That second X-Files movie was really bad. I saw it in the theater and just rewatched it again last night hoping that on a 3-inch iPod screen it would seem less stupid, but still: so, so stupid. I want to go back in time and offer my assistance as a script supervisor. It might seem like a silly way to use time travel, but I’m just assuming that if time travel is ever developed and becomes widely available, there will be other people who will do the important stuff, like kill Hitler. But what if everyone thinks someone else will kill Hitler? And then it’s like whoops, here were are again, and we DIDN’T kill Hitler? Time travel fail.

My FAVORITE human, Dadi, a child who lived in my compound my first year in Gambia, has been returned to me. Well, first he was returned to his actual family, in Cassamance, across the border in Senegal, but after we had our end-of-service conference in May and reflected on how we will say goodbye to everyone in our villages I was like, “Wait. I want Dadi returned to me before I go.” And sometimes, being the magical white person has real benefits, because I requested this, and lo and behold, the child was plucked from Senegal and returned to our compound, solely for my amusement. (Frealsies. He’s like 5. Dude can’t even haul water. Which makes him like a tinier Fanta.) Does this make me sound cruel or crazy? Whatever. We have a special bond. You wouldn’t understand. Also, his compound in Cassamance is only 20km away from Ndemban, according to my father, which is only like an hour and a half on my bike, assuming I’m not blown up by a land mine along the way. (Cassamance has some rebels who want to separate. Don’t sweat the politics. I just stay away.) I don’t know how long he’ll stay, but every day playing NotUno with Dadi is a gift. NotUno is played with Uno cards, but with none of the rules of Uno, or any rules that I’ve been able to discern so far. We mostly just throw the cards at each other.

I don’t know when I’m coming home. But I just want to assure the Ticketmaster PerformerAlert e-mail system that I will NOT miss the Old 97’s! The e-mail system was super concerned about that.

Been teaching computer classes to two teachers at my school. I had them type a profile thing and under “Sex” the woman put “Felman,” which is perhaps the greatest typo of all time. Most of the time it’s pretty boring (think “this is how you double-click … no, faster … no, only two times.”) but yesterday they learned how to make WordArt. We all take WordArt for granted, but if you’ve never seen it, and then BAM! Your name in neon blue block letters, with a premade shadow effect! It’s kind of rad.

I’ve made about 100 friendship bracelets in village in the last two months. I’m a friend slut.

For a long time I championed the Apples in Stereo as the most underrated band of the last 20 years, but I’m changing that to Calexico. They are really fabulous. Go buy some of their stuff. Don’t illegally download it. Underrated bands need your money.

I think I want my first sandwich when I get back to be a Jimmy John’s vegetarian. Hold the sprouts. It’s like eating HAIR. Nothankyou.

Hi, guys. I just ate cookies for breakfast. Sorry, Mom. Sorry that I’m not actually sorry. THEY WERE DELICIOUS. You guys wanna hear something else gross/awesome? Grawsome? No. Scratch that. Gross/awesome. I was reading this Flannery O’Conner short story and in the beginning there’s this fat kid and she describes him taking a piece of chocolate cake and before he eats it, he smears peanut butter on it. My first thought was, “That’s a really good idea.” So anyway. This year I’m turning 30 years old, and I’m eating my birthday cake with a side of PB. Deal with it.

The computer lab’s been sucking at school lately. I think the batteries on our solar system are giving out. We’ve been trying to print these exams for our ninth-graders, 138 copies of 9 or 10 different tests, and I’d say about 6 or 7 times a day, the printer would blow out the whole system and the power to everything, the printer, the computers, would die. It would always come back eventually, though. On top of this, we got a new computer, except it didn’t come with a mouse. Anyway, when the power would spontaneously die (is it spontaneous if you’re constantly thinking, “It’s been awhile, the power’s probably gonna go soon …”), we’d lose whatever changes we hadn’t saved to the tests, and then when we restarted the computers and Word, that document recovery pane would always open, and have you ever tried to open an auto-saved document without a mouse, using just keyboard shortcuts? These complaints probably don’t make a lot of sense if you have reliable power and mouse-ful computers, but it just seems like things are hard here, and then on top of that, there’s extra bonus hardness, just so I have stories to tell incoherently on my blog.

I finished A People’s History of the United States. It was like 700 pages. I’m not bragging. You should just know that I’m awesome for accomplishing that. Dude really liked talking about labor strikes. Anyway, if you feel like you’ve been led astray by traditional history texts, I recommend it. The chapters on Columbus and the Indians and Vietnam were the most eye-opening, to me at least. And I now actually understand what the words Iran Contra mean. Should I admit that I didn’t before? I only have so much brain space. I cleared room for that information by actively forgetting the theme songs to Hey Dude and Salute Your Shorts. I hope that decision doesn’t come back to haunt me.

Also this week I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971 version) twice. I loved that movie A LOT before, but watching it with my little super readers in the book club made me love it even more. They sat with their copies of the Roald Dahl book in their laps, and when something would happen in the movie they’d flip through their books, trying to find that part in the text. I think their favorite child death was Violet turning into a blueberry and being rolled away by the Oompa Loompas. They were more worried than amused when Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river (my English teacher: “Is that river natural or artificial?”) but that makes sense, because seriously, that kid DROWNS, and nobody really seems to care. The only rescue attempt is Charlie extending a comically large lollipop to him, but how could Augustus grab onto that with hands covered in chocolate? R.I.P., Augustus. (**I know Wonka claims in the end that all the kids are OK, but in my world, they all die.)

