huntermurray.com

The things people say..?

Tom — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:36:05 +0000

The English language is a wonderful means of communication which in so many ways unites the world. We are all used to the differences between English spoken in the US and the UK for example when words like “sidewalk” are used instead of “pavement.” The Gambia however has taken English to new heights so for those of you planning to visit the Gambia in the near future here are some wonderful English translations which will help you understand the local version of English.

Off it or Shall I off it is translated as turn it off or shall I turn it off. Used for mobile phones or lights.
Do you recognise me? means,”You are a toubab and do not have a hope in hell of recognising me so I can pretend to be your neighbour and CON by borrowing money from you.
Town trip? means,”I am a taxi driver and will allow you to haggle my exorbitant price for a short taxi ride to an extortionate one.
Five five? means,”This taxi journey will only cost you 5 Dalasi providing you get out somewhere on the road I am travelling on.

more to be added later

Little Brother Big Brother

Tom — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:17:28 +0000

For the first child in any family life is an adventure which is never quite echoed by the second or subsequent children in any family, assuming of course that the gap between siblings is not great and that they are living and growing together. For the first child everything is new, the world is a place of discovery; everything is there to be understood and the relationship between the first child and the world is a curious one which is determined through trial and error with the occasional intervention of adults and other children. The second child however is walking a path already trodden by the older brother or sister. The older brother or sister has already seen what is safe of fun allowing the younger child to copy with little of the risk taking that his older sibling has undertaken. No longer is growing about exploration but about learning from others. Late additions to a family copy mirror and make strides in development much faster than their elder siblings. When left to their own devices, however, the world becomes a very different place. They have no guide, no mentor and no assurance that what they are doing will be fun, safe, acceptable or of value. Risk taking is suddenly new and the younger child then lacks the assurance they apparently had. Watch a younger child who generally plays with their elder brother or sister suddenly have to make their way on their own, life is suddenly a slightly more precarious place.
In my view the Gambia is like the second child. They copy other African states comfortably. They follow with little thought but when left to their own devices they struggle. They lack the assurance of the elder child to go alone where none have gone before. Even in their educational systems students are taught to copy, do this, it is right, safe and you do not have to think. Consequently many Gambians lack creativity, lack the drive to go where none have gone before and when faced with problems do not even know how to approach finding a solution.
Sadly the world of international development fails to recognise the need to support growth in anything but fiscal terms. NGOs and other donors generally tell Gambia what to do allowing them to live with the notion that everything is okay because we have been told to do it. The oft quoted, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a meal. Teacher a man to fish and you feed him for life.” does not seem to apply here. It is time Gambia be allowed and challenged to stand up and become accountable for their own decisions, masters of their own destiny. Of course the Gambia is a very needy country and I understand and I understand why donors demand so much and why the Gambia continues to rely on the guidance of the donors and other African countries as role models for development but sooner or later Gambia has to understand that their big brother might not be around to rely on for ever. It is time to become self reliant, personally accountable and take responsibility for their own actions and decisions. Or am I wrong?

Home at Last

Tom — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:51:59 +0000

I had said many times whilst in the heat of the Gambia that I would have no withdrawal symptoms on my return. I dreamed of having large steaks, creamy cakes and chocolate in abundance. I dreamed of tasting ales, telling tales and loving cooler weather.
Now I am home and nothing that I have imagined has come true. I am tired, exhausted and want to sleep for twenty hours a day, yet I have no appetite. I don’t crave those steaks, I walk past chocolate counters with barely a glance and have only just, today, had my first cake.
On my arrival Lynn took me to a shopping mall and said, we must get you some new clothes. I wanted to run away. Sainsbury’s seemed too big, the choice too large, too abundant and overwhelming. Watching people shop without thought for whether they needed things or simply wanted them added a new dimension to my return. I had to leave. I have now spent my first week coming to terms with the country in which I live, the extravagance, the wealth, the waste and the attitudes. Now to be clear I do not have a problem with the United Kingdom coming home especially from the Gambia you realise what a clean, safe and protective environment it is. You realise what a culture shock it is to those people coming from places like the Gambia where the common bowl is normal, where it is acceptable to pick your nose in public and where spitting out food is allowable. Suddenly they would move into a world where a sandwich is a month’s wages, where throwing litter on the floor is no longer acceptable and where life moves at a pace beyond comprehension Of course there are exceptions but the UK is a clean and safe place. I wonder if those who live here but never venture beyond its shores realise just how lucky they are.
I have not yet had time to reflect on my time in the Gambia and will do so shortly. I will also publish the results of our final VSO review which asks our Gambian partners how successful our placement was however at the moment, I am back, happy, content but also cold and tired.

