Today, we off roaded into the bush and went to our training village! Mine is called Jalanbereh (Ja-lan-ber-eh). My village is the furthest away from the bigger cities so I wouldn't be seeing the internet anytime soon. Anyways, we dropped of my site mates Alicia and Elizabeth first, and I was last. Honestly, I was surprised when I entered my compound. Again, I felt like a celebrity everywhere just because I knew how to say some greetings and they all seemed very happy with me and the kids were screaming and AH, excitement. It didn't take long for people to say "Jess Jess Jess" again. I haven't seen many other villages to compare but I Think my compound is pretty rich. I was in a cement 1 room house thing corrugated tin on my roof for a ceiling and my own backyard fenced in my some thick bamboo sticks thatched together. In my house there was a twin sized bed and mattress, mosquito net, table, water filter, chair, a chest, and my bike. In my backyard was a small pathway to the bathroom area which is my pit latrine (hole in the ground with a cover on it), a small stoop and open air. My compound is pretty rich seeing that they had a lot of chickens, goats, and horses running around (Gambians put their money into animals... kind of like investments). At night, they turn on the lamps and there's about 4 or so. I see cellphones and there's at least 30-ish people who live here - the majority of which are, of course, kids.
I set everything up and tried to keep things in tact due to my extraordinary fear of bugs getting in my stuff. Yes I know I'm in Africa, but I will try my hardest to stay bug-free in my stuff. Most of everything is in my luggage still and I ONLY take out what I need. On the plus side I'm clutter free and I keep the place pretty clean. I also sleep under not only the mosquito net Peace Corps gave me, but my own pop up mosquito net because may I reiterate that I DO NOT PLAY with African bugs/mosquitos/spiders/rats/etc. I went outside when it was dark and taught the kids twinkle twinkle little star and other random sayings, played some games, greeted people, and that was a night.
The next morning, I went to class and ate with my hands for the first time for lunch. We learned basic greetings (which are very important in the Gambia, they think you're rude if you don't take the time to greet others because this is a way of showing them that they exist to you in the world). That same night I went outside to spend time with my family again and got FANNED BY THE LITTLE KIDS ah I felt amazing and played pictionary with them. I drew random animals, places on the body, etc. Surprisingly, they understood my pictures. I also fetched water on my head from the pump (which is 5 minutes away not even from my compound) for the first time with my 12 year old sister Numa, and I am WORKING those neck muscles, sweet damn. At night I hear mice on my ceiling so I just... tell myself they're crickets or something and fall asleep.
The next morning after that I did laundry. My compound even has an open well in the back in addition to being so close to the water tap! It's excellent. They also showed me their DIGITAL CAMERA (what???? It was actually a really good Canon camera, too). I have a neighbor who's in the compound next to me and he blasts reggae in the afternoon but it was pretty special today since I hear Kevin Lyttle, random reggae, then Justin Beiber's "Baby" which makes me thoroughly confused.
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