Also R.I.P., MCA. What’s everybody’s favorite Beastie Boys lyric? Mine’s “Dogs love me ‘cause I’m crazy sniffable.”

SATURDAY MARCH 10 was my school’s interhouse, or team sports competition. Once again, my principal talked endless amounts of smack and then the entire event devloved into chaos before the teacher’s race happened. Convenient.

SATURDAY MARCH 17 was St. Patrick’s Day. Someone had food coloring so we drank green beer.

SATURDAY MARCH 24 was our all-day bike ride to the beach. I rode with my married sitemates (I’m considering extending my service a third year if they agree to adopt me as their dependent) from my house to a lodge on the coast. 68.8 kilometers! 43 miles! It took … pretty much all day. I only fell off my bike once. A couple of times, instead of stopping, I sort of just collapsed, but I’m not counting that as falling off. Also got a really bad sunburn, which distracted me from the pain of scraping my knee, so good job, Fanta. **pats self on back**

THIS WEEKEND I’ve been trying to do my twice-a-year Volunteer Report Form, where we tell Washington what projects we’re working on. There’s this section called “Tell Your Story” where they want you to like spin complex narratives and share heart-warming anecdotes, but I always spend so much time on the first part, the what-the-hell-are-you-doing?, that when I get to the rambling part I’m always like zzzzzzzzzzz bored and half-ass it. Even though I normally love talking about myself. Go figure! 

TONIGHT we’re going to Morocco! Originally our plan was Benin and Ghana in West Africa but the visas never came through and Morocco is a lot more willing to take our money. Four of us are going and we all only have one pair of jeans and one sweater each, so we are planning to buy scarves. Also planning, our first day in Casablanca, to go to McDonald’s and a movie theater. I’M LOVIN IT.

I’m reading three books right now. Not like this very second, but you know, currently. I’m almost halfway finished with Nelson Mandela’s autobiography on the Kindle, and maybe 1/5th of the way through A People’s History of the United States by Zinn in paperback. These two books are perhaps not the best complements for (to? did i use the right “complement”? My readership skews copy editor.) one another. The oppression is almost too oppressive. Anyway, to lighten my mental load, I started I Was Told There’d Be Cake, a book of essays. It’s OK, but I wish there were more cake. Like, she could have talked about times she’s eaten cake, or what kind of cake she likes, or included pictures of cake. I’m not saying the whole book had to be about cake, but would it have hurt to have included it in some fashion beyond the jokey title? No, it wouldn’t have.

The writer is sorta funny, she hits some zingers, but she isn’t as funny as I think I am (there’s a continuum, and I’m somewhere between Carrot Top and the fourth-eliminated contestant on any season of Last Comic Standing). So then I thought, I could do this better! But then I thought, am I ambitious enough to write a book? And then I thought, maybe a book of essays. Maybe you are just ambitious enough to write something completely inconsequential.

I probably shouldn’t tell you the list of potential essay topics I proceeded to brainstorm on a post-it note. What if I actually write this book, and then you’re like, Ugh why buy this I already know everything that’s in it from her March 9, 2012, blog post?? Or, more likely, what if I don’t write it and then you’re like, Ugh why would she tease me with that half-developed list of ideas on her blog if she wasn’t going to follow through??

Half-developed list of ideas

1. Kids I hate for no reason. Overall, this experience has shown me that deep down in my guts, I really do love most children. I no longer view them as screaming, shitting breadboxes (this is a size comparison, I’ve never tried to store bread in a child) that you can’t legally put in a crate when you want to go to a bar. (Hi, Ollie!) They’re funny, and smart, and don’t mind having the same conversations every day if, say, you’re learning a new language and would like to practice the same conversations every day. But nonetheless, there are some children here who have never done anything to me (they’ve never done anything FOR me, either, jussayin), but I inexplicably loathe them. They come on to my porch and I ignore them. They ask to play cards and I say I’m busy. I see them coming, I hide. In this essay, I would explore this hatred in an amusing fashion and hopefully draw some conclusions about what children should avoid doing the first time we meet so I don’t hate them for the rest of their lives.
2. Food I eat even though I can’t identify it. I’ve never been a picky eater, unless it’s something good for me, but the way I can shovel white rice and what I’ll lovingly refer to as my host family’s “Sauce O’ the Day” into my mouth is truly astonishing. Maybe once every two weeks this sauce is green and SEEMINGLY leafy, but I’m pretty sure there are no actual vegetables (or anything healthy, for that matter) involved. So what am I eating? This essay might also include a short love letter to the M&M, which has been a source of strength both physically and emotionally during my service. If I ever ate a LARGE bag of M&Ms, like, bigger than a single serving, by myself in America, I would be disgusted. But here, that is the only way I consume them. After a particularly rewarding run of care packages, I had stockpiled what I estimated to be $25-$30 worth of M&Ms in my food trunk. One bag was a resealable ziploc ”Party Bag,” and I don’t think they meant it like, “Party on! Eat two pounds of M&M’s alone in your hut!” But that’s just what I did. 
3. My hellish trip back from Basse, a city on the opposite side of the country, after girls’ camp last September. Gambia is a small country, like the size of Delaware (copy editors, cq that?), but this trip still took 15 hours. It was my worst travel experience ever, and I really want the world to know about it. Warning: There is diarrhea involved, and to omit that fact would really rob the story of a lot of its power.
4. At this point in the post-it I started to worry that all my ideas were too negative. But it’s much easier to be funny when you’re complaining about something than when you’re loving something. There’s nothing funny about unironic joy. So I made a note that says “We all love games.” Because we all do, and I have some lovely games stories. Just this week, on our newly revived computers, some kids were playing Oregon Trail, which the Baby Jesus himself must have installed, because it’s truly a gift from heaven. There is nothing funnier than African kids debating how to cross nineteenth-century America in a covered wagon. Also, they read every single thing the computer says out loud, then announce their answer back to the computer. For example, “You have reached. Snake River Crossing. Would. You like. To look around? … Yes. Yes, I would.” I love it.

