The Continuing Adventures

Welcome back, Dear Reader. Let me tell you about my daring exploits during the past few weeks. Well, actually, erm, daring may be a slight exaggeration and exploits might be too grand a term for my miscellaneous activities but it’s a lovely phrase and I don’t get enough opportunities to use it.

Things have been fairly busy at work since my return – nothing too riveting, but plenty of routine tasks to stop me from getting bored, interspersed with the occasional training session.

The Director and the Regional Planning Officer were out for most of September carrying out what is known as ‘stabilisation’. The first few weeks of each academic year are a crazy time for Gambian schools. Before the summer holidays, nobody knows how many pupils are going to turn up at school in the autumn and so calculating how many teachers a school will need is difficult to say the least. The harvest is still ongoing at the beginning of the new school year and so many pupils don’t actually make it back to school until the last millet is cut and the last ground nut lifted. Teachers also are strangely unpredictable in their habits. Unlike England, all teachers are employed by the Ministry of Education and can be posted anywhere in the country. Something which they find a tad annoying – particularly those with families. Many wave goodbye at the end of the term, never to be seen again as they find more lucrative employment. Consequently, some schools in the Region find they have more teachers than they need at the start of the year and some are desperately short. Hence the stabilisation where schools are visited to check numbers of pupils, teachers, classrooms available etc and adjustments made where possible.

Unfortunately for some teachers, they can find that they were posted to a remote school they didn’t want to be at, only to find two weeks later that they’ve been transferred again to an even more remote school that they haven’t even heard of!

The way in which teachers find out where they are to work may also strike you as a little unusual. At the beginning of the summer holidays, nobody knows where they will be at the start of the new academic year. Teachers who have been in the same school for a few years and haven’t actually asked for a transfer are usually quite safe, but in theory even they can be moved to fill vacancies without any consultation.

Towards the end of the holiday, a huge list of all teachers in the country is pasted on the outside wall of all education offices in the country. Teachers are expected then to turn up and read through the list to find out where they will be.

For the first few days of term it is traditional to find swarms of disgruntled teachers sitting outside the Director’s office to put forward their objections to their postings. Most are dismissed – it’s a sad but true fact that nobody wants to work in some places, but if there is a need for teachers there, somebody has to draw the short straw – but some are given the chance to move to somewhere they find more acceptable.

Against this background, I’ve been visiting schools to ensure that headteachers have begun their ‘internal monitoring’ programmes. As in schools all over the world, the headteacher needs to know what is happening in the classrooms and in The Gambia, they are supposed to observe each teacher regularly and to check that they have schemes of work and lesson plans in place.

For some reason, most of them don’t look too pleased to see me when I turn up to check they’re doing this properly whilst they’re busy looking for teachers to take over the 3 classes that are just sitting in the room all day with no-one to teach them.

I wish I had the answer to this tricky little dilemma, but alas, ‘tis beyond my ability. I suspect that until the time comes when farmers have sufficient money to mechanise to the point where they no longer need children’s help on the land, and the country’s finances are robust enough to introduce compulsory education (and to enforce this) the mad September scramble will continue.

As I was writing the above, a rather more alarming circumstance has arisen: my gas bottle, which I had imagined was immortal and would never give out has just sputtered to a final flicker and departed this earthly realm.

I realise that all things have their allotted time, but after 13 months (most people manage 2 to 4 months from theirs), I’d become very fond of this noble and true friend, and to be parted so cruelly (half-way through boiling a kettle) seems too much for a delicate soul such as myself to bear at present. Needs must that I be brave and hold back the tears, connect the new bottle and try my utmost to continue my work in this land. Maybe I shall find some consolation in my cup of tea (when it finally arrives).