The Best Made Plans of Mice and Men

Tom — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:58:26 +0000

The postponement of Region Six Teacher of the Year Awards on June 25th was almost my final act in Basse before leaving for the last time. Not that the event was to be cancelled completely but that typical of most events in a Gambian diary it was subject to last minute change. The event had come about because we recognised that morale amongst teachers in region six was very low. Teachers are moved from other regions, made to leave their families behind, and placed in remote areas without transport, electricity or other modern comforts to work for indefinite periods. Typically then they get told off if they do not raise standards, don’t plan properly or if they have a few days off to go and see their families. Indeed in our experience teachers were often at the end of the Director’s tongue lashings for all of these.

The idea of the Teacher of the Year Awards was to raise morale. Money was not involved. This was about recognising achievement. Everyone was excited about it. We went through a nominations process, verifications visits, prepared a rational for each person on the final nominations shortlist, invited honoured guests, prepared the programmes, had certificates printed and I worked with two local choirs to take part in the programme. The date was moved from June 24th to June 25th to allow the Permanent Secretary and the Honourable Minister of Education to attend and I was to run the programme before returning to Banjul to fly home on the 27th.

Then the event was postponed.

This is typical of the Gambia. Early planning means nothing as self interest groups can and often do demand immediate access to information, key members of the Education Ministry and access to policy changes. This time Head Teachers awaiting their graduation from Gambia college and invited to travel from Basse were suddenly delayed by a week when the College postponed their graduation ceremony. Then Waec, the West African Education Certificate group decided to run end of year exams during this week. Head Teachers needed to invigilate exams were attending graduation in Kombo so suddenly others had to be trained. Being at the end of the food chain our Teacher of the Year Awards now had to be changed because the Minister of Education and the Permanent Secretary could not attend. They were required to attend a donor conference planned 72 hours before the event.

This only happens because the Gambia has no strategic year plan. They have numerous plans forced on them by various donors whether they be the World Bank, Unicef or any one of over 50 interest groups who fund education and child development. Every regional office has a three or four year development plan but nobody has a real strategic overview of how each of these plans fit together.

For me this meant that I would not be present at an event I had worked on for a month. I would not see my choirs sing or teachers receiving awards. But then this was not about me and I simply hope that next Friday it is the event which lifts morale and recognises achievement as planned.

As I prepared to leave the Gambia for the final time I was delighted to receive, on behalf of Lynn and I, the Director’s Awards for services rendered to Education in 2010. I am told that the award will be presented to us, in our absence, on Friday July 2nd when the awards ceremony finally takes place. It is and was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise and one which we will take pride in.

This is likely to be our penultimate blog but I will wait for news on the awards before writing about our return to the UK.

