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So this is me during the marathon march, Christmas Even 2008 we walked 27 km and this was one of the views. There is no elevation in the Gambia so this overlook was huge.

Overall, life here is great, I am doing well and taking it minute by minute slowly slowly. I am excited for swearing in, we will get to eat burgers! I am also really pumped to move to site and have furniture and spend 3 months making a home for myself.

The language I learned in Wolof, but my village speaks Pular so I will have a hog-poge of African tribal languages under my belt by the time I leave here. I am still going through lots of ups and downs, and one of the few things that is getting me through my day are letters/packages and love from home so thank you all for being so supportive.

The Gambia is a tiny country in West Africa for those of you who have not been able to find it on the map. But it is filled with a mix of cutlures. Mandinka, Wolof and Fulas are the three major ethnic groups and there are also two other ethnic groups prevelent here. I live 1 km from another village that is seperate from my own and mine is Fula and the other is Wolof. Funny how that works huh?

So, in the Gambia families eat from a communal food bowl. This means that one large metallic bowl is brought outside on the dirt and all the women gather around one bowl and all the men gather around another. The bowl is the diameter of a large pizza. We then 'wash' our hands with water, but really we are just washing our right hand because the left hand is used to wipe your butt after pooping. The lid is then removed by an elderly person in the family once everyone is squatting around it (there is not a table, or chairs, literally we just crouch on the ground) and they dig their RIGHT hand into the bowl to eat. The cous or rice is on the bottom and the good stuff, toppings and sauce are in the middle. You have to share everything equally between everyone, my largest foodbowl was with 16 other adult women. And you can only eat from the section directly in front of where you are sitting. It is quite the experience and something I did not anticipate when coming here, but I really enjoy the sense of community.

Gambians also drink ataaya. This is cheap "chinese gunpowder tea" that is brewed in a small kettle over hot coals. The brewing process can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour depending on how much time people have to kill. The leaves are put with water into the kettle and set on the coals, and then the tea is poured into two tiny glasses, smaller than tea cups in another other country. About 1/2 the size of a palm. There is an elaborate pouring process from the kettle to the cups, which is for show. Then the tea is poured back from the cups into the kettle with about a cup and 1/2 of sugar. Mind you the kettle is about 2 cups in size, so it is very small. That is brewed with sugar for about however long you want it to brew and then the pouring again happens into the small cups and then back into the kettle. So essentially you have a sugared drink that people drink from 1 to 10 times daily. There is no shortage of sugar in the Gambia and this is what I will be doing for the next two years, sitting around drinking ataaya and trying to chat with people in another language.

More updates later, yay for the Gambia!

Update!!!

Hello all-
here is my first real update in the Gambia!! I am currently in Kombo wrapping up with training, next week is our huge swearing in at the U.S. ambassador's house. I spent 8 weeks in a training village learning Wolof which is my language. It was difficult because training is very structured with classes in the morning and always go go go. I am definately burnt out and happy to be moving on to my real life for two years.
I just got done with four days of hanging out with the family that will be mine for the next two years. My dad is the village Alkali (chief) and he has two wives, giving me two moms. (Gambia is polygamous). My older brother Abilay is in his early thirties married to a woman who is about my age and they have three small kids, who are adorable. I have three teenaged siblings, one brother and two sisters who have hearts of gold. Then my 2nd mom has a daughter living there who is also my age who has 4 children, so overall there are 7 kids between the ages of 6 months and6 years old. I also have a grandma who is the sweetest woman ever. Children here call white people tubob which is like foreigner and she yells at them and tells them "no! her name is Soxna!"
Soxna is my Gambian name. I had a naming ceremony in training village which was what all babies have and a hug celebration, pictures will come later this week.
My village is small and even though I speak Wolof they are Pular so they have cows and speak a different language. This means I will also learn Pular! The non-language girl suddenly got signed up to learn two African tribal languages! Fulas (ethnic name of Pular speakers) have cows, they are the only ones that do. So since my dad is the Alkali we have lots of them and I get fresh milk every morning. I also have the best food bowl in village, so I am eating better at my site than I was in training village with no veggies, fruits, and fish only.
My village is really sweet so far and even though I have struggled immensely with the language barrier of not knowing Pular I forsee myself as having a great experience. There will be down times as always, but my family is great and my thatched roof hut will be pretty nice one I get furniture this week.
Muslim culture has a holiday called Tobaski, this was three days December 8, 9, 10th when the prophet Abraham was asked to sacrafice his one and only son to Allah (for us it is God) and when it came time for it, Allah replaced his son with a ram. So every year there is a huge celebration and a ram or male goat is slaughtered in every compound. It has the same sense of celebration as our Christmas and was a great holiday to celebrate.
The food is awesome at my new site. Gambians eat this thing called cous. It is not found anywhere but in Senegal and Gambia and has the texture of sand when eaten dry. My family serves it wet so it is great, and highly fibrous! They eat cous for breakfast and dinner and rice for lunch. The food is good but oreas, m&m's, chocolate, dried fruit and sweets are always wanted.
After this week in Kombo I will have this thing called 3 month challenge, it's a challenge to stay at site for three months and basically get to know the people, integrate, get to know the needs of the village and intergrate some more. I will not have internet access so send mail please. After that it should become more frequent to say once a month.
Right now I'm having a high on life moment which I have been having more of lately than not good moments, but remember that there are lots of difficult things I am through so if you receive a letter that is not a 100% positive just know that I am safe and living the roller coaster. There is a saying that volunteers use TIA This is Africa. Life is great and hard and everywhere in between but let me tell you my sense of humor has increased 1000%.
The dancing is amazing! Wolofs dance with their feet in quick motions and it's a full body experience. I am never short on dancing times. Yay!
I know this is a random blog post and not well written, but I will add pictures and more details as they come to my mind, just wanted to update you all since some of you have been left in the dust.
Love and hugs from Gambia!
Jax