A complex story of one man and his team

This weekend I celebrated duel success with Westside FC, successes that will live long in my memory long after I am gone. Not only in football but in Education. Firstly we beat our arch rivals Anglefooter once more, a decisive 4-0, resulting in 7 undefeated games and taking our “Jersey fund” to a staggering 110 Dalasi (£3).

Following this match we sat out in the street on the two tree trunks that had been made into a bench. We chatted. Occasions like this spring up occasionally when the boys began talking of England, and the world, and Africa, and the Gambia and football internationally and their poverty and how they want to escape it. Occasions like this follow a regular format, they ask questions with immense interest about the world and they are amazed at my knowledge. They start simple like ‘how many hours to fly to England?’ and get complicated like ‘what has the prime minster done to improve England?’. They ask questions about England and compare how different it is to the Gambia. Then they will start joking with a desperate underlined wishful truth, that I will take them back with me or that I will help them to get a visa. Then rather worryingly one will mention taking “the back route” the notorious and often fatal boat approach into Europe. Then caught up in the rhythm of their banter I will try desperately to bring things back to line by trying to tell them something positive and talk down about such approaches to Europe. That if they work hard at school and get a good education they will have a good job and that might even take them to Europe, or studying might. Then they will tell me “here in the Gambia, even if you have education you may not have a job”. And I push aside that reality and try to tell them that education gives them that chance and everyday the Gambia gets stronger and more and more jobs are made so when they are old enough there will be many more. I tell them that to even be a farmer, if you have knowledge you will be a better farmer. You will grow better and bigger crops and you will feed your family and your stomach better. And it is at this point they will usually laugh and see some sense and their eyes will light up and they will begin talking positively about what they might do and what they might achieve.

And with this twist I am overcome with pride at how, for those brief few moments at least, I was able to shrug off the desperate reality and do something positive and give them hope. ...............

One Week - Sunday 21st June( THE BIG MATCH)

Sunday morning at 8:30 I walked to the education office and gave IT training to the Union secretary on the laptop which I have lent her for homework, finishing at 11:30 when light (electricity) came. Then I was called into the office to type something for a member of staff because it was urgent and his hand had swollen to the size of a balloon. There had been unofficial diagnosis from everyone with causes ranging from an infection, to an abscess, to a bug eating away at his flesh, through to too many people talking about him and calling his name.

I finished and went home. The landlord had randomly fixed the straw on my roof while I was away causing all the accumulated dirt to fall down and litter my room. Therefore I spent the next couple of hours sweeping, cleaning, salvaging food, dusting of my electrics and washing all my clothes in my bucket.

At 13:30 I took a shower (with running water, wohooooo) and headed out to another compound, my second home, to show an educational DVD (Songs and alphabet) on my laptop with the children (although most adults enjoyed it just as much). When postman pat arrived on screen, the children cried “Ha, its Lamin, look at his big white nose, its lamin”. We all laughed. When the battery run dead, and the children began quietly packing up one elder who had sat quietly in a corner began eagerly repeating the phonics “ah, buh, cuh, duh” and all the children broke out into fits of laughter.

At 5:00pm I took to the small field for a “THE BIG MATCH” with Westside FC............

One Week - Saturday 20th June (Naming Ceremony)

Saturday Mornings I normally train IT 1to1 but today I was invited to a naming ceremony in Basse. The record clerk from work had invited me; it was her husbands 2nd wife’s baby to be named Alieu. I arrived at 10:00ish to a busy lively compound. All the husbands relatives had come from their village and elders sat around in large groups and children ran around in their smart Gambian robes. My colleague’s son Musa ran and greeted me with a huge smile and I was taken to greet the baby and handed a large bowl of groundnut/sugar porridge that was delicious. I ate far too much.