There might have been a fifth idea but I don’t have the post it in front of me, and I think you get the gist anyway. Also it’s lunch time. I wonder what I’m having. After I eat it, I might still be wondering! ZOOM! I just zoomed my joke.

Well. I know it’s been awhile, but I just wanted to see if any of you would be worried enough by my blog inactivity to start your own blog called “Where in the World is Jessica’s Next Blog Post?” where every day you write about what you think I would write about if I were writing. But none of you did that, and I’m disappointed but not really surprised. None of you have shown a creepily intense level of enthusiasm for my blog, which is something you can work on in my last 7 months here.

That’s right, y’all! We’re in the home stretch! It’s all eating pancakes from here! Is that an expression? It should be. It means, “Easy and satisfying, like a short stack.” I’m chilled out, healthy, keeping super busy in village, looking forward to one more vacation in April (if we can get the visas. Seriously, Ghana, you’re not so great, why all the hurdles?), and thinking about The Future. Not my own future; I’m talking about the mediocre Miranda July movie I saw with Helen when I was home in August. There was a talking cat.

I have a monster to-do list right now. Wanna know what’s on it? OK!

• Wash underwear. (That’s scratched out.)
• Edit education sector newsletter. (I’m taking a break from doing that right now. It’s Saturday, and I’m at school, plugged into my laptop. I finally figured out the way to avoid having children come in and bug me to charge their parents’ phones is to close the door behind me and pretend like I’m not here.)
• Write VAC newsletter item. (Did you know, because everyone else refused to do it, I was given the honor of serving as chairlady of our post’s Volunteer Advisory Council? We meet once a quarter and hash out the tough issues, like how can we keep our transit house from being a disgusting biohazard? I need to write a little blurb for ANOTHER volunteer newsletter where I explain our new cleaning procedure and try to trick people into signing up to do it.)
• Buy shaving cream. (Legs. Hairy.)
• Write blog post. (ON IT!)
• Write letter to Jen Aronoff. (Yeah, she’s next on the list. There’s a list.)
• Plan computer lessons for two teachers at my school. (They’ve been asking me for, oh, like a year to do this.)
• Monitoring books/reports. (One of the projects I’m working on at my school. Common problem here: Teachers not actually teaching. Like, not physically being in class when they are supposed to. Because there are no substitute teachers, this leads to classes of kids just sitting around, doing nothing, for sometimes disturbingly long periods of time. Anyway, my principal came up with the idea of these “monitoring books,” where one student in every class keeps track of when the teacher comes in and when he goes out, and gets the teacher to sign it. The idea is at the end of the week, we add up the minutes the teachers were in class, and if they were short, they have to make a plan to make that up somehow. Where Fanta comes in: I made a file in Excel where students just have to type the times in and the times out, and then bee-boo-bah-boo the computer figures, “OK, they were short 42 minutes in math this week.” I’m working on getting summaries of the data printed up for every teacher before our staff meeting on Tuesday.)
• Test analysis. (Another project. I might have talked about this before? We did it last term, too. More ExcelFunTimes. I’m having teachers enter their test grades and print out bar charts and pie graphs that show how many students are failing, how many are getting A’s, etc. Just trying to make teachers aware of student performance as an indicator of their own success or failure as teachers. One teacher is really into this and I’ve basically let him take the lead on teaching the other teachers how to do it. Sustainability!)
• Text out West Coast Region meeting details. (Scratched off! I totes sent that text out!)
• Ask Kate to visit Al-Ansar, Bulock. (Kate, do you read my blog? Wanna go visit some school gardens? This might not be the most direct way to ask her.)
• Wash dishes. (Done. Twice now. I washed dishes, scratched the item off my to do list, then ate more, and washed those dishes, too. Man, I eat a lot.)