Andrew’s Summer

When I last wrote, I was looking forward to travelling back to England and spending a few weeks at home with friends and family. I am pleased to be able to report that I managed to perform this skilful and highly dangerous task successfully! I was in England for 6 weeks in total, but for me, the time flew by so quickly that it felt like only one or two. As I had such a (supposedly) long time to play with, I set out to visit just about everyone I knew in the country. The net result of which being that I travelled 3,800 miles on my motorbike, got incredibly tired, and still managed to miss quite a few people that I should have called to see. Most notably, friends in and around Ashill were very badly neglected. If you are one of those people, please accept my profound apologies and believe me when I say that I actually didn’t spend very much time at home, and when I was there I wanted to spend as much time just relaxing with my children as possible. For a man with no discernible income, I managed to have myself an exceptionally fun-filled time. I visited the cinema 4 times (it’s one of the things I’ve missed most), went sailing, got dragged around a Fat Face sale (and purchased a wonderfully handsome man-bag for carrying all my Gambian essentials in), did a track day at Cadwell Park with a good friend (who must have been absolutely barking mad to let me loose with his Lotus), saw some Le Mans series racing at Silverstone and did an epic road trip through the North Pennines on the bike with another friend. Oh yes, I also managed to catch that ‘made in heaven’ musical partnership John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett live on stage (courtesy of yet another exceedingly generous chum). Remarkably, I managed to see each and every one of my six siblings, and my parents. An amazing feat considering they’re so well distributed around the country these days. I even caught up with Peter who, by sheer chance, was over from Canada for a few days during my visit. The undoubted highlight of the whole affair, however, was being with my children and seeing how well they’d coped in my absence. I had every confidence in both of them, but they surpassed my expectations by several of the proverbial long chalks (which is brilliant but also makes me feel a wee bit redundant!). There is a down-side to this generally positive tale of fun and frivolity (there’s always a down-side!). Upon my return to The Gambia, I discovered that the clothes I left here had mysteriously shrunk – especially the waistbands in my trousers! I suspect they will grow to fit again now I’m no longer being fed by the overwhelmingly kind folk of the good old United Kingdom, but it may take some time. As I sit here reflecting on the time I had in England, I feel immensely privileged to have spent my summer in the company of such amazing people (although it would be more convenient if you could all live a little closer together). I now feel refreshed (apart from my behind which is a tad tender after all those miles on the bike) and ready to continue my work in The Gambia. For those discerning connoisseurs of fine photography who are pining for some of my wonderful art, I have to admit to completely failing to remember my camera on all important occasions this summer. Feeling obliged to provide something artistic though, I have added a photograph taken by my son of my daughter wearing an outfit made for her by my Gambian landlord. Enjoy.

July in VSO Land

If you are a very observant person, you’ll have noticed that I haven’t written anything on this blog for quite a while now. There is a good reason for this: I haven’t really been doing anything that’s interesting enough, in isolation, to talk about. That’s not to say that nothing’s happened – there have been many changes here – but the changes have mainly been small and probably not the kind of thing that would have you on the edge of your seat. The most significant thing that’s been happening is that many volunteers have reached the end of their service, packed their bags and gone home. This is something that happens steadily throughout the year as people either leave earlier or later than originally scheduled. As the largest influx of new volunteers each year, however, is in August, July is the time when the departure rate reaches its peak. The past few weeks here seem to have been one long farewell party: I can’t remember the last weekend that I could happily stay in Kerewan without missing someone’s leaving ‘do’ – and because flights leave on different days of the week, there have been quite a number of midweek ‘absolutely final, last leaving dos’ Not one given to outbursts of major-league sentimentality (yuck!), I wouldn’t normally comment on this, but the situation of having to say so many farewells in swift succession is so unusual that it probably is worth a mention. When volunteers arrive in the country, they (we) are naturally a little apprehensive. Everything is strange and they know it will be many months before they see existing friends and family again. Thrown together in a strange country, volunteers need to make friends quickly if they are to settle successfully and be able to carry out the work they came to do. People experience culture-shock and homesickness, and rely on each other for support. In this way, friendships which at home may take months or years to develop, can be forged very quickly. This is obviously a very good thing. The down-side, however, is that, not long after making friends, people disappear, many to never be seen again. When we’re old(er) and grey(er), telling our grandchildren about the time we spent in Africa, the memories of all the people we met, both volunteers and Gambians, will fill us with a warm and fuzzy glow. Right now, seeing so many new friends leave (on a jet plane, don’t know when they’ll be back again) is a rather peculiar experience (for ‘peculiar’ you may read ‘sad’ or ‘miserable’ if you so choose – I could never use such slushy words). On a more positive note, I’m not feeling too upset about all this as I’m coming home for a few weeks R&R next Friday (‘Hurrah!’ I hear you say). I’m looking forward to squeezing in as many visits to friends and family as possible – and getting positively ‘young child on Christmas Eve’ about the thought of seeing my own wee bairns again. This is likely to be the last post I write until September, so to those of you who’ve taken the time to read it – and especially those of you who’ve left nice comments (it’s great to hear from the folks back home) – I’d like to say many thanks and I hope you’ll join me for the next thrilling episode in the autumn.