The compound’s two buildings had been joined by a giant, shade and rain protecting, tarpaulin and everyone gathered under this in their vibrancy of colour for the handing over of gifts. As one brightly decorated lady began opening the bags and suitcases full with baby items, soap, clothes, cotton buds, blankets, wraps, she counted them as she went, highlighting them to the crowds who looked on intensely. “Killing, Fulla, Saba, Nani, Lulu” boasting at the size of each gifts generosity. Another lady who I recognised as “a beggar” from other ceremonies I had attended. The one who had sang and sang at me in hope for money, sat in the middle and bellowed the ladies words so that all could hear clearly. Following this, ladies began getting up and singing songs with the air of prayer and celebration about the way they moved. As this continued 2 men and a lady began setting up as entertainers. The main man, to the excitement of the children, set out an electric keyboard on an old ironing board, the second man prepared his mandinka drum and his tough tough hands and the lady cleared her voice and began shaking her two old bean cans full of dried rice. The group began performing and the children rushed to get closer, beaten back by a stick to keep law and order they clapped and clapped as though knowing instantly that clapping is in order when ever music is played...........

One Week – Friday19th June (Darkness and Magic)

This week at work the most peculiar thing happened. Peculiar for me at least. Not so peculiar for the Gambia and not so peculiar for Africa. We received a phone call in the office, some girls had fallen sick at a school, an ambulance was on its way. We saw the regions only ambulance rush past not once but twice and knew something was not quite right. A couple of hours later the headmaster arrived quite clearly in shock. He quickly found me and clearly had something on his mind. He began to tell me how 12 of his school girls had fainted, fallen down sick just like that. This was terrible. I began a conversation with those around me.

“Do they know the cause? Food poisoning or a reaction to water maybe?” I asked

“No, you know this is not the first time, its been happening for many years, but always a different school. Many blame the spirits. Even the MRC and European doctors came here in 2004 and did tests, blood samples, screening, everything. But they found nothing. “

“Spirits ey?” I responded with concern. I continued, trying to add something more useful.

“ You know what you have to do, you have to question those 12 girls very seriously on everything they have done, everywhere they have been, everything they have eaten and drunk in the last few days. You compare the same answers to those who did not fall sick and you find what activities where common for those sick girls only. If medical tests proved nothing this is the only way.” ................

One Week - Thursday 18th June (Kilyans)

Very early Thursday morning I had moved my mattress and finished my sleep inside for the rains had come. It was an impressive downpoor, and with the strength of the wind I started to feel what it must be like to live in a lighthouse at the mercy of a storm. After an hour or so at work that morning I noticed a line of people on the veranda all looking up at the sky. I stepped outside to see a billion new born insects floating around like confetti on the wind. It was like something from an O2 advert, quite miraculous. We all stared in silence at the miracles of life.
Thursday after work I cycled home on my bicycle and after by bucket bath continued to cycle on to practice on the drum. Two days had passed since my inspired drumming session but today as I took up a beat my hands pained me once again with one finger bruised just enough to make things very difficult.
I cycled home a little earlier than usual, of course having pumped up my ever-deflating back tire, and stepped out into Mansajang to sit once more with the Kilyans.......

One Week – Wednesday 17th June( Social Habits)

On Wednesday after work I headed home lapping up the luxury of my 2 Dalasi bag of cold water. I took a bucket bath and sat and read for 30 minutes of Charles Dickens Great Expectations.

A wailing child stole my concentration so I put down the book and headed out to meet Mr Trawally, who lives in a small compound in the west side of the village. Mr Trawally is a simple man leading a simple life. It is thought that a spout of Maleria has left him sick with some mental problems. On my arrival in the village he was quick to make me uncomfortable by asking me for money, but realising his mistake he spent the next few weeks avoiding me, always getting up and leaving saying “I can feel the negative environment, I should leave you”. With some patience and an interest to find out more about this complex man that seemed disturbed and troubled yet somehow friendly I have become a friend and him a friend to me. He now teaches me Mandinka and although I dictate the content he has an intelligent, soft and kind approach that aids my hatred for formal language tuition. We sit, brew atyia and chat, depending on his mental state he sometimes greets me continuously throughout the session. He will tell me how he wants to marry but nobody wants to marry a sick man.

Occasionally he will tell me of the work he has done, odd jobs here and there because he cannot hold a proper job and the “negative environment” he creates disturbs people from hiring him. It seems like me on my first week, many people don’t know how to act around him. Sometimes he will go to the bush and collect firewood to sell and I have met him once or twice loading up a bicycle piled high with firewood. In the rainy season and at harvest time he may have a chance to help on the farms. He is therefore a poor man, poorer than the rest who are themselves poor. He relies on handouts with no ability to depend on himself. We sit in his one room roundhouse with a self made wooden bed with an old flaking mattress, a wooden bench to sit on and a yellow water gallon, its extremely bare. He owns nothing and expects to own nothing, however somehow miss fitting he sports very proudly a Chelsea football shirt with Kalou on the back, no. 9 and wears it almost always.