Anyway. There’s other stuff on the list too, but those are the exciting bits. I put the part about washing my underwear, right? OK, good. I’ve also got a lot of Library Bizness going on. I started going to another school about 9km away (on the bike, that’s about one episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on the Zune) that’s been asking for help organizing their library. They have A TON of books, really good stuff, and a super motivated, competent teacher who’s the librarian. Right now we’re in the overwhelming, not-all-that-fun stage of trying to catalog every title. It’s kind of freaking me out about the even-less-fun upcoming stage, organizing the books by subject categories. The students have been a lot of help with the writing down of the titles, but I feel like when it comes to looking at the books one by one and deciding, “Is this fiction or non-fiction? What is it about?” it’s going to be up to me and the one teacher. Also I can’t tell at all how many books are going to fit on the shelves they have, if we’ll be able to build other shelves, what we’re going to do with unshelved books. Shelves. They’re important. Oh! Can I just tell you one other thing? If you’re ever working at a school and think, “We need to get rid of these 30-year-old, worn out math textbooks. I bet a school in Africa wants them,” just CHECK and see if there are already math books there. Because there might be, and you’re just punishing the Peace Corps volunteer trying to organize their library who has to sift through — and find a place to put — thousands of copies (I’m not exaggerating) of the same sixth-grade math book.

At my library in Ndemban, things are also looking up. The library has been one of my biggest sources of groans/frustration/defeated shoulder shrugs during my service, because it seemed like no matter how much I cleaned and organized it, about 11 minutes after I left the building you couldn’t tell I was ever there. Basically, we need a grown-up in there, full time, and preferably one who still plans on living in Africa after September. My principal has always been on board with the IDEA of a librarian, and he’s now gotten on board with the REALITY of a librarian. We recruited a volunteer from the village – the older sister of one of my favorite students – and after just a few days, I’m super impressed and feeling way hopeful that maybe this time, all of our work won’t be for nothing. She’s smart and has a lot of initiative. Next week we’re going to resume library classes, so we’ll see how it goes with students put back in the mix. One thing I don’t want is for the solution to be, “The library’s a mess? Books are damaged? OK, no kids allowed.” I’ve always said, the good thing about our zoo of a library is at least students are using the hell out of it.

This is long. I just read The Omnivore’s Dilemma on my Kindle. I thought the writer was really annoying and then at the end he started saying, “Ask your parents to shop at the farmer’s market!” And I realized I’d been reading a version of the book that was adapted for young readers. So maybe Michael Pollen’s only annoying when talking to teenagers. Also Community is SO. GOOD. The episode with Troy and Abed’s New Apaaart-ment! (sing that, please) with the six different storylines was beautiful. The flaming troll doll that Troy inexplicably tried to eat. And I’ve been listening to a playlist on my Zune called Stuff from Adam that I don’t ever remember making – Rizz, was this stuff you gave me in France? Whatever, it has “Your Love is My Drug” by Kesha on it, and that has become my new Wake Up Power Anthem.

Bye for now!

Howdy, gang. Long time, long time. I actually wrote a post last week but then I forgot to bring it with me to type when I went to the city for internet and hamburger timez. But it didn’t really end up mattering because the event that I spent half the post talking about was canceled. Africa! Go figure! Anyway I’m here now stop yelling at me.

Here are some pictures I posted: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.824853874085.2336957.2401113&l=bc853ede08&type=1

Second year! More than halfway finished. Almost exactly halfway finished with my reading goal of 100 books in 2 years. It looks like I’m going to finish No. 50, that memoir by the guy who followed the Bible literally for one year, tonight. Seriously, why do I read memoirs? I just become preoccupied by how narcissistic it is to think we all need to hear about how you feel and what you’re doing and how your wife’s in-vitro pregnancy is going. She said as she typed her blog post. Anyway, I’m going to read Roots next. ‘Cause I want to, and also I have two copies, so as soon as I read one, I can get rid of both, and feel like I accomplished twice as much.

School started last week. This week I restarted my book club where the kids get prizes of varying degrees of awesomeness when they hit certain predetermined reading goals, and also jump through the random hoops I set up along the way if they finish too fast. i.e. “You’re done already? Well, go back and write down every word you didn’t understand. Then look them up in the dictionary. Then explain them to me. Yeah, do all those things.” I’m pretty proud of my superstar from last year, Musa. Yes, it’s true, he did exploit every possible loophole, such as convincing me to count books he read before school started, in order to finish the whole program in a week. But the last hurdle is always a book report, and Musa really didn’t halfass it the way he could have. He wrote a thesis, found supporting evidence, and his last sentence started with the words “In conclusion.” That’s a paragraph, yo! You totally deserve your plastic cup with a screw-on top and crazy straw (the prize for finishing the report.)

I’ve also had more kids coming to my porch every night for informal studying. They just started showing up, and then I started saying, “See you tomorrow,” and then they kept coming back, and basically it’s a regular thing now. I don’t want to sound like a horrible person so I won’t say that some nights I’m not in the mood for tutoring, but I just feel bad, like, “Oh, you want to learn? Well I’m not in the mood to teach you. Good luck in life.” We’ve done a bunch of stuff. One night I got out these homonym flash cards and they all did much better than I expected; one night I just got out a book for them all to read from and they did much worse than I expected. We did fractions, finding a common denominator. Our latest thing is spelling tests. It makes me feel good, the kids like it, and you can’t really complain when work opportunities literally come to your house. That’s about as easy as Peace Corps gets.

