I've been gone well over a year now... 1 year, 4 months, and 26 days to be more precise. So, what have I actually been doing during all this time besides crapping and eating rice? Believe it or not, I'm incredibly busy these days.
At the moment, my big project is a Tour-de-Gambia IT Workshop. Another volunteer, Jame Gomez (That's his Gambian name...boring I know. He lives in a Christian compound), and I have collaborated on a pretty sweet interactive IT manual with videos and we're workshoppin' to support it. Participants will receive training from "IT experts from Europe", get some free CDs, and bean sandwiches. Its a gonna be good.
Interestingly, in this country, people expect to be paid to attend a workshop or conference. Completely the opposite of America...where you can pay hundreds, even thousands of dollars to attend. This is an outrage. I mean, why, would an 8 foot tall Wookie wanna hang out with a bunch of 2 foot tall Ewoks? It makes no sense, ladies and gentlemen, it makes no sense. I rest my case.
I am starting a library club at one of my schools. As a part of the club, I'm going to have a competition where students break into pairs and score points by finding the answers to questions in the library. My first task for them was to make their team name using alliteration. Among the names were Body Bone, Excellent Elephants, Fashionable Friends, and Double Dragon.... I laughed so hard when I saw that. The kids thought I was crazy. If they only knew about 8 bit Nintendo. But seriously, I think getting kids to be active in the library is one the best things a volunteer can do here. They all say "Reading is my problem". I always reply with "It will always be your problem until you start doing it". Books are good.
Also I'm playing a lot of Ultimate with kids at the football fields. They love it. You wouldn't believe how quickly they learn. Some kids can throw a good flick in only a few tries. I've given a few discs out to kids in the area, so thanks for donating discs! I'm hoping to get a couple of teams formed over the next few months. I will strongly advocate for alliterative team names.
Change the beat!
Here's a few pics from this year's Tobaski.