One Week – Tuesday 16th June( Drums)

Tuesday I finished work at 16:00 and walked home happily with my 2 Dalasi bag of cold water. I skipped the hassle of eating lunch in the compound, took a shower (with running water) pumped up the ever-deflating back tire on my bicycle and set off down the bright red, dusty, potholed road for a lesson on the Drum. It had been 2 weeks since my last lesson I was keen and eager to see how my pathetically soft hands would fare.

Lamin “My Toma” arrived fairly late giving me the chance to warm up at my own pace and we began going over a few old beats which I have to admit bored me a little. So I requested we ignored all my inadequacies and dived into something a little more interesting. My Toma complied and we took up the challenge arguing for an hour between French-English-Mandinka confusion over what had been said “ was it left hand, right, right, left, or Left hand, right, left, right,” then we began arguing “was it closed hand, open, open, closed, or Closed hand, closed, open, closed”. Before something clicked and we came to an agreement, and the heat of the debate had put so much fire in me, accompanied by the two week break and the resting of my beaten hands, I began thumping away at this complex beat with a nimble flexibility of the wrist and a casual understanding of the rhythm. My hands bounced off the drum with the “ping” of a professional and my fingers danced around the drum with the confident calmness that the children dance around the village of a night.
The night rolled in and the call for pray sang out so I pumped up the ever-deflating back tire on my bicycle and set off down the bright red, dusty, potholed road for home......

One Week - Monday 15th June( Mobile Phones)

After work had finished I walked 20 minutes into Basse to see the phone doctor, a little shacked mobile phone technician based opposite the medical clinic. Back home you would probably have to go through the hassle of completing forms, sending it to a manufacturer with a receipt and insurers code, or warrantee documents, stamped address envelopes, quoting references and ID’s, and then wait for its return. Here you take it to a shack and a self taught man has a few simple tools hooked up to a car battery and the skills to clean, fix, repair update any make or model you bring him. Some things maybe “backward” but others seem refreshingly straightforward and nonsense free.

I had agreed to help a young lady from Mansajang fix her phone, which she had not been able to afford to repair for several months. I have known Coomba since I first arrive here. Her father forced her to stop schooling so that she could help her mother at home, now my age she was one of the many teen-mums with two pretty girls now of 4 years and 1 year and hoping soon to marry. She had come to me knowing I was a Computer man and thought I might be able to repair it using my computer. I said “leave it with me”, comfortably using the slight language barrier not to explain that I would have to pay for its repair so not to leave her feeling ‘ashamed’ (as I know she would have put it). But also leaving the reputation that I was throwing money around resulting in what I know would become an inundated request for everything and anything from others.

The phone doctor said “It will be ready in an hour, come back at 5:30” so I took the rare opportunity to visit a small eatery to look for the rare opportunity to eat a plate of chicken. Chicken was not ready so I settled for a 25 Dalasi plate of rice and greens and counted for the eateries young Ghanian boy for each hop that he made around the room (his record was 17 hops), biding some time. At 5:30 I returned to find the man had left and so sat in his shack with another young lad who wasn’t too keen to talk but shared with me his cake, for 40 minutes before “the doctor” returned.............

The coming of the rains

During the president’s 3 day tour to our region, one day will stand out in my memory. Not for the manic ridden glamour in associating myself with the passing presidency or the manic ridden scramble for air borne biscuits thrown from his car but for a most enjoyably relaxing day completed with a gift from the skies, the Baaba Konko Sanjo (the rains that falls the termites) or the FIRST RAINS!

The visitors, all their convoys, their mattresses strapped to the back of jeeps, their tagalongs, their protecting guns, their generators, their un-rationed electricity and water supply, their accompanying cultural performers and no doubt their kitchen sink, all created quite a distraction for those few days. As everybody became preoccupied it created some respite in the office which we took full advantage of to sit under the tree.
Mango Season is upon us and the mahooosive tree that dominates the office compound is spawning some reel beauties. At this time, with Mango breakfast on the mind, its the first thing that greets you as you walk through the gate as it stands boldly welcoming in all its gigantic, shade producing, fruit producing, beauty.

