The last month

Afternoon! [1:56pm]

The week after we were in Kombo last we went back to Tendaba for “The Death March”, which is a 15-mile hike through mangrove filled swamps and wild savannahs. It begun with an hour canoe ride downstream and then another half-hour down a tributary. After coming to dock on mud we were told to start running after we get out, else we’d lose a shoe; or get stuck ourselves. One unlucky volunteer had both happen to them.

The health group already done the Death March weeks before, and so this is only the education group that this e-mail refers too. Of those who went on the march we split up into two groups: fast and slow. The slow group would take time to check out the wildlife more and birdwatch while the fast group hurried through the march. Looking back on it, I shouldn’t have taken the fast group.

The march started at 9:30 in the morning. The first hour or so was mostly pure mud, you could hear the suction that your sandals were making with the mud on your upstroke as you were walking. After about two hours we stopped for lunch. They were packed sandwiches from Tendaba, along with the water bottles we brought. I thought the two one-an-half liter bottles I brought would be enough. Near the end of the march I was sharing water with other people who brought more then enough for themselves. Lesson learned.

The second half of the march was through savannahs. This went a lot quicker and were able to see wild baboons in the distance climbing the trees and barking at us (they sound like barking dogs). Along the route we also passed a warthog skeleton, all picked cleaned. (Heard the “slow” group took time to position the skeleton somewhat back into place and take pictures, we just walked passed it)

With about an hour to go we had to make a choice: cross a river that goes up to our waist, or walk more then an hour around. We were so tired at that point we just wanted to get back to camp so we chose the river. I hadn’t taken more then a half-dozen steps before I was stuck in the river mud. The more I pulled my feet up the more the suction was to push it back down. The guide and another trainee had to help me get unstuck. As one foot escaped the mud I realized my sandal wasn’t with it. And so as they’re trying to pull me in one direction I’m reaching back arm-length into mud trying to find the other half of the only pair of good sandals I had. What I pulled out resembled more of ‘The Blob’ than something you put your foot in.

After that incident I was so worn out that our guide had to tell the rest of our group how to get back while he walked with me behind them. (We had less than a mile to go). It wasn’t the 15-miles that exhausted me, it was the 15-miles in the mud and savannahs in the African heat that exhausted me. That, and getting stuck in the river.

When I finally reached camp the rest of my group gave me an applause for finishing. Filled a liter-an-half bottle of water and drunk it in one gulp. Soon after everyone was in the pool relaxing. Close to an hour and half later the ‘slow’ group arrived. Most of them didn’t bother changing, they jumped in clothes and all. (Well, after washing most of the dirt off with the outdoor shower by the pool)

What we all hated was that the very next day we had to start Model School. About two miles away from Tendaba Camp is Kwinella village where the Upper Basic School for that area is located. Peace Corps paid 140 kids to come to three-hours of school four days a week for two weeks so we can learn how to teach them. There were 20 kids in a class (usually close to 40 for a normal class) and they ranged from sixth to ninth graders. The math/science people and the ICT people had to teach while the PTT watched us and critiqued us.

The school is not one building, but multiple. There is one main building that houses the offices, assembly hall and library. The classes are in open-air buildings a half-minute walk away. Each small building contained only two class rooms. The rooms themselves were arranged according to grade level: sixth, seven circle, seven square, eight circle, eight square, etc.

The week before we had the opportunity to look at the textbooks they used and plan a few lessons. I can’t relate anything other then math, since that was the only type of book I looked at. However, for math is seemed they were on par with what we do in the states. Thinking “Great! No Problem” I was in a shock with the stark contrast of what they should know and what they actually do know. It wasn’t one or two students that were behind, but the whole class. (My homeroom was one of the seventh grade) This would have adverse consequences for them as in two more years they would have to pass the ninth grade test in order to go on to more school. At best the students were a year behind and at worst maybe two or three.

Throughout the two weeks I had two major breakthroughs: Taught eight graders how to find the LCM of two numbers using prime decomposition (they didn’t understand why we were doing it, but they could do it), and had seventh graders list all eight ways to flip three coins (my attempt to try and teach probability). While we weren’t teaching we sat in someone else’s classroom and watched. In a few cases the headmaster or an LCH would teach, that was another culture shock when they had to basically yell to get a response. Granted, we barely got responses either.

After the two weeks were over with it was graduation time. The students were told to invite their parents, but only about 10-20 parents showed up. (It was a Friday, and very busy for the parents to make it). Each homeroom did a song or dance that the PTT’s taught them. Other classrooms did murals, while one did a computer project. (The computer lab had five computers for a class of twenty at a time).

