Visiting Gambia with Dr. Nick
The visit began with a rdv which nearly wasn’t, Nick and I were due to take the same plane from Barcelona to Banjul but as I boarded he wasn’t in evidence, so I decided that there would surely be somebody at the other end because I had no contacts. After a long time waiting, with no explanation from the airline more people started boarding, among them thankfully Nick Maurice. I don’t know who had been the more stressed me, heading off with no idea where I was going or Nick thinking that the plane would go without him. After an uneventful journey on our budget airline which seemed to save money by giving no information whatsoever we arrived at Banjul and were met by Bouba at passport control to find that Nick’s luggage was still in Barcelona. Meanwhile Manku was waiting outside wondering what the problem was.
It was around midnight when I was delivered to my ‘home’ and shown to my en-suite room which was thankfully equipped with a fan. A plate of food was offered but I just wanted to sleep, as indeed that family had been doing when we arrived. Next morning I emerged to find the house had a reasonably big vegetable garden of maize, cassava, okra, aubergines, tomatoes and something I failed to recognise. An orange and banana tree had recently been planted. As I was about to leave the previous night’s supper was thrust at me, very unfortunately it was pasta which I can’t eat so I had to explain that rice would suit me better, and we left for the day. It was hot even the locals were finding it hot, temperatures were in the high 30s but felt more like the 40s with a high level of humidity which stayed with us all week.
The morning began with the buying of cola nuts to present as we made our courtesy visits to the local dignitaries. After our purchase and Nick proving that plastic chairs are not very strong we went to visit the Iman to pay our respects and to consult him over his thoughts about various aspects of the current situation in the town of Gunjur (pop. 25,000). Gunjur is near the coast in Western Gambia, not very far from the Senegalese border. After taking a few photographs we wandered through the town to see the Alikali (mayor), a delightful man who has recently suffered a stroke and who has difficulty with his speech which must be very frustrating for him as he seems to still have plenty of opinions. He was delighted to see Nick as were the majority of the townsfolk who hailed him from all directions throughout the town. The Alikali had visited Marlborough some years back and I was shown photos of his visit. We then moved on to see the Nyansimba, a formidable lady who seemed to hope that Nick could cure her aching legs, she certainly carries a fair amount of weight on them.
Somewhere during the morning my presence in town was posted on facebook…. we walked through the market which had recently been roofed by a MBG group which now means that the women can stay there all day selling their fish and vegetables because they are sheltered.
Walking thought town I began to understand the effect the MBG has had on Gunjur – until the last few years when British border control was tightened up there had been a true exchange and many Gunjurians has visited Marlborough for varying lengths of time and for various reasons. Now visas are virtually impossible to obtain so it is rather one directional, however proof of the work completed is everywhere to be seen. At this point it is worth noting that as of the time of my visit 14 – 21 October 2014 the subject which cam up most often was that of Ebola. The Gambia is free and so is Senegal but tourists are cancelling as are young MBG groups and tourism is a life line for the Gambia. All plans and ideas are tinged with ‘as long as there is no ebola’ , I find it really hard to get my head around how they, the Gambians, must be feeling. Already there is a big problem with youth, unemployment which is why I was there but what I found really galling is that most people know of, men in particular, who have set off for Europe, the UK, and their whereabouts are unknown, whether they are dead or alive…..
Aisatou with whom I was staying, my Gambian home, is alone with her children, her husband is in London, with I believe a visa, he visits every couple of years and is in communication with folk back home. She doesn’t know what he does, she doesn’t work and spends a lot of her time staring at his photograph on her phone. Apart from a glitch with the plumbing in my ‘bathroom’, the house is decent with smart furniture, television, fridge and piped water is promised for my next visit, but money is tight, her son is repeating a year at school because she ran out of money to pay last year, the boy appears to enjoy school and wants to learn. My last evening was spent talking to her while she was filling plastic bags with water they had collected from the pump to sell in the market.
When we visited the Upper and Lower basic schools we talked about the lack of motivation for parents to invest in education (although now there are no fees at these schools) and also at pre-school level, 3 – 6 yrs, while they are still happy to pay out of new outfits for the likes of naming ceremonies, appearance comes before everything and certainly the tailors are not short of work. The women wear wrap around skirts which are lined and fancy tops, modern dress is attracting the young and the eldest son at the house was dressed in a smart YSL tee-shirt and extremely tight and very low slung jeans the first evening we spent together. All school children have a uniform of some sort, I did sympathise with the boys who had to go to school dressed in pink!
