news-7feb

Thursday, Feb 7, 2002
Last week, Kate and I got to see our new house for the first time on
Thursday afternoon. In a word, its green! Kind of sea green, but
definitely very bright green. The ceilings are thankfully white. But
the floors are maroon floors, so it�s a bit of a visual assault! The
walls and floor are in pretty good condition and the paint is quite
new, so we�ve decided to leave it and learn to live with our color
scheme. We thought of laying something over the concrete floor (eg
linoleum, etc), but expediency won out. Kate has a friend in the Peace
corps in Mali who claims that the this color green makes it seem much
less hot inside one�s house when its 140 F! It�s only been in the 80s
for us so far, but still seems pretty hot! [see pictures under our house]

Our apartment has 2 smaller rooms, a main living/dining room, an inside
and quite spacious bathroom with western style toilet, an excellent
shower (actually sunken into the floor, unlike many, so the rest of the
bathroom stays a bit drier) and a modern sink (which is on the verge of
collapse, however). There�s good tiling on the floor and up to head
height. The water is potable, although we do not have hot water (no
one else seems to either over here apart from the hotels) � but given
the heat (and keep in mind its as cold as its going to get right now)
we�re pretty happy with cold showers. There is an over head light in
each room, and at least one electrical outlet. The electricity seems a
bit more reliable than at Safari Gardens Hotel (where we spent our
first week in the Gambia during in-country training). But its no more
predictable. Of course we don�t have a generator. We did buy a nifty
fan/light/radio combo that is both electric and battery operated � so
when the power does go down, we can still stay cool at night � for up
to 7 hours. And the battery comes on automatically when needed, and
charges whenever the power is on � brilliant!

The main thing to get used to is that our kitchen is nominally outside
according to Gambian custom (makes sense, given the heat). But given
the dangers of malaria, its inadvisable for us to be outside around
sundown (and theres no electric light out side), we�ve done what most
volunteers do, and turn one of the smaller rooms into a water less
kitchen. We have a proper western stove (ours has an oven we were
excited to see, but soon learned it doesn�t work) running on bottled
gas, a half size electric fridge, and a large cupboard for storing
cutlery, crockery and dry food. We boil water to wash dishes, and
rinse them in the shower. We don�t really know where to get rid of our
garbage � but our new maid (Hariet) seems to make it disappear. Most
of our neighbors seem to burn it outside along the paths, and leave it
for the goats, chickens, ect to recycle. In fact, when we first moved
in, we thought that we lived next to a dump! But no, much of the
settlement looks like that. There are signs around saying no dumping
(usually next to the largest piles of rubbish), but these seem to have
been totally ignored.

Harriet comes to us highly recommended by other volunteers, and we had
to move with American forcefulness rather than British reserve to sign
her up. She cleans for our neighbor Sarah, who is one of the VSO
programme officers working up country (she is only in town once or
twice a month) � good for us, because its pretty quiet most of the
time. We speak to Hariet in French, as she�s originally from the
Cassamance � eg the part of Senegal that�s south of the Gambia, and
currently embroiled in a resistance movement, so there are lots of
refugees around. In fact, there seem to be lots of refugees here �
from Sierre Leone, etc. Our clothes look great (after nearly 2 weeks
since arriving in the Gambia, we were beginning to run low and get
desperate). The iron Kate brought works well, but its unclear whether
Hariet will use it or the traditional charcoal iron. Apparently
everything gets ironed quite thoroughly here to kill any eggs/ larvae
that may have been laid in ones clothes while drying � which can hatch
and burrow into the skin. This is less of a problem this time of year,
and where the line is covered, as ours is.

Our apartment is in a walled compound, which is how most Gambians live
(the very best off might live in a house all by themselves, but this is
rare), and is very secure. We are set back from the street (there�s a
pharmacy that occupies the first apartment, so it�s a bit quieter for
us. We have an iron barred front porch that�s about 6 feet wide by
the length of the house � perfect for storing bikes, trash, and
hanging laundry. When we lock the gate, no one can get in, and we can
leave the doors and windows open (but the mosi screens are always
closed of course) in complete safety. Out back, there is an 8 foot
wall around the small pack patio/kitchen. We can�t see either of our
neighbors in the compound, and the back wall abuts directly onto the
next compound, with no alley way in between. So we feel quite secure
in our little house (although it took us a while to get used to the
sounds of all the other people coming and going, esp at night.

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