Things get very busy

Just about to have lunch at Ngala Lodge


Stabilisation has ended and so the director and his management team have returned to the office. The task now is to process all of their data and generate the required reports. The local power generator for the office is still required each day as we have major problems with the main electricity supply. My campaign to remove viruses from as many machines as possible is beginning to backfire. The process of removing a virus will more often than not damage the Windows operating system (and these machines have 100's of viruses) so further work is required to rebuild the PC. The machine would be out of action when it was needed the most! The alternative would be a "working" PC spreading viruses to all users receiving copies of the reports!

During the middle of the week I received a call from the local Peace Corps working at the nurse's training school in Mansa Konko - they had a few PC issues they wondered if I could look at. The Peace Corps is a similar organisation to the VSO - American volunteers spend two years volunteering around the world - quite often in very basic conditions in rural villages (yes even more basic than mine). They do have very good air conditioning in their computer labs though!

My plans towards the end of the week had to make a quick change when a VSO friend in Kerewan needed a temporary supply of anti-malaria tablets (I had the nearest supply). The humanitarian trip to Kerewan was then extended to the Kombos so I seized the chance to stock up on restaurant food and supplies. For some reason on Wednesday evening I had decided to go for a "haircut" using a volunteer's spare "hair clippers". The result was a disaster and I aborted the haircut looking like an extra from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". It turned out the clippers were actually beard trimmers - now I had an extra reason to head to the Kombos - I needed a number 4 quick!

The trip via the north road (the south road is a non-asphalt dusty roller coaster) again went very smoothly. I met Priya in Farafenni first - we then picked Vicky up in Kerewan (I leaned out of the gelly waving my hands so she knew which one to get on) and then made the 6.30pm ferry from Barra in Banjul. To keep the costs down I'd stay with Kombos based volunteers - we still had chance to have a meal at Mama's though. We went overboard a bit on Saturday (so much to keeping costs down) with lunch at Ngala Lodge (5 star - check out www.ngalalodge.com) followed by an excellent evening meal at The Blue Kitchen (under German management no less!).

We should have returned to our various Gambian locations on Sunday but a very heavy thunderstorm put paid to that. Getting drenched in the storm also meant I needed time to dry out so we decided to get the first ferry at 7am the following morning. Watching the sun rise on The Gambia River was a magical event - the weather was also the coolest I'd so far experienced. We got to Farafenni in a record 1 hour 25 minutes. We travelled in a "set place" which is a direct 7 seater taxi - well worth the extra 40 dalasi (£1)! Expecting to be back in the office before too many people missed me I was let down again by my local ferry at Bambatenda. This time a Senegalese bus grounded itself while boarding - it turned out to be two and a half hours to do the last 16 kilometres!

A Typical Week

My office - where I work very hard


The following week turned out to be rather quite - a result of both the busy weekend and problems with the local power supply. I'll take this opportunity to run through a typical day back on the compound. The sunrises at approx. 7am - by 7.15am I'm out the back having a bucket bath in surprisingly cool conditions. It makes a pleasant change to actually feel properly cold water. You get used to the pit latrine quite quickly although the office does have WCs if needed. Breakfast is currently porridge with powdered milk and honey washed down with a cup of coffee. I'm usually enjoying this meal on our verander with my fellow VSO volunteers - sounds quite civilised doesn't it? We head into the office usually around 8am-ish GMT. I occasionally get a lift on a motorbike (thanks Lucy), the alternative is a 10 minute walk shared with nurses at the nearby training college. The temperature by this time has usually got into the mid/high-20s with high humidity so you can often reach the office requiring another shower. If I've been organised enough I'll have filled up one of my water containers (we have no taps in-house) and then left it in the back yard to heat up ready for my evening wash (I also have a 5 gallon camping shower, thanks Kanti).

Work usually ends at about 4pm, although it has been a little later this week. We'll usually discuss the possible delights of our evening meal in our office before heading home. We normally take it in turns cooking (yes I cook with no reported stomach problems so far!) with Kate supervising when we get into difficulty (she's a bit like Gordon Ramsay!). The menu usually depends on the vegetables in our fridges. The following items can be bought from Soma market; potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, squash, aubergine and cucumber. There's also a "mini-market" that stocks more exotic items such as biscuits, pasta, coffee etc. Apart from the stocks of tinned meat we bought in the Kombos we tend to stick to a vegetarian diet - with the occasional meaty stock cube or two. With the recent high temperatures and humidity an early evening nap helps before a hot bucket bath (my camp shower can get to 130F!). We'll either eat in the chef's home or more often than not just sit outside on our water containers watching the glorious sunsets or evening lightening storms in the distance. By the time the sun sets at 7pm we'll usually start a game of cards, scrabble or stand outside gazzing at the amazingly bright stars. Navigating the pit latrine before bed is the last highlight of the day - not!

The Longest Week

A Baobab tree - I'll be sitting under a few of these!


The week began well with a staff meeting with the new director. I will be arranging an IT meeting to set the directorate IT policy - hopefully after the new team has completed their period of "stabilisation". This involves the director and his colleagues visiting each school in the region to ensure they have enough teachers (and headmasters!) - 60 school visits in total. The Gambian version of "Question Time" visited our offices on Monday - I joined the audience to watch the recording of "Education Forum". Hopefully I'll have appeared on TV looking very interested - you may catch it on Gambia TV's iPlayer!

On Tuesday I was introduced to my new IT Officer - I'll be sharing my skills with him so that he can continue supporting the office after I leave. I suspect most of his time will be spent scanning machines for viruses and fixing old PCs! This brings me nicely back to a PC at Pakalinding Upper Basic school - I scanned it this week and I found 16,700 virus infections.

This must surely count in the Guinness Book of Records! The level of infection here is at epidemic proportions - I'm seriously considering removing Windows and installing Linux on the majority of machines (an operating system with a much lower chance of viral infection). The key here is giving people proper access to word processing, printing and email/Internet and not lining Bill Gates pockets!

The weather this week has been something of a surprise - during my first few week or two in Soma I was surprised at the cool breeze and mild morning/evening temperatures. This week the temperatures have rocketed into the high 30C's/100F with high humidity - hopefully this is the last few weeks of the wet season and things will begin to cool off a bit. Keeping up with the laundry is especially difficult - I'm still doing it by hand, although a local lady has been found who'll do a much better job.

After a long hot week I was hoping for a relaxing weekend to catch up - instead our new director announced a "workshop" for all headmasters/mistresses for Saturday and Sunday. The title for the weekend was "Workshop on Time Tabling and Familiarisation of the Minimum Standards Monitoring Tool for Basic Schools". Providing IT support meant I finished at 2am on Monday morning! We all started again at 8am for the week part 2.