Billy Goats Gruff

Before I begin, let me just say that I am super-duper sorry about my absence from the scene. A week with no posts is unacceptable, and yet I implore you to accept my excuse...that being that I have in vain been trying to download a video to the blog...unsuccessfully three or four times now. So here goes with the alternative...enjoy.

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In North America, 40 might be the new 30 (or something to that effect) but over here...Stray goats are the new stray dog.

Now I’ve had the fortune to travel through parts of Southeast Asia and South America and I have seen my fair share of strays roaming the streets...lookin for trouble. I’ve been barked at more often than I care to remember by a stray mutt...but, it has always been a mutt (rhyme alert).

Here in The Gambia, however, I would venture to guess that stray goats outnumber stray dogs AT LEAST 5 to 1. There are goats everywhere...peeing and pooping on the street, baaa-ing at me and M.C. (rhyme alert #2)...and, of course, eatin garbage.

Now, it would actually be unfair for me to classify these goats as “strays” per say—I do it for pure amusement purposes. In fact, these goats leave from, and return to, their owners...their compounds...on a morning and nightly basis. They stroll the avenue (I kid you not, there are goats criss-crossing the busy Kairaba Avenue) and play gaily in the alleyways, all the while being left to their own devices by all passerby’s.

We have been informed that it is very rare that a goat will be “stolen” while away from its yard, and that all community members respect the fact that these goats represent a great deal of a person/family’s livelihood (in the way of goat milk and cheese).

...If only people had the same respect for un-supervised bicycles (We do not allow our bikes unattended without being locked up, in any circumstance).

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Nice little aside to this goat story; We have our own adopted “pet” goat in our compound. Oliver (as M.C. named him) or Sh*thead (as I, so endearingly, named him—because we wake up every morning to a driveway full of goat pellets) is owned by our neighbours. He, though, NEVER leaves the yard. I think he’s lonely...and my god, he’s a homely looking thing.

Sh*thea...I mean Oliver - Homeliness Personified (you can scarcely make out the pee stain and pellets in the background

Until next time...Don’t Stop Believin

Matty

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Cribbage Update: Matty stretched it out yesterday to a 19-11 lead...peggin strong.

We're gonna walk down to Kairaba Avenue...and then go on computer (you know the tune)

UPDATE: Had a big victory with the temperamental shower last night. Got home from the office at 6:15, grabbed a small snack, threw on my runners and headed out for a 5k jog. Got back went to the shower...no pressure. EEENNNNN, I said. Took a five minute break to stretch and have a drink of water, went back to the shower, and...YEEEES temperamental shower! Pressure. Oh the small victories in life.

UPDATE Con’t: Today...not so lucky. Whoomp whooooomp. (View bucket shower procedure--previous post). 

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On Today’s edition of “The World According to Matty” >>> Kairaba Avenue

Kairaba Avenue is the main artery that dissects Fajara from West to East. And, as it has come to be, our one-stop shop for, well...everything.

Starting at the water’s edge, Kairaba Avenue is the primary route for visitors to the area, and locals alike, to take to the gorgeous, and seemingly endless, Fajara Beach (it keeps going, and going, and going, and...). From the beach heading east, the avenue is bursting with restaurants; small, medium and large, one “barber’s shop” (but many beauty salons), a soon-to-reopen night club, several travel agencies, fruit-stands and vendors, lunch counters (for what appears to be a local delicacy...the chicken and cheese sub), as well as the infamous bookshop Tim”book”too (insert laugh track here), which lies just off the street. As you pass the former NSGA office (recently vacated by my colleagues) you approach what I have come to revere as a national landmark of sorts in the The Gambia, “The Street Light” (More to come on “The Street Light” in a later post).

Crossing “The Street Light”, where Kairaba intersects with the coastal “highway”, we come upon more fruit & vegetable stands, a GALP gas station (air conditioned...yeeeeeeeees air conditioning), the Standard Chartered Bank ( air conditioned...insert Matty happy quote here), tailor shops, garment shops, appliance and electronics shops, Supermarkets—we’ve now frequented both Safeway and Harry’s and are still trying to decide where our allegiance will lie, cellular providers, restaurants with wireless internet (our early favourite being La Parisienne—Gelato, air conditioning, and seemingly always a European soccer match on the television, although the internet is hit and miss with our laptops) and so on, and so forth. Kairaba continues for a good clip, until you arrive at Westfield junction, where the avenue intersects and ends at the road into Banjul.

