2006.09.07: September 7, 2006: Headlines: COS - The Gambia: The Kansan: After more than a year of anticipation and a quick three-day preparation seminar that he and other Peace Corps volunteers attended in Philadelphia, Peter Granitz got his first glimpse of Gambia
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2006.09.07: September 7, 2006: Headlines: COS - The Gambia: The Kansan: After more than a year of anticipation and a quick three-day preparation seminar that he and other Peace Corps volunteers attended in Philadelphia, Peter Granitz got his first glimpse of Gambia
After more than a year of anticipation and a quick three-day preparation seminar that he and other Peace Corps volunteers attended in Philadelphia, Peter Granitz got his first glimpse of Gambia
On the dirt ground, in the middle of a grouping of huts, sit three large food-filled bowls that all of the villagers eat from. It’s not much, but what they do have they are willing to share. Granitz joins the village men who are squatting around the bowl designated for males. The second bowl is designated for women and the third, for children and elderly women. To eat from a bowl that is for women and children would be considered improper.
PCOL Comment: It's "the Gambia" not "Gambia." It's "Ukraine" not "the Ukraine." It's "Congo Kinshasa" not "Zaire." It's "Colombia" not "Columbia."
After more than a year of anticipation and a quick three-day preparation seminar that he and other Peace Corps volunteers attended in Philadelphia, Peter Granitz got his first glimpse of Gambia
It's a Different World
Former students find new lives as Peace Corps volunteers
By Stefanie Graves
Thursday, September 7, 2006
It’s seven o’clock in the evening, West African time, when Peter Granitz steps off a plane and is smacked by a wave of sweltering heat. He’s been awake for more than 24 hours now, and the mixture of sweat and exhaustion have stymied his emotions. His body moves methodically, following the other passengers off the plane and onto a rickety, overcrowded bus. There’s no need to stop at the luggage terminal before boarding; everything he’s brought with him fits into his framed backpack and tiny carry-on bag.
After more than a year of anticipation and a quick three-day preparation seminar that he and other Peace Corps volunteers attended in Philadelphia, Granitz gets his first glimpse of Gambia. A city of 1.5 million, Gambia has sub-tropical heat and two distinct seasons. It is located in West Africa, the smallest and most western country on the continent. Granitz will be the only American living in a remote village just outside of the city. He will call it home for the next two years of his life.
Grantitz, a 2005 graduate, is one of nearly 8,000 volunteers currently serving abroad as a member of the Peace Corps. The University of Kansas produces more volunteers than virtually any other university in the country, according to the Peace Corps organization.
[Excerpt]
Morning. Granitz awakes in his host family’s mud hut and swats at the bugs that are swarming above his head. He showers under a stream of cold water, then dresses in the dark. Hot water and electricity aren’t necessities in the village, and they are nowhere to be had. He doesn’t bother to eat the breakfast that his family has served — coos porridge with sour milk. He will find something on his own.
The hut and living conditions are up to US government standards, but Granitz has learned quickly that those standards don’t tend to be very high.
He spends most of his day talking with local farmers. His agricultural and forestry job with the Peace Corps has sent him to teach the people of West Africa techniques for generating profit through cultivation and farming. Recently, he’s been working on a project to create a new, more profitable strain of rice.
He’s his own boss. He reports his whereabouts to the Peace Corps office on Friday mornings. That’s it. Otherwise, he’s pretty much on his own. The job requires both patience and a strong work ethic.
Today, more than 182,000 volunteers have served in 138 countries, including parts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe and the Middle East. When applying, applicants have an opportunity to preference in which area of the world they would like to live and on which of six assignments they most want to work. The assignments choices are education, health and HIV/AIDS awareness, business development, environment, agriculture and youth development.
Betty Baron, KU Peace Corps coordinator and former Volunteer, says that she interviews more than 150 potential applicants each year, of which about 30 percent will eventually become members. KU, she says, produces one of the highest number of volunteers each year.
In fact, the Peace Corps organization reported last year that 52 new volunteers were from KU.
The median age of a Peace Corps volunteer, or PC, as members tend to call themselves, is 25. Most have a college degree and more than 90 percent are unmarried, according to an informational flyer produced by the organization. Baron and many other regional Peace Corps recruiters are stationed at universities because they seem to be the best places to find potential PC volunteers.
Evening. A group of village children excitedly move to the pumping beats of the Outkast boys. Since Granitz’s arrival in the village, these impromptu dance parties have become a sort of tradition, and tonight the children are spellbound by the band’s fast-talking lyrics and by the other American rap and hip hop groups he plays.
Among the few personal belongings Granitz has managed to bring with him is an iPod. Nearly every day, he travels two miles to charge it using solar power at a fellow volunteer’s camp. It is inconvenient, sure, but it has proven to be a good investment.
Americanization
When Granitz travels to the nearby city of Gambia, West Africa’s largest metropolis, he encounters a completely different scene than what he sees daily in his village.
Young people have migrated to Gambia, many to become prostitutes in the country’s booming sex trade business. To these young Gambians, America remains a mystery. Most have never seen a picture of America, let alone met an American. Yet, young men walk around wearing reproduction NBA basketball jerseys and Nike tennis shoes. They listen to American hip hop music.
There are definite western influences in urban areas of the country he’s stationed, Granitz says. In the villages, people live off the land. They’re without most of the common luxuries that Americans and Europeans take for granted, like electricity, phones and hot water, he says. But in the city, you can see and feel the effects of western imports.
Most of the people living in the city are “about 10 years past the urban style and slang that we use in America, but they’re catching on,” he says. “Everyone asks if I’m from New York or LA. Do I know 50 Cent.”
It’s 9 p.m., dinner time in the small village where Granitz lives. He’s been in Gambia for several months now, and he knows what to expect on tonight’s menu — coos, a type of grain eaten morning, noon and night, with peanut sauce and tomatoes. Beans if he’s lucky.
On the dirt ground, in the middle of a grouping of huts, sit three large food-filled bowls that all of the villagers eat from. It’s not much, but what they do have they are willing to share. Granitz joins the village men who are squatting around the bowl designated for males. The second bowl is designated for women and the third, for children and elderly women. To eat from a bowl that is for women and children would be considered improper.
All of the men eat with their hands — their right hand. Because so much is done with your hands in West Africa, it is a courtesy to eat with your right hand and to reserve your left hand for other bodily functions. No one talks. No one drinks either. Water, customarily, isn’t drunk until the end of the meal because filling yourself with water seems silly when food here is so highly prized.
When this story was posted in September 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: The Kansan
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