29 August 2007

Schubert- Impromptu, G flat major, op. 90, no. 3

The above piece reveals no particular meaning here unless you want it to. It was merely playing in the background as I wrote this blog entry. The music is burned into memory as the background music to one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. Rent the film GATTACA and look for the piano concert/detective interrogation scene.

It was a night that ended with a stumbling tip toe through a room of overstuffed travel bags and metal boxes. The grand finale being a climb to the top bunk of one of the PC Gambia hostel beds. As I lay in the bed, disoriented and exhausted, I felt happiness for being alive. And then I promptly passed out.

I realized that in all of my blog postings I’ve never said much about what life is like when a PCV stays at our hostel in the Kombo area. It’s an experience that every volunteer, even those who hate the city and are hermits in their village, have to have at one point or another. This past weekend, to celebrate the swearing in of the 20 new Education volunteers, I once again found myself checking into a bed at the PC hostel. I have mixed feelings on the hostel. I often want to get back to site when I’m there and therefore don’t stay there very often or for very long, but I do enjoy it because I always run into someone that I haven’t seen in a long time. This of course leaves possibilities wide open for meeting new people, learning new things about old friends, and in letting improbability in general rule the day.

The hostel is somewhat like a large collegiate greek house. Two stories high and filled with large open rooms, the hostel greets its guests with a rectangular garden in the front yard, a bare dirt back yard, and a quiet roof patio. There are about 8 rooms each with a number of bunk beds so that the rooms can hold anywhere from 4 to 8 people. Some of the rooms are air conditioned, some are not. There is a refrigerator, stove, oven, full set of kitchen appliances, and a charcoal grill. The hostel also has a much used TV and DVD player, a smorgasbord of card and board games, and a small library that at any given time can have a plethora of gems or nothing at all. Outside hangs long laundry lines that are softly shaded by large mango and banana trees. There are chairs and tables outside where PCVs often have breakfast, lunch, or a quick and quiet read.

Close to the hostel there is a small restaurant/bar where you can get cold Fantas, Cokes, JulBrew, and Guinness. It’s a bit of a hole in the wall sort of place, about the same size of your average small town coffee shop, and it’s only open in the evening. For food they sell a volunteer favorite dish of beans and cassava for dirt cheap, variations coming with only beans or cassava, a soup, or all of the above with fish. The atmosphere is usually laid back and there is a good mix of volunteers and Gambians making the place feel Gambian with a small dash of America for comfort.

This bar is where I found myself after a long day of celebrations with the new volunteers. I was in good company with my site mate buddy who I always get egg sandwiches with and one of my favorite PCVs of all time, a third year Education volunteer who helped trained us, and as I write this is enjoying her first week of home leave given to any volunteer who extends for a third year (btw, if you are reading this e-mail some updates on America now now, and don’t forget Short Circuit 2!!)

Swearing in nights are always funny in that in the beginning there is a sense that everyone should stay together, and rightfully so a sense of common accomplishment should be created. However, inevitably the group fragments along the lines of what people are interested in doing to celebrate that accomplishment. Some go out for ice cream, some out for an exotic dinner, some huddle in the office to e-mail people back home, some go dancing, some go drinking, a lot do a mixture of all of these things in one night. At any rate, the unity breaks up at one point or another, and it is at this point that the three of us decided to duck out and hit the beans and cassava bar.

It was one of those nights where conversation flowed endlessly and drinks along with it. The kind of night that lets you forget about the world around you and for one brief moment of time the laughter and joy in life is concentrated around the small table of your existence. Looking back on where we’ve been in the past year, and what we can achieve in the next was great for me and my site mate. Even better was being able to chat with someone who had been through all of year two and was coming back for more. We all had some transitions going on and all of us left the night ready to find out which of those transitions we wanted to take on and face up to in one way or another. In the end, the best thing about the conversation was that it was able to weave in and out of our experiences as PCVs and in past times. It was as if each of us were able to link on to our common threads of life and find the right intersections that would help put each other on the right path.

It was a night that would have, a stated above, a stumbling tip toe around new volunteers’ bags which were packed for their permanent site, and a confused climb back into bed where I could lay and reflect on it all. As far as alcohol is concerned it’s only the second time in Gambia that I’ve been suffering from that level of drinking, but not too shabby if it only happens once every swearing in...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,Todd

I'm p'Nan from Thailand na. Can you remember me??
Ha ha ha it's very nice to found your website.
Long time no talk with you!!!
I hope you are fine.

Now i work at the faculty of Fine and Applied Arts in same position.
he he he he
My email still is lillllllllll(at sign)hotmail.com

I miss you ...especialy today.he he he
I will mail you soon!

Take care! Bye bye.
P'Nan.

mchughtie said...

I just discovered that Short Circuit 2 doesn't actually feature Ally Sheedy. Are we sure we want to support such nonsense? I'm just asking... But you know, your ($5 and under) wish is my command.