Liberia - recent developments and football

I enjoyed a 10 day visit to Liberia in early September. I stayed with the parents of a friend I played football with in DC, in our Saturday soccer on the Mall days. The parents served in northeast Liberia with Peace Corps in the 1970s, and have been working in Monrovia for the last few years.



As you may recall, Liberia suffered through a series of wars from 1989 until 2003, when rebel leader/president Charles Taylor was forced to step down, leading to a large UN mission, 2005 elections and increasing stability.

Today, there are relatively few clear signs of the conflicts, namely bullet-holes on unrepaired building facades and pockmarked streetlights. Some of the ruins date to earlier tumultuous times, such as a minister's house that was destroyed after Samuel Doe's coup d'etat and purge in 1980.




A lot of buildings and infrastructure have simply succumbed to two decades of neglect. These include the national Masonic Temple (I think all of the Americo-Liberian presidents were masons), the large Ducor Hotel (where hundreds of people from upcountry sought refuge) and one of the two bridges to the Monrovia peninsula, which finally collapsed a few months ago.



A less visible, but obvious, effect has been on education. Many students had their studies interrupted for up to 15 years, and now are competing with their younger compatriots for high school and university places. George, who works at my hosts' home and recently completed high school, is applying for admittance to the University of Liberia. He's in his 40s. Such difficulties, compounded by economic collapse during the wars, make one wonder how Liberia will support itself and find work for its young people. Many people are trying to help, though.

Aside from the thousands of UN workers and peacekeepers, there are myriad agencies driving around town. The UN presence has enabled all the displaced people who wanted to return home to do so, and they have carried out a lot of minor infrastructure improvements - for instance, the Pakistani contingent erected a temporary bridge on the road from the border to Monrovia a few days before I got there (this is a different bridge from the aforementioned Monrovia bridge).

The swell of international aid workers has created a two-tiered economy. In a country where the vast majority of people are unemployed, Monrovia has no shortage of nice restaurants, expensive hotels, and supermarkets full of fine imported goods. At least this provides some Liberians employment, although I expect the profits go to owners with the capital to cater to this high-end demand.

Other large fields of work are in counseling, vocational training and education. Working with youths and others to find positive outlets and develop skills is a big challenge, as is helping existing educational institutions maintain standards while confronting staffing problems, demand for enrollment, and the temptation to increase fees and enrollment to stay afloat. This is leading to a commoditization and devaluation of degrees.

One of the nice examples of the rehabilitation efforts is an amputee footballers' league. Unlike the apparently more seasoned Sierra Leone league, which is mostly made up of victims of the RUF's 1997 post-election tactics, most of the Liberian players are former combatants.



Given the small pitches they play on, sides have six field players and a goalkeeper. The field players are amputees with part or all of a leg missing (touching the ball with a crutch is a handball), while goalies are missing an arm. Keepers could have an amputated leg instead, but that's widely regarded as inferior to having two legs to jump off. Still, it had me pondering the wide wingspan the crutches offer, although a powerful shot could probably not be deflected (and they are strong kickers).

The matches for the round robin tournament were held around the Monrovia area, and I was able to see the Conquerous play LASA (the flagship team - Liberia Amputee Soccer Association). It was the last day of the tournament, and the Conquerous had already beaten LASA (the perenial champions) on overall points, but it was a spirited match all the same. The small pitch, abutted and encroached upon by houses and construction (with a convenient nook behind one goal line where players and spectators could take a piss), was crowded by a couple of hundred enthusiastic residents. The match was very entertaining, although there were a lot of missed through-balls, with the Conquerous willing 2-1 to crown their overall victory. The spectators were very supportive of the players, the celebrations of the hefty, high-heeled Conquerous president (she's a counselor for former combatants) were infectious, and the players showed great effort and skill.



One of the fields in the area, near the Red Light motor park, is called Gobachop Field. Apparently people liked the sound of the name Gorbachev and corrupted it to Gobachop. Chop is a universal West African pidgin English word, meaning eat, or to steal/embezzle. A popular Nigerian song and music video is "I Go Chop Your Dollar."

My friend Francis used it interestingly the other day, noting that another friend of ours was "chopping that girl..." when we were last together in Ghana.

