I woke up at 5 AM today after sleeping at 12 from making something for my family. Not done yet, gr. I'm making a kusudama ball - Google it, it's pretty - for them to remember me by when I leave. It's a project that I'll be doing for the next couple of nights in order to complete on time. Ida told me my family always talks to her about how they wish I could permanently stay, Kulari's too far, they'll miss me terribly... and that's awfully nice of them. I'll miss them a lot too, for sure. Anywho, I got ready and everything and was the first person out of my compound at 5:55 AM - the constellation was still sprawled across the sky and the treacherous crossing of the sand dunes got tremendously harder. The PC car came right on time and we drove to a meeting point where I ate a pound of boiled peanuts, no lie, and forced some of it on others so I wouldn't feel so guilty with a graveyard of peanut shells around me. Someone also had Oreos and I stuffed one in my mouth and never felt so happy to have one for breakfast. Elizabeth, being the saint that she is, gave me Tina Fey's new book "Bossy Pants" and I look forward to reading that in two weeks when everything's settled down. We crossed the ferry and THANK GOD I bought something along with me to do because we waited a lot. We drove 1.5 more hours to reach our destination, Jawara, where my emotional buddy's (Kelsey) site is. Along thew ay, we stopped to get breakfast in a populated town called Farafenneh - one of my colleague's sites. There is a bunch of Senegalese traders who sell/stop by there which makes Farafenneh a popular shopping destination in The Gambia. We ran into said colleague's community representative and he even remembered that I spoke Serehule! We also stopped to get the greatest deal ever - a huge watermelon for 25 D and I bought one for my family.
We finally arrived around 11:30 AM. There, we met up with Kelsey and she introduced us to her care group - a mixed gender (rare) group of respected community members who are trained in health techniques with Kelsey and her counterpart (a Gambian who she lives with who actually leads the class while Kelsey sits in the back to contribute) and venture out into the community to teach the village. How incredible and what a gold standard of a care group that was. They had teaching aids that Kelsey helped make (rice bag diagrams), skits, and everything. It was so inspiring. After, we toured around the village to see their pit latrine project which Kelsey helped secure one for every compound that did not have one. After lunch, we were off and finally made it back to Jenoi. We met the group who was scouting our marathon route (very weird and extreme method of bonding for PC The Gambia group) - one of them was Josh - my Serehule site mate from across the river! I spoke to him in Serehule for half a second before getting summoned to head back to training village.
I arrived, fetched water, gave my family the watermelon, took a shower, watered the plants, and went over to Alicia's with Elizabeth to check up on her. We chatted for a while before leaving and I came back to eat the last .5 pounds of boiled peanuts for dinner because dinner was not so delicious tonight. I did laundry, brushed up, and went back out to be with the family for a little bit. I was able to communicate with them that I Couldn't teach tonight because I was so tired and got up very early. I also made them laugh which always feels good because their life is so hard! Even the littlest thing is a good contribution. One of the ladies were in my house when she helped me bring my water in and noticed my Hello Kitty stuffed animal and I had to explain that. They called it my baby and when they asked for her first name, I said "Hello" and "Kitty" for her last name, lol. I seriously have a shit ton to do and it's like final exams all over again. It's the beginning of December and I'm making a Christmas gift for my group and the entire PC staff, making an origami thing for my family, making another origami thing for my friend Rohi, and making ANOTHER origami thing for my teacher, Ida. I have to study for the final exam which I am aiming to score the advanced level. Peace Corps homework is still on the horizon, I'm still in need to prep for a short health talk in Serehule, and I'm prepping for math lessons all the time. AH. Time to get my game face on.
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