My birthday’s coming up. I really wanted to spend this one with my Chicago besties, as this is the year they all turn 30 and I only turn 29, and I dunno, I just thought that would be painful for them, and I wanted to be there to enjoy that pain. But as it is, I’m sitting in West Africa, sweating, covered in mosquito bites. IRONY. The theme of my party is 29 and So Refined, a natural precursor to the Dirty 30, and there will be the African approximation of Mexican food (i.e. beans, some sort of liquid cheese). I’m debating whether or not to go to the Halloween Boat Cruise; the pros are that it will be fun, the cons are that it’s way far and I’ve just had like 11 horrible travel experiences since August, and do I want to continue to put myself through that? I might, because the pirate theme promises some good costumes.

Today’s Saturday, and I’m at my school, charging my laptop and other toys, finishing the newsletter for education volunteers which I help edit (high school friends: It’s like The Badge on crack. I love it.), and writing this blog post. I was going to clean the library today, but I dunno. We’re having a little bit of a problem maintaining any sort of cleanliness, so I always sort of feel like, “Well, I could clean it this week, and next week, or I could just clean it next week.” Really, I just don’t like to be reminded that I have completely failed to identify or train someone to be responsible for it besides me. Good thing I have a year left to figure that out.

Here are some songs I like right now: “Dawned on Me” by Wilco, “A Road Song” by Fountains of Wayne, “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.” by Noah and the Whale, “Love Love Love” by Avalanche City, and “Perfume” by the Old 97’s. Make yourself a little Fanta playlist!

Ji saafu! How is America? I hear Texas is, as we say in Gambian English, very very much too dry. The main problem with the rains here is that our school’s solar setup is now a lot more unstable. This week, for instance, we are trying to give our year-end exams, but we can’t keep the power going long enough to print them. Literally, students are outside playing because we don’t have tests to give them. The obvious question might be: Why weren’t these tests printed farther in advance? To which I would reply: [simultaneous eye roll/shoulder shrug]

Fourth of July weekend was super fat and lazy, like most Americans. It started Friday with my stepmom’s funeral. Party up! It wasn’t really a funeral – she died 40 days ago, and Muslims gather after 40 days to give money to the family and eat and et cetera. I kind of handled the actual death poorly – I could have or should have gone to the funeral, but that part happens super quick so I just didn’t know what to do – so I thought I’d redeem myself by going to this thing. It was mostly just a lot of sitting around – [note upon retyping this: good thing I’m recording it for the blog then] —- but I know it meant a lot to my host dad that I was there. [god I’m awesome.] I also finally figured out how my favorite tot Dadi is related to us – my host father’s sister is his grandmother. Mystery solved! Another highlight was near the end, we were all gathered around these men on a mat who were praying, I’m assuming for my stepmother/her family. I don’t know if all or some of the men were imans, but all attention was focused on them. Mid-prayer, like as he’s speaking Arabic, one of them got a cell phone call. And took it. While the prayer continued around him. And it didn’t seem to bother anyone else. Let it go to voicemail, dude.

Saturday was a BBQ at the ambassador’s house, and I ate myself silly on hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and brownies. Well done, Ambassador White, but really, well done, Jessica, because I put away a more than respectable amount. Sunday we had an open mic talent show that included a sitemate newlywed game where you had to match answers with the volunteer who lives closest to you. Me and my sitey lost even though West Coast is the Best Coast (copyrighted.)

Monday, the 4^th, we had our triathlon. You’re probably wondering how Team Texas did, right? Well, I think everyone who finished is a winner, so in that sense, we won. In the sense of actually being the first to finish, unfortunately, we lost. But we had fun and the running was not as bad as I expected, so I guess the training in village helped. Also I had a really good playlist, thanks to the dadPod. After a shower, it was on to the American Legends Boat Cruise, where I elected to dress as another volunteer who will surely be a legend someday. I’m already a legend, and also this dude really likes to cross dress, so he dressed as me. We confused SO. MANY. People. Hijinks! See photos of his uncanny Sally-the-cowgirl reproduction at the http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.824853874085.2336957.2401113&l=bc853ede08

Sigh. Just typed the last science test and the power went out right before we could print it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t save it. Come on, Autorecover! [it saved!]

This weekend [tomorrow!] is our English Club field trip. I’m really bummed because my favorite student Musa never came up with the money so he can’t go. I could just pay for him but that isn’t really fair to all the other kids. But really, that might inspire those kids to be more adorable and suck up to me more, like Musa does. But frealsies I think we already have more kids signed up than we have seats available in the car. (The most annoying kids will be strapped on the roof.) Guess I’ll take my lil Musasaurus to the nature reserve some other time.

I just watched The Hangover 2. Everyone’s like, it’s the same movie! But there were some differences. Zach Galifinakis’ wacky accessory was a monkey this time, instead of a baby. Also I still haven’t seen Home Alone 2 Lost in New York because I’ve been told it’s the most egregious offender in this regard. i.e. Kevin uses the same effing paint can on Joe Pesci. … Been reading the Yiddish Policemen’s Union. It’s OK but not a page-turner. (Figuratively. Literally, its pages do turn.)

Stay tuned for an exciting announcement about me and America and a Delta flight from Senegal in August that really only affects you if you’re in my immediate family or live in Dallas. ZOMG I’m gonna hug the bejeezus out of my dog.

Hello, readers. Hope all is well in your corners of the world. Here in the Gam, it’s starting to rain! It should stop sometime in October. It’s nice to have a break from the heat (actually, it’s still really hot), but it sucks because I can’t charge my solar charger as much. Trade-offs.

