My First Week at Work

Literacy Day Celebrations


My working day is 8am-ish to 4pm-ish - as electricity doesn't start until 9am-ish the first part of day is usually taken up with greeting people. In The Gambia this can easily take an hour as the typical Mandinka greeting is as follows (per person):

Salaam aaleekum - Maaleekum salaam (Peace be upon you - Peace be upon you also).
Kayira be - Kayira doron (Peace be upon you - Peace only).
Suumoolu lee? - I bee be jee (How are the compound people? - They are all fine).
Kori tana te jee - Tana te jee (Hope there is no evil - There is no evil).
I be naadii - N be jan doron (How are you - I'm fine).
Dookuwo be naadii - N be a kan doman doman (How is the work - I'm on it slowly slowly).

Once the electricity has kicked in I can begin the technical side of things - connecting the network to the 3G mobile broadband and then assisting users check emails. The work then is a mixture of planned upgrades/policy changes and general IT problem solving. At the moment the office is undergoing a change in directors so the workload will probably pick up after next week. I have managed to make my first site visit (walked in 35 deg heat) out to Pakalinding Upper Basic - my skills were required to print off their new class list from an awkward paper-jamming printer.

At the end of the week (Saturday) we were required to attend the National Literacy Skills Day celebrations in Soma. We got to the marquee on-time at 9am - however we hadn't taken into account GMT (Gambia Maybe Time) - the event finally started at 1pm-ish! We managed to whittle the whole alphabet out of twigs during this time to the amusement of the local children (it was literacy day after all!) We made an early exit at 3.30pm and headed over the river to Farafenni for a weekend celebratory chicken and chips at Eddy's Bar. As a storm moved in from Senegal we were lucky to make the last ferry back!