The grounds around a Mango tree are now surveyed each day for fallen food. Large wooden sticks are used to bring down any spotted ripe ones, and children occasionally use stones. Frequently a Mango can be heard crashing through the branches and occasionally exploding with the venom of dynamite off a corrugated iron roof top. When a mango falls there is a mass scramble from those around it to get their hands on the sweet delicious fruit. For me watching this scramble is often more enjoyable than the fruit itself. I once walked passed a compound to see too frail old watchmen, otherwise peacefully calm and entranced in tranquillity and respect, wrestling each other tooth over nail, pulling at legs, twisting of arms, wrenching of heads as the fallen fruit battled itself from one man to the other, both determined to victor in the battle for the Mango. Comical beyond description.

The Beat of the Drum!
It was always my ambition before I came to the Gambia to learn to play the drum. Inspired my time in South Africa and various hippy hoe-down musical sessions in various places during my travels, it just had to be done. Up until recently I had not crossed paths with a drum producing, drum playing opportunity. During Tobaski several people kept behind the slaughtered Rams skin with promises of making a drum with me but all materialised to nothing. It seems very few people in the village can afford to own an actual drum and when the time comes they beat the bright yellow water gallons instead. During larger programmes/parties a local band will perform using their own hand made drums.

The opportunity came for somebody in Basse I vaguely knew as ‘my toma’ (namesake) Lamin, to make me a drum. I was held in 3 or 4 weeks of mixed-translated discussions about how this would be done and the costs involved (which seemed to be vague and inconsistent and rising all the time). I put my faith in the one man who insisted it would take 3 days. I gave him 8 and returned with my sister. They were not complete, he needed more money. After several more frustrating upsets the drums were made at a cost which was twice the originally agreed. I can firmly say this was due to poor management and capacity to plan and also left ‘my toma’ with little profit so I battled with myself to shrug off my own anger (largely driven by western standards) and gave him the chance to earn something extra by providing me with lessons.

We hitched a lift in a jeep to transport the drums to a new location, a nursery school grounds where a drama group meets in the evenings to train. So during my first official training session I somehow found myself playing in a group of 5 other drummers playing for the drama group who practised some traditional dance routines. This is when I realised the realities of being a drummer. ...........

Two Tubabs, One Mandinka and a Chicken

On April 8th my sister flew in to Banjul for a two week visit. A few days before as I prepared to travel I was told the two boys from my compound would be travelling with me to stay with the father’s other wife and step brothers & sister for the Easter holidays. Their excitement and haste to go, and their banter during travel and “are we almost their yet” persistence reminded me of my own younger childhood.
I met up with my sister and again was in the luxury of news, greetings and a friendly face to talk to. From the luxury of beach accommodation we travelled with my landlord in his bright orange jeep/truck towards Basse, except it was Bank holiday Friday and the ferry queue was HUGE, so we bravely took to the potholed southbank that sits hidden under a cloud of thick red dust that only Africa could possible know of. The Vehicles battery died at every possible moment requiring several push starts and the back window smashed amazingly into a billion pieces after a run in with one special pothole all helping to paint us bright orange from the dust. We jumped out at Bansang to meet and greet sainey and travelled deep into the bush to visit the school of Sekuta, where we stayed overnight. Clare was treated to Mandinka lessons by the village children and set a fantastic example by learning very quickly. The following morning she showed off her Mandika to the village...........