During our visits to the school I was really impressed by the way they work with gap year students, there is a system whereby the student is on observation for some time before participating but then teacher is, allegedly, always present and the student’s performance is continually monitored.
Compulsory schooling does not start until the age of 7 years but pre-schooling is available, some schools better than others and we talked about researching the effects of pre-school education because at the Lower basic school only 40% of children had had pre-school education and they were performing better than those who hadn’t. Meanwhile the Upper basic school showed no interest in wanting to know what had happened to former pupils, too much paper work with no return for them when new pupils require their attention.
Our programme was a full one and not helped by the sudden announcement just before we arrived that the President would be coming to officially open the piped water scheme on the Friday which meant our programme had to allow for this and a certain number of children would be required to stand on the road side to welcome him for an undetermined length of time. The president was scheduled to have Friday prayers at the central mosque. At the Tarud offices,the local NGO who host MBG, it was decided that Nick should meet the president due to the part he had played in getting piped water to Gunjur. We therefore had part of the day set aside to stand around waiting in the searing heat. However, on Thursday evening we were informed that there had been a change of plan and the president would come on Monday instead, we were due to be out of town and would therefore miss the visit. In fact the president never actually came he sent a deputy instead. We passed her convoy, or rather it passed us travelling back to Banjul at great speed horns blaring stopping every other vehicle on the road.
On Thursday Tarud gave a power point presentation of their 7 current projects. Health education is going well, last year there were 12 puppet presentations concerning reproductive health issues, educating people about the risks of malaria include home visits and the distribution of bed nets and the use of radio. 435 people have trained how to make neem cream a mosquito repellent. They spoke about HIV/AIDS, there is little evidence of it in Gunjur but the infection rate in Gambia is very low in comparison to many other countries, only 2-3% are affected, this is in part thought to be due to male circumcision. A business is en-route making reusable sanitary pads, so far they cost 50D (73p) for 3.
For the water and sanitation group they have made 150 latrine pits in the area, 67 of which are in the centre of Gunjur, the idea is that the home owners dig the pit and then the team go along and construct a concrete surround to avoid the use of wood planks which rot, they are also more hygienic because they are more enclosed and easier to keep clean. On a visit to one a little later I learnt that they shouldn’t need emptying for ten years and that a lorry would come along and suck out the contents, it left me slightly baffled as the access to them can’t be that easy, time will tell.
The internal lending and saving scheme was of benefit to the gardeners and 80% of the loans have been repaid.
At the preschool the pre-school there are 150 (85 girls and 65 boys) enrolled, and 46 have moved on to the Lower Basic School. It was stated that generally the Islamic boys were slower to get back to school for the new term and that girls seem to be more serious than boys. The idea of researching the effect of pre-school came up again.
The Gunjur inclusion project accounts for around 60 children with impairments, the idea is to bring them together and create interaction. The idea is to get them out of their compounds, where they have previously been hidden from view and in to public while supporting them. There are many different disabilities due to lack of good medical supervision, funding is short for corrective surgery and there is a severe lack of orthopaedic surgeons. The idea is to create interaction with the community and give these children access to medical attention and education leading to vocational training for them as they grow up.
There is also a youth development group and a programme to sell solar torches, 2445 lights have been distributed in schools. These lights are very powerful and only cost 100D, the proceeds of the sales of these will be given to the pharmacy at the health centre which is controlled by the community as the Government does not supply drugs.
During the visit the Tarud staff had been issued with ID badges and were all wearing them with pride as we set out to visit the Fayunka Women’s garden to see how the progress of fencing it was going. The garden is a little way out of town but it enables women to have a garden where they can grow vegetables which they can sell in the market. It was the ‘dead’ season for the garden but the individual plots were clear, I saw aubergines, okra, mint and newly planted onions. There is a plan to create a compost area which will need watering to break down the plant matter but which will give the women access to organic matter rather than using chemical fertilisers. This season’s rains have not followed the usual pattern which has made planting difficult because nobody was actually sure when the rainy season actually finished.
