kayira be?

our group's arrival in banjul this week now seems like it was a month ago. this is only our 3rd day here but all the others agree that time has passed slowly despite our busy schedule. we were greeted on thursday evening with an all-american dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, though it was not as good as my mom's. still though, we were comforted by the food yet fully expecting and possibly desiring some local far straight away.

but enough about the food. we are staying in a pastoral institute (and by pastoral i mean in the heavenly sense, not the livestock one) that is in banjul just a few blocks from the PC/TG office. basically, we have five-star accomodations for another week. we have electricity, ceiling fans, running water, and shower and sink basins in our rooms. altogether so far things have been relatively uneventful, but still fascinating. the weather is hot and humid, but no worse than a kentucky summer by any means. the wet season is coming to a close and harvest season has begun.

the past two days have been busy with scheduled classes and other orientation-type events from morning on into the night. it has been a nice balance of necessary policy accompanied with cultural information sessions. we have had some free time in the evenings to play frisbee, soccer, cards, to read, and just about anything else, including now, revising our notes and studying our language.

the one thing that has happend so far, which everyone is excited about is that we have received our language assignments. myself along with most of the other training group will be learning Mandinka, which is spoken by over 80% of the population. less than half of the group of 25 is split between Wolof and Pulaar. this means the powers-at-be (the PC staff) have at least some idea of our future assignments, which we will find out much later in our 10-week training. there are some really exciting projects going on in AgFo ranging from cashew production, alternative crop gardening, some experimental soy trial, honey production, environmental education, and various types of animal propagation. the expectations for language acquisition are high (at least, according to my naive understanding of matters at this time) as we must reach an intermediate proficiency by november 27th. i think this is everyone's greatest apprehension, but also the most exciting.

also, ramaadan just began. since most of the country practices Islam, most people are fasting from food AND water through the day, even our Language and Cultural Helpers (LCHs) who teach us. our quarters are located very near a mosque, so all the trainees are awoken at 5 am to the sounds from the loudspeaker broadcasting the call to prayer. these sounds have been the most definitive reminder that i am in a different culture.

generally though, i am not as surprised as i expected to be about being in the culture. this is not to say i feel as if i belong. i'm just not uncomfortable being here. honestly, i felt more akward during our three hour layover in Brussels than upon arrival in Banjul. (BTW - we could not find a place in the Brussels airport that sold beer. most of us were excited to sample a brew, but left disappointed.) my experience in Ecuador is serving me well. there are certain ubiquitous traits, i guess, amongst developing countries; with the street atmosphere being what i am thinking of - what seems like, but is not inadvertent swerving and random honking, random items sold together by a street vendor... a controlled chaos, as reflected upon my very American eyes.

the general lay-out for the next weeks is this. we leave next weekend to go to our training villages. while there we are in small groups of 3-4 trainees and 1 LCH. there we will focus mainly on language and cultural integration behavior. while there we have classes in the morning followed by walkabout-type conversation practice in the village, generally. it is well organized and i think will be quite conducive to learning the language due to the intensive, immersive nature. following our week in the training village we will go to a river camp that is basically a tourist lodge where we will receive technical training. then we will return to our training village and our host family to do another week of language and culture training. we will rotate like this through the end of november when we will all hopefully be receiving our site assignments.

well, that is about it. the line for the computer is starting to stack up, so i'm going to cut this off. i don't know when i'll be on here next. i might try to get on here again before we head up country to our training village next weekend.

fo saama!