A Brief Update On All The Hard Work I’ve Been Doing (honest).

Many thanks to my readers for their kind comments – most of which seem to be about how much time I spend riding round the country and how little time working! I’d just like to point out that you’re all being very mean and to remind you that I will be looking for a job in England next year so please, just in case there are any prospective employers reading, could your comments be more along the lines of, ‘I’m glad you managed to take a short break to travel round the country. I know how hard you’re working and I was beginning to get worried that you might damage your health.’ Believe it or not, I have actually been doing a little bit of ‘nose to the grindstone’ lately. It’s quite a busy time in the office as the school year nears its end: the official closing day for schools is 10th July, but evidently as soon as the rains arrive (anytime from early June), many children drop out as they are needed on the farms. The biggest job at the moment – which fortunately is not my responsibility, although I am helping with it – is sorting out next year’s teacher postings. The majority of teachers in the country prefer to work in the coastal districts where there is 24 hour electricity and water, and the climate is generally cooler. This means that it is difficult to find teachers to work in the ‘up-country’ schools. A recently introduced ‘hardship allowance’ has helped a little, but in general teachers still prefer to be in the more developed towns. To overcome the teacher shortage away from these areas, there is a rule that, once they have qualified the Ministry for Education can send teachers anywhere in the country. They have no right to appeal against these postings for the first 3 years, after which they can apply to transfer to a different school within the same region. After 5 years they can apply to move to a different region. As a consequence of this, in the summer term the office is inundated with requests for transfer from teachers who have served the minimum time requirements. Working out how many teachers a school needs next year and which teachers can be posted there, and which are allowed to move away from the area is a mammoth task. In fact, the job is so complicated that in most years, many teachers do not know where they will be working in September when the schools break up for the summer, and schools are not sure whether they’ll have sufficient teachers to cover classes at the start of the year. As well as this job, I have also been working on next year’s academic calendar (putting in regular holidays so I can go travelling of course). This is another tricky endeavour as I have to take account of the many Islamic festivals which are on different dates each year, but I also have to try to build in sufficient days to allow for the many unexpected extra public holidays which can be declared at any time in response to important events. Last week Ivo and I spent a lot of time on the bikes again. This time it was work though: we were travelling around schools assessing the impact of some region-wide phonics training for teachers earlier in the year. This involved questionnaires for heads and class teachers, as well as conducting quick reading tests with sample groups of pupils. It was an interesting experience as the youngest children in the better schools were able to decode and say English words that they didn’t even know the meaning of! I wish I knew more about this area of teaching as it seems very odd to me that children who cannot even speak a language are taught to read and write in it. It seems to go against current ideology in English primary schools where children are immersed in oral language before being expected to learn the written form. Anyway, as you can see, I do occasionally do a little work to earn my crust and life isn’t all one big holiday! That said, I’ve just signed up for a trip over the border to a coastal nature reserve in Senegal next weekend – I promise I won’t take any time off work though!

Ivo and Andy’s (not incredibly) Long Way Round (Part 4)

The next day, we were up at 8am (temp in room 32.2°C) and made a reasonably early start. We hoped to make it to Bansang before the fuel ran out as we knew we could get it from the Riders for Health depot there. After the long ride the day before we weren’t confident and took things steady to cut consumption as much as possible. As it worked out, we made it easily and filled up at the yard around 10am. The mechanics there were so friendly they checked our tyre pressures and adjusted and oiled our chains just to make sure we were OK for the rest of the journey.

The road from Bansang to our destination for the day, Soma, turned out to be surprisingly good – for motor bikes that could dodge around the potholes anyway – and we made it without anything falling off the bikes until we had passed by Janjangbureh on the sounth bank. After that the road deteriorated and, as is traditional with Nat’s bike, an indicator decided to end it all and hurled itself from its mounting to hang pathetically from the end of its wires. Fortunately, skilful application of parcel effected an almost invisible repair and other road users were once more safe in the knowledge that I could let them know before swerving off to the left.

