Toubabedness and Me....

I think I have mentioned this before but "toubab" is the Gambian word for foreign person which is more often than not a white person from the land of Touabaloo - the mystical land that is Europe and America combined onto one continent. The word toubab is basically equivilent to gringo and is not really ment in a negative way but can it can be infuriating to hear small children screech toubab at you and "toubab give me minty, give me money" a hundred times a day. It is even worse when you are living in the community and the children know your name, but still insist on calling you toubab until you yell at them in Wollof. TO be honest the children in my village are relativly good and call me my proper name 98% of the time, the other 2% of the time they are just being kids and seeing what they can get away with. The toubabedness gets to me more when I am out of site and no ones know I am not just some other tourist. I like to think of myself as a pretty calm and level headed person but getting toubab shouted at you repeatedly has made me want to backhand a small child more than once - and I would like to think that is completly out of character for me.

So yea...."life it is not easy in The Gambia." This is a classic Gambian saying in repsonse to pretty much anything. Teaching, the heat, eating, sitting under a shady tree...none of these things are "easy" and people are always "just managing". Despite the annoying displays of defeatism that seems to run rampant in the national character here, life and work is going well for me. I really love my host family and my village and school. I feel like I am getting integrated and even making friends and connecting with people. The headmaster at school is amazingly dedicated and the majority of the teaching staff is excited to learn new teaching methods, so it makes my excited that they are excited. I presented at my first school based workshop on the importance of teaching and learning aids in the classroom and different learning styles and why lecture and chalk is not an effective way to teach students. It went well and it seemed to be well recieved. I shall find out just how well recieved when I do class observations in the coming months. In other exciting news, my school recieved a container from their European sponsers with new computers for the lab and spare parts to fix the generator so I will finally be able to turn the computers on and get down to training some people. It only took a little over a month - thats lightening fast speed in The Gambia!

Speaking of fast, Ramadan is almost over and Koriteh is in a couple days, so of course school is closed all next week for the feast. I actually fasted for the last week of Ramadan and it was good - the hunder dosen't get to you, its the thirst. My family {they are Cathloic} was sure I was converting to Islam and laughed at me every morning and tried to offer me breakfast. My family also informed me that Cathloics in The Gambia fast for lent so I am looking at another 40 days of fasting fun coming up in March!

So life continues to be good on this side of the pond. Sometimes I can't believe I have been here almost 4 months and I marvel at how much I have already learned about myself and development in general in the short time that I have been here - makes me excited for the months ahead! I miss everyone like crazy and wish everyone a Happy Halloween!!! I am jealous of all your sweater wearing and cool weather - people keep saying the cold season is coming but I have yet to notice a difference in temperature. I will try to post pictures of my village soon!