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Published: July 11th 2012
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I will be leaving Basse in two weeks time as the schools will close on the 18
th July so I’m making my final visits to the schools. This week I’ve been on trek with FIOH again but this will be the last time. I’ve been popping in to see my ECD classes but I’ve also been helping with the task of evaluating the teacher’s performance in phonics to see whether they will be certified by FIOH as a recognised SEGRA teacher (that’s the phonics scheme that FIOH train teachers in). As usual it was a task that managed to be equally encouraging and depressing at the same time. Some teachers are doing brilliantly, others, well lets just say there's room for improvment.
It’s been a fairly eventful week. Usually I go around with only Cherno and Kebba and Boubah the driver but this time there were two teams which included the project manager, Aminata and some teacher trainers. It’s worth saying that they are all Gambian which means it’s a totally sustainable project. On Monday morning we started at Koba Kunda, a big school on the edge of Basse. It became clear not long after arriving that no
A farmer working hard
The farmers with oxen are the lucky ones. Women bent over digging up whole fields with a trowel is becoming a common sight now that it's planting time. They must have ridiculously strong backs. lessons would be going on that morning. They were having cases of girls ‘fitting’.
The Gambia is predominantly Muslim but mixed in is a lot of superstitious beliefs in devils and spirits. Many people where ‘jujus’ which are charms that keep the evil spirits away and it’s not uncommon to hear of people avoiding places because devils reside there. I visit a school where a dead tree is in danger of falling down on the teachers residence block but the community refuse to chop it down because they say devils are said to be around there. If I were the teachers I’d rather take my chances with the devil than risk being squashed in my bed by a huge tree trunk. Another school refuses to clear their store cupboard out believing that it would disturb the spirits that have set up home there. There’s an excuse for any teenager who can’t be bothered to tidy their bedroom next time their mum nags them!
I’m a bit of a sceptic can you tell. Anyway these so called ‘fits’ are apparently the girls ‘crossing over’ or being ‘taken over’ by these mischievous devils which results in
them writhing around and screaming a lot for a good hour or so. When we arrived two were being carried across the compound requiring at least ten people to restrain them. Funnily enough it only really happens with teenage girls. The attitude of the adults around was a strange one. They admitted that this was a problem but it was the devils that were the problem not the girls. The head teacher said it was becoming very common these days and once you had had one fit, if another girl had one you were more likely to succumb to the devils again. Very handy for getting out of lessons if you can’t quite be bothered of a morning. I wondered how much of a problem it would continue to be if the girls were kept in after school for a week or given extra homework. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to people’s beliefs but come on, really? Devils possessing you? The girls deserve an award for the effort gone into their little act just to get some attention and time off school. Two more girls ‘crossed’ as we were there and it was totally accepted that no lessons
could start that morning. All we could do was leave and tell them we’d come back later.
One Tuesday we got lost, a situation which I’ve absolutely dread happening when I’m alone on my bike. In a 4x4 truck with four other people it wasn’t so bad though. I got a good ride out along bumpy puddle filled road and watched the many farmers now out ploughing their fields now that the rains have come. They still do it with two oxen tethered together pulling along ancient looking ploughs. Sometimes you get glimpses of things that seem like you’ve gone back in time hundreds of years but then you see the farmer’s mate on his mobile phone sitting next to his motor bike. It’s really strange.
On Wednesday we got a puncture. Actually this was when we’d got back to Basse and Kebba was helping me transport a new gas canister to my house, just my luck my old one runs out just two weeks before I leave.
Last night, to mark our last trek Cherno, Kebba and I went round to Eleanor’s house to brew lait; a drink made like
attaya but is just evaporated milk and sugar, the most delicious drink ever! Here they only drink very small glasses of it not much bigger than a shot glass but at home I intend to make mugfuls of the stuff and maybe even add a drop of brandy!
It’s been really great working with Cherno and Kebba and FIOH over the year. I’m not sure I would have known what to do if it wasn’t for them. I’ve had more support from then than from my own office at the ministry. I hope that we can stay in touch and I hope to be still be involved with their next project of maths training all be it from rainy Blighty instead of here in sunny Gambia.
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