Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Geli-Geli's and Garland


"A Gambian is never late; nor are they early. They arrive precisely when they mean to." - E.M. Roth


Actually that's not true at all; they just have a different concept of time (e.g. morning, afternoon, night), and that's not my quote at all.. it's from Lord of the Rings and I inserted "Gambian" instead of "Wizard." Well, finals are over and they actually ended up being a week later than planned because they were printed in Banjul.. which is where I'm at right now. After I graded all the exams and turned in my grades I headed down here. The trip clocked in at a cool 16 hours which covered a distance roughly from Pierre to Sioux Falls (or Bismark to Fargo). The reasons: geli-geli's (vans; pictured), check points (10+), and ferry crossings (3). I definitely have a greater appreciation for distance after that trip. The good news is that trips from Basse to Banjul can't get much worse. There were elders on the gelis (vans) saying that that was the worst trip they had ever been on. So that says a lot. I haven't said much about these geli-geli's, but for those of you from Pierre I would say they would make excellent Gov-mobiles. Or maybe I should say Gov-mobiles would make excellent (above average) geli-geli's. They're quite comparable, but a Gov-mobile might be more comfortable because they normally don't have 20-30 people crammed in. And they're definitely less fun because there's no paintball guns or eggs. But there are goats, chickens, rams, and sometimes excess passengers strapped on top to make up for it. Anyways, the 1st big geli broke down around 20 km outside of Basse, so they sent us 2 small ones. I chose the geli that ended up breaking down around the halfway point of the trip. The driver tried fixing it for a while, then gave up and hiked back to a nearby village to look for a mechanic. The mechanic fixed the problem in-part by tying a rope around part of the axle. I didn't ask any questions; I just wanted to get to Banjul and I was in the middle of the bush. If you think traveling in a geli would be scary during the day, it's an evil Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at night. At one point.. after the rope and knot axle repair, the driver slammed on the brakes and we skidded for a good 10 feet because he didn't see a checkpoint and thought we were going to hit a truck. A completely unnecessary reaction, but we left the checkpoint unscathed. The police at the checkpoint almost didn't let the driver go unscathed. We eventually reached our final destination and here I am.

There will be an education sector meeting on the 22nd, so it will be the first time I've seen most of the people in my training group since September. Most of us will spend Christmas together, then I'll probably head back to Basse a couple days after Christmas. Unless I decide to stick around for New Years.. which will also be around the big Muslim holiday Tobaski. I've just been laying around on the couch at the Peace Corps house watching movies and box sets the past couple days. I highly recommend watching season 2 of the American version of The Office, which I watched in it's entirety yesterday. I'm looking forward to hanging out at the beach the next few days. It's going to be a white-sandy beach Christmas.

Happy Holidays!