"In Jesus's Name, We Shall Make It!"

15 September (relating events of 12-13 September 2007)

I composed an article on my ride from Sierra Leone to Liberia, dubbing it the most difficult so far. But it paled in comparison to the journey from Monrovia to Toulepleu, a small town on the Ivoirien side of the border. The only reason the route is used is that a better one further north has been abandoned since the civil war and division of Cote d'Ivoire.

The bulk of the journey took place between Monrovia and Toe Town (pronounced "Toes Town" by Liberians). The first nine hours were fairly uneventful as the road to Ganta is sealed (i.e. paved), though bumpy in stretches.

After stopping for dinner, we began the unsealed portion of our trip. After a couple of hours we reached a checkpoint where our apprentice/aparanti caused offense. The policemen loudly took exception to being bribed (I fear our apprentice was a bit curt). After an hour or so waiting at the roadside, we were allowed to continue once the driver and apprentice (essentially a conductor) paid an acceptable fine (no doubt larger than the proferred loan). The passengers gave the apprentice a lot of grief for not being more careful with his words.

On the plus side, our cramped minibus (they installed a wooden plank to create an extra row between the front seats and the first row of passenger seats behind) had the best sound system of my whole COS trip, and a decent selection of music to boot. In addition to some nice Ivoirien and Liberian music, the obligatory reggae and some gospel music, there was some 90s dance music, including Jennifer Lopez's first album and the guys that sing "What is love/Baby don't hurt me" and "Where do you go?" And one male passenger knew the words to every song played.

At 3AM we pulled into Tapeta and snoozed until dawn. We set off along the increasingly muddy path and stopped to chat with a driver coming the opposite way, to learn about the route ahead. From his perch in a sturdy SUV, the driver surveyed our battered red minibus and said, "You have no chance of getting there." At this point a woman in the row behind me announced, "In Jesus's name, we shall make it!"

Soon enough we came to our first impasse. At the bottom of the hill, a taxi was bogged down. To its right, a 4x4 was a few feet under, having stupidly tried its luck on an uncharted section of mud. Up the hill a bit, a large truck was also stuck.



In another section, they had succeeded in fashioning two lanes, so that other vehicles could head downhill while we tried to get a goods truck over the hill. This worked until another big truck decided to chance the bypass lane downhill. Instead of careening straight through, the driver went too slowly and when the lorry hit the bump, it smashed its headlights and the truck's nose just sank a meter into the mire.

While this was not the first unsealed road I encountered on my holiday, it was rather worse than others. In Guinea and Sierra Leone, the roads tended to be at least somewhat graded, so most of the rainwater could run off them. Sure there were plenty of furrough and grooves making the ride bumpy and some large puddles (deep enough to wet our feet on the SL-Liberia road), but we made reasonable progress.



The Ganta to Zweru (where our vehicle was continuing after I alighted) road, by contrast, had no such grading. As a result, most of the water was absorbed by the road, turning parts into mud patches.

We removed our shoes, dismounted, and began digging out the vehicles in front of us. Our driver took the lead in this, and the men joined in, and the woman who proclaimed that we'd succeed also helped dig. After the digging, we'd push the vehicles as the drivers attempted to get moving again. This was sometimes an iffy proposition as we occasionally had to jump out of the way of fishtailing cars we were pushing from the sides, and the drivers often reversed unannounced. Proceeding in this manner we got vehicles moving.



The experience fostered a lot of solidarity, and my presence no doubt encouraged a few waverers to pitch in. On the other hand, no such cameraderie was extended to those drivers and passengers who did not help dig. People in SUVs and pick-ups were particularly guilty of this, perhaps reckoning that if the path was cleared for a car ahead of them, they'd probably make it through too. But it was a taxi that ended up getting the most scolding. Having been mired in the mud in front of us a few times, the consensus was that they did not show sufficient gratitude to us, leading to one of our older passengers exclaiming to one young man, "I can beat my son!"

One might expect that a 4WD would be best in such conditions, although that ignores the question of the occupants. The vehicles were more adept, yes, but the drivers and passengers tend not to be so hardy. Indeed, our humble van's passengers were very active, and more numerous - there were routinely 15 of us at work. Of course, no number of passengers could talk sense to our driver who, although a very active digger, could not be dissuaded from speeding through the lanes we righted. It was only the high walls of mud that kept our vehicle from falling on its side during such dashes.

