Head Cleared
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 15/May/2010 15:07, 34 days ago
(Written 15/05/2010 14:30, La Parisienne Cafe, Fajara)Firstly, apologies for not having written in so long. I’ve spent most of the last week away from my computer, and pretty much all of it away from an internet connection. After working on Monday, Liz, Pete and myself made the seven hour journey to Kombos on Tuesday to attend VSO workshops on Wednesday, Thursday and yesterday. That’s tied up the days,and the evenings have been spent doing the kinds of things you can’t do in JJB: going to fancy restaurants which serve goodtoubabfood, socialising with other VSOs and so on.The exception came yesterday afternoon, when I managed to get a good few hours at the best connection I’ve come across since I arrived in The Gambia. I managed to load up the full version of gMail (impossible up in Janjanbureh), and had a really good Google Chat conversation with one of my friends back home in sunny Leeds. This was really good for me, as I don’t get much contact from Britain whenI’m upcountry. At home, I communicate with my friends through gChat a lot, and I think having access to it upcountry would make the place feel a lot less isolated. As it is, I rely on emails and especially blog comments to keep that tie strong, so please keep reading and commenting!Today is our last day in Kombos though: tomorrow morning it’s up early in the morning and down to the bus stop at Westfield. I’ve never tried travelling on the bus before, and I think I’ve mentioned before that it gets decidedly mixed reviews: the previous Janjanbureh VSOs always used it to travel to and from Kombos, and yet several of the Peace Corpshave reported having nightmare journeys on it. I’ll report next week on which end of the spectrum we get...This break has, I think, been really beneficial to all three of us, for several reasons. Firstly, the workshops which we attended have helped to clear the air over some issues which were coming up between volunteers and the VSO office: I think a lot of the problems with that have been down to poor communication on both sides, and with everybody sat around the same table everything became a lot clearer. It’s also given us volunteers a chance to have some input on VSO strategy. Secondly, it’s been really good to see the other VSOs and be working with them again. After so long of it just being Pete, Liz and myself, we all agree that it’s a breath of fresh air to see the friends that we made during ICT again and be able to spend time with them. There was a great sense of a scattered group being temporarily reunited and making every effort to make their short time together as good as it could possibly be. Helped, of course, by the above-mentionedtoubabfood and drink.The third reason is a professional one. Being back down here has forced all of us new arrivals to think back and take stock of what we’ve done in the two months since we started our placements. I can’t really speak for the Kombos crew, but I think that, without exception, every single one of us upcountry volunteers was surprised by just how much we had done in that time. When you’re there, things move so slowly and are so disorganised that you often spend a lot of time simply doing nothing, and that leads to a lot of frustration and strong feelings of time being wasted. But, when we actually starting listing our activities and writing them on flipcharts, that brought home that, in reality, wehaven’tbeen wasting time, and that these last two months, frustrating and/or boring as they’ve often been, have been a really useful foundation for the remainder of our placements. I now have a good idea of what I think is needed, what I think I can do about it and, most importantly, how I think I can make it work. And this enforced break has given me a new focus on looking forward, rather than being caught up in the little day-to-day problems. For me, the next few months are the crunch time: if my plans all start to come together, it could be massively useful and rewarding. If not... well, let’s not think about that at the moment. I’m in positive mode right now.