Mba kang

Translation.... I'm on it.... translation again.... im working or fasting or anything else that you could be "on". Another hot and steamy day here in The Gambia. Just sitting in the computer lab doing a bit of sweating. I'm afraid we have just about reached the end of the rainy season which I know I will miss at least for the next month or so. Although it is pretty hot during the rainy season the daily or twice daily downpours tend to cool things off quite nicely at least in the evening. Now the rains have stopped and we settle into what I understand to be a uncomfortable month or two before the "cool" season begins. Now we just have scorching hot sun and cloudless skies until sometime after the end of November.

Fasting continues and I have been able to hold out for nearly a month now. Were on the final stretch. This weekend will be the end of Ramadan and the resumption of normal eating habits for the entire Muslim world. Fasting was not that bad after all. There were some tough times when I was working outside and it was hot as #@$# and I wasn't drinking water. After about the first week or so you kinna get in to the rhythm and you body adjust even to the 4:30am rise to eat breakfast. That being said I never thought the prospect of being able to eat or drink whatever you want whenever you want would be so exciting. This week I was thinking how crazy it will seem to just go grab a mango or a banana and eat it when I feel like it. Guess it makes you appreciate your food more, at least for a few weeks after fasting is over. The festival or holiday at the end of Ramadan is called Koritay(sp?). That should begin either Friday or Saturday depending on the sighting of the moon. So we will have a bit of a feast and everyone who can afford it will wear some new clothes and have a good time. We will take some pics and show everybody the festivities.

So we have been having some good success here at the college lately. My counterpart and I have been getting things a little more organized around here. In the main student lab we have standardized the machine image for all the lab PCs and are successfully deployed the image to all machines using a cool program called udp-cast. We also implemented some basic roaming profiles for testing as well as some fairly complex Group policies which are in place already keeping untrained users from destroying our hard work. Quite a few other small additions here and there are slowly making the environment more stable and easier to manage. My counterpart is doing very well and I'm impressed with his interest in learning on the ins and outs of the system. He seems quite motivated to learn.

I added a cool feature to the blog which you should see if you check out the right hand sidebar. There is a little map that is really just a glorified hit counter but its pretty sweet. It may not show much interesting data for a few days or weeks but It will eventually show you how many people are visiting the page and what there general area of the world is. So check back in a few weeks for the latest on that.

In other news we have lost two people from our training group. Don't worry they just went back to the states they aren't actually lost. Statistically we are still beating the average for PC. We have now lost 10% of our training group. From what I read the world wide statistics are about 30% of volunteers will ET(early terminate) before their service is up.

That last paragraph reminds me that I need to give you a quick rundown on Peace Corps lingo. Sometimes I swear I work for a government agency or im stuck in the movie Good Morning Vietnam with all the acronyms we use (O... wait I do work for a government agency, but im pretty sure this isn't a movie). So here is a quick list of useful acronyms when reading about, talking to, or listening to a Peace Corps Volunteer.

PCT - Peace Corps Trainee
PCV - Peace Corps Volunteer
RPCV - Returned Peace Corps Volunteer
COS- Close of Service - the end of your 2 years
PST - pre-service training
IST - in service training
ET - Early termination
AdminSep- Administrative Separation - getting sent home do to a violation of PC policies
MedSep - Medical Separation - getting send home due to a persistent medical condition.
EAP- Emergency action plan - how to get outta dodge is the @#R3 hits the fan (unlikely to happen here).
CD - country directory - head of PC operations in country
APCD - Accociate Peace Corps Director - several in country each in charge of a specifice program (education, health, ect..)
PCMO - Peace Corps Medical Officeer - In charger of the health of all PC staff in country
The list goes on and on but that should give you a good start.....

I should have quite a bit of stuff coming up soon. Lots of work at both jobs. Once fasting is over and I can drink water during the day again (imagine the possibilities) we are going to do some more exploring by bike in our area. I'm hunting for the golden fishing spot in the Gambia and I shall find it especially if I can get all those crocks out of the way.... just joking... sort of.

Later