Another normal week in Basse

Tom — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:43:37 +0000

I became the centre of attention at the end of the week when news that I am to leave the Gambia spread around the compound. It immediately created a feeding frenzy that I should have expected but was not ready for. Am I taking my laptop, my mobile phones, my camera, my equipment and my shoes? I had made a mistake in giving the clothes that Lynn left behind to the women in the compound which created an instant fashion show as they paraded in Lynn’s old wardrobe around the compound. This was very strange. Each item reminded me of Lynn and to see Fula women wearing them was quite strange. Top of the wanted list were shoes and it was amusing to see feet several sizes too big being crammed into dainty size sixes. Men were wearing ladies trainers and sandals were being opened to allow bigger feet to find room.
I had been saving yoghurt pots which when they are available in Basse gave me a taste of the west. Having collected a reasonable amount I had them stacked on the side waiting to be moved to the office to become part of our model classroom. Esther, however, a 13 year old child from the compound spotted them and asked if she could have them. I said yes but suggested that we play stackers where a pyramid of 10 pots is disassembled and reassembled very quickly. She liked this so much that she brought her father in who then raced against me, Esther and finally against Adama, Esther’s younger sister.
The pots were then taken outside and groups of men played this rather than watch the Nigeria v Argentina football match. I only wish I could have taken a video of the laughter and whoops of delight as claims of cheating and roars of success were only interrupted with occasional glances at the football.
Friday was prize giving at St Georges Upper Basic School. Lynn and I had been invited as special guests and over the period of three and a half hours were honoured several times as the Principal, the deputy and then students told parents and the gathering what we had done for the school. They were far too kind and clearly thought more of what we had done than we had imagined, but it was wonderful to be appreciated and to hear Lynn being spoken of, even in her absence, in tones praising her knowledge, abilities, experience and personal qualities.
As the news spreads of our departure so more and more people tell us how much they will miss us or ask why we cannot stay. It is quite beguiling and weaker people would be so touched that they might want to stay, but as the old adage used on stage says; “leave them wanting more.”
In this penultimate week in Basse I have around thirty schools to visit to verify nominations for the Teacher of the Year Awards. I must continue to work with the choirs from St Josephs and St Georges who will perform at this event and then I must make all arrangements to ensure the event is a success. I have to complete the entry of exam results for students in grades 9 and 12 for three schools so these can be sent to the West African Examinations Council and the finally I must complete the endless list of documents which are wanted by VSO to enable them to judge the success of our placement. Not a lot to do then, just a normal week in Basse.

The Legacy of Dashed Hopes

Tom — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 09:44:23 +0000

I have only this week come to realise something that has been staring me in the face since we arrived in the Gambia last September. A Head Teacher from a local Lower Basic School brought me a good looking Lenovo laptop. He was very proud of it and had invested in a voltage regulator to make sure it did not fry when the frequent surges for which Basse is renowned hit. The voltage regulator itself cost him almost half a month’s wages so it was a big investment. The problem however was the laptop. Thirty seconds after turning it on it turned itself off. It has to be a hardware fault because this happens from the windows desktop, in the bios, in safe mode, at the logon screen and in dos. It does not stay on long enough to do any fault finding, it needs to be sent back to the manufacturers to find out why this problem occurs. For the Head Teacher this would be prohibitively expensive and consequently the joy of receiving the laptop has died, the investment in the voltage regulator now a white elephant was wasted.
As I told the Head this bad news he declared, “But it came from a church.” which indeed it had. Brockhole Church sent this from the UK to him in the Gambia as do dozens of other schools, churches and charities. They send computers which have past their sell by date, computers that no longer work, computers with windows 3.1, W98 and even PCs with no operating systems to the Gambia believing, I guess, that they are doing these schools and people a favour, after all it is not cheap costs to send anything abroad.
What they forget however is that half of the schools they send computers to have no electricity, none have trained technicians and none can afford to purchase operating systems. Consequently hundreds of now useless computers sit in corners of Gambian classrooms collecting dust as an eternal reminder to Gambian teachers that my friends in Europe sent me computers that don’t work. Meanwhile the schools the churches and the charities back home pat themselves on the back thinking they have done an African school some good.
Whilst hope springs eternal and the very sight of someone who appears computer literate raises the possibility that maybe the school can now get these computers working in most cases it requires a miracle and consequently resentment grows where hope had once been planted.
I urge Churches, Schools and even Charities never to send anything to the Gambia or Africa unless it works and you know it has no faults. I would also be interested to find a group of IT techies willing to give up holiday time to visit places like the Gambia with CDs full of drivers, hard drives, graphics cards, keyboards, ram, operating systems, antivirus etc so that somebody might finally be able to get some of these computers working and replace frustration and disappointment with appreciation and joy.

