Just call me crazy cat lady. It was bound to happen. It's cool...

Ok, so I am about to devote an entire blog post to my cat AND post a crap load of pictures. BUT. Don’t worry too much. I am not about to devote my entire blog to my cat… even though it would probably be more interesting :D Apparently this is what Africa does to people.

Sooooo, anyway… SOMEBODY convinced me that it would be super cute and fun to have a kitten around the house. I, being the trusting person that I am, remembered how much I LOVE cats and was talked into agreeing to this crazy idea. Too bad for me that over the past week or so I have come to realize that, in addition to turning into my Mother, I am apparently also turning into my Father. I am definitely not a pet person any longer. At least not while in Africa.

I tried to be nice and keep the cat inside and make him a cute bed and feed him good food and play with him, but he refused to cooperate and instead peed and pooped all over. Not adorable. He also seems to think it’s a fun idea to chew on power cords, so I could not even leave him alone any time there was power. Definitely annoying. Long story short the kitten now resides outside in the extra storage room. He is not allowed inside. Problem solved. I assume once he is big enough to get over my back walls he is free to do as he wants.

Oh yea, its name is Pixel. I thought this was nerdy and cute and smart. It no longer seems appropriate. I think that I will be happy when it gets older and becomes fat and slow. That is how all pets should be.

Also, don’t feel so bad for him being outside. He has his own room and everything. Kane even felt bad for him and made a cute bed for him out of a box and old t-shirt and what did the cat do? He pooped all over it. No more bed for him. AND. Even though it annoys the crap out of me most of the time Pixel still loves me. He follows me everywhere when I am in the back and I constantly trip over him. Also, whenever I sit down it climbs all over me. I am starting to think it might be broken because it never stops purring. I’m not sure why it likes me so much. Another indication that it is broken.

Here are some pictures that will make you think I am a jerk for being annoyed by an animal that is so damn adorable.

OF COURSE alcohol was involved in taking all these cat pictures. Who do you think I am? THANKS AMERICA for everything in this picture other than the metal cups :D

First... proof that he does have a house outside AND it is a nice one.

Second...Pixel!

And again... Pixel!

He likes to lay in the drain ditch on the ground. Very clean.

Then he likes to go into my kitchen and jump all over everything. Even cleaner!

Hes climbing into my lap. Typical man...

Now hes confused about what to do...

So he decides to roll around and bite his own tail

The fun goes on...

And on...

Now hes done...



It likes to climb on people and hang out around their neck and face.

Eck! What is this thing? It smells...

What the hell am I supposed to do with it?

Can I eat it? Probably not..

Ok, so I don't totally hate it...

*Fill in the blank* mu problemo ti.

*Fill in the blank* is a problem --> sadly this is a very common phrase around these parts. Most often I hear the following:

Change is a problem (i.e. coins and small bills)
Current is a problem (i.e. electricity)
Travel is a problem
Going to school is a problem

And the one that I have become most familiar with as of late is “Petty theft is a problem”.

I think I did a decent job of ranting to my family about this a few days ago so I will insert my email here (I added a few edits for your benefit):

****Start of email to family****
Hey Mom and Dad and Alex,

I think my phone got lifted from my house last night. I leave my front door open a lot (typical here otherwise people think you are kind of mean) and I had been reading in my room using the light on my phone for additional brightness (my bulbs suck). I left to go to the kitchen and shower and now I cannot find the phone anywhere! I literally spent over two hours looking. Also, when I call it says it is off. So sad. Ill let you know when I get a new one and if my number changes. I think I will have it on Wed. Just wanted to let you know.

Also, I forgot to tell you but my iPod got lifted like a month ago, but I don't know where. Also sad. It just went missing from my backpack.

Finally, I caught a guy trying to pick pocket my purse at the Bitik about a week ago. He was standing super close and pushing up on me like he was trying to reach over me to pay the guy behind the counter. I had to push him away and shove around him and I saw his hand trying to get into my purse. Good thing I had it zipped closed. I was too surprised to say anything at the time. I just gave him an evil look and went to make sure he didn't actually get anything. He took off pretty fast. The guy behind the counter just rolled his eyes and laughed. Not at me but at the stupid pick pocket.

I am getting sick of my stuff being taken. also thinks their host family is taking money from them when they are away. They keep all of their money hidden in the house and started dividing it into weekly piles because they kept coming up short at the end of the month so they wanted to start a weekly budget. They recounted the other day and a few piles were short. They thought it was their own mistake and re divided the piles. When they came back from this past weekend the piles were short again! They are scheming to see if it is the host family or not, but either way it is sad.

Just needed to rant for a minute.
****End of email to family****

The email goes on for another second, but nothing big. It was confirmed that my phone was taken when I tried to call it the next day and somebody answered! but did not say anything. Jerks. I am so ready for the next person that I catch trying to take something from me. I am going to get pissed and am looking forward to making a scene.

