Cows, Pigs and Birds
on Lynn Sellwood (The Gambia), 31/Oct/2011 20:21, 34 days ago
I’ve been back in The Gambia for six weeks now and the pace has been hectic. There is so much going on at work in SQAD that everyone is stretched to the limit. No-one has ever worked so hard. I am enjoying planning the campaign to roll out the project I am involved in (Participatory Performance Monitoring) and have been told by the Permanent Secretary to lead a study tour to Uganda in the New Year. The bi-monthly meeting called CCM (Co-ordinating Committee Meeting) was held in Region 5 in a town called Janjanbureh, formerly Georgetown.Pat and Catherine assisting The Cluster Monitor in Minute Taking This consists of two days of presentations for projects or updates, followed by 15 school visits in teams, feedback and AOB. It is jointly chaired by the Minister for Education and the Permanent Secretary. One of the most interesting projects is that which is going to teach reading in one of thefive mother tongues (Wolof/Olof, Mandinka, Fula/Pulaar, Jola and Serahule) used in The Gambia. There is no agreed orthography but one has now been developed for each language so that the children can start to read in their mother tongue rather than starting in English, a language they do not know and is not spoken at home.Traditional Gambian food is served and the Governor of Region Five (Central River Region) donated a cow for us to eat.Our dinnerTraditional cooking for over 100 peopleBreakfast at CCMI was billeted in theBaobolong Annexin Janjanbureh with a dozen other senior members of staff. Very basic, very hot and humid, with power only from 7pm to 2am for the fan. I was woken every morning by the call to prayer at 5.30am and heard every moment of the ablutions and preparations including throat clearing and other sundry noises. The Christian member of the group also got up and sung hymns for us all. So, in order to cope I was back in bed by 9.30 every night in order to get any of my 8 hours.Getting there was a mission in itself. It takes about five to six hours but a two hour section of the south road is not“tarmac-ed” and the rains have washed great chunks of it away. The driver has weave between the potholes in low gear and it is so painful! We stopped for a comfort break in Mansa Konko and took the opportunity to visit Christine, a new volunteer.Nuha, from VSO, relaxing on a scatter cushion Photos demonstrate the domestic arts of curtains, cushions and decorative dressing tables. Eat your heart out Marcus!Very pretty after coming in from the pit latrineGetting home again was a re-run of the road adventure except we had stops for melons and charcoal and firewood. The prices are all better up country so each of us bought our selection and filled up the truck.These two melons cost£1.20I got two melons straight from the field and one bag of charcoal for a future barbeque. The most beautiful part of the journey is seeing the birds. Tiny pillar box reds called  red billed fire finches and a carmine bee-eater; soft floaty blues called blue bellied rollers; northern red bishops; kingfishers and an Abyssinian roller and one morning a beautiful fish eagle perched on a tall tree. All to be found in "A Field Guide toBirds of the Gambia".My friend Max phoned one day to invite me to a lunch organised by the Cuban doctors. Did you know Cuba sends 150 doctors and medical staff to The Gambia to help deliver health care? I arrived to a rather sedate gathering and was seated next to a lady. Of course, I started to explain that I had been to Cuba (couldn’t remember the year though, Tony) saying we had been there when Che Guevara’s body was returned from Bolivia. She told me she worked at the Cuban Embassy and after some chat she said she had to leave and go to work. I asked what she did that made her have to work on a Sunday......she was theAmbassador, Ines Fernandez.The top salsa dancersAnyhow, once she had left, things changed, chairs were pushed back and the music was turned up,Killed with a sharp knife to the heart pigs were humanely slaughtered by a surgeon and roasted,Starting to roastbest crackling ever! Everyone pretended we were in Havana! I left at 8pm and things were really moving.......Lamin now has his taxi. We transferred the money sent as donations/loans and turned it into dalasi. Lamin scoured the area for a taxi which had come straight from Germany. The mechanics approved and the process of getting it registered has been completed. It is a rather classy dark green.Fresh from the dock I can’t show you a picture because my camera battery has run out and I left the charger in the UK. A replacement will arrive with Jay next week. He is getting bookings but the most interesting thing has been his experience. Some of his friends have been less than kind and rather jealous and the weightof the responsibility is giving him pause. He never quite appreciated that he can’t sit back now and wait for “the boss” to sort out repairs or find work. He has to do it. He is really happy and wouldn’t go back to how things were and his attitude shows me that he was a guy worth investing in. We will be holding a naming ceremony for the car and for those of you who know, the car is called Berni. He is most proud that he has already earned enough to contribute to the family ram which will be killed in celebration of Tobaski.I have fabulous new neighbours in the compound, Catherine and Daniel, a young married couple from Ireland. It is wonderful to come home and chat to them about their experiences, they are kind and thoughtful. Shall I go to Dakar for New Year with them?I have started my Open University Creative Writing course and it is perhaps one of the scariest things I have ever done. I had to publish a 500 word piece this week to my tutor group and in the end I just had to do it otherwise I couldn’t progress to the next part of the course. I am waiting for feedback from the group and it is not going to be easy to hear what they have to say. I had a dream last night that I read the instructions wrongly and that the group will think I can’t read, let alone write. That’s the level of anxiety it has given me!I am reading“Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali which is the autobiography of a woman who renounced Islam and is a leading human rights leader living with death threats. Not an easy one to discuss with my colleagues..............