The Calm Between the Storms
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 11/Jun/2010 13:32, 34 days ago
(Written 11/06/2010 12:00, RED5, Janjanbureh)After the excitement of last weekend, this week the action has, quite literally, dried up. No rain since Monday night, and it’s been a pretty quiet week in work terms too. I was hoping to lead a training session for the office next week about viruses, antivirus software and computer security, but there’s a course running here so everyone will be busy with that. The best part? This course, which is for Islamic Studiesteachers from all across the region, is three days long. Fine, I thought, we’ll run my session on whichever day the course isn’t running. Except that it’s now Friday afternoon, past closing time, and the people coming from Banjul to run the course haven’t actually decided when they’re running the course; it’ll be next week, but they don’t yet know which day. This course involves training, feeding and housing well over 100 teachers for three days, many of whom will have to travel for many hours just to get here. Seriously, how far in advance would that be planned in Britain? Months, probably. But here... well, it’s a bit strange really. I went to a planning workshop a while back and watched the RED’s plan for 2010-12 being created, and the thinking made sense, and everyone seemed to be perfectly capable of focussing on their long-term goals. But in their day-to-day work,most people simply don’t think more than a week or two ahead. Diaries? What are they?Sorry, that was a little off track, but this is more of a general update than a post about a specific subject, so it may be a bit rambly. Live with it.A few other things to mention: I didn’t write about it in the excitement of the storms, but on Saturday evening the three of us attended the Armitage Senior Secondary School’s Annual Speech Day and Prize Giving. It was, in so many ways, a thoroughly Gambian affair, and I think it deserves a post all on its own; a passing comment won’t really do it justice. I’m going to write it either today or over the weekend.Then there was the bug invasion of Monday night. The three of us were hanging out at Pete and Liz’s when I suddenly noticed a load of insects, flying ants from the looks of them, circling the light bulb. We hadn’t closed a window, and they’d all flown through, following the light. In fact, we hadn’t sealed the house at all, so the next hour or so was a frantic effort to kill everythingthat we spotted crawling or flying in the room. We’d been warned that the bugs come in huge waves in the rainy season, and these were the frontline troops. We found ourselves with an unexpected ally at one point: a little gecko, which had found a way in somewhere and kept poking its head out fromunder the fridge before scuttling back again. Humans there? Yes, hide! Still there? Yes hide again! Pete, who really isnothappy with bugs, put on his best Ed McBain hat to describe the experiencehere.And finally I’m sure one or two of you might have heard vague rumours about some football tournament that starts in just an hour and a half from now. Now Gambians aremassivelyinto football, but we had a problem in JJB: there’s nowhere on the island that shows live football for the general public, and we’re pretty sure the world cup’s not on GRTS, Gambia’s only terrestrial TV channel. Certainly not all of it, anyway. This situation led Pete to think thusly:Across The Gambia, most people don’t have their own TVs. If they want to watch the football, they go to video clubs: cramped, sweaty rooms with small TV screens, no ventilation and uncomfortable benches where you pay 10 dalasi or so to watch a game. There is no such place in Janjanbureh. However, the RED office has a nice big hall, with (relatively) comfy seats and a data projector which they use for presentations and such during workshops. Now, wouldn’t it be brilliant if the RED had a satellite link? They could charge people a few dalasi to come and watch the game in comfort, and the hall’s big enough that if they filled then the RED office could make a reasonable profit! Genius!So on Monday morning he mentioned this to Alhaji, who is generally in charge of the office compound and its maintenance/development. Alhaji gave him a huge grin, and beckoned him behind the hall.“Come and see, Bakary, come and see”. And there it stood in all its glory: a brand new satellite dish, in the process of being installed. Alhaji had got there way before thetoubabs.So, the JJB crew get to watch the world cup matches on a big projector screen, sat on decent seats in an air-conditioned hall. No ratty video clubs or crackly radios for us! And best of all, as part of the RED office“family” (and standby tech support in my case), we don’t even have to pay for it! I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: I don’t know which deity it is that particularly likes me, but whoever it is was really looking out for me when they nudged someone at VSO into assigning me to JJB, as opposed to some of the other towns that I could have been placed in. The town environment, the people, the facilities, the RED office itself... all of them are, compared to what I was preparing myself for, pretty damn good. I’m not saying it’s perfect, far from it, but I don’t see how any other Gambian town could be as pleasant an experience as what I’ve got here. Whoever you are up there: cheers, the effort is appreciated!