Small Project Funds – Rising Temperatures
March is getting hotter, it surely does seem each day ads an extra degree. The electric fan is now useless only blowing burning air into your face “like an aeroplane engine” and I think the rumours are true I can cook an egg on the floor and poor boiling water for my tea from the tap.
The Boabab season is sadly over but Tomboron Berries have come into bloom and are highly sought after. They look like orange marble sized wrinkled apples, stalk and all, and taste dry and sweet once chewing around the pip. There’s a bush above my hut that the children sneak to and beat with a stick without their parents seeing as all family fruit should be shared equally. Otherwise they are found in the bush or sold at the market.
Since my parents where here and our visit was made to Sukuta school I have been further supporting them. I am currently setting up a Small Project Fund (SPF) through VSO DIFID/British High commission funding, for which they want to build a fence around their school to give it a closed identity from the village and to stop cattle from wandering in and causing disruption and destruction.
During my previous visit to complete the documentation I travelled from Bansang through the crisp dry bush on the back of a Motorbike, a fantastic way to travel. Travelling through one nearby village the bike slipped in the sand, we swerved violently, a chicken squawked across our path fearful for its life, we swerved violently again clipping a woven fence and the bike toppled over crushing me underneath. I received a 24 hour dead leg and a large burn on the other calf, much to everyone else’s sadness. When I pass it off as a small burn (just like the baby snake) I am told “Eeeeeey, there is no such thing as a small burn, a burn is a burn!” I think it fits with a Mandinka proverb “buwo la dooyaa, buka a bali sungkango la” – shit will smell however small.

National Victories (Early April Update)

Way back in early December Gambia celebrated another victory over Senegal that I didn’t write about. This time it was not at national level but locally in Basse. My village team Mansajang triumphed in the cup final over a team of Senegalese immigrants who have settled in the region. More enjoyable than the national football, people really knowing how to let their hair down at these events, it was of carnival atmosphere. There was so much happening in the crowd that I had to keep reminding myself that there was a game going on.
“Ning Alla ye buloo kosi I ye, I dong” – When God claps for you, you should dance (Make hay while the sun shines).

And following the victory, yes you guessed it more mayhem and madness. This time it was more of a rural affair. The old village men playing the knanyeru musical, fiddle-like, stringed, finger-plucked instrument marched through the village to the beat of the drum with a hundred celebrating villagers in tow. Congregating energetically in pitch darkness for a short while in every compound singing and dancing. The compound women sat smiling happily at this rare mass intrusion glad for the distraction from the usual routines and celebrating the happiness. Then the crowds danced away to another compound, their music ringing out across the village.

I would like to think that this was traditional celebration for tribal victories, perhaps the homecoming of triumphant men back from the bush after a successful hunting or even the celebrating of a villager’s bravery and honor in a local wrestling bout. With the exception of the motorbike that chased the crowds, the hi-fi on one man’s shoulder, the mobile phones in each mans pocket and the replacement of football as the cause........

Crash and Burn
On the 6th February I sat on top of a very tall hill and watched a jumbo jet plummet to the earth blazing in fire as passengers could be seen somehow standing at the door bracing themselves before they gave up hope and leapt from the burning disaster only to fall to a painful impact and sudden death with the earth’s surface . There are no tall hills in the Gambia it was in fact a nightmare.

I can’t say I have ever connected the relevance of my dreams to my own reality before, until this continuous set o f nightmares, all involving travel (aeroplanes, boats, hangliders), all involving falling through the air, crashing and burning which I connect to the sadness of failure that I was facing at that time.
I won’t bore with detail about what was happening but I can say the 3 month depression/slump VSO warns about hit me square in the face 5 months into country and 3 months in placement. Some of that which was once new and exciting was now just the norm, some of which was interesting and observable was now frustratingly annoying and somehow intolerable. Where I had been over relaxed, and open to requests and demands I now felt I was being taken advantage of and had no power or control. The politics of living in a compound in addition to a close nit community is sometimes extremely difficult. For me not understanding what is going on (because of language and the fact that im not a member of the family and have to keep out) in times of anger, sadness, the dealing of punishments and mostly during arguments is something I still really struggle with, especially when you are close to, and care for, those people.

As a result I felt that I was giving 110% 8 days a week unselfishly, but still somehow failing.

February already
Following the harvests in the first few months of my time in Mansajang, Basse, the Rainy seasons work on vegetating the bush soon became diminished as the dry season kicked in and the landscape became dusty, bare and desert-like once again. The Harmitan Season from around November sees the Saharan Desert blown across the Gambia in unseen clouds of red sandy-dust. I now risk leaving my house for only a few days to find everything inside completely covered in thick dust on my return. The roads and paths are dry to the bone, many roadside trees have their leaves tainted red from the dust and the bright African white light of the day seems to shine stronger than ever.
The wildlife continues their co-inhabitant life cycles all around the Gambian People. With the increasing heat the lizards flurry and the hundreds of frogs have disappeared into hiding. The fledgling chicks have grown scrawny and I have suddenly noticed all the sheep are fat at the belly, are waddling oddly and are soon to deliver. It seems with any noticeable increase in heat also comes a noticeable appearance of one new bird or another in my compound garden adding to the brew of orchestral chirping.
Harvesting Boabab from the bush has stepped up a notch as we are in prime season for this delicious fruit which has also lead into the orange season as the orange trees are plucked all around me and the market stalls take on their tropical colour as they are sold in abundance.