At Toe Town I alighted and got on a motorbike to get to Toulepleu, Cote d'Ivoire. This road was virtually impassable for larger vehicles, with one SUV and passengers on their third day on the 40 km road. We only made it thanks to a strapping man who hauled our bike through the muddiest section. I rewarded him with some biscuits with strawberry cream filling.

You say cucumber...

September 6

While travelling in Sierra Leone and Liberia, I've been impressed by the amount of cucumbers for sale. More impressive still has been the fact that Sierra Leoneans actually eat them.

This past year, when we did a pretty decent job in the Njau school garden, my headmaster elected to sow a half dozen beds with cucumber seeds. Master's reasoning was that the "kacoombas" (as it is pronounced in The Gambia) could be sold to Donald the French proprietor of the nearby hunting camp that has a very brief, sparse but profitable stint every dry season. Conveniently, we could send Gui Jahanka kids to peddle our kacoombas and other veggies, as the camp's not far from their village.

Unfortunately, Donald often pleaded poverty or lack of guests, so sometimes the cucumbers just spoiled. They could not be foisted on me, as I don't like them, which proved problematic for Master's next gambit.

With a bucket-full of cucumbers and one purchase in Njau, it was time to give them away. We'd had a PTA Committee meeting with a respectable turnout, so Master decided to act. At the conclusion of the meeting, he doled out the kacoombas to the bewildered old pas and the couple of matriarchs in attendance. It was left to me to explain the virtues, and eating/preparation, of cucumbers to the dubious audience. Pa Musa Jeng then asked me if I liked them, and I had to be truthful. No one reported back as to whether the kacoombas were enjoyed and cassava was transplanted into the beds as the hot season was upon us.

There was a thriving trade in cucumbers in Salone, by contrast. Whenever our poda-poda or sept-place stopped at a junction or village, we were besieged by girls and boys hawking water, roast/boiled corn, bread, groundnuts, and cucumbers. Just inside the border from Guinea, though, the kids were shouting "Come-cuber!" as they sold them. Indeed, they were very popular and invariably a few passengers were eating come-cubers or saving them for their families' travelling gifts.

Bonthe

September 1

Bonthe, the capital of Bonthe district, is on Sherbro Island, just off the southern coast of Sierra Leone. After riding three hours to Mattru Jong, you catch (if your vehicle's not late) the daily boat to Bonthe - a 30 km journey of 4-5 hours.



In its prime Bonthe, a prominent colonial outpost along with Freetown, must have been quite impressive. Today the town has perhaps ten deserted old churches, dozens of pretty if dilipidated 'storey-buildings', an abandoned airfield (complete with stripped plane), streets and lanes with names, a local radio station (there are lots of these in Salone), and a ten square foot area that sometimes gets mobile phone coverage. It is kind of like Janjanbureh, Gambia's old colonial island, except it's more remote and seems to have fallen from a higher perch.



Still, it was a nice place to spend a couple of days walking around, visiting palm and/or bamboo wine ghettoes/spots, listening to locals chatting about politics and Bonthe's steady decline, and learning a tiny bit of Mende (hello/how are you?/thank God). There aren't many tourists (besides me there were two EU election observers and a British student journalist) so there are few hangers-on like in Gambia, just some kids saying Pumwai (white person/foreigner).



Aside from a few skirmishes in Bo and another town, the elections were pretty calm, with the main opposition party (APC) beating the Sierra Leone People's Party in the second round on September 8.

Bush Meat

September 1

At one of the stops on the way to Mattru Jong from Bonthe, a pirogue full of meat pulled up to our boat. As they were loading it on I struggled to identify it until I saw a flipper and surmised that it was a manatee (further confirmation came when the head was added to the wicker basket on deck). This was disconcerting as, although I don't know if this manatee was actively hunted (it may have been injured by a propellor then put down), a lot of endangered animals end up as bushmeat. Some are common and even pests (such as bushpigs and grasscutters), but many other animals are killed indiscriminately.