The final straight – El final está cerca

Tom — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:57:40 +0000

A year always seems a long time when it stretches out before you but when it is almost over it seems so very short. That is our experience in the Gambia. Last September seems just a few weeks ago yet it is ten months since we came to Basse. In four weeks we will be leaving the Gambia to return to family friends and a very different kind of work.
We have been asked to reflect on our successes and failures during our time here and consider next steps for the people who are following. So for the next few blog reports I will concentrate on an assessment of our work in the Gambia considering what we might have done better and where if at all we have seen success.
The title here the final straight was provoked by the thought that Olympic athletes in long distance races always seem to find the energy to sprint for the prizes. Our last few weeks are so busy it feels like a sprint. VSO advise that we return to the Capital at least two weeks before we fly out. We are returning one day before we fly, the reason, “Teacher of the Year Awards.” We have been organising these awards as part of a boost the regions morale campaign. It has meant visiting 40+ schools travelling over 1000k in five days and verifying nominated teachers to ensure that those nominated show the characteristics and practices of a good teacher before they are considered by the Awards panel. The event will be run like a mini Oscars ceremony so there is much fun to be had before we finally leave.
Nuestro tiempo en la Gambia es casi terminado. El año ha ido muy rápidamente y ahora tenemos ganas de ver familia y amigos. Sustituiremos nuestra choza africana por nuestro chalet español y disfrutaremos de la comida buena una vez más.
Hemos trabajado en sobre 50 escuelas gambianas y hemos conducido casi veinte cursos de formación para profesores y educadores.
No siempre ha sido fácil. El calor ha sido un problema. La carencia de la comida buena y la pobreza hizo nuestro trabajo muy con fuerza. Hay una carencia básica de la educación, hasta entre profesores aquí en Gambia y esto ha hecho su entendimiento de nuestro trabajo muy difícil.
La gente gambiana es muy simpática. Ellos siempre se paran para hablar y preguntarnos como somos. Ellos siempre nos ofrecen la comida y nos piden comer con ellos. Les gustamos nosotros sentarnos con ellos y conversación. Pero la conversación es limitada y la comida es pobre. Entonces ellos nos piden cosas. Ellos quieren mi ordenador portátil. Ellos quieren mi teléfono móvil, ellos quieren mi cámara.
Esperamos que hayamos ayudado. Esperamos que ellos se hayan beneficiado de nuestra experiencia. Hay tanto hacer. Si nos quedáramos otros diez años no sería suficiente.
Entonces volvemos a casa en unas semanas. Nosotros somos cansados, pero felices y pensa con mucha ilusión siendo con familia y amigos otra vez.

Rains and the Family of Man

Tom — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:31:40 +0000

The rainy season in the Gambia normally starts in June. At its height in August and September the rainfall is extraordinary. This year June or rather the rainy season came early, arriving with a spectacular storm on Monday evening. Temperatures plummeted to the low thirties and each day since has been cloudy with light rain at night. Sleeping in the heat was always a problem. Sleeping when you have a thousand rain clouds drumming on your tin roof is nigh on impossible. Which is worse I am really not sure although it is good to have a change. The storm, however, was not significant because it kept all of us with tin roofs awake but that in one night the landscape changed. Flooding waters found every available route to create a rivers of water washing rubbish and mud into new locations and no doubt towards the river. Sandy roads suddenly became mud swamps and previously acceptable motorcycle routes across bad roads suddenly became impossible to trust. Footpaths are like glue with red mud and a hard crust across the top of what seems like wallpaper paste.
That said the lower temperatures have made it easier to walk around and once again explore the communities and meet people. On Thursday evening a chance encounter with four army lads and the head teacher of a local school developed into a conversation about extended families. You may know that Gambian men may have four wives and what we in the UK would class as step brothers are brothers. They talked of everyone being their brothers, I was their brother and because of that came social responsibility i.e. if somebody comes into your house and asks for food you are expected to feed them because they are your brother. They explained that the elder brother is always right even when they are wrong and when push comes to shove younger brothers have to back off and allow the elder brother to have his way. I have to reflect that if my younger brother had done that, well boy, would we have gotten into trouble.
The extended family means you can ask a family member for something because if they can they will give it, which apparently explains why three times this week I have been asked for my laptop.
Now of course these requests are quite irksome to some of us and my reply is normally why would I give to you? They reply, “Because I need it.” I have tried the “What do you need it for?” approach, You live in a hut without electricity and you cannot read but that means nothing so my reply, of course, has become “I need it to.” when they reply, “But you can get another one.” I try to be cool, to explain and to suggest that they could work and save as I had to but do they understand? No. Are they embarrassed? No.
I am still not sure how the extended family works, sure I understand the concept but it appears that when they explain it to me it means that I, as a toubab brother, should provide everyone with everything I have, for clearly I live in a country where laptops, ipods, mobile phones and cameras grow on trees.
As for four wives, hmmm, I love Lynn to bits but believe me one is quite enough and yes okay I guess one husband is more than enough.

