I eat World Food Programe Rice

I have a confession to make, I am an American and I eat World Food Program rice. WFP is a development program aimed at alieveating hunger and malnutrition in the developing world by providing primary school students with at least on nourishing meal a day. It also has the added benefit of drawing students to schools in the most desperate areas just so they will get food. At first I didn't even realize I was eating the WFP rice until I saw a sack with the label clear as day being delivered to my compound and hauled into the kitchen. But it's not just at home, I eat WFP rice at school too. Now that Ramadan is over, teacher's lunches have made a comback during break time at school. We all gather around food bowls and eat rice with usually just a ceremonial piece of fish and a coating of oil. This type of dish is termed "empty rice" beacause it lacks any tasty sauce or substantial amounts of fish. Since the rice is empty teachers enjoy sprinkling bits of Jimbo on it, which I am pretty sure is just MSG in cube form and also the go to cooking additive for all dishes - if food is not "nice" its because the cook did not use enough Jimbo in the first place. When I first got called into the staff room to eat lunch with the teachers I felt bad about eating the noticably fluffier and fortified UN issued rice as I am not in fact a Gambian primary student. But one cannot turn down food here and I couldn't exactly tell a room full of teachers that by consuming the rice we were undermining the mission of the WFP - so I threw caution to the wind and ate the rice like everyone else.

When it comes down to it, it makes no difference whether I am eating their rice as long as the majority makes it to the right population. And as far as alievating hunger - I don't think the world really has an ongoing world hunger problem. Sure there are droughts and famines and food us found in different levels but the notion that the entirity of Africa is filled with starving children is inaccurate. I think the problem is better defined as a "world nutrition problem due to lack of education" but that's not nearly as catchy as "world hunger". And really does Joe Suburbia have time to sit around and listen to the gory details of why there are undernourished children in Africa? No, he justwants to send his check off in the mail with the assurance he is part of the solution. The fact that altering his consumption habits and urging his government to put pressure on corrupt governments to reform would actually help ten times more then his check - but that is messy and he only has to think about "world hunger" for the 2 minutes it takes him to write the check and pop it in the mail. But I am never going to tell anyone to stop donating money to important causes that help our neighbors around the world - please do contribute whatever you feel led to give - just be open to the possibility of affecting change through other avenues as well.

So while I am not convinced "world hunger" is the right label, programs like the WFP are still needed, their objectives just need to be tweaked a bit. Here in Gambia, 99% of population are substience farmers. That means day in and day out, year after year, peoples lives are devoted to planting and harvesting food just to support the family. Naturally this leaves little time for a nation to do much else in terms of development. It also means that work is never done, planting season leads to harvesting season - coos, groundnuts, peppers, gardens, tree nursery, repeat. A good side effect is that because everyone is a farmer, no one seems to ever be without food. And if a family is hard up, everyone shares. Food here is communal and everyone enjoys eating togather as much as possible. Not suprisingly in a country drawn around a river, fish dominates the meals here - so much so that I am going to be seriously concerned about my mecurey levels when I return to America. Aside from fish, I eat pumpkin almost everyday and eggplant and potatoes on good days and lots of fruit. It is currently watermelon season so I am enjoying. You have to enjoy the fruit while it is in season so I am eating massive amounts of watermelon and probably won't want to even see another one till the season rolls around again next year. But mangos should be back in a couple months and that makes everyone happy.

Random observations....

Since I am still on med hold for my mysterious allergic reaction, I have been getting to know life in Kombo (Banjul metro area) a little bit better over the past couple of days.... and it's weird.

There are definitely perks: cold drinks, swimming in the ocean, movies at the hostel. But there are also weird juxtaposition that you could only find in a developing country.

Yesterday, I was riding home from the beach in the back of my Liberian friends BMW listening to a Phil Collin's greatest hits, his sounds system even has a little video screen mounted on the dashboard so we could watch Phil dance in his music video. Later that night a bunch of us headed down to Senegambia, the tourist section of town, that has a handful of bars, clubs and restaurants targeting the European tourists and rich (relatively speaking) people that live in Gambia. It was a totally enjoyable, but strange day considering that a couple days before I was trying to teach a 4th grade how to read that word "chair".

It is just a strange, surreal feeling to think that I can have a day laying on the beach, watching Phil Collins dance and going out to a bar and that a mere 20 K away is my little village of Njongon where kids are in the fields harvesting coos, many who will in all likely hood not pass their exams to get into high school and will therefore be harvesting coos for the rest of their lives. It's just crazy to reconcile the two worlds that are so close geographically but so far apart in reality. The whole experience has really re-opened my eyes to tourism in developing countries. The tourists that visit the beaches and walk about the city, visiting markets think they have "seen" the real Gambia, but in reality what they experience is all a front. I definitely am not trying to condemn tourism in developing countries and recognize that it brings a lot of very needed money into the country but tourism also is the cause of a lot of the countries problems - sex tourism (for both genders) and gross inequalities between the rich minority and poor masses being the two most obvious. The whole experience has just opened my eyes and caused me to look a lot more critically about how I have traveled in the past and how I will travel in the future and the effect that my presence as a tourist has on the local community.

This is yet another issue in this country that I will prob think about for a long time and never come up with any real solution, but at least I am thinking....right? But that is part of the reason why I am here, to think and learn and hopefully get a handle on some of this stuff before I go back to school. Here's hoping I will be able to sort some of this stuff out in my head in the coming 2 years...

"Yangee cool? Waaw, mangee cool."

The title to this post is just another funny Gambianism that I find funny. Gambian English never ceases to be entertaining. It translates to "You are cool (doing okay), yes I am cool." Love it.