The visit to the pre-school showed how well it was run and equipped due to the input from the UK. It has a very smart kitchen and the dining room now has ceiling fans to make it more comfortable, the first day the fans were installed the children were so excited that they forgot to eat!
Before lunching in a restaurant in the centre of town, a delicious and enormous plate of rice chicken and vegetables, we visited a compound where a reconditioned diesel milling machine had been installed, this was a good example of how not to be self-sufficient and the hazard of sending old machinery with the problem of finding reliable spares. The idea of the milling machines was to help ease the women’s work of pounding grain to create flour, it is back breaking work and an essential to their cuisine. The machine had seen better days and was even to a non-mechanical expert relatively kaput, it was costing the compound money and getting them nowhere, we talked about how now an electric machine would be healthier and more reliable.
In the afternoon we took Alieu, who aims to make Gunjur palstic free, to talk to Gilbert who has worked at making the local village of Kartong plastic free, it is interesting that although the two towns are so close, about 6 miles apart, they were unaware that they were both working towards the same aim, we subsequently met a third person who is also working at this. After this there was a short deviation to show me the river which divides the Gambia from Senegal, the river has good fish and the bird life is wonderful.
We had a meeting with Alieu and his plastic collectors, the enthusiasm behind ths project was awe-inspiring, indeed the passion about which people spoke about their projects throughout my visit made me realise that what we seem to have lost in the developed world. The project plan showed an awareness of the problems caused by plastic waste, which was the main decoration in the streets, not least of all the problem of stagnant water collecting in plastic after rain which gives the malaria carrying mosquitoes ideal breeding grounds, so it makes the project not just cosmetic but essential for good health. There is now the necessity to work out how to recycle the increasing number of sacks of plastic which are accumulating in the store sheds, there are already 2000 large sacks.
As we made more visits and the week wore on I reflected more on the situation and chatted to Nick several points came to the fore. The first concerns foreign aid to underdeveloped countries whether human or monetary it is too easy to offer aid without thinking of the big picture, it is really necessary to workout whether it was what they the locals want or whether it is what we, the developed world think that they should have. A great deal of thought should go into whether it is sustainable, the example of the milling machine is a good one. Having provided aid there needs to be an understanding that the aid provided is not a bottomless pit and contingency plans should be made so that local funding sources are explored to continue the work.
Electricity and piped water have only recently arrived in Gunjur, this is changing the way of life and is opening up opportunities for developing businesses using these resources, for example electric sewing machines, IT can be developed and then there is a need for electrical and plumbing supplies. It does mean that life will be a little more expensive but life will be easier.
I have already mentioned the passion with which people approach their ideas and the belief that they have in what they are doing. I wonder if that their conviction is related to religious belief, I suspect that it might be. In comparison to Asia it is so calm, the call to prayer at the mosques is there but more gently, there are not the radios blaring out of every building. The Gambians take life as it comes, as they do death, particularly infant death, they don’t question the reason just accept it for what it is. The presence of unemployed youth on the streets is a problem and really the reason that I had gone to Gambia, they are turning to drugs which is in turn beginning to be the cause of a rise in the previously almost non-existent petty crime. There is a desire to get them off their backsides and motivate them to do something rather than, as Malaki said, taking a trip to Babylon to sit in a tree! The subject of male unemployment concerns everybody in the village where women have found their voice due to the work that MBG have carried out over the years and which is apparently the most important impact from the Gunjurian view point, that MBG have made.
Radio places a big part in the dissemination of information and we spent a couple of very hot sticky hours in the Janneh Koto FM studio being interviewed live. The air-conditioning unit was broken and there was no fan but Nick, Buba Touray (who is working very hard for the business set-up programme and the Arkleton Trust funded competition) Alieu and I talked about why I was visiting, what MBG are doing in Gunjur at present and also about Alieu’s plastic free project. The interview was scheduled to be just under an hour long but it was nearer two hours, we were interviewed in English and then what we said was translated.