Shortly after that the unthinkable happened: Ivo’s normally ultra-reliable AG100 broke down!! OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the cover did fall off his speedo and necessitated the purchase of a 10 dalasis tube of superglue from a village shop to fix. They say things always happen for a reason, and this mishap proved the point perfectly as, whilst Ivo was gluing the speedo back together, I realised that we’d forgotten to have breakfast and it was now 1pm (37.3°C in the shade).

An egg tapalapa (hard boiled egg mashed in a breadstick) soon cured the problem and we set off, confident of survival until dinner.

By now, the road was really getting rather rough, and making good progress was hard work as we constantly crashed into potholes around a foot deep. At one time the road had been metalled but the surface had worn through in many places and the heavy summer rains had excavated it to the point that it had the texture of the skin of an orange – only much bigger.

Weaving our way around the worst holes, we laboured our way to Soma, surprising ourselves by arriving early at 2pm. As we intended to spend the night in fellow volunteer Angela’s compound and we thought she’d still be at work, we set about the arduous task of finding a hostelry with some suitable dust-slaking beverage for sale. This we managed, and we spent a relaxing hour watching the world go by before making our way to Angela’s (40.1°C).

Angela was a star and cooked a wonderful meal for us and yet another good evening was had by all.

 

The next morning we were up just after 7am after a fairly sleepless night. The temperature hardly seemed to fall overnight (no, I didn’t check the thermometer) and neither Ivo nor I could get comfortable as we lay in our respective pools of sweat.

Angela again rose to the occasion though and after cups of coffee and a breakfast of tomato and cheese spread in the ubiquitous breadstick soon got us back on our feet.

This was quite lucky as the next few hours turned out to be a tad difficult. We were on the road by 8:40 am and headed west along the legendary south bank road. The south bank road is mostly famous for not really being a road at all. Those well versed in local folk lore will tell you that it used to be a road once, but now it’s more a collection of dips, ridges and craters linked loosely by deep, red dust.

We knew we had a long ride ahead of us and tried to push on as quickly as we could, with bits flying off Nat’s bike as we went. That morning the luggage rack supports broke so that every time I hit a bump the whole rack, including my rucksack, pivoted on the surviving front supports and hit me in the back. The already wounded headlamp after showing great fortitude by hanging on for the last couple of days, was unable to maintain the effort and fell off altogether, as did another 2 indicators. The roll of parcel tape was nearly finished by lunchtime!

Another hazard faced by travellers along the south bank road is the frequent police and army check-points. Sometimes motorbikes are waved through (presumably you can’t get many insurgents in the top-box) but we were stopped a total of 4 times by men with guns that morning. As long as all the necessary documentation can be produced, there isn’t usually any difficulty at these stops, but there’s something about men with big guns that makes me feel edgy.

Such were the trials of that leg of the journey that I forgot completely to take any photos or measure the temperature once.

Amazingly, we made it to the point the tarmac road begins again just south of Brikama around 11:30 am – just less than 3 hours. The bikes were still running and, apart from being covered head to toe in dust, we had survived unscathed. From here on in, the roads would be smooth and the pubs frequent: the hard part of the journey was over.

We rode down to the beach at Kartong: the most southerly point in the country, and indulged in a much needed Julbrew at Boboi Camp (positively arctic conditions at only 27.3°C). From there it was a leisurely ride up the coast to where an aptly named ‘Vesuvius’ pizza awaited me at Paradiso in Senegambia.

The bulk of the final day of the journey was spent waiting around the Riders for Health workshop in Kanifing as major surgery was carried out on Nat’s bike. From there it was a routine Banjul – Barra ferry crossing (26.9° in the middle of the river) and a race along the well-surfaced north bank road to make it home just as night fell.

A check of the odometers revealed that we’d managed 932km (580miles) in our 5 day epic voyage. I heard a rumour that Charlie and Ewan managed a little further. Personally I don’t believe it, but even if it is true, I bet they didn’t enjoy themselves nearly as much as we did.

 

The End

Ivo and Andy’s (not incredibly) Long Way Round (Part 3)

The next morning was Sunday. For some reason, on Sunday mornings I often seem to have a headache. This day was no exception! I did however manage to be up at 0800 and have the house tidied by around 0830 (temp 27.7°C). By 0845 we were down by the ferry crossing have a wonderful breakfast of nebbe (spicy bean paste served in a bread stick) and weak, sugary instant coffee, served in a cracked Union Jack mug the stall holder proudly produced for me.

