Biggest crocodile yet

Well folks, I think this will definitely be my last story on crocodiles, but then I thought the last one was too. On my way to work every day I pass a craft market. This is an area where Gambians make and sell things for the tourist trade. Someday I will take some pictures of the men at work.  It is predominantly men that are producing the items.  I see some things in shops run by women but I do not see them actually making the things.  I will snap more pictures some day because their process is pretty interesting, but I had to stop and take this picture for this blog.  I had seen no evidence of this creature being carved, when suddenly one day there he was, in full glory, the biggest crocodile I have seen in The Gambia. I resisted the urge to sit and pet him but I did think he was pretty amazing. They do not use any power equipment for their carving -- hand tools only. If you could see the tools they work with to do carving, you would be very impressed.  I guess you can look forward to it as an upcoming feature.

And how do you charge your mobile phone?

If you teach at an up country school you may or may not have power, but mobile phones are ubiquitous.  What does a gal have to do to get her phone charged? Never fear, where there is a will there is a way. The picture below was taken in the head teacher's office at a school I was monitoring.  At the time I noticed this device there were about three more phones hooked up but I did not shoot quickly enough.  I don't know who manufactures  the device that all of the phones are plugged into, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was not originally designed to be hooked into a car battery.  I know some school actually have a money making concern going by charging mobiles. for people.  These phones are probably staff members' phones. 

Vortex Smortex and Monkeys Too

I don't understand all this talk about the polar vortex. I am enjoying weather in the 70's and 80's with gentle ocean breezes.  Surely you people are imagining things.  Last week we had our yearly retreat for the WFP.  We went to one of the local hotels in Senegambia and had 3 days of meetings and food.  It was tough but we managed to get through it.

Here are some pictures of the M&E (Monitoring and Evaluation) team during one of our sub-meetings.
As you can see the circumstances were pretty rugged.  I don't know how we dealt with it

Many of the team members in the picture are stationed up country to do field monitoring for post emergency food supplementation. They are providing food to pregnant and nursing mothers, identifying children who are severely malnourished and referring them for hospitalization, and identifying moderately malnourished children and providing them with food to take home. If a children is moderately malnourished they provide them with Super Cereal Plus. It contains maize (58 percent), de-hulled soya beans (20 percent), dried skimmed MILK POWDER (8 percent), sugar (10 percent), vegetable oil, and vitamin & mineral premix. If you notice the 10 percent sugar content, it is to make it taste good.  Many of the malnourished children no longer have an appetite.  The sugar makes it more taste tempting to the child. The picture below of some children who are not in either of the malnourished categories but are providing good evidence that Supercereal Plus tastes good.  A bag of Supercereal Plus had broken and they are licking up the remains on the table.

Recently Rustica Carlos send me a birthday card telling me to celebrate my birthday like a monkey but stop short of throwing my caca around.  It struck a familiar chord.  At the same meeting we had a coffee break outdoors when one of my co-workers felt something like rain.  He looked up to see a monkey had urinated on him from a tree above.  Is that close enough, Rustica?  Needless to say he got a new plate of food.  I took several pictures of the monkeys -- they were pretty big. They call them red monkeys here but I do not know the scientific name.You can see a few of  them below:

A monkey family:

Thank goodness they did not celebrate in the way that Rustica suggested that I avoid.