Stories to tell....

Back in Thies once again! Good to be back yet missing my family back in Mboure. Just got of the phone with my host brother. I think it was the funniest conversation I have ever had yet with my host family. It mainly consisted of Mandinka greetings and then some "kachatting". I am going to say it is a mix between Mandinka and english which pretty much means small talk but there was a twist our converstion. We had a lot of laughing, not because of a common joke that we had, not because we made a joke, the real reason was we didn't understand each other at all. The only thing that we could do was say yes and laugh. Also, my host brother is a lot like his father, because when I greet my host father he always has a smile on his face and he always greets me laughing. Like father like son.
So, this wasn't the only good laugh I got this week. True story, so, my friend Vieux(yes it means old in french and that is what is parents named him)Sydi from my Mandinka group (...and his real name will remain anonymous)came to his the next day with a great story. So, some background information first they have septic tanks here in the compound and some are stable and some just get really weak on the top. So, Vieux was walking around his compound and steps on top of the cement portion of the septic tank and falls through with one leg in and one leg out. His leg was knee deep in crap and huge cockroaches. He was lucky his whole body didn't fall in, haha, I guess that would have been funnier! Sorry, Vieux!

Another fun event happened in Mboure, it seemed like it was going to be another normal day in the garden. We went to our friends compound to get the watering cans, pulley and bucket for the well. Came back into the school ground where are garden is located and started drawing water from the well. At this point children for various locations come and try to help. Some times we know where they come from and other times we don't. So, this day we had a visit from a lot of boys and one of the Peace Corps trainees sister. The kids started to get a little over baring in the garden, trying to get our attention by snapping at us and hissing. We couldn't understand what they wanted and what they were trying to say and all we wanted to do was water and get out of there because it was really hot. So, we tried to ignore them but then it just got worse. Coumba, (another Mandinka in my group)got so upset that she started chasing the kids. These kids had no fear. Not saying that Coumba wasn't scary enough but they actually found her rant to be amusing and started to play off of it. The kids then started to throw rocks and even the eggplant that they had pulled off premature, at us. Man, what were we to do??? We were obvious of how upset we were at them for being in the garden and messing around. So, we closed janky garden wire gate that we had up and Vieux stand there to make sure that they wouldn't come in while the rest of us tried to finish watering the beds. That day was so stressful that we had to get out and do a little cool down walk. We then called our Pularr friends to let them know what had happened in the garden because one of the girls was their host sister. We found out the next day that the host sister was telling her family that we were the ones throwing rocks at them and that they didn't do anything. Hmmm...Pulaar kids.

Back in the grove of things......

Well sort of. So, I am back at my homestay. I really missed my family here after a long week away from them. The bus had dropped me off right at my door step and my family was right there to greet me. My language has been getting better I tell ,y family, domanding domanding (little by little in Mandinka). I know it will surely come and when it does I will be dreaming in Mandinka.
Our garden is looking good, except for some bug infestation on a few plants but other than that everything seems to be staying green. Next week we are going to be having our counterpart workshop for a good two days. Each person gets to make a small introdution on sessions. My counterpart acctually called me the other day and I really didn't know what to say to him. I have a feeling that he misses his Peace Corps Volunteer. The family that I will be staying with for the next two years is a fairly medium sized family. Sadly the mother had died while giving birth. So the only women in the house is the grandmother and the daughter of about 13 years old. There is much to do in the village when I get there and I cannot wait to call it home. Yikes time is up right now for the internet! until next time.

VV Site Pics!

Volunteer Visits!

Just came back from seeing my site. It was a great experience getting to see where I will be living for the next two years. It is a really small village with about 140 people living there. It is surrounded by fields of corn, cotten, upland rice, peanuts and sorghum. My site is close enough to the city were I can just bike in if I want and yet still be out in the bush. It is a pretty sweet location. There is a hut that I will be staying at with a small backyard. I can't wait to get my hands dirty when I start my garden and demo garden in the front. There are a few projects that I would love to do there like starting a rain water catchment system for the village because they only have one really deep well. It takes a lot of work for them to pull water, so hopefully if we get some more sources of water they will be willing to start more home gardens. The Peace Corps Volunteer that is there now was very helpful. She was able to introduce me to people and show me around. I have big shoes to fill considering the amount of work that she had done with her village and her family it seems like it is going to be hard to full fill her achievements.
We went on a bike trip to a master gardener site near my village. It was a wonderful bike ride with green everywhere and some pretty amazing termite mounds. The village that the master gardener site is pretty patron with cement beds outside a clay oven and there very own well in the compound. The huts were covered in squash vines and it was surrounded by fields and fruit orchards. The only down side is that the temperature is really hot. Tambacunda is known for how hot it is. Let me tell you I was sweating in places I normally don't sweat at until I got here, lol. All in all it has been a pretty good week. We are going to be going back to our home stay tomorrow and I can't wait to see them!