Before taking the ferry, we had to go and visit Danny and his wife Fiona: both to say and goodbye, and also to try and persuade them to part with a little of their fuel allowance to see us on our way.

We ended up taking all their fuel (thanks Danny!) and still had room for a drop more so we had to stop at a roadside fuel station where a young man measured petrol from a plastic container into our tanks.

We managed to catch the official ferry this time, and by 10:00 we were back on the north bank of the river ready to begin the day’s travels.

The first day had all been spent on tarmac roads and the riding had been quite easy. Today was going to be different. On the north bank, the only roads between Janjangbureh and the eastern end of the country were (badly maintained) dirt tracks. As soon as we hit the potholes, I discovered a major limitation of Nat’s bike which, unlike the Yamaha AGs, was built for the road and had very short suspension. With a medium-sized rider like myself, and a heavy bag full of my travelling kit on the back, the centre stand was hitting the ground every time I hit a bump or a dip. As the stand is bolted directly onto the bottom of the engine casing, hitting it too hard could lead to the casing breaking and that would have been the end of the trip. The only way forward was slowly – I took the lead and picked my way through the potholes, with Ivo getting bored and frustrated behind.

The day was very hot and the sun was burning. We went through all the water we’d brought with us (around 2 litres each) by midday, and we were forced to stop to buy bags of water in villages we passed through. The landscape was fairly flat and featureless, and we began to wonder what on earth we were doing as we plodded steadily on through the heat and dust. Fortunately, with The Gambia being so long and thin, it’s quite difficult to get lost. If the people you meet speak French, you’ve strayed too far north and ended up in Senegal, and if you find it’s suddenly very wet, you’ve strayed too far south and ended up in the river! Neither of these things happened to us though, and we simply kept ploughing on through the midday heat.

Around 2pm we finally made the river crossing at Fatoto. The ferry here is similar to the small one we used to get onto the island of Janjangbureh – but without the engine. Propulsion was by means of a large paddle fastened to the stern and waved around in the water by an incredibly fit man. We lifted the bikes onto the boat, and a few minutes later were dropped of on the south bank. From there it was only a short ride into the town centre, where lunch of more nebbe, swilled down with a couple of bags of ice-cold water. Grand! (temp – 39.9°C).

Fatoto is close to the eastern end of the country, but not quite there, so we decided that, to make it a proper ‘round the country’ tour, we’d have to go a bit further. We duly headed north-east to the small town of Koina, arrving at 3.20pm and discovering that the temperature was only 41.8°C which was comparable to Kerewan! Those Basse volunteers just love to exaggerate!

From Koina, we rode west down a dirt road to Basse, where Julbrew was quaffed in Mike’s Bar at 4.50pm We were hot, dirty and tired after 7 hours of hard riding (during which time we’d actually only covered 130 miles), but we’d made it and were feeling rather proud of ourselves!

We found a hotel (backpacker hostel type place), showered and went out for chicken and chips. Worried that we might not sleep, we took some special potion (Julbrew, I think it said on the label) back to the hotel room and talked and drank the evening away. Heaven!

 

To be continued ……

Ivo and Andy’s (not incredibly) Long Way Round (Part 2)

The ride to Farafenni went well. Nat’s bike, whilst being incredibly small-framed, is a road bike and runs quite smoothly on the tarmac. Annoyingly for Ivo, it has a top speed about 10mph higher than his AG100 and I had to ride behind him as when I went first I kept forgetting to wait for him. There were a few embarrassing moments with the gearbox leaving Kerewan: on the FDMCO, to change up, you press the lever down instead of up. I had to pretend I was just revving the engine to look cool on the occasions I inadvertently changed down instead of up!

It took us just less than an hour to reach Eddy’s Hotel and bar in Farafenni – a place we know quite well as it’s the nearest place we can get a beer and a meal with chips instead of rice.

It was in the hotel car park where I carried out my first modification of Nat’s bike. I’d put it on the side-stand next to the wall and decided, as the bike has no box, I’d better take my bag inside with me. As I lifted the bag from the rack, the bike fell over, away from me and straight into the wall. Fortunately the headlamp acted as a crumple zone and protected the hard metal parts by disintegrating and absorbing the impact. Actually the damage wasn’t too bad and was quickly cured with a roll of parcel tape bought in a shop over the road. The brown looked really good with the blue paint and the chrome work.

