3rd grade Q & A

My sister, Kayla, recently did her student teaching with a third grade class and they learned a little about The Gambia and then sent me their questions.  I thought I'd put our Q&A up so everyone could read it. I know some questions and answers are a little repetitive but I wanted to answer them each, so forgive me and maybe you'll enjoy hearing all the different ways I can talk about food and whether I like Gambia.

What's Salliyaa like?
Salliyaa is a small, small village. There are only 4 families that live there, but the families are very big because all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all live together. The family I live with has more than 25 people in it! There are lots of houses made of mud bricks with metal roofs to hold all the people, but there people do not spend too much time inside. Most houses only have bedrooms. All the cooking and playing and working and chatting happens outside. People spend a lot of time at eachothers houses, and everyone knows eachother very well.
The place is very beautiful. The house I live in is under a giant tree. It's so big that its branches shade almost 1/4 of the village! There are also many mango trees in Salliyaa. The mangoes are almost ripe now. Soon we will eat mangoes every day. Outside the village, there are many palm trees, and if I walk for about 15 minutes, I can get to a small river. If I am lucky, sometimes I see monkeys on the way there.

How does it not have electricity?
In The Gambia, most villages outside the city do not have electricity. They just do not have electric poles or wires or a power station. Some people have solar electricity, so they collect energy from the sun during the day and store it in batteries so they can have lights at night, but most people do not have electricity at all. At night, people use flashlights or candles to see. In Salliyaa, they do not have any TVs, refrigerators, washing machinces, or computers. They do have battery powered radios, so many people listen to the news, music, or radio dramas at night for entertainment. And they spend much more time talking to eachother than you might be used to in America. There are many people with cell phones in my area, and there is a house in another village that has solar electricity, so they run a business charging cell phones.
Are there dogs and cats?
Yes. The family I live with has 3 dogs named Camel, Tiger and Lion, and they are getting a cat soon. Around the village there is also 1 other dog and a few cats. The animals all have work to do. The dogs go hunting with the boys and the cats catch mice and lizards around the house.
Do the peopls have unusual names?
They are names you would think were unususl if you head them in America, but they are normal for here. Many of them are Muslim names from the Koran like- Modoulamin, Ebrima, Seikou, Abdoulie (boys names) and Mariamma, Aminatta, Sallimata, Hawa (girls names.) Others are traditional tribal names like- Sutering, Kaken, Tumani (boys names) and Tening, Sanu, Meta (girls names).

Do they have books?
At school they have some text books for their classes. Most of the time several children have to share one book. They also have a very small library with some books on science and a few fictional books. Outside of school though, (at least in the area where I live) it is rare to see books. Many people here cannot read. Reading just isn't really a common form of entertainment here.
In school, do they have tests?
Yes. They have tests just like you. When they are in 3rd, 5th and 9th grades they have tests like the (TCAP/ TerraNova/ whatever you kids are taking these days).
Do the kids have toys?
There are a few toys around the village, but most of them are homemade. They make cars out of anything tied to a string. They use anything round as a ball. They play a lot of games with shoes. And they play a lot of games similar to hop-scotch that all they need is sand to draw in and some rocks.

Is the food nasty?
The food isn't nasty. Sometimes I get tired of some of the dishes they make, but it isn't nasty. Almost every day, we eat rice for lunch and dinner. Sometimes its rice with peanut sauce, sometimes rice with peanuts chopped up in it, sometimes rice and onions, sometimes rice and palm fruit sauce (i don't like this one very much), sometimes rice and sauce made of leaves and sometimes when there's a special occasion, we have fried rice (almost like what they have at the chinese restaurants.)
How much do people get paid to whack the monkeys at the hotel?
I'm assuming this is referring to the JanJangburreh Hotel my dad and I stayed at when he came.
I don't really know. Workers in The Gambia usually don't get paid very much if you compare them to workers in America. Everything here is paid in Gambian money called dalasis. If you are thinking about a Gambian wage in American money, it would be very small. Someone here who makes $10 per day is making good money.
How is it in Gambia?
It is nice here. The people are very friendly and i enjoy living here. The country is very small. (If you look on a map you will see that it is much smaller than Tennessee.) Since this country is small, almost every time you go somewhere, you see someone you know or you meet someone that knows the family you live with or someone you work with. As I said, people here talk to each other more than we are used to in America, so they are also used to talking to everyone they are around. No matter if you are at the market or waiting on the side of the road for the car, you will probably have someone to talk to. I appreciate being in such a friendly place. That makes up for it being so hot and dry and dusty most of the time.
Is it fun/cool?
Yes. It is definitely cool getting to live here and most of the time it is fun. It is very cool that I have the chance to live in The Gambia and learn what it is like to live in this place and culture. It is also cool that I have a chance to teach people at home in America about another part of the world. It is very cool to live and work in such a different eivironment!
What kind of sports do you like?
In America, I like to play tennis and disc golf, and I like to watch basketball. In Gambia, I like to watch basketball and soccer, but I don't really play any sports here.
Who's you favorite student there?
I try not to play favorites, but I'll tell you about a couple of my favorite different kinds of students. There is one 9th grade boy named Kawso who is very good at speaking english and tries very hard at school. He is older than most of the other students because a few years ago he dropped out of school so he could work to make money for his family. He understands how important his education is, so as soon as he could afford to (it was a few years), he started back to school and is one of the best students in his class. I do a lot of my teaching outside of school too, so one of my favorite students outside of school is a man named Modou. He is working on starting a vegetable garden in a village near mine. I help him by teaching him new ways to do things, like keeping insects from eating his plants. He is always willing to hear what I have to say, happy to see me come to his garden, and works hard.

