3kpcMzv0ZE9YUYm4xle-4_xUoONo5ZoeZzohzoi677ZIFaiJWjqYXVnw5Y8_25SjKqZenWe_iktSvrRsIdLQJ1TcxFBLzI/s400/January+2012+095.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ben and Jeorge bee keeping</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIXkrnQgOcp1wx8ezaFItgrMKnBKWZTqae57la3t-Kp4caPlHTYP9fLvugyloAky-jrqpfz7_H0A_o3jjTIBkfuauRIUA7P2xi_TLlale7msiPT1_htEtAiQsNn-Zb05_7iEgRX5c3zK0/s1600/January+2012+097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIXkrnQgOcp1wx8ezaFItgrMKnBKWZTqae57la3t-Kp4caPlHTYP9fLvugyloAky-jrqpfz7_H0A_o3jjTIBkfuauRIUA7P2xi_TLlale7msiPT1_htEtAiQsNn-Zb05_7iEgRX5c3zK0/s320/January+2012+097.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Finished fabric!</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz4f7F65_9kvytGyMLmnMLgVACP49xyQoymnCdyi1QuFDXadhDGKExcjQvbHY5gPv_BN_neQV4laPNgB0VaYiPne7yrxQXFXtBoAXUiMfIVF5q1id9VkQ2BnYRXGAYAnI4Iix6qRKW1aY/s1600/January+2012+100.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz4f7F65_9kvytGyMLmnMLgVACP49xyQoymnCdyi1QuFDXadhDGKExcjQvbHY5gPv_BN_neQV4laPNgB0VaYiPne7yrxQXFXtBoAXUiMfIVF5q1id9VkQ2BnYRXGAYAnI4Iix6qRKW1aY/s320/January+2012+100.JPG" width="212" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Musu Gitteh, head of tie & dye operation</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDmyOQY5Gplg_F5o_7qWuMA71ovHieJoOWTp7v7pDAjLQGW-kutvpLwuAnxvxJQGUVKyqhyphenhyphenJuzf6ONLGtG7af3gwHK3hnxo1rOFGIiyiT0-T2PYx30oI4Ulsxp6dcU-j5dHm7ckB0JKWA/s1600/January+2012+075.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDmyOQY5Gplg_F5o_7qWuMA71ovHieJoOWTp7v7pDAjLQGW-kutvpLwuAnxvxJQGUVKyqhyphenhyphenJuzf6ONLGtG7af3gwHK3hnxo1rOFGIiyiT0-T2PYx30oI4Ulsxp6dcU-j5dHm7ckB0JKWA/s320/January+2012+075.JPG" width="212" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Swarm of bees! Jeorge and Ben</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Ben and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03262544350102601658noreply@blogger.com0