Whilst eating our chicken and chips I took the first of my ‘Let’s find out if Basse really is the hottest place in the world’ temperature readings. To explain: everyone who’s ever been to the eastern end of the country in general, and the town of Basse in particular, constantly regales anyone they meet – people on the bus, strangers in the street – with tales of how their car melted and the book they were reading spontaneously combusted there as it’s the hottest place this side of Mercury! I’d brought my digital thermometer with me to check whether this was in fact true.

For the record, in Eddy’s courtyard at 1045, my thermometer registered 34.8°C.

Having eaten our fill, we left Farafenni and set out on the road to the east. The bikes were still running well and I was discovering that with my knees doubled up as they were, I could rest my chin n them when my neck started aching.

We stopped briefly in Kaur to say hello to Tracey (36.5°C in house – 41.8°C in back yard) and then set off for Janjanbureh.

There are only s few historic sites in The Gambia, and when we passed a sign for Wassu Stone Circles, I couldn’t resist pulling in to have a look. A sign outside the entrance announced that entrance was D50 however and, with Ivo standing there saying he’d been before and it wasn’t worth D50 I decided to just take a couple of pics over the wall instead. As if by magic, as soon as I produced my camera, a man appeared from nowhere and started jumping up and down in front of me saying, ‘No picture, no picture.’ Slightly put out by this but not wanting to get into an argument, I decided to walk around the perimeter wall to see if there was a suitable vantage point round the other side. Unfortunately the man followed me, walking on the inside of the wall waving his arms in front of the camera and repeating his order that photographs should not be taken. Whilst I was sneakily trying to get my shot, I heard Ivo’s bike start and watched as he bravely sped off to avoid being associated with me should the man turn out to have a large friend. As it turned out, he didn’t and I was able to grab a quick snap and hurry back to the bike with the sound of, ‘Fifty Dalasis! Fifty Dalasis!’ ringing in my ears.

At the river crossing to the island of Janjanbureh, we discovered that the ferry was stuck on the island side as a tractor had broken down on it. After a very long wait in the hot sun, we were persuaded by a man who had a very small boat that he could in fact squeeze two motorbikes on as long as we crossed his palm with silver. His palm was crossed and the bikes were manhandled so they were balancing precariously on the edge of the boat. The ride over to the island was an interesting affair, but we made it safely and found Danny the husband of education volunteer Fiona waiting for us on the other side.

Danny said he’d booked us into a lodge for the night for only D200 (breakfast not included). We were expecting some sort of dirty hovel and were amazed when we found that we actually had a 3 bedroom bungalow with a fridge that worked, running water and a rather splendid view of the river (temp on verandah at 1730 – 39.2°C). Of course, having a fridge that worked was such a luxury that we had to find something to put in it. Fortunately Danny knew a shop which sold some strange golden coloured liquid with ‘Julbrew’ written on the label and, using this very sensibly, we were able to entertain ourselves for the whole evening!

 

To be continued …

Andy & Ivo’s (not incredibly) Long Way Round – Part 1

One of the VSO volunteers in Kerewan, Ivo Jonker, suggested to me a few months ago that, as he will be leaving this summer, he’d like to travel right around the country on his motorbike and that, were I a real man, I’d join him. I obviously had no choice but to do so, and we agreed that the week after Easter would be the time. There were a couple of problems to overcome: we’re not supposed to take our VSO bikes more than 100km from our homes, plus the journey would take at least 5 days and neither of us was due that much holiday (if anyone reading this is from either VSO or the Education Office, it is of course a fictional account rather than a true story!)

Being rather devious, we came up with a cunning plan – we wouldn’t mention it to VSO and would just hope that they never caught us and, if we visited several of the newly arrived volunteers around the country, we could tell the education office that we were meeting them to discuss our work and share ideas.

Having agreed this much, it seemed that we’d probably overdone the planning so we simply forgot about the whole venture until a few days before we were due to leave.

