Merry Christmas everyone! I'm back in the city for a brief time to celebrate Christmas with Peace Corps so I thought I'd better get a post written. Village life is fun but man it is nice to get away sometimes just to break up the monotony of it. I spent about two weeks in village without traveling anywhere, it didn't seem like that long but time is going by faster than I expected.
My day consists of me waking up at 7am every morning. I get up wash my face, open my door and go greet the family. They are usually up before me, especially the women who are normally pounding coos in the big wooden mortar and pestle. After that I will go into my backyard and check out my garden, see how my plants and everything is doing, make sure everything is how I left it and all that good stuff. I have tomatoes, carrots, banana, papaya, pigeon pea, cucumber, onion, egg plant and cabbage growing. Currently my cabbage and tomatoes are getting eaten by birds and other insects, I've take the necessary measures and I think They should be safe for now. I'll find out once I return to site tomorrow. But anyways then I water and work in the garden doing whatever work needs to be done.
Mid morning I'll take a little break to read and eat breakfast, this is around 9:30am. I get quite a bit of reading done in village, I always feel guilty because I don't study language a whole lot any more but I will be getting a tutor after x-mas so that will help a lot. At around 11am I go to the well and pump water. There is usually a line so it takes a while for me the get all the water I need. I water my garden in the morning and at night so I go through quite a bit of water.
During the afternoon I eat lunch, read, and drink attaya. Maybe I'll walk around the village and visit the different compounds. I still don't really know anyways name except a few people so that's something I'm trying to work on. Then when evening rolls around I'll water again, take a bucket bath and eat dinner. More reading, hanging out with my family and drinking attaya is done.
I've been visiting other volunteers, going to my fathers orchard and visiting the women's garden also, just not every day. That pretty much covers it.
Peace be with, have a Merry X-mas and Happy New Year.
5 comments:
Burt Reynolds sent me a text. He said to tell you "thanks."
HO! HO! HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS TYLER! Thanks for the Christmas greeting and update on your life in the Gambia---it is always interesting to hear what you are doing there. It sounds like you are turning into a farmer with your garden and all. Think you have a green thumb like your mom. We all went to Caryn and Steve's for Christmas--all 50 of us. In the early afternoon it snowed for a little while but didn't stick--but gave us the feeling of a white Christmas. Caryn cooked two turkeys--a 32 pound and a 18 pound--so your dad carved turkey for quite awhile. After we ate and opened the gifts your folks and Justin and Courtney drove down to your Aunt Karen's to spend the night and celebrate with them. All in all, think everyone had a good Christmas! Oh a couple of news flashes: Susie broke her leg a couple of weeks ago at Paige's 'skating birthday party'--she had surgery with a plate and screws put in it---then Annie was playing soccer and got her front tooth broken off---that same day Grandma Ward broke her fake front tooth off---then Abby Slone (Joey Slone's youngest)broke her arm when she fell off her bunkbed. Gee, we are falling apart over here. Now the good news: Katey and Jesse had a baby boy 'Garrett James' on Dec. 21st and Shannon & Chris (Aunt Patty's daughter)are expecting a baby in July. Can't think of anything else so that's all for now. Take care and God bless you. Love you....Auntie Mo
Thursday, December 27, 2007
CHARGER INFO
Hi Tyler......Well, here goes my second try at sending this to you. Terry read your email asking info about your ipod --- he looked up the voltage and it was 5 volts for the usb port and feels it may not be compatible with rest that you described to him. He is afraid it might burn up your ipod. He did find a solar charger on the internet that you might be interested in---but will need the exact info from your ipod and model number etc. so he can find you the correct match. Let us know if you are interested and we'll get and send it to you. Hope you get this okay! God bless you and we love you....Auntie Mo
Hey---Grandma Ward wants me to tell you 'hi' and she loves you too!!!!!
Hi Tyler,
It sounds like you're having a fantastic experience. I really enjoy reading your blog. Keep it coming! If I didn't tell you before, you were right about the Greek Islands...they were absolutely beautiful. I'm traveling as much as I can afford ( you know, work for a while and then spend the money on another trip). One of my most interesting experiences was doing the Canopy Adventure in Puerto Vallarta. It scared the sh** out of me but was really fun. Stay safe and I look forward to more news on your blog.
Proud of you,
Marty
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