Resourcefulness of life, inevitability of death

One thing I love about living here is that every day I am reminded that I am alive. Gambian greetings of ‘how are you?’ or ‘how are the people of your compound?’ will indeed meet the reply “I am here” or “they are there”. Is it that to be alive is more worthy of a mention, or is it that sometimes being alive is the most that people feel they can afford to celebrate? Through daily routine there is a constant connection to life and death which is often difficult to pinpoint but sits quietly under the surface whilst beating its chest like the worm that once lived in my finger. Perhaps it is the struggle for survival that battles on all around me. Perhaps it is the very apparent funeral and talk of ones passing away that whispers through the village, or the fact I am experiencing many more new born babies through living in a close community whose mothers have many. Maybe it can be seen through the corner of the eye with the tender raising and grazing of goats through to the slaughter of the Ram, a sacrifice, at tabaski. It was certainly there in the rams head that stared back at me from a refrigerator for an eternal lasting week. It is there in the slaughter of chickens fresh for the pot after watching them grow from an early chick that followed haphazardly after the mother hen who chased around the perimeters of the compound, pecking at loosely scattered grain and leftover crumbs.

It is there in the vibrant celebrations of a naming ceremony for a new born that rings out across the village, spoken by the words of the beating drum. It is there in constant sickness and fear of sickness alone. It is there in the talk of medicine as gold dust. It is there in the mosquitoes that pester at night and the constant day in day out prevention, panic and over diagnosis of malaria when ones temperature rises or one starts to feel at all ill.
Its there in the patter of small lizards that run along the walltops and there in the larger ones that lie defeated by the rock of doom cast from the hand of human fear.
Life is there in the saplings that start to rise in the vegetable field or the fruit that starts to bloom from the tree and the crops that start to grow in the bush and lies there in all the vegetable gardens that could not receive enough water. Its there in the countless programs of development shining new born hope into a community and lies silently in all those that have come, gone, failed or moved on. Dare I comment that its there in the PC that boots up correctly and in everything that works, and the PC that fails to switch on nor light up and everything that doesn’t. Its there and its constantly staring back at you…..

Parents fly in for a visit (Dec/Jan)

On the 26th December my parents flew into Banjul to visit for two weeks. I woke early and had successfully got a setplass 7 seater vehicle from Basse and set off by 6am travelling under the 1st skies of the morning. We travelled for an hour before the vehicle began to struggle. It wouldn’t make Banjul so we turned round and headed back to Basse. So two hours in and I was back where I had started. We set off again and reached the first ferry crossing to JanJanbureh island but the mechanical pully to the small ferry had broke so we can to pull ourselves across by hand.. I somehow arrived at 3pm at the airport to greet them just in time.

We spent a couple of days in Bakau in beach accommodation (which felt like total luxury) catching up, I suddenly had news from the outside world, it was great. We spent time brewing Atayia tea with my Kanifing friends, shopping for dinner in the local Serekunda market and watching the fishermen come home from sea in the evening.

Travelling to Basse we caught the first ferry at 8am as foot passengers but mistakingly took a green bus which un-fortuitously stopped roadside at every village along the way to let a passenger off or to let another passenger on. We didn’t reach Bansang until 5pm where we met my friend Saineh who joined us in a taxi as we drove for 30 minutes deep into the bush to visit his school. A bumpy sandy road cutting through mud hut village after village on a path that never seemed to end receiving wave after wave from the local people. It was so late we were invited to stay the night in newly built school quarters. The village decided to cook for us and to tradition they brought my parents the live chicken to show them their dinner before they put it in the pot, whilst we sat on a bamboo bed under a clear star-lit sky.

Education, Education, Education!

As a volunteer you are placed to contribute towards development and I think ‘contribute’ is the key word because no mater your strengths, successes and achievements you are a small cog in a giant wheel working in an area, which due to its complexities, is endlessly described as a minefield (development).

