"Transform and roll out!"

New Education volunteers have landed in The Gambia and all is well in the capital area. They are not only coming with teaching experience, but also the right attitude for service. That is, they are energetic about their new found possibilities with technical work, but do keep their potential success in perspective in relationship to the challenges they will face. I think most impressive is that they already show the ability to roll with the punches.

I was able to stay with them from Thursday, when they arrived in country, until Monday evening. It was one of the best things I could have done for my service, especially since I felt like the PCVs who were there for us in the beginning were some of the best people I have met in The Gambia, period (Thanks Colleen and Zac!) There is no better feeling than trying to repay a more than welcome favor.

Most of what Hannah, another volunteer from my group, and myself did was to comfort and advise the new trainees as they get ready to head out to training village. Training village is an intense two month experience where you are expected to learn more from your time observing village, rather than in a classroom setting. One of the most fun things was being asked on the last day to help give the demonstration on "How to take a bucket bath." Usually one of our Language and Cultural helpers is in charge of this, but this time around they said that it'd be better for a volunteer to do it, to de-mystify any perceived difficulty in an American doing it. It was funny to step outside of myself and observe how I was giving the lesson. I was missing all the finer points due to my natural routine and comfort with the bucket bath. I was going through the motions without explaining all the things that I should have been pointing out. For instance, placing the soap into a small container so that it doesn't get dirty, rinsing the soap off at the end, cleaning your scrubby and hanging it to dry, or scrubbing the feet thoroughly.

We were asked a whole range of questions but one that kept coming up was, “Have you done much traveling?” I have always known that I haven't done much traveling since I've been in The Gambia, and I always felt I had to defend myself somehow. Most volunteers take time to visit a number of West African countries. It was during the training, with the repetition of the question, that I came to terms with the answer. I remembered one of the big reasons why I came here in the first place, the human element. I wanted to come and make a strong bond with a group or family of people. I realized then that this feeling tied directly into how I have handled myself in relation to traveling, I stay at home to enjoy the relationship with my family. If I was traveling all the time, that relationship would be lost. They don't travel much, so I don't travel much.

Being with the trainees was also great to catch up with some of the PC Gambia Language and Cultural Helpers, who saved us from early terminating in our first months in country, and catch up with how much has changed in the past year. Brewing tea and sitting out late at night, after everyone else had gone to bed gave me the opportunity to catch up with Muhammadou, who was in my village during training. We talked about everything from nicknames for the cities in the upcoming mud of the rainy season, to the saturation of basic IT skills in The Gambia, to new ways that Peace Corps is trying to adapt to American language learning styles.

I think it was also a great experience for those of us who were able to take a step back and realize how much we were doing in the country. Yes, most of us are only reaching 10 to 25 students on any serious level, but when looked at number of students times the number of volunteers in my group, we are affecting at least 300 people significantly. We never know how many others we might be having at least a small to medium impact on as well, thousands? When explaining to the new trainees what kinds of projects we were all involved in, I was also quite proud to hear the diversity of things that everyone in my group is up to. It goes to show you the improvisation and adaptability that we have all gained during our year of service.

Given that the new group is coming in with a lot more technical skills than we did, I see tremendous opportunity for what is now possible. I was really impressed with the whole experience and it made me a better volunteer for it. A new culture of realistic hope might be growing here in country amongst the PCVs. Yes, huge frustrating challenges block our path, but complaining is slowly giving way to constructive talk that builds bridges over the other side. Perhaps it is just the one-year mark of optimism I am going through.

On my way home I looked at the calendar for the past two months, saw that I was gone in May for In Service Training, then gone at the end of May for vacation, then gone in the middle of June for the new trainees. It was sad to be gone from home so much during that period and it left me itching for, "the home people." By all means was the time away worth it, for it made me realize what I missed. The sweet is not as sweet without the sour after all. Returning back to my house to see a smiling family was the best feeling in the world.

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PC Gambia Cultural Note: The movie The 300 recently made its way to DVD/VCD and has made many a male PCV rather happy with its all American violent yet invigorating style.