Hello from the bush. Yes I have falled in once or twice.

Hello to you all!!!

1st: I'm safe, well, healthy, very happy and kicking ass.
2nd: Both Gambia and Gambians are/is very beautiful, kind and hilarious. The peace that has been held in The Gambia for centuries is soley based on the joking relationships they have established amongst the different families and each other. It is both silly and sarcastic so I fit right in.
3rd: I've been "biririn baake" or very busy (as they say in Mandinka).



The fallowing is Amber's Gambian List:
Note: this is a breakdown...so put on some beats.

-For the last 2 months or so I've been in a small training village up country. There I lived with a host family the Samates. I had one father, 3 mothers and 13 brothers and sisters all living in the same compound. The family was very good to me.
-Mornings consisted of waking to "the call to prayer" at about 6:15am from a speaker at the mosque. I love waking in this way, a soft chanting in Arabic which puts me in a mood for Morocco.

-Nature in the Gambia can make me cry it's so beautiful.
-It's hot, all day everyday.

-I bath under open skies.
-I go to the village pump, fill a bucket and walk back with it carrying it on my head.

-I've mastered brewing attaya, the local tea that is a social event and takes some skill to do.
-Bugs, bugs everywhere, sometimes one flies in my eye.
-My feet will never be clean again.
-Thank God for my journal, camera, music and bike.

-I think about Lisa and the baby everyday.
-It's like I'm camping every night with my trusty headlamp/candles.
-Mosquito's love me here just as much as they did back home (thank goodness for my malaria med's).
-I really like Mandinka and hope to speak it very well.

-I love the kids and some of us have a on going game of tag throughout the village. I never win...fast little buggers.
-I've never seen the moon so bright, I don't need a flashlight at night.

-Livestock (chickens, donkeys and goats) are free roaming, sometimes they even sleep on your porch.
-I don't think I'll ever get sick of peanut butter.
- Rice poorage for breakfast. Rice with peanut sauce, veggies and chicken for lunch. Rice and fish sauce for dinner. All very delouse!

-When it rains it pours and is complemented by plenty of thunder and lighting.
-I dance with children very day (while in village).
-When I clime in to bed and my mosquito net encompasses me I feel like I'm in one of my childhood forts...every single night.

-Wait...did I just trip over a donkey tail in the road. Yep I sure did.
-I never really appreciated my health until I came here.
-Crickets chirp me to sleep every night (they are in my room).

-Andrea and beautiful people of the Janzen Morgue...I received your package...I love it...and was much needed. Thank you a hundred times over.
-My gambian name in Talaa Njie.

I'm heading back into the bush and my permanent site on Dec. 9th (I'll write more on that in a day or so).

Big fat hugs from me in the bush!!!
Amber




Oh PS I'll be buying a cell phone before I leave so phone calls will be possible:)