Meanwhile, Alhagie, a young man sitting at the guesthouse, just mused that he could kill one of the bee-eaters constructing nests in the trees above us, if only he had a slingshot. He offers to catch one for me and I suggest we don't disturb them.

Black Guys and White Guys

September 1

One thing that remains interesting to me is the blanket description of all foreigners as white men. A recent example of this took place in Bonthe, when some Sierra Leonean drinking buddies told me about their white friends who served there as a UN peacekeeper. Lieutenant Zoa was from Bangladesh.

Of course, it would be a bit churlish to give Africans grief for seeing all foreigners as alike, given that Africa is widely perceived in the U.S. as a monolithic entity.

I was presented with another perspective on this while waiting to get on a boat from Bonthe back to the mainland, and listening to early 90s standards from Whitney Houston, Brian Adams and Elton John, courtesy of Radio Bonthe. Throughout West Africa (and the world, I'm sure) one can pick up pirated compilation CDs/DVDs of movies. Although often random, they are sometimes organized around a theme -- sequels/serires, horror, Schwartzenegger opuses, etc. One of my fellow passengers was carrying one called "Black Guys in Great Movies." Of the eight, I could only recognize (thanks to Newsweek) Blood Diamond (set here, coincidentally) and Apocalypto, whic was set in pre-Columbian Central or South America (I believe) and so probably does not feature black people.

Poda-poda and store slogans

August 26

One thing that was lacking in The Gambia and Senegal was creativity in naming of gelegeles/minibuses and stores. Most were named Alhamdoulilahi, Santa Yalla (Wolof for "Praise Allah") and so forth; stores and vehicles were otherwise named after their owners.

Sectarian diversity and enthusiasm for speaking English/Krio in Sierra Leone, though, make for greater variety in names and slogans attached to poda-podas (as dilapidated minivans are dubbed here) and stores. To wit:

Vehicles
To be a man is not easy
Hizbullah Tours
Daddy U Nar Man
Bum Stars * * * *
No Matter How Long The Night Is, The Morning Must Come
This Business is Built Upon The Blood of Jesus (Liberia)
I am Covered in the Blood of Jesus (Liberia)
Rien n'est tard (Cote d'Ivoire)

Stores
Pimp My Looks (salon)
Your Beauty Lies On Your Head
Some will hate u. Pretend they love u.
Yu fri fo tok te yu taya. (mobile company ad)
Don't Mind Your Wife Chop Bar (Ghana)
Corn Roll (among the services advertised outside salons in Ghana)

A nighttime drive through the forest

July 31, 2007

Our vehicle from Mandar, Senegal to Labe, Guinea left around 5PM, after everyone had had their fill of the lumo (weekly market). So before long it was dark as we muddled along. The forest enveloping the road reminded me of when I first visited my English grandparents, as we drove through the New Forest that night. So this nighttime drive was evocative of that 1988 visit, notwithstanding the washed out road, frequent breakdowns and eventual retirement of our vehicle (we transferred to another station-wagon the next morning).

Loitering With Intent

August 26

Freetown, Sierra Leone

This morning I walked up Tower Hill on an intended trip to Fourah Bay College. It's a well-known university that, prior to the war, played host to many students from other West African countries. Indeed, my Gambian friends from U. of Ghana only came to Legon after the war started and they were airlifted out by U.S. Marines. So they finished their studies in Ghana. On the way up I saw lots of people and families in their Sunday best on their way to church.

On my stroll I left the road and came upon a memorial to Milton Margai, first prime minister of independent Sierra Leone. While reading his biography, I was accosted by a pair of middle-aged men. It turned out I had wandered onto the grounds of the national parliament. Officer Conteh and Izwe took me to their office, where they announced that I was under arrest for "loitering with intent." I was told that ignorance does not excuse the crime, which was documented in an ad hoc report. I was then offered a brief tour of the grounds with my hosts/captors angling for something in return. They pointed out Fourah Bay College - up another hill and not especially pretty so I decided to give it a miss. We returned to their office and I joined them for breakfast (the universal staple - rice with cassava leaf sauce). Afterwards, having abandoned their requests for soft drinks, they escorted me down the hill and expressed the hope that Peace Corps would soon return to Sierra Leone.