School’s just sort of puttering toward its conclusion. They say we have extended days, but really I don’t understand if anyone is actually teaching after 2, when we break for prayers. Sometimes we have club meetings, which isn’t school but I guess is better than nothing. My English club is planning an excursion, their word for field trip, to a museum and a nature reserve. Logistics will be a headache but it should be fun. Today I helped one of my favorite students, Musa, write a letter to his uncle asking for the money every student has to contribute. He talked about where they were going, how much it would cost, and that he didn’t have any money. Then he signed it. I was like, “No, dude, you gotta ask. You gotta say, ‘Uncle, will you give me 125 dalasis?’ ” It was the whole point of the letter! Thank God he had a copy editor look it over.

We also started a science club. Another volunteer is trying to write a book of science experiments using only locally available ingredients, and she gave me a few simple activities to test. I see now why she wanted all of the experiments tested, because nothing works the way you think it will the first time. SCIENCE! It’s also tough because even using locally available items, we only have enough to do one or two set-ups, so a lot of kids just stand around and watch. NOT SCIENCE! The teacher’s good, though. He’s young and is trying.

We’re having a Fourth of July boat cruise that I just found out you have to dress in costume for. The theme is American Legends, which is really so broad nonparticipation is inexcusable. But seriously, what’s the easiest possible thing I could do? What about that serial killer Charlize Theron won the Oscar playing? She was legendary in her muderousness. And I think all I’d have to do is wear flannel and not wash my hair. Already halfway there!

I would now like to interrupt this post for a new feature I’m calling, “The Wit and Wisdom of Omar.” Omar is my awesome 11- or 12-year-old host brother (all we know is that he was born in 1999) who has a superhuman tolerance for doing flashcards with me.

[On negotiating for a toy ball at the car park]

Omar: She said 25, I said no. She said 20, I said no. She said 15, I said OK.

Me: Omar, weren’t you supposed to use that money to buy water?

Omar: Uhhh….

Omar: Which is bigger: green or yellow?

Me: I don’t know how to answer that.

Omar: Green is bigger, because trees are green, and they are very big.

Me: Well, then yellow is bigger, because the sun is yellow, and it’s bigger than the whole planet.

Omar: I am bigger than the sun.

Me: No, you aren’t.

Omar: Which is faster, the telephone or the moon?

Me: Huh?

Omar: A telephone is faster, because you just call someone and talk to them.

Me: And what if you called someone on the moon?

Omar: There’s no one on the moon to talk to.

Me: That’s true.

Still training for my third of the tri. Did you remember, when I first mentioned this, how much I hate running? I guess I forgot! HA HA! It always just seems for as tired as I am, I should be moving faster. It should be over quicker. I always see the same cows on my route and they give me the same look Oliver used to give me when we’d watch TV, just utter boredom with a dash of superiority. I never greet them, so maybe they’re pissed about that. I have this one stretch that I like because there are no compounds, so I just run it back and forth until I convince myself that if I were running the real race, it would surely be over by now. That’s how I measure distance now.

Watching Band of Brothers and it’s really making me hate war. Which I guess means I was ambivalent about the subject before? Also, it’s pretty grueling. The episodes probably weren’t meant to be watched back to back, Arrested Devo-style. Last night the guys found a concentration camp and Hitler killed himself. Almost done! Seriously, can we just get the rest of the men of Easy Company home in one piece? Can you do that for me, Tom Hanks? Kthanks.

Hi, all. I’m writing –and posting! – this from village. I’m considering buying someone’s Internet stick, like an external modem the cell phone companies make, so I’m giving it a test drive to see how strong of a signal I can get in Ndemban. It isn’t cheap, but I barely spend half my living allowance most months (shh, don’t tell Congress) so I think I can swing it. My initial concern was that it would make me homesick or make me spend too much time alone, but I feel like I’m settled enough in village now that that isn’t as much of a concern as it would have been when I first swore in. Also I probably wouldn’t use it every day to save money and because it’s kind of annoying to charge my computer. But we’ll see how it goes. If it ends up just being a source of headaches I won’t buy it.

I’m writing from my school’s computer lab, which has solar power. (I don’t have electricity at my house. But I do have doors. Which my mom didn’t think I did. I said, “Weren’t you worried about my safety?” And she said, “Yeah, I was.”) There are about a dozen boys in here already, three more just walked in, and I’m afraid they’re going to keep multiplying. I don’t come to school every weekend, but my counterpart who runs the computer lab is out of town and left the key with me. Truthfully, I hate when this happens, even though I always think, “Oh, now I can go work alone and charge all my shit.” But what actually happens is that I somehow become responsible for charging about 300 cell phones and every kid within a 10-compound radius shows up and just stands awkwardly, staring at me. Today I told them all they could go in the library and pick out one book and that seems to be keeping most of them entertained. I have two of the computers turned on for older kids. Alieu, one of my book club super stars, is playing this geography game everyone really likes. You pick a part of the world, it shows you an unlabeled map, and then it’s like, Click on Nigeria, Click on Mauritania, whatever. My brother, Pa, is on the other computer, but I have to keep a closer eye on him. Whenever I turn my back he somehow manages to access the control panel or the internet connection wizard or some other function he doesn’t need to be accessing.

