Patas

Callithrix Monkey

Abuko park

I work here.

take a look at dem melons

ugh

worked in the field from 3-10pm, got back at 11 something.

transects and bushbaby hunting.

i'm exhausted. hadn't had meat in 4 days. seriously contemplated buying Spam.

my legs are useless now.

i paid 50 D's for the shortest taxi ride ever because it was 11:30 at night and i could not walk another step.

"That kinda looks like 14 meters......"

Transect lab today with the Gambian and SMCM students.......and that's all I have to say about that.....

I think I drank a lemon Fanta in about 8 seconds.

There's a hole in the butt of my field pants and in both of my boots. God bless duct tape.

The end.

you're so lime green jelloooo (i hope someone other than matthew gets this reference)

Where I spent my day

I'm with the band

TimBOOKtu

Last night I went out with some of the kids to Senegambia. During the ride there the taxi driver named me "Ay-sha" since I didn't have a Gambian name yet. We went to Bini's and it had a lot of older European cougars and...panthers (?) getting drunk and dancing with the Gambians. There was a band there playing salsa music and singing in spanish so I got super excited. After two gin bags (gin in Go-Gurt squeeze bags for 20 cents) I was dancing and pretending to play the maracas in front of the saxaphone player so he handed me his and I rocked out with them. Then on the next song he made me stand next to him and play. Later in the night the back up singer saw me looking longingly at his tambourine so he let me play that too. I think they were seriously entertained that a Tubab wanted and could keep a beat. I also met a Swede named Alfred who is 64. He was trashed and would dance with boys and girls and took a giant warrior mask off the wall and danced with it for about 10 minutes.

Then we went to WOW where they played gambian music, old school hip hop, rap, some beyonce ...and the backstreet boys...I went to the bathroom and some girl stopped me to tell me I was pretty (girls are nice? whaaaaa) and her name actually was Aysha so she came and danced with us. Some guy asked if he could fly me to London. Everyone was kind of dancing far apart and I was confused. But it was super fun.

Today I went to the beach and it was gorgeous. It was almost completely deserted when we got there. There were a few muslim women fully clothed, head to toe, and in jeans, happily playing catch on the beach and going in the water; while I was in a bikini sitting in a pool of my own sweat. I met a guy named Bai and in my head I did the "HAI! BAI!" thing and giggled a little bit. Then a senegalese dude gave me a Gambian name that i actually kind of dig, Maimouna - "MY MOON AH." He was a birdwatcher who wanted me to come to his house for "dinner" aka a marriage proposal. When I went back up to my hammock there was a euro woman on the hammock next to mine ass naked. And not good naked. I slowly moved to another hammock and spent the rest of the time reading/secretly spying on the euro boys in the cabana next to me.

Aww a beetle family

I'm so hawt

Field pants are sexyyy ...

My address is:

Megan

c/o St. Mary's College

PO Box 2185

Serrekunda

The Gambia

Hey Tubab

Hey Mrs. Crowley's science classes or whoever-

I did plant transects today in Abuko National Park in order to survey the plant diversity among the different habitats within the park. Katie and I tagged distances of 100 meters along the park fence. Then we went 50 yards away from the tree line into the jungle along these tags and measured every 10 meters (till we got to 100) while tagging the closest tree to the 10 meter spot. Katie will then use a random number chart to select three points along each of these 100 meter transects. On the weekend students from the Gambia will go to these points on each transect and use the quarter/quadrant method. At each point they will walk in the four directions and stop at the first tree they reach. they will measure how far away from the original point the tree was (for plant density), identify the tree, and measure DBH- diameter at breast height. 24 transects x 3 points each = a lot of trees.

Doing only 4 transects took about 5 hours (plus the walk there and back). So I was wading through water, mud, spiders the size of my face, termites, and waist deep vegetation for a long time. It was tiring but I was handed a Gambian donut when I got to Happy Camp so it kind of makes up for how tired I was. Oh and I saw monkeys.

Salaam Alaykum

Rawr big spiders everywhere.
Last night, instead of going to sleep, my professor and I took a taxi to Senegambia and went to the street with all the bars/"clubs." We ended up talking to a Nigerian guy named Johnson for 2 1/2 hours about religion and babies because he was just plain confused when we said we didn't want to get married, have kids, or follow a religion. I tried to explain that I respected the Bible's teachings but didn't take all that creation-in-seven-days jazz literally. So he started talking about Daniel and the lions and said that if I walked into a den of lions and prayed that I wouldn't be eaten and that he KNEW God made Eve from a bone. From that point on I was like "Well there's no point trying to reason with him." So I just said stuff to amuse myself, like asking him what would happen if I fell in love with another girl. I think I made his heart stop for about three seconds. After that he talked about Satan a lot and I just drank my Tom Collins.

BUT TODAY! Today was amazing. I had my first drum lesson. And I loved it so much. The other students have already had a lesson but I got everything right away and honestly I was pretty amazing. My teacher also makes drums so I'm buying one from him for about $50, and I'm going to ask him to carve elephants on it. I have another week of free lessons with the students and then he charges $3 an hour for drum lessons on the beach....awesome....

I've been eating with the students for free too and a usual meal consists of a lot of white rice, onion gravy, either chicken or fish, and then a fruit. But tonight I went with my professor to a French bistro on our street and I got the most delicious egg sandwich with a chocolate milkshake (they were out of nutella crepes). yum yum. There's also a place called McCaesar's and McFatty's, I must check them out.

Tomorrow I'm going out to do field research--transects and poop collection.

later gator

"Bedroom"

I felt like an ass at the Senegal airport because everyone was dressed in a suit/fancy dress and I was wearing tye dye.

Anyway here is my mattress that doesn't really fit between the chair and the TV so it has a nice arch to it....

I've taken over the living room.

Senegal

Everything's going to be okay because there is Fanta Orange
View from Dakar airport. Is that a giant ship?

I'm in Africa......

The flight to Senegal was quick and easy and I arrived in Dakar at 5:30 am. I got my stuff, went to the smaller terminal and proceeded to wait 8 1/2 hours for my flight to Banjul. There is Nothing in the Senegal airport. Well there are a few metal chairs and some guys who speak French. I had to wait till 9 am before I could buy my ticket. A super nice airport employee who spoke english helped me buy my ticket, check my bags, and ran around the airport for me finding $7 in change that the cashier guy would not give me after I had to pay for my heavy luggage. He ended up taking francs from the guys who wrap your baggage in plastic. At 10:30 I moved to the gate where the chairs had cushioning! Oh and AHCers will be happy to know that Hilary's face even appears in Senegal. The flight was delayed for two hours while I slipped in and out of conscienceness. When I finally made it to Banjul it was raining and actually not that hot. I was brought to the students' compound. They all started drum lessons yesterday and I'll be joining them tomorrow for my first drum lesson on the beach : )

Then I'm off to the National Park to start helping out on some monkey research.

"Time together isn't ever quite enough, When we’re apart whatever are you thinking of? " - The Saltwater Room

It was my 22nd birthday just two days ago and every time we would leave a bar I kept thinking "Holy S***, I'm going to Africa." Well it's noon, five hours before my flight, I'm "packed", Ben is sleeping downstairs before driving me to the airport, and I still can't stop thinking "Holy S***, I'm going to Africa."

Adios.

departure-eve

This is what a person who is about to go on an 18 hour journey looks like.

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Gambia tomorrow.