Journal Entry 11/2

Today was extremely productive. I woke up and did the dailies (funny that I did dailies when I played World of Warcraft which involved collecting gizzard organs, different colored, gems, and just random shit but now my dailies entail... taking pre-natal vitamins, fetching well water and watering my garden, sweeping, etc.), then I started helping my other two site mate ladies build their garden. It was a PERFECT day to do so because it just rained so the temperature was warm but not hot, and most importantly not sunny. One of my site mates were almost finished with her garden so that was easy to complete while the other hasn't started. All in all, everything was easy to complete between/among the three of us... it's all thanks to the merciful weather, though. I did a lot of self care today - primping, washing, and exercising as I promised myself and loved every second of it. I just have to somehow figure out a way to pluck my eyebrows now without a mirror. Unfortunately I lost a pair of cute panties in the latrine in the morning :( I WILL NEVER WEAR ANYTHING ANY TIME I GO EVER AGAIN. This I vow. They were actually relatively cute too :(

Anyways I went on a bike ride with one of my site mates (Alicia) and we passed a health clinic. It's the only one servicing at least 3-4 villages in the vicinity... which is a lot of people. Alicia and I walked in briefly to talk to the people who were there who knew our names and were very nice to us. We explored the grounds after. As soon as you walk through the threshold of the gates, there are two buildings in front of you both white... and dabbed with black dust, cobwebs, and the like. On the right was the building for bedstays but that looked locked up, abandoned, and unused. On the right was the main health clinic building...staffed by a total of one man - a nurse - who was Mandinka but spoke great English. He is government employed. Next to the main health clinic parked a pretty sturdy/new looking ambulance which, from a far, looks really nice but when you walk closer... you realize ALL the words on it are in Spanish and backwards. As in, you can only read the words if you were looking in a mirror. The male nurse who worked there was gracious enough to let us look around and explain the back story to the clinic. He told us that the establishment was given to the area from the Spanish government but they severely cut funds after seeing the clinic perform below their standards. The building was erected in 2004 but poor management drove the Spaniards to withdraw quickly. The little funds that they have now are given to the government which decides how much the clinic should get. The nurse said he was only there since 2009 with no other support. I looked around and felt like I was in a horror movie. The scariest horror movie - I can still envision how filthy and creepy it was. Alicia and I didn't even go at a late hour - it was still light out! But things inside were just so dirty and they had huge solar panels in the back that were definitely broken. It was unsanitary that not even animals should be in there. Silent Hill and Left 4 Dead could learn from what I saw. The instruments were all western-styled, the bathrooms were also western-styled, and the tools were all western. I specifically remember a cobweb encased wheel chair and walker for old people collecting dust in the back corner of the building. I can't believe foreign aid wasted time and money on the walker (or wheel chair) in this dirt path omnipresent country. I'm guessing everything was swooped in and delivered in 2004 when there wasn't even paved roads! Like I said, they had a western toilet as well and I'm sure it's broken (and where is the water for the plumbing anyways) so why even waste resources in the first place? Clearly they didn't do an assessment of The Gambia at ALL and just came in to decide to do things which is the opposite of sustainable. We thanked the nurse and went on our way.

We road past the Africell tower and back. We were heckled by some kids calling us toubabs and I wasn't having ANY of it especially this one kid so I sternly RA-faced him, yelled at him in Serehule and his dad yelled too until he succumbed to saying my Gambian name. Came home, finished some laundry and did math with the kids. The young ones sometimes test my patience because they want attention and grab at me but they don't know the deeper stuff yet much less the foundations of counting 1-10 in English. I might have pissed off one of the moms because I was ignoring her child until later when I transitioned my attention to them but she barely knows how to count, like I said! I told my 12 year old sister who I'm closest to to teach the younger kids 1-10. This one 16 year old can't really add or subtract and one of the younger moms can't either! I then distributed some homework problems to the older kids and focused on the young ones. Here, I'm using hand techniques for counting in addition to vocally teaching but it's a hard process... especially when kids old and young along with adults yell back and forth for communication. It's also super annoying when kids yell out answers that are clearly wrong and the kid that I'm questioning just repeat the shit they hear... WHICH IS WRONG instead of focusing on me while I coach them through to the solution/use the right methods. It also makes the whole ordeal hard when I don't know how to say the word minus, just the phrase "reduce some." I need to create a mentoring system where I have the older kids teach the younger kids how to say 1-10 over and over while I write new math problems for them to mull over or while I tutor the other older kids and rotate every 5-10 minutes. It's the only way because the young ones are just so loud and take away from the concentration of the older ones who need the challenge. I need to physically divide the younger from the older but it's pretty difficult when everyone just wants to be around... me.

My birthday's tomorrow though, so since I've done almost all my self care today, I can focus on studying!