We’re in our final term in school. There are three terms; it’s kind of like Northwestern’s quarter system, I guess. We go through July, but really, I’m not sure how much learning gets done at this point. The ninth graders have taken their final test to see who goes on to senior secondary (high) school, so they’ve stopped coming completely. We used to have 7^th and 9^th graders come in the morning, 8^th graders in the afternoon, but now we have 7^th and 8^th graders coming in the morning for an extended day, which I actually like. Right now we’re planning our staff development workshop; I’m leading a session on test analysis. Every time I’ve asked my principal what that means he’s implied he wants me to teach teachers how to make bar graphs showing their test results, but I’m pretty sure I can present something with a little more substance. I definitely want to talk about what makes a “good” test, and the idea of actually testing what they think they’re testing. Most of the time, they’re really testing a student’s English reading and writing skills, not how much they know about social studies, or fractions, or whatever.

My book club is still going. My mom sent me a whole bunch of calculators she got at the dollar store that everybody wants. More girls are finally participating; I think only one of the 12 or so kids who finished reports last term was a girl. I still don’t really know what to do with the kids once they max out on prizes. I’m trying to get them to keep reading, but they really have to read actively, ask a lot of questions, look words up, in order to get something from it, and I think a lot of them aren’t getting the reading-for-pleasure thing. I’m also migrating some of them over to this journal program that’s in its pilot stages. I have this book of creative writing prompts, like “Describe your happiest moment,” and “Imagine yourself in 10 years. What will your job be? What will you look like?” Sometimes they really get into them, other times they’re stumped and I let them just write about whatever they want. The big thing is that every kid in this school seems to hate commas and periods. They will not be restrained by the tyranny of punctuation. I guess I need to teach a lesson with the English teacher on run-on sentences.

Hm, what else is going on? I think my garden project at the Islamic school will be in better shape now that it started raining. The big problem there was that the water source was too far away. But I went and visited last week and actually saw green things coming out of the ground. Onions were growing. And I heard they’ve been having luck with squash. I really should do a garden in my backyard but I just try and make my water last as long as possible, and I don’t even haul my own water 95% of the time, it’s the ASKING OF VILLAGE CHILDREN TO GET MY WATER that I find so annoying, so the idea of starting a project that involves me dumping large amounts of water on the ground is not appealing. But maybe since it’s rainy season I can just figure out the lowest of the low-maintenance crops and see how those go?

We’re having a Peace Corps triathlon next month! There was one at Thanksgiving that I skipped but I wanted to do this one. And by do this one I mean do one-third of this one. I recruited two of my Texan sitemates, the Turners, to do the biking and swimming. (Have you ever seen me swim? My preferred stroke is a hybrid of the doggy paddle and when Mario puts on his frog suit. Not very effective.) So all I have to do is the running, which I did a decent amount of back in Toubabadou. I’m still trying to extract some glory from that half marathon I did forever ago; when I bring it up, I usually omit the fact that it took me like six hours to finish it. This is just a 6.5km run, but I haven’t really run AT ALL in Africa so I need to train this month. Debating whether or not to involve my brothers. I know they have tons of energy and would love to help, but do I really need children guilting me into exercising when I feel lazy? (WHEN I feel lazy, not IF I feel lazy.)

I should wrap this up. Theoretically I should be able to blog SHORTER and OFTENER if I buy this stick, which I haggled the girl into giving me another 500-dalasi discount on so I guess I’m committed. I just finished reading this book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, on my Kindle and it was amazing. Maybe my new No. 1 on my PC service reading list. Doctors took some cancer cells from this woman before she died, and the cells ended up multiplying forever and being used to develop some of the most important medical breakthroughs of the past 50 years. But she was never even asked if she wanted to give the cells, her family never really understood how or why the cells were being used, even later, when doctors wanted blood from them because they were her descendants. And they were poor and black so it was a lot about the ethics and the racism that affected the decision-making. It’s just super readable and it’ll make you cry in parts. I really liked it. Now I’m reading Super System, Doyle Brunson’s poker bible, and I’m debating if I need to read the sections on the poker variations I don’t play. Should I try to become a more well-rounded poker player? Or focus on improving what I know?

On the dadPod, been watching An Idiot Abroad, a British show where Ricky Gervais sends his moron friend Karl to visit the Seven Wonders of the World. They always make him do stupid shit in addition to visiting the Wonder and encourage him to get out and do cultural stuff, but he’s lazy and small-minded, so it’s funny. At one point, he was on the phone with Stephen Merchant, a co-creator, and he was like, “I am trying new things! Last night I ate this pudding, with carrots in it.” And Stephen’s all, “I DON’T WANT TO WATCH YOU EAT CARROTS ON THE TELLY!” (Because they’re British and talk like that.) And Karl says, “… even in HD?”

On that note, go watch something in HD for me. And write me! And go Mavericks! And adios!

Hello, faithful readers. I’m writing to you from a magical place called Toubabadou. (In Gambia, white people are toubabs, and anywhere they live that isn’t Africa is Toubabadou. Asians live in Chinese-olia. This is literally their complete approach to world geography.) Toubabs Colleen and Adam enjoyed this terminology, and Adam discovered that the popular Abba song “Waterloo” is much more enjoyable to sing when that word is replaced with “Toubabadou.”

