2007 Evan

Happy New Year / Tobaski / 6 month anniversary of my arrival. I made it back from Banjul a couple days after Christmas without any transportation issues (major). For the most part, I've just been relaxing before the next school term starts. It should begin next week sometime. I actually wrote this post a few days ago; I just haven't been able to post it. It seems the recent "network upgrade" was in fact a downgrade and I'm guessing they're just sharing the same amount of bandwidth with more people. It's hard enough keeping a blog updated with a reliable internet connection.

New Year's Eve happened to be on the Muslim holiday Tobaski this year, so things were kind of wild here the past couple days. Just like Ramadan, there were hundreds of kids running around everyone asking people for salibo (holiday gifts; usually money). They especially enjoy hounding me down with no mercy. Since I can't afford to give out too much salibo on my Peace Corps allowance, I've just been asking them for salibo instead. No luck yet. On NYE I had my cell phone pick-pocketed in a situation I could have easily avoided by not being in such a tightly packed area with so many people. I did have all my things in different pockets though, so that was all the thief got. I actually caught the person's hand, but I was extremely hesitant to yell "sachee (thief)!" because that would have resulted in a near death experience for that person AND I didn't think he got away with anything in the first place. By the time I actually realized he sniped my cell, he slipped away very sneakily sly. For some reason, there were about 5-10 people (mostly strangers) more upset by the loss than me and they ran around searching people that looked like the thief and investigating. I started to regret even mentioning it because of all the trouble they went through. I even had to calm a couple of them by saying "Get a hold of yourselves! It's gone. There's nothing we can do now." The next day I was writing off the loss as a case of "shit happens. deal with it." but then someone actually came up with the cell phone and I got it back. As an added bonus, they even charged it up for me. Amazing. I don't think that would have happened in too many other countries I've been in. Developing country or not. Not my first incident with a cell phone being stolen in a foreign country (sorry Joey). Luckily, the cells here all run on prepaid minutes, so there weren't several calls to Tijuana and Mexico City being charged at $2 per minute this time. My host mother's heated advice was "Don't make friends! They're not good!" but I'm not too sure how applicable those words of advice were to my situation; nor the truth of them. To sooth her nerves I assured her "Okay Mariama. No more friends." Here's a photo taken on Tobaski with some guys I was drumming with:


By the way.. I got my absentee ballot in the mail just in time for Christmas! Thanks a ton for everyone else that sent their greetings and packages also!