Merry Christmas!

After a bit of a hiatus, I am back in the city and able to check the internet, upload some pictures and update everyone.

First of all, a very belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed Turkey Day and watching lots of American football. To celebrate the holiday, a bunch of PCV's of my training group met up in Janjanbureh, an island in the middle of the country to cook a big Thanksgiving feast together. We successfully made a pretty respectable dinner, with stuffing, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, corn and even freeze dried "camping" blueberry cheescake that was actually really good. The only thing we were missing was lots of American football.

Following traveling up country for Thanksgiving, I tried to spend the remainder of my three month challenge in my village. It was kind of crazy between preparing students for end of term exams, receiving a shipment of computer equipment from our German NGO, starting up Girl's Club meetings and activities and other just day to day school activities. I also started working with a local NGO, The Stay Green Foundation, teaching computer applications to the staff. I am teaching pretty simple stuff, just e-mail, database creation and helping to make their reports a bit more professional. The NGO is really great and it works with rural women farmers in my district to combat deforestation and implementing sustainable farming techniques. It is a really important issue since the Sahara is rapidly encroaching on the Sahel, the savanna grasslands that extends across Africa just south of the Sahara. I am exciting to be working with the NGO and it is nice to have a change of pace from school everyday.

Life in village is going really well and I think I am pretty well adjusted (strange to say that) and have a normal routine down. Recently, nights have been very chilly (50-55 degrees is my best estimation) so my whole family gathers around a fire in the middle of the compound to stay warm and chat about the day, crack peanuts to prepare them for cooking and listen to the radio. It is actually a lot of fun, and the stars are beautiful - it's a very peaceful way to spend the evening after a long day at school with lots of hyper kids. My host father has recently been asking lots of questions about America and also teaching my more Wolof. Some of my fav questions posed by my host father in the past couple of weeks:

• In America, do they have electric cars or petrol? (trying to explain hybrid cars proved to be to much to ask of my Wolof skills)
• In a fight, which one will win, fire or water? (This one was in Wolof so I had to clarify that I was translating correctly, but I was. I chose water.)
• In America, you no have mosquito's? (Response was shock, followed by even more shock when I declared the mosquito's did not have malaria.)
• In America, one beer cost how much? wine? sugar? a wife? (Conclusion of the conversation, America is very expensive ~ America, dafa ser torop!)

Right now I am down in the city for a PC - Education meeting and to spend the holidays with friends. I will also be down here until New Year/Tobaski, as I am spending that holiday at the compound of my vice principal who lives in the city. I will try and update to let everyone know how they celebrate Christmas and Tobaski in The Gambia. Both Muslims and Christians celebrate both holidays so they are sure to be a week of lots of festivities!

Check out some more pics of my village on my Flickr page!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all!!!!!!!!!