We are Gambians now

This post is to show you the new clothes I have gotten made, as well as show you Kailyn's head wrap.

The picture with all the girls, is when we had a party in our courtyard. There was drumming and so much ridiculous dancing. We exchanged hand clap games and our versions of ring around the rosey.

Pictures for your viewing pleasure

On Friday we visited Bijilo National Park in Senegambia.  This park is home to green monkeys.  As tourists often feed the monkeys peanuts, they are quite tame and follow you around.  There is a beautiful beach nearby, but unfortunately a storm rolled in just as we were leaving the park.  We are in the peak of the rainy season, so our neighborhood often floods after the afternoon rains.  There is sometimes up to a foot of water in the courtyard of our compound.  One day last week neighborhood children were actually swimming in our courtyard!

Abuko national park! This semester I will be doing directed research under Professor Wolovich. She is researching Galago's or bush babies! There are also 3 other biology majors who are working on primate SMP's. I have been within 2 feet of a Callithrix monkey(pic 1), who thinks you will give it food. There are also colobus monkeys (pic 3). The galago's are nocturnal, so we do the research at night. (Mom, I wore a ton of bug spray and all my permethrin sprayed gear) To find them, we wore head lamps with spot lights. When their eyes are struck by light the shine back a bright red light. So we went through the forest looking for eye shine, and when we spotted on we have to snap for the others to come look. It was Elena, myself, and Molong who is the lead Gambian scientist in the park, in one group. Molong knows every single plant in that park, he knows the English name, Gambian name, and scientific name, as well as the medicinal uses! So after we spotted a galago we would try to watch it as long as possible, but it would scurry away within 20 seconds. We then trekked over to the tree it was on and Molong would have me write the long scientific name down. Then he name all the neighboring trees! This man is a genius! In an hours time we saw 7 galago's. It was over all a successful night!

Hello! This is us on the plane to Dakar. We look happy, but what ended up happening was over 24 hours with no sleep and waiting 8 hours in the Dakar airport. International travel is never easy.

Since we have gotten to The Gambia we have learned greetings in Wolof (a common local language) and attended lectures on Gambian culture. Also, I touched a crocodile!!! It was at the crocodile pool in Kachicalli, where we had our naming ceremony. My Gambian name by the way is Isatou Conteh.

Its been hard to sit down in front of a computer long enough to blog all the things I am experiencing. Hopefully once classes start, I will be able to write much more. Until them... Jaama (peace)

Pictures!

Here are a few pictures of our Gambian adventure.  On Sunday we participated in a Gambian naming ceremony at Katchikally crocodile pool.  My Gambian name is Kombe Sarr.  Then we got to pet the crocodiles!  I also took cloth that I bought at the market to the tailor's down the road.  The dress is beautiful!