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.

Back to the Kombos

My offices in Mansa Konko


The weekly email from the VSO office informed us that we needed to return to Banjul to complete our biometric ID card application on Thursday of this week. The travel time is typically 5 hours each way so Wednesday and Friday were also booked off. At the beginning of the week I'd made further progress fixing computers at the local school in Pakalinding. The headmaster of the nearby Madrassa also required my assistance and picked me up on his motorbike - a short trip down the highway without crash helmets!

We decided to take the early morning bus to Banjul (it's a big green US style school bus). Getting to the Soma bus stop at 7am gave us the chance of getting a seat - the bus left at 8am. We then had a very bumpy 3 hours on dirt roads before hitting asphalt an hour out of Banjul. I've never been so happy to see tarmac! The bus was very full with people in the aisles - it was absolute chaos when the bus stopped and people from the back decided to get off. The time past quite quickly but I would be planning an alternative route back. I did had a very well behaved chicken sitting behind me - not a single cluck and it was definitely alive! It is quite common to see goats and sheep tethered to the roof!

Back in The Kombos I made a bee-line for my hotel to marvel at the shower and WC. I was staying very close to the VSO office in a hotel run by a Swiss lady called "Mama". It was also refreshing to sleep in a room without a mosquito net - although the windows were fully screened. The process of getting our ID cards went without a hitch - half a day spent in Banjul at the immigration office. It was good to meet up with all the other new volunteers and exchange stories of the first few weeks at our placements.

The plan originally was to return to Soma on the Saturday - but this would change. Friday morning was taken up with a visit to the British High Commission on behalf of the University of Gambia to check out a room of recently decommissioned computers (no pun intended). The selection was really good and hopefully some PCs, printers and other bits should be making their way to the VSO! On returning to the office I struck Gambian travel gold - a delegation of members of parliament would be visiting Janjangbure in the east and would I like a lift as far as Farrafeni (only 16km from Soma)! Without much hesitation I agreed and found myself in a gelly-gelly (minibus taxi) getting priority at the Barra ferry (usually 3-4 hours wait) - the a.c. VIP lounge was also appreciated. We whizzed through every road-block until I jumped off at Kerewan to visit another VSO volunteer. Staying a couple of nights I got the chance to experience a wonderful Gambian compound family - 2 husbands, 4 wives and their 20+ children! I also experienced some Attaya - a strong green tea mixed with plenty of sugar. The process of making the drink by pouring the tea between various cups makes up an important part of Gambian socializing.

The final leg of my journey involved another gelly-gelly ride into Farrafeni - my luck continued with a half-empty, super fast ride. Things were going to change when I headed south to get a ferry back to the south-side of the Gambia (take this opportunity to have a look on a map). The ferry captain seemed to have great difficulty mooring his vessel - I think I counted at least 4 attempts. This then resulted in a truck getting stuck half-on half-off the ferry! After an hour the patience of the other inbound ferry (2 boats operate the crossing) disappeared as he steered into the grassy banks in an attempt to let passengers off! We finally got across the river - the captain this time made no mistake and rammed the ferry half way up the landing area to the concern of quite a few waiting passengers. It was good to be back in Soma in one bit.

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!

My first week in Soma

Compound life - a quick game of Gambian pétanque


I've finally made it to my "house" in Soma. It took about 7 hours to do the journey of a little over 100 kms! Most of the time was spent waiting for the Banjul to Barra ferry as the north road is by far the better route (fully tarmac-ed to Farrafenni). We also had to drop off a fellow volunteer en-route in Kerewan. The system of loading vehicles onto the ferry seemed to have nothing to do with reservations/time of ticket purchase and a lot to do with something else. The trip itself got rather alarming at one point when the supposedly stationary vehicles behind us started to nudge our pickup closer to the ferry's edge and a trip to see the fishes! From Farrafenni we headed back south and crossed the Gambia river again. The road is very poor here (a great shame) and the 16km distance took well over an hour.

My "house" is part of a compound (the name used for the walled area of land surrounding a building of numerous family members). The slight difference here is that the compound is only being used my VSO volunteers & nurses working for Riders for Life (motorbike medical assistance). It therefore means it's reasonably quiet without kids but it doesn't have the Gambian vibe other volunteers have experienced. The power/water supply is much better than in Kanifing (which is now being renovated) - water from a stand pipe seems available 24/7 and electricity is available from 7pm until 3am and then 9am until 4pm. I've charged our meter with 100 dalasi (£2.50) which seems to last a week! The compound looks completely different to the photos you may have seen - as it's currently the rainy season everything is green and lush. Half of our compound is being occupied by a ground-nut (peanut) crop.

I'm currently the only volunteer on site - I'll be joined by Kate & Lucy next week (w/c 12th) as this is when the schools open. I'm not that lonely as another volunteer lives in a nearby compound. The Gambians are also very friendly - as one of the only toubabs in town I barely walk 10 feet without kids shaking my handy or locals asking "How is the morning" or "i saama" in Mandinka.
Getting used to the latrine has been interesting - together with bucket baths out-back in my alfresco bathroom. My predecessor left me a "leave in the sun" warm-up camping shower (thanks Kanti) so it's not all cold water at 7.30am. I've also worked out that having a shower at the same time as a tropical downpour makes a lot of sense (although the thunder/lighting can be a bit nervy at night). Work starts next week - 1 month completed, 5 to go (and then I extend or head to another part of the world).

The final week in the Kombos

The Gambia 3 Namibia 1


At first my third week looked like a relaxing week without any VSO training as I wasn't required to complete the motorbike training. It ended up being the reverse with work at The University of Gambia, a trip to Brikama to visit Gambian College and an eventful trip to the national stadium to see The Gambia play Namibia.

I attended the first session of motorbike training in a vain attempt to get on the course (and get a bike at Mansa Konko). After this failed I called in at the law faculty of University of Gambia where my assistance in setting up wireless internet access was required. Having worked out the problem I made the fatal mistake of heading off for lunch. On return the electricity had failed and the gas generator had emptied so I had to return the following morning to finish things off. I won't bore people with the technical side of things. The supply of electricity & water in our area had been very temperamental - we lose power most evenings and water isn't available between 8am and 9pm (we use water containers to get by). After the success of the university visit I decided to visit fellow VSO trainers in the nearby town of Brikama - a 1 hour Gellie-Gellie ride due south (shared small van of varying quality that plies set routes - similar to a Collectivo). With hindsight I should have arranged a meeting with the IT manager so I could arrange a schedule of work. As the manager was out of the office my work at Gambia College was limited to plugging a keyboard into a PC!

As we were heading up-country the following week we decided to finish our stay in the Kombos with a trip to see The Gambia play Namibia in an African Cup of Nations qualifier. The weather in September has turned out to be more rainy than normal. August was fairly mixed with temperatures around 35c/95f, high humidity and afternoon/evening tropical downpours. The day of the football match the weather changed to more monsoon conditions (and it hasn't stopped raining since!). Despite the weather the game proved to be entertaining with The Gambia winning 3-1 (3 goals in the first 20 minutes!). The sound of vuvuzellas and the goal celebrations were worth the admission price alone (£2.50 FA take note!) Sadly the game was marred by the theft of several cameras, phones and my wallet! Luckily I had little cash in my wallet but credit cards have had to be cancelled and ID cards re-issued. I'll be paying more attention in crowded environments! We'll be heading up country tomorrow to our placement locations - Mansa Konko here we come...