You know you’ve been in Africa too long when the laundromat is an overwhelming and confusing experience. In my defense, all the instructions here are in French and you don’t just stick your coins in the machine, it’s one of those complicated systems where you put your money in this other machine and then there’s a keypad where you put the number of the machine you want to use. OK, that didn’t sound so complicated. But how was I to know you had to load the machine with your clothes and soap before you paid or else it would lock and fill with water and then you paid 4 euro for an empty washer to wash itself? There was one other lady here and I’m really impressed at her restraint because she didn’t laugh out loud at me.

France has been really great; I’m leaving tomorrow. I was definitely sad when my travelmates and soulmates Rizz and Binkle left this morning, but I do feel like it’s time to go back. To a country where the dollar is stronger. ZING! Currency humor. The food’s been amazing – did you know I like cheese? I really do. – and it’s been really nice to be anonymous. To not be harassed and greeted by every single person I encounter on the street. But Africa does have one advantage, and that is fewer stairs. Seriously, I forgot that in Europe, even when you aren’t paying to climb some church tower or some monument, you’re climbing four flights of stairs to your apartment, or 50 stairs out of the metro station, or whatever.

We did a lot of museums and food and went to Versailles, and we walked a lot, and I bought a new watch and new shoes (thanks, Dad!), but is it sad if I said my favorite moments were hanging out in the apartment we rented, watching the youtube clips I’ve fallen behind on over the past year? This was super important because within the first two hours of our reunion I realized there were half a dozen inside jokes between C&A that I didn’t understand, but two minutes of watching a crossdressing balloon thief get arrested on COPS put me back in the loop.

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written, so I should probably tell you some Africa stories, even though I don’t know if I can remember any good ones. My English club finally put on its program a few weeks before I left. I’ll put some pictures up on Facebook. First we did the blind man play, where my favorite student Musa plays this blind panhandler who tricks people into letting him “try on” various accessories, like a belt, glasses, etc., and then steals them, and when the police come, they always assume he’s the victim because he’s blind. He gets his comeuppance in the end, though. Also we’d discussed a super shocking twist where it turns out he’s not really blind but now I can’t remember if that made it into the actual performance. Then we had our debate: Which children are “more valuable,” boys or girls? I thought it would be more interesting if we made the boys argue that girls are more valuable, and vice versa, but … no one really went for that. The boys won, of course, because boys are more valuable. Just kidding. Actually because all the teachers were male, and, yeah, we have some work to do on gender equality. They did have a scoring rubric that they adhered to, and I will say that the girls were a little too stuck on their “All criminals are men” argument, but really, no matter who won it was going to be bogus. It was kind of amazing at the end, though. The teachers who were supposed to be judges were like jumping up and shouting arguments that they felt students had overlooked. It got pretty animated and clearly demonstrated that the teachers felt THAT ONE SEX WAS MORE VALUABLE.

After that, we had another play. In this one, there are two brothers, one is good at school, one’s a slacker. The good one goes to America, comes back, gives his parents and teacher tons of money. Because when you go to America, you come back to Gambia with fistfuls of cash to hand out, obviously. He doesn’t give any to his slacker brother. BURN.

I am really proud of myself for figuring out this washing machine. I went ahead and brought ALL of my undies to France, more than I could possibly wear while here, just cuz I figured my underwear deserved a vacation too. And none of them have been in a washing machine for 10 months. But I’m starting to feel a little anxiety about the dryer situation. Hold on, I’m going to creepily watch someone who’s moving her clothes right now to see what the process is.

Success. Much less room for error there. Dude, this place is fun. I thought once you had a washer and dryer in your apartment you could never go back to being without, but I think I could. It’s possible.

The last two weeks or so before vacation were really hard. There was no school, it was like spring break, and I was just painfully bored and completely mentally checked out. My body was in Ndemban, my mind was in Toubabadou. But the most fun day was when I took my host brothers to the beach. I’d run into another volunteer who was taking her whole compound, kids and adults, to the beach, and she invited me and my fam. I brought Pa, the oldest; Omar, who’s in fourth grade; and Dadi, my favorite kid who’s like 5. It isn’t far, but the transportation costs are relatively high so they don’t get to go that often. Dadi I’m pretty sure had never been. That was probably the most fun we’ve ever had together. They were all really well behaved too, so it wasn’t like my hands were full. Omar swam like a fish, but Pa didn’t bring beach clothes and Dadi was scared of the water, though I did get him to get his feet wet at the end. I forgot how dressed up people get to travel here. Even though we were going to the beach, they were all wearing closed toe shoes, shirts with buttons. They were adorable. I definitely want to go back with them, or maybe take them to Kombo to get pizza and ice cream. I know they’d like that.

OK, that’s all for now. Two minutes left on the dryer. Back to real life tomorrow. Anybody have any book recommendations? I really like the last two I read in village, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Let The Great World Spin. Highly recommended if any of you are looking for something to pick up.

Write me! Send me stuff! This woman on our Champagne tour gave me a bag of beef jerky and protein bars when she heard I was in the Peace Corps. Isn’t that crazy? I’m totally kicking myself for not giving her my address. Because if that’s the shit she gives away in the middle of her vacation, just think of the care packages she’d put together.

Stay awesome!