Quotes from The Gambia and wider travels

As I sit in a cyber cafe in Ghana, I wonder how much of West Africa's internet usage is young African men posing as women and exchanging emails and instant messages with white men overseas. Hopefully the fiscal returns justify this...

First, a couple of quotes from a headmaster/principals meeting way back in March, discussing logistics of a prospective Cluster sports day and other issues.

Headmaster #1: "So it's agreed - three schools will contribute a sack of rice, the other eight will sell theirs and contribute the money."

Headmaster #2: "Don't forget to put the rice in another sack or the bitiks [stores] will try to cheat you because they know you shouldn't sell it."

Later, Cluster Monitor: "And, by the grace of God, your school will have a [football] field."

Headmaster of Bati Ndarr Lower Basic School: "God - sometimes he ignores things."

CM: "You! You are a Fula!"


August 1 - On the second day of our journey into Guinea, the driver took advantage of the rain and tossed some Omo powdered soap onto the windscreen. He then turned on the wipers to administer his improvised washer fluid. As I laughed at this display (carried out while driving), one of the passengers exclaimed, "C'est Afrique!", a familiar refrain after our night of breakdowns and washed-away roads.


August 3 - Exchange overheard on our abortive first attempt to reach Mali(ville).

Passenger: "Are we turning around because of the accident?"

Driver: "No, no, this is a different engine problem."

The accident in question took place just a couple of minutes after we left the car park/garage as our driver inexplicably veered off the road and into the gutter. We all got out and literally lifted the car out (gutters are deep in West Africa). Some time later the engine started acting up and the driver elected to return to the garage.


Sierra Leone

"I hear that in America they call the African a 'sex machine.' Is this true?" Fellow passenger on the road to Bo, while the driver attempts to fix the axle.


Liberia

Christiana, from Sierra Leone: "What you're doing is illegal."

Liberian police officer: "Just give me something small."

All ECOWAS citizens are officially free to travel through member states without visas or paying fees. As the ride from the border to Monrovia demonstrated (with 10 police/immigration stops on a 150 kilometre trip), this often matters little to low-paid officials. As far as extracting bribes, the Liberians on this stretch of road are the worst I've seen in my West African travels.


Christopher, a Nigerian in the car that was hit up so often for bribes: "Ghanaian taxis are really comfortable - only one person sits in the front seat."

Time for an update!

I am presently in Grand Bassam, the old colonial capital of Cote d'Ivoire. I really should have attempted the occasional update while travelling, but the computers aren't always reliable, and I am often lazy.

Anyway; I shall move chronologically and gradually post descriptions of my travels:

circa July 27, 2007

Yesterday we had a nice visit to the Salls in Nord Foire (sp? it's on the outskirts of Dakar). The mother Fatou is a sister of my host father in Njau (Chebo), so I have stayed with them on past visits to Dakar. I was here with Jon, who had just arrived a couple of mornings ago (and, as luck would have it, his luggage arrived early the next morning.

Elhaas's wife Astou cooked a delicious chicken yassa, and I got to say goodbye to the Salls, we watched Senegalese TV/Brazilian soap operas, and I again got grief for not marrying Sohna, their cute cousin who dropped in.

Mot Lamin's coworker Jack, from (PR) China; had some interesting geopolitical news from The Gambia for me -- President Jammeh has announced that should China invade Taiwan, he is ready to send 1,000 soldiers to Taiwan's aid. Gambia, you may recall, is one of Taiwan's allies/client states in its quest for international recognition, along with Nauru, Vanuatu and others.

Senegal recently switched allegiances to China (well, in 2005). Around that time, in September '05, they had a falling-out with Gambia after the Gambians doubled the fares for their ferries. So the Senegalese government imposed a blockade of sorts, requiring all trucks going between Dakar and Casamance to drive around The Gambia. At the time, Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade proposed the following solutions:

1) build bridges (the river's not very wide),
2) let Senegal control ferries of their own, or
3) dig a tunnel running under The Gambia since it's so small.

The matter was resolved a few weeks later, when Gambia sheepishly returned ferry prices to their pre-blockade rates.

Mangee dem!

