Grace Of God Go I

This Thanksgiving I find myself humbled again because of the things that I am thankful for.

This year I am especially thankful for being able to get away from the trials and tribulations of Peace Corps life, if it is even only for just a few days or a half hour at the cyber cafe.

My wife as always holds the key to my heart and sanity (she loses the latter key all the time) and I am thankful for her.

I am thankful for my family at home who keep me going throughout this adventure that I set on a year and a half ago.

I am thankful for the friends that I have who keep America held together with hard work and determination.

I am thankful America, it is a place that everyone I meet wants to go to, even when I left it behind.

I am thankful for the work that I do and the people who begrudgingly support me in my attempts to develop Essau Senior Secondary School.

Next Year

This is going to be hard to believe but we have a LOT of vacation days to burn. We are in Bamako, Mali right now. Bamako is strangely familiar and very foreign at the same time. It's a sub-Saharan Francophone nation and we have never been here so we aren't quite sure how everything works. The country is beautiful and the people are friendly. With the exception of a bit of misunderstandings we are coasting along quite nicely. The museum here was really nice and we were able to see the opening of a new art exhibit. The artists were all there and they were getting interviewed and it was actually really neat. If all goes well we are going to spend a bit under 2 weeks here and will be home in time for Turkey day.

Whatever Gets You Through The Night

This is going to be my last opportunity to use the internet for a bit (maybe), so you get an update on life stuff.

Family

We have a large family now, there is a grandmother, a couple older brothers, a younger brother (post high school), a sister in law, twin our age sisters, and a younger sister(starting high school). There are two young boys (one of the twins kids), a school age girl, and twin baby girls (the other twins kids), and a quiet boy (sister in law's kid).

Our family is really nice, super helpful, and fun to be with. There is a 6:30 till noon screaming habit the babies have, but malnutrition and Africa temperatures will do that.

I am sad to report that Gambians in our part of the country don't sleep outside, so no more under the stars slumber for us. It is something that I will miss until we are able to have the means to do it in Merica.

Work

High School: Lot's to do there, I have been struggling to get the internet connection back up for a while, it should be working when I return. There are an endless stream of computer things that everyone thinks I know because I am white (white people are born knowing such things). The PTA is back in action after 5 years, and together we are gonna put up a fence for the agro science classes. Going to the National Library to see if I can train get a few people trained, so they can train all the rest.

Nursery School: Creating codes of conduct, syllabus, helping train the absolutely untrained teachers, and helping them write grants for school improvements. Maybe some live fencing.

Primary school: Computer lab, it's in shambles right now and needs to be put in working order. Kristy is trying to find funding to ship some books from our old library in Perrysburg to the school, but the bill is like $300 so we are going to have to be creative, (like causally mentioning it on a blog, send me an email if you know someone to help) there are some traditional avenues that we are going to look into.

Village Development Committee: Haven't heard from them, yet... we are expecting to find some work with them too.

Don't Call Me White

Integrating to our new site has proved to be far more difficult than in Kaedi. Our former home was a city that was home to Peace Corps training for 8 years and therefore they were quite used to the pale people walking around and for the most part ignored us.

Essau is a different story. The Gambia is subject to a great deal of tourists, these tourists have created a culture where the "toubabs" are givers of things; pens, candy, or money. They do it in rude ways, throwing the items into busy roads to avoid the scrambling children. In turn the people here are rude to the people of European decent. No matter how many times I am told that it is not an insult, a quick judgment on who I am based only on the amount of pigment in my skin is an insult. It's racist, and I hate it. This term and mentality was applied in RIM but was faded when they realized I was not giving anything. We doubt it will happen any time soon, all white people look the same.

The idea that this is offensive is an American moral standard, we do not appreciate beggars, and anything that singles another person out only because of ethnicity is wrong to us. I am judged only on my pallor and not on the strength of my mind or the convictions in my soul.

Many people do not like this behavior and it is I possess the problem because I refuse to let this part of me be compromised.

The people I work with are kind and walk around the issue of being white as to not offend me. We are slowly initiating my projects at my schools, and I hope to actually make an impact.

I have, as promised, posted pictures the album is titled First Month, The Gambia. I know it's not witty, it's late and I'm tired. I hope you enjoy them.

p.s. Don't worry about my comfort level, this is normal here. I think that the whole toubab thing is a personal battle I have to foster ethnic tolerance here in The Gambia.

Don't Push

I would like to start this entry with warm birthday wishes to my loving wife, who deserves more then I am able to give her on this glorious day.

We made it to our new home! It is a nice little apartment looking place in a compound with the Baldeh family so we have changed our last names to match.

Work is coming along slowly, I have rather high hopes for this year but I am going to try to not be too optimistic, everyday I reminded that although I not in RIM I am still in West Africa, and if the teachers were as outgoing and proactive as they sounded they wouldn't have requested a Peace Corps presence. I will undoubtedly be working on organizing a library, training a librarian, developing the computer lab, teaching basic computer classes, and providing some teacher workshops. There are more things that I could do, but these are things that were repeated over and over during my assessment activities at the school.

Kristy has some interesting potential projects also, the library and computer lab were requested at her school, she will be able to work with a motivated environmental club, there is a man who needs help writing grants to further his development, and there is a possibility to work with the World Wildlife Fund (this last one she is the most hopeful for).

So far the Gambian people have been extremely kind to us, they work with our sub par Mandinka skills, and seem genuinely glad to have us around. It really feels like it's going to be a good year.

p.s. I will be bringing my camera to site now, we haven't been able to take pictures because we left early and it was in our locker over last week.

Steady, As She Goes

I recently plugged The Gambia into my blog, it's everywhere now and Mauritania is in the background but not forgotten. Go look, there is even a map of Essau on the bottom of the blog.

We are still waiting around at The Stodge, the transit house, whilst our new home is having it's pit latrine put into good working order. Our only news is that we have met a lot of the other volunteers and are working on adjusting to the climate and our lush green surroundings.

I have neglected to take pictures here, with a strong tourist culture it is hard to differentiate ourselves from tourists if we do the same things as them. I think that this will be different in our village and home but for now in the touristy areas I will abstain, until my Mandinka skills are better.

We Did'nt Start The Fire

Wow what a whirlwind experience! We left Mauritania and we are in The Gambia (notice the, "The", that's right not just any Gambia but The Gambia).

Kristy and I are going to have very similar jobs but with new focuses, the descriptions and opportunities are still not concrete but we hope that they are fantastic as they sound. No details until I can work them out.

We are going to live in a villi age called Essau and we are currently learning to speak Mandinka, not a skill that will get us much in the world but more languages means a higher awesome factor. We will probably be able to speak English for work purposes so that is a lot of stress off of our daily routine and the French (we scored Advanced-Low on our final test- WOW)has already come in handy and will again in the future.

This country is gorgeous, if you were holding out to visit us you hit the jackpot, this place is gorgeous 9 months of the year, it rains a lot the other 3.

The interweb is not as fast or reliable here so that means this as a contact medium is not going to be as frequent, sorry.

We have new phone numbers mine is 011.220.700.2098

We have a new address it is:

Brian Sisco and Kristy Smily PCV's
PO Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa
Par Avion / Air Mail

That is all I have for now, more as we know it.