I was away from home for the run up to our start date (which might be Friday, or maybe Saturday depending on how we felt) so I left Ivo to ring a few strategically placed volunteers to arrange stop-overs. He eventually fixed up lodgings for 2 of the 4 nights we’d be out and felt that he’d done all that was needed.

We finally decided that Saturday would be the best day to set off, and so I arranged to travel home on the Friday. I met Natalie, another Kerewan Volunteer, and we crossed on the ferry and rode along the North Bank road towards home. My bike was running like a dream right until the moment the engine blew up about 10 miles from home! I was rescued about half an hour later by one of the office pick-up trucks which just happened to be passing, but it seemed that the trip was going to have to be postponed.

Ivo swore quite a lot when he heard the news – he does that when he’s upset and let’s face it, he’d gone to the trouble of making 2 phone calls to arrange accommodation so I could quite see why he’d be annoyed.

Natalie though remained cool and calm and suggested that I borrow her bike for the trip. Natalie is not a tall person and VSO had bought her bike as a one off as she was the only person in recent years who was physically unable to ride the standard issue AG 100s. Instead, they’d found her a Chinese built FDMCO 125, being the smallest frame they could lay their hands on. It is also a rather cheap and badly made machine and is strictly a road bike – not suitable at all for the dirt tracks we’d be riding. We rolled around the floor splitting our sides for a few minutes and then, when the realisation that this was the only way the trip was going to be possible dawned upon us, I was faced with a very tricky decision.

Being a careful, methodical planner, I considered carefully for 30 seconds and then said that I’d love to borrow it.

The next morning I was up at 0800, packed by 0830 and at Natalie and Ivo’s house by 0900. I hadn’t had breakfast as we’d agreed that our first stop should be Eddy’s Hotel, Farafenni for a chicken and chips brunch.

As the official tour photographer, I set about annoying Ivo by taking pictures of him doing the bike checks he should have done two days ago! This amused Natalie and myself until Ivo was finally ready to start around 0945.

Unlike Charlie and Ewan, there was no ceremony to mark our departure, simply a screamed, ‘Break my bike and you’ll be sorry!’ from Nat as we screeched out of the compound.

We hit the tarmac road a few minutes later and settled back for the 40 mile drive to Farafenni. The sun was out (as always) and the sky was blue (again, as always) and it was good to be on the road – even if I did look a bit silly riding along with my knees round my ears!

 

To be continued….

 

Working in the Regional Education Office

The reason I came to The Gambia was to try and share what little I know of managing schools with the education authorities here as they work to improve their systems and provide a quality education for all the children in the country.

The school system here, although based largely on the English system, is very different in many ways. Firstly, education is not compulsory and schools have to do their best to convince parents of the need to send their children to school at all. This isn’t always easy as it is traditional for children to work in the home and on the land as soon as they are old enough, and without this extra labour it is difficult for families to manage – particularly at busy times such as harvest.

Attendance throughout the year is very variable with more children attending in the dry season (November to May) than in the rainy season, when they are needed on the farm.

A few years ago, the Gambian government pledged to make education available to all pupils and started a campaign to enrol more children. The campaign was very successful and the numbers of children suddenly turning up at school overwhelmed the system and there were acute shortages of buildings, furniture and teachers. For some time now, the Department for Education has been doing all it can to build new classrooms, provide new furniture and train more teachers. In spite of their best efforts, many schools are still having to operate a ‘double shift’ system where some pupils attend in the morning and others in the afternoon. There are many disadvantages with the system, not least the fact that by 6pm, the teachers have been standing in front of classes for over 9 hours.

In spite of these measures, there are still insufficient trained teachers to cope with the workload and so most schools have to use unqualified teachers.

Teachers across the country tend to be demotivated by the hard working conditions and the low wages. When you add in the fact that they can be posted anywhere in the country and have to live in remote villages away from their homes and families it is not surprising that the retention rate of teachers is very low, with many leaving each year to pursue more lucrative professions.

It is against this background that the staff at the Regional Education Directorate work to ensure that all children who wish to attend school are able to do so and that they receive the best quality education possible. The staff at the Directorate is quite small – particularly when compared to an English LEA. In the office there are the Director of Education, a Principal Education Officer, a Senior Education Officer and two Education Officers covering a region with nearly one hundred schools. There are also 9 ‘Cluster Monitors’ covering clusters of around 10 to 12 schools each.