There were food and soft drinks for everyone and we waited to be picked up again. Three hours later we still didn’t have a ride and the kids were still there. They were waiting to be paid. Finally the bus came for us, with the driver having the money for the kids. There was an attempt by us for us to wait while the kids got paid, but the driver informed us that he had to get a lot of change from bidiks (local stores) in order to pay all those kids and would take hours to do. So we all went back to our villages for the night.

I must tell you about something which might have made the back papers in the states but was widespread excitement here. The planet Mars. A few nights ago, August 27 actually, marks the closest Earth and Mars as been in 60,000 years. All the trainees were dazzled by the brightness of Mars, as in the village there’s no city lights to dim the spectacle of it . The next times Mars will be that bright again is in the year 2287. A quick astronomy lesson: Astronomers measure brightness in magnitudes. When they are observing they use apparent magnitude (how it looks from earth) and when doing theoretical calculations they use absolute magnitude (how it would look if it was a specific distance away). The smaller the magnitude the brighter the object, and negative numbers are allowed. It’s a! logarithmic scale, like the Richter scale for earthquakes, except a difference of five in magnitude corresponds to a factor of 100 in brightness. A magnitude 1 star is 100 times brighter then a magnitude 6 star. A difference in only one magnitude means that object is roughly two-and-half times brighter (fifth root of hundred to be exact). Mars, on average, has an apparent magnitude of –2. On August 27 it had a magnitude of –2.9, close to two-and-half times brighter then usual!

The villagers were even amazed by it and asked questions on why the star was so bright. Some of us had a tough time explaining to them that it was not a star, but a planet. In one village they had to call it “another earth” since Fulla had no word for planet. I asked our LCH whether Wollof had a word for planet, nope. So I asked if they had a word for a star that moved in a predictable way (the word “planet” means “space wanderer”). He didn’t understand what I was asking.

One trainee did an excellent job of explaining. He was also in the Fulla village. With him holding a mirror and a member of his host family holding a flashlight he shone the light into the rest of the family. It got through a few of them that the planet had no light of it’s own, but got ‘bounced’ back from the Sun. That’s a difficult idea to grasp even in the states for some kids.

The last full day in the village the men in our village fixed the pump. This made the women volunteers quite frustrated since for the last two months they had to walk all the way across the village to get water from the other pump. After the pump was fixed the ‘medicine man’ or ‘holy man’ blessed it and people starting using it. What’s ironic is that as they were fixing that pump the other pump broke. And so now our side of the village has to walk over to the north side to get water; but the male volunteers already had enough water in the buckets for one more day. It was a good laugh.

After the pump was fixed the men went a little ways out of the village for a soccer game. It resembled “Field of Dreams” in which out of a corn field there exists, in this case, a soccer field. They had to stop the game once when the ball went into the field and they couldn’t find it for a few minutes.

The next day we all said our goodbyes, packed our things on top of the car (along with our bikes), and started the long day of being dropped off at our new sites. The Kombo people were riding for six hours dropping other people off while we were the last ones. Since we are the only ones to actually pick where we’re going to live they put us up for the next week at the Peace Corps Hostel. It’s located a half-mile away from the main Peace Corps office. Everyone just calls it “The Stage” [pronounced: stodge].

The Stage is enclosed by brick walls with huge metal doors on both ends. There is a 24/7 guard stationed at both entrances. In order for us to get in we must yell out either “konk konk” (analogous to “knock knock”) or more properly “Salamaaleekum!”.

That is primarily the end of the e-mail but I have a few miscellaneous items which don’t belong anywhere

1

The coordinate to Sare Samba (estimating from the map we got) is 13d 21’ 28” N, 15d 38’ 11’’ W.

Other coordinates of villages and towns can be found here, however there may be more then one village with the same name:

http://www.calle.com/world/gambiathe/index.html

(For example, even though multiple Sare Samba’s are listed, none were my village. The nearest village that is listed is Kiaif)

2

We were issued “Department of State for Foreign Affairs Technical Assistant Identity Card”. On it lists our name, rank, and Diplomatic Mission. Rank: Peace Corps Volunteer. Diplomatic Mission: Embassy of the United States of America.

3

The all-purpose medical self-help book we were given was “Where There is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook” (David Werner)

4

Another book which I found at the Stage was “Insight Guide Gambia & Senegal” (ISBN: 0887296718). This book had a lot of pictures, including one of the log-book for Juffure with one line being:

16/4/77 Alex Haley (Kinte) (Juffure) Los Angeles, Calif Ancestral Homecoming

-Mike

[3:50pm]