Update!

Hello!
Another cloudless day has arrived here in the Gambia, another day of this funny little African life that I've found myself in. Its been about since six months since I arrived in the Gambia, three of those in my home in Janneh Kunda. Its hard to think about where to begin, so many days blend together, the routine of rural life, stumbling along learning Mandinka and adjusting to the never ending status of celebrity tubaab (white person) in a place where they're rarely seen. It certainly has been an adjustment period and I can't say that I've been optomistic the entire time, but as the days pass I'm finding myself returning the excitment I felt when I arrived. There's a freedom out here that I have never found in the US or Canada and maybe that comes from living in the bush, where people still live off the land, hunting and gathering what they need. The bush is amazing, I can walk outside of my door in the evening and look out into the Manduar forest as it stretches for tens of kilometers in every direction and know that theres not a single house or person out there. All there is are the giant mahogany and silk cotton trees speckled around with numerous baobabs and rosewoods. And then there all the bush animals which I've been able to see from time to time, bush pigs, antelope, guinea fowl, baboons and lots of varieties of monkeys, not to mention all the birds.

I have really enjoyed riding my bike in the evenings the ten kilometers through the bush down to the river village of Kemoto. The light and stillness at that time are beautiful, the river itself is like glass and most days I can look out from the shore and see dolphines playing. I can also buy all sorts of seafood from the fishermen there of which lately they have been harvesting oysters. For less than a dollar US I can buy almost a bushel of oysters which are piled high in the dug out canoes as they are paddled from the harvesting area. I can also get shrimp, cat fish and tiger prawns as well smoked fish. I feel pretty lucky to have all this close by I must say.

Work as they say here in the Gambia is going slowly, slowly. Lately I've been spending a lot of time in the bush observing forestry in my area. A group has come to town to harvest Mahogany trees and its been fairly wild watching them fell these massive trees. Its got me thinking about tree planting and beginning a tree nursery so that towards the end of my time here I can out plant a number of the more desired trees. Its been fun getting into it though, collecting seeds and identifying trees, and learning all of the different uses for the trees. I sometimes wonder how much knowledge has been lost in the US about such things, as here the trees really do provide so much. Just walking out in the bush a short way one can find sap that makes a glue equivallent to epoxy, can fashion rope out of the fresh bark of baobabs and eat the the leaves of the moringa tree which are more nutritious than most vegtables we know of back home. And this isn't even the tip of the iceburg, there are hundreds of species of trees in the bush and it seems almost everyone has a different local use.

Thats most of the excitment in the last little bit. In the coming days, my former roommates from South Africa, Theo and Jori are coming to visit and were going to spend a couple of weeks in Senegal and travel up to Dakar. It will be nice to have a break and spend time with them, a little reunion back on African soil. I hope all of you are doing well and I think of people often, wondering what life is like back in familar places. Lots of love from this end
Nick