I work mainly with the Principal Education Officer (PEO), Saite Saine, and sometimes with the Director, Musa Suso. My role is to offer a different perspective on the work they are doing and hopefully be able to suggest new ways in which they can tackle issues.

For the past few months, my main task has been to improve the way schools are monitored by the Education Office. Communications are difficult: there’s no regular postal service, no email in schools and, unless the head has a mobile phone he can be reached on, there is no way to keep in touch with schools other than to actually visit them. Department of Education regulations say that staff from the Regional Directorates should visit each school at least once a month. In practice this is impossible: there simply isn’t the manpower – or the vehicles – or the fuel supply! Visits in the past tended to be very rushed affairs and Education Officers would simply accept the word of the head that all was well in the school and move on to the next one. When I first visited schools I could see in fact that all was not well and so I have been devising ways of improving the way visits are conducted and trying to find out what is really happening in a school. At times I feel a little like an OFSTED inspector, which is not how I want things to work, and heads can be very defensive. It is a cultural thing in The Gambia to always say that everything is ‘fine fine’ and not to point out where there are deficiencies. Unfortunately schools cannot improve unless they first acknowledge where they are not working as well as they could be and so I’m playing the role of the nasty man from the ministry. The more positive side of things though is that I’m also working to get the Senior Education Officer and the Cluster Monitors to spend more time in

the schools that need most help, offering support and on the job training to the heads. Gambian headteachers receive very little initial training and are left to sink or swim according to their natural abilities. I feel certain that many more of them, given a little training, could actually make good headteachers. Fingers crossed!

Other than school visits, I help with drafting operational plans for the region, writing reports work done by the office and have even written a speech for the Governor of North Bank Division for the Independence Day celebrations in February (he’s a personal friend of the Principle Education Officer). Oh yes, being the only person in the office who can operate a digital camera, I’m the official photographer too!

Shock Announcement

Those Those of you who’ve read this blog before will know how much I value my bike – the little Yamaha AG 100.

It is my sad duty to inform you that the trusty little chap is seriously ill and fighting for his life in the Riders for Health Garage in Kanifing.

Poor old AG has been ill for a few weeks now. He suffered plug failure some time ago and needed an immediate transplant. This was followed quickly by a punctured rear tyre which, although not serious in itself, obviously drained his energy and left him vulnerable to further illness.

Over the next week he began to lose power and his top speed fell steadily until he could barely manage 60kph – he can normally manage 80kph easily. I took him to the Riders for Health bike hospital where they diagnosed a clogged silencer and replaced it with another. Unfortunately this made little difference and AG’s power and speed fell further until he could only limp along at 15kph.

There was no hope of keeping him alive long enough to reach the garage and so a mechanic had to rush out to see him. It transpired that the new silencer AG had been fitted with was even more clogged than the first one. The mechanic was hopeful however and cleaned the silencer thoroughly by putting it in a cooking fire and burning all the tar and oily deposits off. He then removed AG’s cylinder head and cleaned the top of his piston and cylinder which had become badly sooted.

All seemed well for a few days and we all hoped that AG would make a full recovery.

Last Monday, in the full heat of the afternoon, the brave motorcycle was struggling valiantly to overtake a van when he suffered a blown piston and collapsed by the side of the road. It is a testament to his noble character that, rather than just stopping in the middle of the road and potentially killing his rider, AG fought to return to the kerb before grinding to a halt.

His condition is now so serious that he has had to have his whole engine removed and dismantled.

We are all hoping for the best, but it must be remembered that AG is getting rather old – he has covered over 27000 kilometres (around 17000 miles) which is a lot for a small bike like him, especially in the hot dusty conditions of The Gambia. It is likely that, should he pull through, AG will soon be transferred to a less demanding position in the coastal town district where he will travel tarmac roads and always be close to medical assistance.

Should this prove to be the case, he will be replaced by one of his younger brothers who has been providing excellent service for another volunteer in Soma for the last 18 months.

I know you will all join with me in wishing AG a speedy recovery. I would like to thank him for the loyalty  he has shown me throughout my time in Kerewan and I sincerely hope that we are able to continue our partnership into the future.

Whilst awaiting further developments, I am having to make do with a substitute bike: a Kawasaki 650 trail bike. It may be bigger, faster, comfier and better handling than AG, but it just isn’t the same!