So, soon I will be an RPCV and enjoying some post-service travel in West Africa. My friend Jon is coming to Dakar on the 25th. From there we'll make our way to Guinea-Conakry, to visit another good friend of mine. While there, I'll try to put to use my rudimentary Puel Fouta (different from the Fula spoken in the Njau area) that my bean sandwich lady Kindeh taught me. She also gave me directions to her brother's house ("Get out of the car in the Bambeto Quartier and start asking for him"), so we may have a couple of people to visit. I'm looking forward to some nice upcountry hiking, and sour milk. This is going to be great!

After that, Jon will return and I shall chart a course for Ghana. After eight years away, I'm eager to catch up with old friends there, and to see what changes have taken place. I've heard and read a lot of good things about how the situation in Ghana is gradually improving, and I remember it as a place where people seemed motivated by the possibility of bettering their lives in the future. To be sure, it's still a very poor place, but I remember there being a lot of spirit there.

I'm not yet sure which route I shall take to Ghana; it will depend on the rains and the available modes of transport. I will go via Liberia or Mali, and I have potential hosts in both.

As for my Peace Corps service, I am ready to move on. I feel that I worked pretty hard while I was in Njau, although often on the micro-level, with individuals. Also, my direct style, though refashioned as time went on, often rubbed teachers the wrong way, so that I wasn't as effective as I could have been. Still, I got to know the community very well and shared ideas and thoughts with a lot of people. I think this can slowly lead people to reevaluate their life choices; it certainly helped to give me some perspective and to make me more accommodating. As for the students, they were the most fun to work with, since the reverence of elders here and general norms of politeness served me well here (i.e. I don't have to be as diplomatic around kids). In all, a satisfying experience and one that will help me with my future activities. I will miss Njau.

As for my post-travel plans, I expect to fly to the UK from Ghana. There I will stay with some good friends in Edinburgh, Scotland, work for up to a year, and look into graduate school in education -- either in the UK or through one of the Peace Corps Fellows programs.

Faith in the Market...

Prior to my visit to Touba, my aunt Judy remarked on the large presence of Senegalese vendors in Italy these days.

An Economist article last year delved further into these itinerant traders, the vast majority of whom are Mourides. So here is a little more background on the Mouride diaspora. I switched from the Economist's link as it is now in their archive and unavailable, but at least here is the introduction.

There IS wildlife in The Gambia!

In May, after a pair of abortive attempts, seven students, one teacher and I went to River Gambia National Park (I thought they had their own web presence, but cannot find it) across the river from Wassu-Kuntaur, near Sambel Kunda.

It was a nice environmental education weekend for the kids, and I think they appreciated the message about the value of animals, and the chance to see some. While Njau does have a little bush nearby, it's buffeted on all sides by farms and villages, leaving very little wildlife. In addition to the animals and relative remoteness of the setting, we also got to spend time on the river, something Njau kids don't do much (Njau's 12 kms from the river), and even scaled some rare hills.







The animals we saw included these hippos and some chimpanzees. The chimps were reintroduced to these midriver islands starting in 1978; before then they'd been extinct here since early in the 20th century. No visitors are allowed on the island, so the chimpanzees are left in peace, with the occasional visit from researchers. The hippos, too, benefit from the low level of development in the area, and restrictions in boat travel around the islands.





Lastly, one of the activities our students did was a blindfolded tree identification competition. The leaves from the various trees were hung on a line and my kids then felt, smelled and tasted them. Of our seven students, six scored 9 or more out of 11. I have trouble identifying them without being blindfolded! The kids are also well versed on the various uses of the trees, which helped our hosts emphasize the importance of preserving and planting as many trees as possible.

Saying goodbyes

At the end of the year we had a few 'programmes' -- the Gambian word for parties. I ended up having three -- library helpers, school, women of Njau -- which may conjure up memories of my long goodbye amongst my friends in DC.


They were a good time, with music sets and goat meat at the school (see the first picture of the boys cleaning out the intestines), but the one at my compound (the red gates on the left mark the entrance) may have been more fun. There the women and girls just turned over a few metal bowls and plastic buckets, forged an open space and invited people to dance. The ataaya, lait and juice mixes flowed freely (compliments of my host mom and others). The parties were good fun, and a chance to say goodbye and thanks to a lot of my friends.