I have unexpectedly gotten the chance to get online and update faster than I anticipated due to a mysterious skin rash (lovely right?) that has brought me to Kombo to get some medicene.

Quick recap on the seemingly bitter toubab post: Toubabedness has ups and downs. Sometimes it works to your advantage like when the entire country is brought to a stand still for Public Cleaning Day and no cars are allowed to drive on the street to force everyone to clean up their environments. I unkowingly decided to travel on this day and was stuck sitting on the side of the road till I got so fed up with waiting that I pimped out my whiteness and hitched a ride with a private car. Sometimes this preferential treatment for being white, like getting picked up when Gambians don't or getting moved to the front of the ticket line at the free-for-all that is the ferry terminal, is nice because it lets one bypass an annoying situation but it still feels wrong because deep down you know that you are getting treated differently solely based on the perceived value of your skin tone or foreignness, and at the end of the day-that sucks. So the whole issue is definitely an interesting one to live with and think about and one I hope that I will finally get a handle on after the end of my two years...but who knows.

Aside from the toubabedness conundrum, live in The Gambia continues to be good. Cold season has officially come and even though the sun is still hot during the day, I don't sweat constantly and actually get chilly at night. I even have to make sure I leave my water out in the sun all day so it is not freezing cold when it comes time for my bucket bath.

People have expressed interest in my daily goings on so here is a rundown of a typical day at site:
I wake up around 7 am to the crow of our annoying rooster who seems to be a clock because he crows pretty much on the hour. I force myself out of bed, trying not to hang myself on my mosquito net in the process. I quickly get dressed and go out to greet my family. A typical breakfast consists of homemade peanutbutter on bread with regular tea or bush tea (kind of tastes like spiced chai) that a teacher at school sent a small boy to fetch for me in the bush. If there is no bread in the village I eat coos (millet) and sour milk with sugar (don't cringe, it is actually delicious. Think of it as a very natural Grapenuts and yogurt.) Then I gather my things and head off to school, which is a mere 50 meters from my compound.

Once at school I greet all the teachers that have assembled around the vice principal's transportable office (a desk and a chair) that sits in the middle of the school yard and we sit and chat for a bit (it's considered really rude not to chat for just a bit). If it is Monday we have school assembly where the head teacher goes through announcements, gives a moral speech or reminds the children the importance of cleanliness and neat hair. If it is Friday, we have religious assembly, which takes up 1-3 periods. The schools 20 or so Christians head over to the church for their assembly and the rest of the school carries desks and chairs out of the classrooms to listen to one of the Ustas's (Islamic teacher) talk. School days are pretty consistent unless the school happens to have visitors (sponsors from Europe usually). I am usually in the library helping out or making teaching aids. Library is officially a class at my school (this is very rare) so I also monitor the classes as they come in and read or study. For the younger grades I also have story time - which they seem to love but I am always unsure if they actually understand me or just like the novel concept of being read to. I haven't been able to tackle the computer lab yet because even though we received the spare part for the generator, it has yet to be fixed so I am still waiting and trying to be patient. Throughout the day teachers come and visit me in the library to chat or talk about teaching aids they want to try out in their classroom, or to brainstorm lesson plans that are more student centered. During break time I usually eat lunch with the teachers in the staff room - World Food Program issued rice (I feel weird eating it, but they insist I eat with them).

After school, I sit with the teachers for a bit and chat (have you caught on to how important chatting is yet?), till I eventually walk home and relax a bit at my compound. I usually got visiting in the afternoon or to the tye and die workshop to chat and help out. And I always try and make time for yoga, which is a great stress reducer and allows for some alone time. I take my bucket bath before it gets to dark to see anything in my backyard and then chat with my family about the day. Lately I have been going to watch soccer matches with some of the teachers from school at night and it is a lot of fun to sit in a circle with 30 Gambian men and boys around a little battery powered TV and listen to them freak out about plays and joke with each other about what team and players are best.

So that is pretty much a typical day and pretty much everyday is exactly the same save for a few small details. Now that Ramadan is over, school clubs are starting up. I am heading up the Girls Club with another female teacher and have also been persuaded to help out with the Peer Health Club (students learn about public health issues then go around and share the info with their friends, usually in the form of dramas) and the Garden Club (we just planned to plant lettuce!!!! I think the teachers are doing it just for me because I always talk about veggies.) I will most likely be very busy with the clubs so that is exciting. I also want to check out another lower basic school that is nearby that might need help with their resource center.

Life is slow and leisurely here but also busy in its own way. Mostly because I thrive on being busy and find it hard to just sit around. My Gambian friends always tease me about it.

Some interesting/weird chats I have had recently:

• What is the difference between camels and horses and why is a camel okay for Muslims to eat but not a horse? (raised by a Christian teacher at school)
• The pros and cons of joining the American army or taking the "back way" (boat to Canary Islands) to Europe as career options for an 18 yr old boy in my village (his suggestions, not mine)
• Explaining racial diversity in America and Europe. "What, I thought all white people were from England and the French were black."
• Why on earth someone would choose to be vegetarian.
• When a teacher at school found out I majored in Psych in college, "I was wondering if you could teach me psychology, I am having some problems with my wife, she is very strong headed."

And I am sure there are many more to come.

Side note: 24/7 network has come to my little po-dunk village thanks to Africell building a huge tower in a nearby town. This may seem like not a big deal, but previously to get network I had to either stand by a specific metal sign and not move out of a 2X2 box or go to another town closer to the capital, now I can just sit in the comforts of my own compound and chat or text away. It really is life's little pleasures....