What is your favorite food (at home and in Gambia)?
At home, my favorite food was mashed potatoes. In Gambia, my favorite food is called chakari. It is pounded millet in soured milk with sugar. It is maybe a LITTLE like yougurt with grape nuts in it.

Is it fun in Salliyaa?
Yes. Most of the time it is fun. I like hanging out with the ladies in my village doing household chores and chatting. And the children are always full of energy and fun to play with. I like my work, so even that is fun.

What are the sports like there?
Children here love to play soccer. Some of the schoolchildren know how to play volleyball and basketball. These sports are played by the same rules as in America. Each year, schools also have an "interhouse" which is like a field day where students participate in races and events like the long jump.

What is the food like?
The family I live with rarely cooks breakfast. They usually heat up what was left from dinner the night before but when they cook a special breakfast, they make porridge with rice. It's a little bit like oatmeal. I make my own breakfast, so sometimes I eat oatmeal, sometimes I mix granola and peanut butter, or I make some grits. Almost every day we eat rice dishes for lunch and dinner. It is rice with some kind of sauce on top. Sometimes, there is fish in the sauce as well. Even more rarely, we get chicken. On special occasions, we eat fried rice with goat, sheep or cow meat.

What is your favorite animal?
In general, my favorite animals are penguins. My favorite animal in The Gambia is the monitor lizard. They are huge lizards that live near the river, and I'm lucky enough to see one every few months.

What's your favorite color?
My favorite color is green

What do you do in Gambia?
I am an Environmental Education and Awareness Peace Corps Volunteer. I do work with school gardens. Many of the schools here have gardens where the children learn about growing things and the school can either use the vegetables in school food or sell the vegetables they grow to raise money. I help improve the garden at the school near me, and I work with an organization in the city on making school gardens all over the country better. I also work with a few people in my area on making their gardens better, so they can provide their families with more nutritious food and make some money. I also do other small projects like planting tree seedlings and doing HIV/AIDS education, among other things. Part of my job is also to live with the people here and try to understand what life and people here are like so that I can help Americans learn about other cultures.

Do they eat fried chicken?
They do make fried chicken here, They don't put breading on it like most people do in America, but its fried chicken and its good anyway.

Is Gambia a great place?
Yeah, it's a great place. There are problems here like poverty, struggles of education and deforestation, but there are also many good things. The country has many beautiful places. The people are nice. The culture here is interesting. Overall, I still think The Gambia rates as great.

Do they have Police?
Yes, but their police do not drive around in cals like the ones you are used to. Some police walk around the city to make sure everything is peaceful, but most of the police in this country work at checkpoints along the roads. When you are riding in a car and your car comes to one of these checkpoints, the car has to stop and the policeman looks in the car. Sometimes, he asks for the driver's driving licence to make sure he is driving legally. Sometimes they check to see if the passenger is wearing a seatbelt. Sometimes if they feel suspicious of the people in the car they ask to see their identification and might even take their bags out and search them for anything illegal.

What foods do they have there?
In the city, we have many of the same foods as we have in America: pizza, hamburgers, spaghetti, egg sandwiches, chicken, french fries, even chinese food. I miss some food like mexican food, sushi, turkey sandwiches, lasagna, chili and lots of other things that are not anywhere in this country. Outside of the city, the food is different. For breakfast, many people eat sandwiches. The most common type is bean sandwiches. It sounds strange, but they are very good. In most smaller villages, no one sells sandwiches, so bread or porridge is a normal breakfast. After that, it is usually rice for all the meals. In some families, millet with sauce is eaten instead of rice for one meal a day. For snacks, people eat fruit that grows on trees here. There is cashew fruit, mangoes, baobab, oranges, mandinka cola, kaba, and some other fruits that have no english name. Many of these fruits are not in America, not even in the grocery stores.

Do you teach the children about the United States?
I do not teach a class about the US or anything but I do answer questions all the time about what the US is like.