The last picture has me in Demba Sey's compound. Squatting is Danielle, my sister's toma/namesake, who is enjoying some leftover rice. Amie is sitting next to me. Danielle's older sister Isatou (well, she's just a week older) was afraid of the camera so she's trying to hide in her mother Kumba's fana.

The iron ore train to Nouadibou

Some time ago, I belatedly wrote about my travels to Mauritania with my long-suffering friend Fatou Jallow. Well, the NYTimes Africa journalist was just there as, in additional to an article about a nascent campaign to wean Mauritanians off their love for hefty women, I came across an article about the train we rode to Nouadibou. I apologize if the article soon becomes inaccessible, but you may find it by searching for "Tough Commute on a Train Not Meant for People".

We did not go the whole distance, but instead joined the train at the 'station' in Choum, after a back of the pickup truck ride through the desert from Atar. We went westbound instead, so the cars were full of iron ore dust, which we flattened out to lay down in for the night.

Interestingly, it seems that large numbers of Pakistanis are using the train en route to Europe. You may recall Nouadibou as the port where many would-be sub-Saharan African migrants set out by boat for the Canary Islands and, it is hoped, greener pastures. This is an incredibly dangerous undertaking, as many boats are lost, with one unfortunate crew's remains eventually being discovered in the Bahamas. As far as I could tell, Fatou and I were the only non-Africans on the train, but we didn't check the passenger berths.

The funny thing is that this very alarmist article is in the same magazine whose cover story implores Americans to cast aside fear as we attempt to restore our place in the world.

Medical breakthroughs in The Gambia

Given that I've been dutifully serving as an ambassador of sorts for my home country, I've done my best to avoid holding forth on Gambian politics and other developments.

The time seems right, though, to share some developments that took place in January. At that time, President Jammeh announced that he had discovered cures for asthma and AIDS, and viewers were treated to television programs showing the President treating the patients. This was widely reported in the domestic media, less so on the international scene.

Recently, though, I have come across two irreverent international pieces on the President's breakthrough. One was in a recent Economist. The other is a clip on Youtube, which I've heard much about but never before seen. Today was my inaugural viewing, with Meet the President - Yahya Jammeh - 14 May 07 - Part 1 as my first Youtube video. Riveting stuff.

An old picture from February '06

My good friend Sekouba took this picture in the market in Farafenni. I was haggling with Bitch, sorry, Ms. Bitch, over the trousers I'm holding. He held firm so I had to break down and pay 35 Dalasis ($1.20). The trousers have served me well to this day, and will be my 'smart' pair during my travels.

Religious life in The Gambia

So this won't be a very insightful piece; I want to upload the pictures. As I've mentioned in previous posts, the 'western' style schools face competition from madrassas, although attempts are being made to integrate them into the overall educational system.

Anyway, my friend Fatim (Grade 5 at Njau) goes to Dara (Koranic classes) on the weekends. In May her class had a day of teri, or recitals, so I dropped by her village (Lebba) on my way home to Njau from Kombo. So here are a couple of pictures of the community gathered around to listen, and Fatim performing her recitation. She was a bit nervous, but did well and helped show others that you can study both.




The Gambia as a whole is some 90-95% Muslim, and our students get daily Koranic instruction in the timetable. School ends at 1:45, so that everyone can perform ablutions in time for the 2 o'clock prayer, or thereabouts. So here are a couple of pictures of the daily ritual, with the consent of the teachers. Afterwards, it acts as our ad hoc announcements forum.

Mail Run hardship (for the recipients)

In April, Colleen and I and John the driver went on PC-TG's monthly mail run. The Gambia is so small that PCVs' mail can be delivered (well, to varying degrees of success) to their 100 or so sites in a six day trek.

Colleen's description of our delivery debacles is a good rendition of our trip, so I will not say much more. It was great fun to drive all over The Gambia, and take in the varied environments -- flat grassland, flat mangroves, flat forested areas. I also enjoyed seeing how PCVs dealt with their different living situations, and talking to their host families. In a tweak of the traditional mail run survey, we opted to interview PCVs' families while we were at it. Between Colleen's Mandinka and my Wolof, we were able to converse with just about all the compounds we visited (non-Mandinkas and -Wolofs usually know at least one of them as a second or third language). One notable exception was Stephanie/Bintu's site, which is way the fuck out there.