It is however very frustrating that petty theft/burglary IS such an issue here at times. I do not want to give the impression that every person or every place in The Gambia is like this, because they definitely are not… which is part of what is so frustrating. So many people go completely out of their way to help you when they can, but you still always have to be cautious. Most all Gambians also find this to be extremely frustrating.

On the whole I have found The Gambia to be a very safe place. I don’t walk around at night by myself, but that is just common sense in any poor city where there is little to no electricity. There are very few incidents of assault or anything worse. Most of the problems are definitely petty theft and burglary.

At this point there is nothing I can do about my iPod. Regarding my phone, because it was taken from inside my home, I have to write up an incident report and file to get reimbursed for the new phone I had to purchase (though I am happy to say I get to keep my same number). Apparently my neighbors to the left have had phones taken from inside their home twice already! From now on I will continue to leave my front door open when I am home, but I will always put the pad lock on the gate to my porch so everyone can see I am there, but nobody will be able to come inside unless I let them. I will also no longer but valuable items by my living room window because I have found my screen moved a few times and know people that have had computers (and other items) taken through their window (even with the metal work that I have).

We are also pretty sure that the other volunteers host family is taking money from them when they are gone. It is still unclear what is going to happen about this. It is pretty shocking and something like this is rarely an issue. My host family is great so far, and most other volunteers feel the same way. I don’t want this post to give the wrong impression, but sadly, as stated above, petty theft is a problem. I will let you know what happens.

Crazy toobobs get even crazier for Halloween

So, Gambians already think we (all people whose skin color is white, also known as toobobs) are crazy. Want to know how to really freak them out? Dress up in costume and parade around town in the middle of the day… One comment we received literally was “Wow, you guys look really freaky today”. Lol. All said with the amazing Gambenglish accent. Little did he know how spot on he actually was. Oh yea. I forgot to mention that they do not celebrate Halloween in The Gambia so most people really have no clue what is going on.

Recap of my Halloween weekend:

One month prior: Decide to go to Janjanburgh for Halloween! PC volunteers are having a few parties at different locations in the country, but I decide with a few other people that it will be fun to travel for a bit.

Two weeks prior: Still not sure what my costume should be. Not really a Halloween person. Ask Kristen. She knows alllllll about this.

One week prior: Give in and deicide to be Zombie Apparente. Had joked about this previously, but have not come up with anything better so joke becomes reality. PS The “apparante” is the apprentice that assists the driver in a gele gele (a public bus like system, but actually dented and run down vans are used instead of buses, and no schedule actually exists, so more like a cross between a taxi and bus system). The apparante collects the trip fair (aka pass), tells the driver when to stop and let people out, advertises the final destination of the gele by yelling and making weird hand gestures out the window, tells the driver when to pick people up, loads baggage as needed and makes change.

Oh, and my story is that I was on top of the gele when we got hit by another gele. I fell off and was killed. I have now come back from the dead to collect the rest of my pass.

Five days prior: Decide to wear the amazilgly cool visor provided by my lovely younger sister (both of which I love), an old shirt left behind by another volunteer and some board shorts that I found in the PC free pile as my costume. The key word to all of this is cheap! My make-up will consist of baby powder, actual legit make-up that I have from The Americas and some red paint provided by Caroline. Materials are sparse.

Two days prior (Thursday): Last minute house cleaning and departure preparation to try and minimize bug infestations. Pack. Toss the kitten in the back with a ton of food and water. Head to Fajara and stay the night because we have to get up really really early to catch the first ferry across the river.

One day prior (Friday): Wake up at 5:30AM. Have a very large cup of coffee. Catch a gele found in the middle of nowhere (so lucky for us) to Banjul at 6:15AM for the 7AM ferry. Me, Kane, Caroline, Kris, Whitney and Katie all travel together across the river to Barra. Caoline and I split from the rest because we are heading to Jimbala to stay the night with Lily. We found a truck while on the ferry that agreed to drive us to Kauur direct for D100 and we end up with a pretty quick, and excellent, ride. Here are some pics from part 1:

Views from the Ferry leaving Banjul to Barra:


Crazy Peace Corps Kids heading across the river really early in the morning:



Once we arrive to Kauur (around 1015AM) we meet with Lily and grab a few gifts from the shop for her family (cookies, juice mix, sugar and Attaya). Sadly there are not very many cars that go to Jimbala because the road is so bad so we plan to take a donkey cart. However, after 2.5 – 3 hours of waiting we realize that a donkey cart is not going to happen today. Who knows why this is. We have to walk. It is a killer walk. Along the way several Gambians try to charge us extremely huge sums of money to take us the rest of the way, but we are poor PC volunteers and must refuse. Here are some pics from part two:

