Advertisement
Published: March 3rd 2009
so remember how last entry i talked about how Njareh was going to take me out on saturday night? well she showed up at my house at 9:45 in a dress and heels and told me we were going dancing. first we went to a little restaurant so i could get some food (pizza) and we talked about life and such. she told me that we were meeting the boys after. the boys were her 27-year-old fiancee (she's 25) Adama and her 23-year-old brother Cheron. we met up with adama and got a taxi to Senegambia. tourist town!! there were so many white people that i felt like a local. we got into a reggae club for free because we got there early. then Cheron arrived and i went down to meet him. we spent the whole night dancing and talking and he asked me out again. Njareh is thrilled about this. she and i are going shopping in Banjul on saturday (i live on the outskirts of Banjul) and on sunday we're having a picnic on the beach with Cheron (Adama might be there too). Sunday i woke up at noon and had the cold that was going around Maacama. i thought the sore throat from the day before was because of the dust, but apparently not. i spent the whole day sleeping and reading. i finished a confederacy of dunces and loved it. mr gal would too. he's probably read it.
i didn't sleep at all sunday night because i was sick, jetlagged, and had slept for the whole day sunday. i was really excited to go to school on monday, but then i woke up (or just lay in bed until 6:45) and realized that i was too sick to go and i didn't want to infect the kids. so i watched tv all day. they have high school musical and 90210 in africa. who knew? it's everywhere! monday night little fatou (Auntie Bin's niece) came over and she, Jareh, and i had a real gambian dinner. we sat around on the kitchen floor and ate with our hands from one plate. it was vegetables, fried fish, and egg with mustard. wicked fun. little fatou is 11 by the way. i brought out my ipod and the girls were thrilled. fatou does know the jonas brothers so i guess they found their way to africa too (i bet zoe's happy). then we watched cnn and saw all the snow on the east coast including atlanta and apparently snow in san francisco and buenos aires. i guess the world is ending.
today i woke up at 6:40 and felt way better. i showered with my bucket. oh right...didn't tell you about that. their shower doesn't work, so we fill up a bucket with water. then we boil some water in a tea kettle on the stove. we pour that water into the cold water and shower by taking a pail and pouring water on ourselves. it's actually pretty sweet. and warm. and conserves water. hoo rah. then i got ready and jareh and i got a cab to school. i talked with auntie gone (auntie bin's sister who runs ABC) and she gave me my hours. on mondays and wednesdays from 8-2 i'll work at abc 1 (nursery school through grade 2). on monday afternoons (4-7) i'm with first grade, and wednesday afternoons i'm with second grade. for the other three days i get to decide between abc 1 and abc 2 (abc 2 is grades 3-7). so today i worked with grade 1. they were so cute. the teacher is old and senile and has no patience, though. she tugged on the kids' ears, smacked them on their heads, and even used the whip on one. i told her that i realized that the whip is part of her culture, but she should never expect me to use it. she understood. the kids learned about water, borrowing in math, the letter k, and the parts of the body. they were all so excited to see me and were eager to show me their work. i was in charge of correcting, so when they came up to me with their little booklets i helped them through the problems that they had gotten wrong.
there were a few kids who were really slow and got distracted a lot. auntie ola (the teacher) got really frustrated with them and just yelled "you're always the last. you hold the entire class up!" so after school ended i told her that tomorrow i will take three of the slowest kids into a different room with no distractions and teach them the curriculum. she was thrilled. so that's what i'm doing tomorrow. it's a little classroom with one teacher desk, a chalkboard, and white walls. i'm so pumped.
school got out at 2 and we hung out until 4. then i went upstairs to the high school class. the ABC after school program has an eighth grade and high school program. the first half from 4-5:30 we just hung out with the french teacher from the ivory coast. the second half was math.
kim, you will be so pumped to read about this. my sister jareh works at the school in the mornings and is a student in the high school program after school. the teacher, mr. gaye was showing me what he was teaching them in math. it's that 'set this equation to x' stuff. i looked at it and went "oh, i know this stuff!"
so he told me to teach the class. and i did. it was wicked fun. they actually listened to me and did the work and then we went over the problems they didn't understand. on the way home from school jareh (who has a lot of trouble with math) told me that she actually understood everything i taught today and it was way more interesting than when mr gaye teaches it.
so that's the whole record of the past few days.
oh. the president of guinea-bissau got assassinated. i didn't realize how close it was to here until the news. but we're ok. this country's wicked peaceful.
also. the word for white people here is "tubab." it's wolof and i hear it all the time now. people are always calling me "tubab! hey tubab!" good thing i don't stick out here.
until next time, i love you and miss you all
good luck with all that snow!!
love, kate
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0448s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Di
non-member comment
Wicked peaceful
I loved that, "wicked peaceful." Just read it to my husband. I hope you loved Confederacy of Dunces like I did when I read it years ago recommended by guess who? Your Mom.