Essentially, Kairaba is the hub of action in our still to be explored neighborhood. The early issue, however, that has risen for M.C. and I, is that Kairaba is a half-hour walk from our apartment in Old Jeshwang. Now, I know that isn’t far and I’m not looking for sympathy. I can handle the walk. But, a half-hour walk in the presence of the “Heat Monster” scares Matty into a sweaty mess. If absolutely necessary, there are cabs aplenty constantly roaming the highway to Kairaba that we stroll—which intersects where???...that’s right, at “tThe Street Light”—and they are supposed to charge us no more than 5 Dalasi (20 cents) for the trip. What more often than not happens, however, is that M.C. and I are caught bargaining down from 50 Dalasi with the cabbie, to take us for 25 Dalasi total (approx. $1). Again, I’m not looking for sympathy.

Our normal routine has involved finishing work for the day, heading home for a quick bite and some exercise, and then taking the trek into Kairaba for some personal time on the internet (only every second or third day though). We’re doing our best to stay in touch with those at home to keep you all updated on our adventure here on The Smiling Coast.

Until next time, Don’t Stop Believin,

Matty

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FYI: M.C. and I head out on our first roadie here in The Gambia on Thursday. We are off respectively to the CRR (Central River Region) and URR (Upper River Region)—deep into the country, to help deliver HIV/AIDS & Life Skills workshops to community youth groups as part of the NSGA mandate (More to come on the work of the NSGA upon our return from “the field”).

Welcome to the Smiling Coast...c'est chaud

So, we made it! And, finally made it to the internet...well internet that didn't cut out before I got the chance to sit down and write (I did manage to read the 100+ emails, last night, circulated by the Wanderers boys, and then abruptly had the internet cut out at La Parisienne).

So, this Friday evening, as I enjoy a JulBrew (Gambia's finest), I send you all my best regards and assure you that I have not spared a single bead of sweat since landing down at Banjul International Airport Tuesday at 6pm. Yep...it's hot, c'est chaud! The apartment that M.C. and I have so lovingly been installed in by our Gambians friends is wonderful, lots of space to sleep, relax, and even a kitchen to cook and keep our food refrigerated...but there is no escape from the heat monster (which I have just now named). We've got three fans rolling at full blast when we are home and still, I'm wiping my forehead constantly and hanging clothes out to air at any opportunity. It's hot. It didn't, however, stop this engine from tying up the jogging shoes and taking to the streets late this afternoon to give the bod a little shock treatment. I survived.

I suppose I should just clarify a little, our location here in The Gambia. We are not actually in Banjul, we are southwest about a 15 minute trip from Banjul in Fajara/Serrakunda...key thing...it's closer to the beach. We are on the coast, and from our front door, it is about a 40 minute walk to the accessible area of the beach...and IT IS STUNNING...and hot. The name of our neighborhood proper is Old Jeshwang, a cozy little hood rife with the schools, the market (right across from our place) and a juvenile prison. It bustles by day, but by night, the trusty L.L. Bean headlamp comes on as the place goes dark (but you can see the stars, which is great). Most important of all, MOM and DAD, it is safe. We take the "highway" in towards the office or towards Kairaba avenue (where I am right now), which is the main business road in Fajara. Kairaba runs from the ocean for a good clip, and it full of restaurants, supermarkets, clothing stores, cellular providers and really the whole gamut.

As you can all see, I am a bit scatter brained at the moment, as this is really the first opportunity I have had to connect to the world back home...and it is overwhelming. The things we sometimes take for granted...

As time passes and M.C. and I get better settled I will give you a better idea of what life here in The Gambia is like. Lots to talk about: Toubasky(?), bucket showers, "The Street Light", the NSGA, and much much more.

For now, I'll leave you all with this: we are safe and sound, happy and healthy...and smiling...I mean, this is the Smiling Coast :)

Till next time, Don't Stop Believin! 

Matty