The strength of VSO is that volunteers are placed directly in the communities and its perhaps in this area that the greatest contribution is often made. I have come to believe that we can go along way in keeping the peace and supporting multiculturalism to communities that might otherwise be cut off breading resent and fear. The American volunteers are in fact called peace corps and O’Bamma, regarding anti-war international relations, pledged to double the number of peace corps in his key speech running up to the elections.

In the village as I slowly become more accepted (and this alone takes a great deal of effort and patience) I have started to enjoy the company of several families who are always happy to welcome me. Through this, being a westerner, a whiteman, labelled an ’educated feller who has travelled’ I feel I am always slowly teaching somebody something, whether it is intentional, apparent or subtly accidental. I can start to see how my greatest contribution will perhaps be in the community, the time spent with the villagers and not necessarily in the classroom.

Celebrations Celebrations!

The beginning of January saw the all important Muslim festival of Tobaski (Bang na sala, the pray of riches). On this day anybody that can afford it is to slaughter a Ram and share a small amount with those that cant. In the Gambia a different, bigger, breed is marched here from Senegal over a 2 week period that builds meat on the bones. So tiring is the journey some are ready to die without the aid of the knife.

On the build up a little excitement began to be felt like the early wind of a dust devil leading to something powerful. Large herds of rams appear on the street, the Sheppard’s herding them through the town like a walking billboard. Families begin buying clothes for the children, men begin dealing in large sums of money at the bank, women prepare from the market, girls begin plaiting each others hair, boys tend to the purchased rams that scatter the villages, leashed to trees in compounds and office grounds.

The nature of the Gambia leaves many people posted to different districts with their work. For the festivities everyone travels home to pray with their family and their village. My landlords second wife from Brakama and her 4 children have joined us for the holidays. So now there are children everywhere, although they too are fantastic children.
On the morning of Tobaski I donned my new Gambian robe (children receive them as gifts) gifted to me by Musa back in Kanifing and joined the compound for early morning prays at a prayer ground on the far side of the village. The mosque is too small on this day. Then came the slaughtering of Rams as the throat is slit by a knife and the blood pored into a whole dug in the compound ground. An activity carried out from compound to compound. Then came a festering of slicing, dicing, chopping, hacking bone breaking, skin slicing, organ removing, intestine unravelling as I watched on intensely. Its not the easiest thing to watch but for me, I eat meat I should watch and truly understand where this otherwise beautiful food called meat comes from. Ignorance is bliss but with insight comes wisdom. Every part was used, nothing was wasted and a great skill was demonstrated. The children even took the scraps and began their own feast preparations. All that was left was the head and the feet which sat in the compound for the day as we feasted on baskets full of roasted meat. Then the skinned rams head turned up in my fridge. It starred back at me for a week, each time I went for water, with a determination for me to face the daemons of its death not only in sight but in mind, before it turned up on a plate for breakfast one morning.

Wild Gambian Creatures!

On my birthday I was asked to photograph a deadly snake in the bush and so we marched to its location and I approached on tip toes ready to run if it so flinched. Except they had played a gag and to everyone else’s amusement it was actually dead, chopped by a machete for entering a round house.
Late one evening I caught a ‘baby’ snake wiggling past my front door. I dashed for my camera, the boys dashed for a machete, who would reach it first? The snake had a lot resting on it but we both returned to find it had disappeared.
Whenever mentioning this baby snake I am told “heeeeeeeeey, don’t call that snake a baby! There is no such thing as a baby snake. A snake is a snake!”

Recently large monitor lizards have appeared on the scene. The locals are extremely scared of them with great tales of how they can kill a man. A few times relaxing in the compound I have risen to cries of ‘”Snake!” (when actually it’s a monitor lizard) and a mass chase around the compound gardens. One was seen burrowing into a den, which was then stuffed with fallen leaves and set on fire to burn the beast out.
Another, of quite impressive size, was cornered in the compound but came to an end from large rocks to the head, to all the compounds adrenaline fuelled enjoyment. I tried to tell them “Si mi yarranni gosi, gosi yaratta Kam” - If I don’t eat the porridge the porridge will not eat me, or if you don’t go for trouble (the lizzard), trouble will not go for you but this was laughed off.