My Gambian family has hosted foreigners for about twenty years, first with the British VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas), and now Peace Corps for the last decade. They realize we need time to adapt to our new environment, and respect our wish for privacy, even though it is not the Gambian custom. This culture is very public, spending most of their time outside, cooking meals, doing laundry, praying, and socializing. Every compound has a raised concrete platform, usually under a mango tree, that is the communal living room. Several families share my compound, and I will introduce them in a future post.

My first priority was to paint all the walls, and put vinyl on the floor, while I was waiting for Peace Corp to deliver my bed frames and food storage cabinet. The hardware store had an extremely limited color selection of oil based paint, but I learned quickly to make do with what is available. I am actually fortunate to live in a city, where the store is only a mile away, because that is not an option for a PCV living in a small rural village. The paint pan pictured above is a five gallon jug cut in half, which I was able to clean between colors with paint thinner. I did discovered you can’t buy a new cover for the paint roller, you have to buy the whole thing. I needed to buy four to complete my project, which is unfortunate because trash disposal is a big problem here. The vinyl flooring is very thin, was easy to roll out, cut to size with scissors, and use clear packing tap at the seams. I’m glad I bought enough vinyl to try to match the pattern, which wasn’t really possible because the printing was uneven, but I’m happy to have a floor I can clean. The situation in the bedroom was interesting. The door to the outside was already scraping on the floor, but the door was too flimsy to plane anything off the bottom. The fix was to break up the concrete floor with a hammer, and remove enough for clearance. I realized that perfection is not attainable here, and any progress is considered top quality.

My home has three rooms, which is spacious for a PCV residence. The main room is 10 x 20 feet, and the kitchen and bedroom are 10 x 10 feet each. The front room has two day bed/couches, and I’m able to share my comfortable home with other PCVs who need a break from their rural villages. I am happy that I have plenty of room to do my yoga. With WiFi, I’m able to practice with Mikki Trowbridge on YouTube, which makes me feel like I’m back Oregon. Also, the front room stays cooler than the bedroom, and during the hot rainy season, I’ll be able to hibernate inside, with the fan on high to survive. The previous PCV left a huge bookcase, many books, and some games, that I will make good use of during the hot season hibernation period. The wall decorations are Mandinka flash cards created by the previous PCV. I also brought some reminders of home – the prayer flags are from my daughter Aspen, and the curtain in the bedroom was a gift from my friend Rob, when I visited him in Hawaii years ago. I am looking forward to the arrival of my package from home with 2 laminated wall size maps – one of the world and the other of the USA. I was surprised at the lack of maps here, and it is hard to communicate where you are from with limited language and no maps.

The kitchen is very well equipped with a two burner gas stove, lots of storage, and a food safe built by a Peace Corps carpenter (he also built the wooden bed frames). Jibidaas are very versatile, I use one to store filtered water, and another to store food in. I put a small amount of water in the bottom, so I can keep my breakfast yogurt and vegetables cool. I also have plants growing in several jibidaas outside, and use another to make compost from my kitchen scraps. I am waiting for the electric meter to get fixed, so I can buy a small refrigerator/freezer, which will be great when the days reach 100+ degrees during the summer months. I’m glad I painted three of the kitchen walls bright white, which helps with dinner prep, because the one overhead light is not very bright.

It nice having a full size bed for sleeping, because it makes it not so claustrophobic to sleep with the mosquito net. All my windows and doors are screened, and during the dry season there are minimal bugs, so I don’t always need to use the net. I’m not sure I will ever get used to this dusty environment, I can dust in the morning and by evening everything is covered in a new layer of dust. To protect things from the constant layer of dust, I keep my clean clothes in bags or storage cubes, and when my computer is open I put a cloth over the keyboard. I’m so glad I put vinyl on the floor, even if the pattern choices were not impressive. I can mop in the evening, walk around barefoot, and pretend I am staying in a tropical resort.

I am happy to have water faucets in my backyard, and no one has to haul water for me. The water is not always available, so I keep buckets filled at all times, the water pressure is also very weak. I still need to take my baths with buckets of water, but I have a nice shower stall to use. I also have a “western style” toilet, but with no water pressure, it needs to be flushed with buckets of water, but my arthritic knees are grateful that I don’t have to squat for the next two years. The backyard is very small, with no place to hang a hammock or relax and enjoy the night sky, but that is the only deficiency my new home has.

My home in Farafenni is  a significant up grade from my living situation in my training village – link to previous post  – “Mandinka Training Village” – for photos.  My very comfortable home is known in Peace Corps jargon as “Posh Core” – lucky me to have a great place to stay until December 2019.