My Dearest Mother and Friends,
Allah�u�abha.
My dearest mother and friends,
Allah�u�abha.
A brief update: I am starting to get settled in and tomorrow or Wednesday or some day in the near future I will actually have money, it�s so bizarre to be entirely monetarily dependent on people who are not your parents. I�ve not been able to make it to the bank to wait in their hideously long lines yet but am thinking about taking water with which I can wait in line. The days here are longer than in the states but are also getting shorter, not by much though.
An interesting fact is that Gambia functions on GMT otherwise known as Gambia maybe time by the locals and the pioneers. It makes me laugh to think that nothing is on time in the Gambia. The closest to being on time we�ve been is fifteen minutes late (although many children show up for children�s classes several hours early, and remarkably, they just sit and wait). Patience is something required in this culture and every time you enter an area where there are people with whom you are going to interact you must take the time to greet everyone. Blanket greetings are acceptable at the beginning of this process and at the end, but not vital to it. More importantly, if you don�t greet everyone (or anyone) you are bound to offend either one person, the few you overlooked in greeting, or everyone. Gambians don�t show their offense and contempt and often, from what I hear, you will find out later on in your relationship to the person that they have been slighted and they don�t forget. I think that as of now, the Bahai's in the area are used to international people and so they are polite about any cultural shortcomings that I might have.
Being a minority I had a vague idea that I would feel like an outsider as well as having emphasis put on it. I know that I am a toubob, which means �a person not from here� but has come to mean �white person�, but I�ve yet to actually hear it from anyone that isn�t a pioneer. I am now the only person in the Arrington�s home, Helen moved out to Latrakunda-sabji (we just call it Latrakunda but that can make it confusing because then there are two�) and is living in the Baha'i center. She�s teaching the computer classes there. The irony of being from the states or from the UK, like Helen, is that the people here who are desperate to get out think that we are some sort of airline ticket to a land paved in gold. Helen has had two proposals in the month that she�s been here. Apparently a friend of hers has gotten 12, she�s trying to compete with her.
The drive to work in the Gambia is very close to non-existent. Many of the young men that I�ve met through to their late thirties are single for this reason. The Baha'i faith actively searches to teach skills to those who are interested in improving the Gambia. They teach the faith to everyone who is interested, they teach computer classes to those whose applications talk about making a stronger Gambia, a Gambia that is functional and helps its people to make their lives better. If these men were to get married they would automatically have to support a large extended family. Marriage here is a painful and slow process that has been mixed between Muslim and local tradition.
It�s very hot, hot enough that cold water with ice pours cold vapor off of the bottom of the glass, and it�s very muggy. Computers don�t last long here. For those who are wondering about the quality of computers in the Gambia they are about five months behind the states and often not much worse than that. Most people here are on xp or 98 (me was just as much a disaster here as it is in the states:) the Internet is not a problem accessing, really it�s just a problem with the cost that is the set back, oh, and the brown outs that happen from anywhere around one to ten to fifteen times a day. Fun!
As of now I�ve not been very active. I�ve attended/helped out with children�s classes, have started children�s classes teacher training, tried to apply to the University of Gambia (say some prayers for this, please, no, say many prayers), have started Ruhi book six (again), gone to a devotional and a fireside and maybe even another devotional at the Al Salahi�s. Nothing much, people say, �oh but you�ve only been here three days� etc� there�s more to be done, everywhere.
The solidarity of the Baha'i community here is amazing. It�s not a whole lot more than in the states but the amount that they�ve been able to accomplish in a short period of time shows what the Baha'is could do if they were more focused.
They�ve made a name nationally for themselves and are respected due to their economic services. They own many of the successful businesses in the region or are directly linked to them by helping to educate those who start the businesses.
They are recognized as a religion and respected because they are not, like the Jehovah�s witnesses, solely here to convert people. Their community economic development programs are just that. If anyone wants to learn then they will be taught. For example; tomorrow we will be going to the police station in Banjul where a class to teach the police how to use their equipment, computers, networks, databases, etc, will be conducted (I�m going along to go to the bank).
Aziz, a police officer, is interested in the faith and has been attending bahai activities, such as the fireside. It�s pretty impressive what the bahais here have managed to do with only slightly more of a unified backing of their institutions than I�ve seen in the states. I guess it always seems like a comparison but, as of right now, that�s all that I can make. We�ll see what I can do later.
In any case, I know that some of you have had a desire to have an address for me, right now, and for the rest of the year, I will not have a conventional mailing address, like we do in the states. One can send me send me anything at the
Al salahi post office box the address should look like this:
Mendon Dornbrook: C/O Al-Salahi
P.O. Box 655, Banjul, The Gambia, West Africa
Good luck. It is slated to get checked about every two weeks, which is how long it takes to send letters to the Gambia. Packages can be shipped here but it is unreliable at best and will be ridiculous in cost (don�t send packages unless you have some bizarre desire to risk disappointment when I return �you sent a package? When? Oh, that must be the one I got an email about yesterday that I didn�t pick up before I left. Of course, that�s assuming that it gets to me:)lol.
Gotta run
Love you guys, you�re in my prayers
mendon