On Saturday we went out to visit some small businesses which had applied for small business loans. The first visit was to Berending to see a group of women who wanted to have a loan to get business going making Neem cream which is used as a mosquito repellent. We saw how the leaves of the Neem tree are boiled, the resulting ‘neem’ water is then mixed with grated soap and cooking oil to produce a mousse type cream which should be applied every two hours to avoid mosquito bites. Researching a little further upon my return I discovered that the Neem tree, in the mahogany family, has many uses, medicinal, cosmetic, repellent and even as a vegetable and it originates from the Indian sub-continent where the leaves are placed with clothing to prevent mites. Used in excess it can be toxic. We sat under the village boabab tree and finished the session having to demonstrate our skills, or lack of, dancing in the African style!
The visits continued to two tailors, both very different one who has great ambitions, the other of whom just wants a sewing machine and a building which doesn’t leak. I found these visits particularly interesting because they work with out patterns, the first had magazines for clients to thumb through and then he cut from what he saw, there was some really smart fabric waiting to be sewn. The second was more basic but none-the-less impressive because the only place they had for cutting cloth was the sewing machine table. We chatted to a young girl who wants to increase the size of her hairdressing saloon, the ladies who have short and often plaited hair wear elaborate wigs for social occasions which need to be carefully and fashionably ‘dressed’. She is popular and has plenty of clients but lacks space. The project of loans require the applicants to produce a business plan and have a bank account even if it only holds a rainy day fund, this young girl just hands her money to her mother…. her roots are Senegalese and she goes to Dhaka once a twice a year where she can discover the recent trends and styles and therefore keep up to date.
The poultry farmer wasn’t at home but we looked at his chickens and ducks, and then met him later, he wants quite large loan because he wants to build a new building on some land he has, he is thinking big and wants to add livestock. Nick was very keen that he thought about having the birds outside, he wasn’t entirely convinced. The question of feed is not problematic because the use of fish and oyster shell (readily available from the beach) and home grown grain can be ground up and make a good and cheap feed. At present there is not a local poultry farmer and chicken is often used in the cuisine so there is a ready demand. We also went to see two crafts people one who tie dyes and the other who makes jewellery and batik and uses gourds to create containers and wants to start a craft centre. He is actually a teacher who uses his spare time for his creations, he is aware of the demand for jewellery local versus tourist, the raw materials are different locals want plastic beads while the tourists are more interesting in local materials, seeds and shells.
The other project was a lady who is setting a business making reusable sanitary towels, she sells them at 5D for 3, they will last well if correctly washed with salt and soap. Her daughters are introducing them to her school friends, menstruation causes disruption to girl’s education and it is hoped that by using these towels the girls will not have to take time out of school.
Towards the end of the visit a couple of groups came from other areas in Gambia, one had a had a 4 hour journey. They came to see Nick because they had heard of the work that MBG had done in Gunjur and wanted advice and to share their ideas, both groups were young and felt that sport helps create a unity between the young and the town and village life. One in particular talked about supporting talent, e.g. music, nurturing their skills and finding their potential. The young should be encouraged to turn tho their elders to help their empowerment.
We visited the British High Commission and the VSO offices and talked about the concern over fears of Ebola and the measures being taken on the ground, interestingly the while the former had a plan in place the second showed no signs of concern for their volunteers. At the date of my visit there had been centres ear-marked for treating Ebola cases but were not actually ready to receive patients, Germany were helping with funds and training but the real problem is that most funding is at present going to infected countries. The disease is having a disastrous effect on the tourism industry although at the moment the risk is minimal but with the publicity in the press people are not travelling; tourism accounts for 20% of Gambia’s GDP so the impact will be wide spread. This year’s rice harvest is forecast to be poor due to the poor rains, when farmers are having a lean time they turn to tourism to earn more money but without tourism…..
The reason for my visit was not only to see how MBG works with Tarud but also to see how the Arkleton money is going to be spent. There is an outline of the project already on our web-site. We met with some of the young people who had applied to the project, their ideas were many and varied and it soon became evident that we had to tighten the remit the project was for start-up businesses and many of those who came to see us were already in business and were looking to expand, it was felt that those who were already in business should be directed towards applying for a business loan and there should be more publicity to attract new applications from groups who want to set up a business, it was decided that one of the team members (teams of 5 people) could already be employed, maybe in another field, so as to provide impetus to the group. I look forward to seeing how the project develops.
I would like to thank all those in Gunjur who were so welcoming and looked after me so well.