The start of our long walk through the African Desert (Caroline and Lily):

Woman working in the rice fields:

More rice fields:

Random donkey cart (not one that tried to rip us off):

Groundnut field after harvesting (if you have ever wondered where peanuts came from!):

One of the four villages we passed before Lilys:


Though the landscape was beautiful, after TWO HOURS of walking in the African sun with all of our baggage for the weekend we are quite happy to reach Lily’s village to say the least. We were all sad to have walked so far, but I know Lily felt worse than she needed to. We all immediately washed our hands and feet, drank a Nalgene full of lemonade each and ate lunch provided by Lily’s family. After that we got to spend some time with her family in the village. It is pretty amazing to see how other volunteers live and the differences and similarities in our services. We ended the evening by eating dinner (also provided by Lilys family), Oreos and M&Ms and watching Anastasia. Definite win! Pics from part three:

Caroline cuts Lilys hair in her "backyard" (Good thing she was not too upset about all the walking!):


Day of Halloween Party! (Saturday): We are not sure if today is setsatol (spelling?) or not. This is supposed to be the last Saturday of every month, but it often changes, and is never announced officially until the day before, or the day of. Setsatol is a day where the whole country is supposed to spend from 9AM – 1PM cleaning their house, work and yard. It is actually illegal to operate a business or drive a car or really do anything other than clean during this time (unless you have a special permit). It is also pretty strictly enforced. You can imagine how difficult (aka physically impossible) this makes travel. You would think that people would need to know well in advance if they were going to be unable to travel for the majority of the day, but apparently not because nobody ever knows what is going on, or at least they are never told.

Anyway, we wake up at Lily’s around 630AM because we need to get to Janjanburgh before 9AM if it is setsatol. We have arranged a gele to stop and pick us up from her hut around 7AM to take us to Kauur (no way in hell we are walking again). The cost for the gele from Jimbala to Kauur is 10 dalasi (for reference the donkey carts were trying to charge us 400D – 500D! on the way to Lilys the day before). In Kauur we have arranged for another gele to wait for us and take us the rest of the way to Janjanburgh (75D). We arrive in Janjanburgh around 9 or 10AM. It was not setsatol by the way. All that early travel for nothing! We spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out with people as they arrive, getting rooms and napping.

Party starts around 5PM. Everybody is getting into their costume. Drinking begins. Overall have a great time and everybody has a fabulous costume. We have rented out a bar for the evening and we have all relocated outdoors. Sadly dinner is not served until around 930 after everyone has been drinking for a bit and is pretty much starving. We devour the Chicken Yassa and Benechin in about 15 minutes, but sadly this makes me quite tired. Kane and I decide to head back to the rooms around 11 to drop a few things off and we maybe accidentally fall asleep in full costume until midnight. I know, lame. Anyway, when I wake up I just decide to wash my makeup off and head back to sleep. No crazy Halloween stories this year. Tomorrow is another early morning full of travel. See pics:
Three soccer players for The Jawayata Bakke team:

Nathan is proud of the make-up he and Eve did for me:

Kane as a Mexican Gangsta:

Nathan:

Bakari (our host for the evening) dancing as a Gambian woman. Amazing:

Watermelon. The Gambian Pumpkin:

Im attacking Kane. He did not pay pass:

Now I am attacking the Vodka Caroline and I are sharing:

Everyone getting tired after eating a ton. If there is one thing that Peace Corps volunteers in Africa know how to do its eat as much as you can when you have the chance. The PC binge. Not a healthy habit:


One day after (Time to head home): Nobody is hung over. The food knocked us all out. We have arranged for a setplas (small car that sits about seven and only goes from one destination to another direct) to pick seven of us up from Janjanburgh direct and take us all the way to the Barra ferry. Four hours later we are in Barra buying "ferry cakes" and heading to Banjul on the ferry. Long story short I make it back to Brikama around five. The house is still standing. The kitten is still alive. Only one ant infestation in my kitchen and I BOP the shit out of them (BOP is the poison that I use which smells like flowers. Such a terrible idea. You should never make a spray poison that smells good. That is just asking for trouble). I am very very tired. Overall a very long weekend full of travel, but a lot of fun :) A few last minute pics:

We stop for a minute and I take a picture of this huge tree on the way home. If you look closely you can see the people sitting under it and hanging out:

Cows are getting in our way. Typical stupid cows:

Leaving Barra and headed back to Banjul:

Bored on the slow slow ferry (Kane):

Arrival back to Banjul:


One week after: Stupid baby powder and acrylic paint all over my face has caused me to have skin problems. Shocking… but also not cool.

PS Carolines blog also has some really good pics http://carolineingambia.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-in-janjanbury.html