Chaos Course
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 25/May/2010 12:37, 34 days ago
(Written 25/02/2010 11:45, RED5, Janjanbureh)Yesterday was a fun day at the office. Absolutely dead until the power came on at ten, then manic for the next six hours. There was a phonics course running at the office for all the ECD and grade 1 teachers in the region, but there had been a series of cock ups and about 100 more people turned up than the course leaders were expecting. Turned out that when the lists of teachers to be trained were being compiled, the RED only passed an incomplete list of participants to Banjul. So the course leaders only prepared materials, food, space, and pay for about two-thirds of people who actually turned up. The end result, after a lot of shouting in all directions, was that teachers not on the list got sent home, and didn’t get the training they need and were promised.On top of trying to sort all of that out (I wasn’t directly involved in that, but the fallout did affect the whole office), there were phone calls coming in from HQ asking for various pieces of information to be sent to them yesterday, several teachers wanting to complete their online entry forms for examinations and being shouted at for it because they should have been in the course, and all the usual issues of unreliable power, internet etc. All in all, the kind of day which leaves you absolutely knackered.Which is why I’m not unhappy that it was announced on yesterday’s six o’ clock that today would be a public holiday, in honour of African Liberation Day. The date has been set for ages, but it was only decided yesterday that The Gambia would celebrate it as a holiday (see, the lack of long term planning goes right to the top!). And in truth, holidays don’t mean much here. Most people can’t afford to take the day off – if they don’t open thebitikor tend the veg garden then they won’t eat – so it’s only really Government officials and a few businesses who give their staff time off. But as a government official (technically), I get the time off. And with that time off I’ve... come into the office anyway because it has internet and air con. Oh well. Guess that just showshow much there is to do round here...