The ‘god’ Syndrome

Tom — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:10:30 +0000

I do not understand the developing world well enough to know if the phenomena mentioned above applies in other countries but it certainly applies within the Gambia. Volunteers who arrive in the country come with a huge range of skills and abilities that back home are taken for granted yet here especially up country become medals of honour. A female volunteer who can rewire a plug is held in awe while anyone who can repair computers or use Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint properly is similarly deified. Consequently volunteers who at home are just one of the crowd find themselves elevated into positions of esteem and there becomes an assumption that this toubab can do anything. We have heard of volunteers cleaning and then sewing up gaping wounds using nothing other than standard sewing cotton. What were the options? When you are several hours from the nearest medical centre that might or might not have a trained nurse on duty perhaps there are few. Other volunteers dispense medication from their first aid kits knowing that not doing so might condemn somebody to having a severe head ache for hours. There is a strange alluring power in this ability to enrich and support the lives of others using nothing other than information gleaned from things like television and programmes like casualty. We watch and forget we are learning we gain confidence and believe we can do anything because if ‘that man’ on television can deliver a baby well so can I. Gambian children do not yet have those opportunities, rather, they stand and watch others without having the curiosity to say if I learn from him I can do it myself later. That simply does not happen, however I digress.
The dangers of the ‘god’ syndrome as I call it are many more than immediately spring to mind. Yes there are dangers that people will go too far, yes there are dangers that volunteers might prescribe the wrong medicine but for the volunteer themselves there is the danger that living up to the reputation of the toubab who can do everything then leaves a huge void in their life when they go home and once again find themselves as one of the crowd. In the last week I have heard from two volunteers who left the Gambia some months ago and are having difficulty adjusting back into life in the real world. They are needed by their families but not by the community. They are admired by some but not all. Their skills are now normal and the super powers they possessed have gone. The euphoria of their placement has been replaced by a sea of despondency and already they are planning to come back, not as volunteers but to see those people who so relied on them.
This is the reason that VSO push the policy of building capacity. Helping those you work with build their own skill levels and develop the ability to work without you. It is not nearly as attractive but much more meaningful.

The Last Lap

Tom — Sat, 15 May 2010 17:11:06 +0000

That VSO called an education workshop for all volunteers came as a real relief this week. I travelled down to Kombo hoping to have some rest and to sample some good food. Dishes in Basse tend to be limited, Fufu, a dish which is like eating raw dough with a strange sauce, Benechin, a spicy rice dish complete with lumps of cows meat, Domoda, a saucy peanutty stew made with fish or snails and bitter tomato, Yassa, a vegetable stew which can be made with chicken. These meals are taken for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Needless to say I find myself pining for Lynn’s cooking. Those of you who know me know that I am not a cook and have been known to burn fruit salads. That said, the restaurants in Kombo became a welcome relief. The workshop was okay but the overriding realisation was that everybody who came in our cohort from VSO are not planning to leave. Our placement officially ends at the end of August but as schools close on July 9^th and everybody leaves the region to go to their homes and villages it appears that there will not be a lot to do.
It is funny how, when you are working closely with somebody, you do not realise how dependent on them you have become. Lynn’s absence has made the work here tough. Teachers are asking when she will return, SEOs are asking when she will be back and I, well, miss her more every day.
VSO are telling us to plan our exit, book tickets, close our bank accounts write the hand over notes for the next volunteer and all with nine weeks to go. It seems impossible to think that we have been here nine months. People tell us we have done a lot, that we have succeeded but as I only have nine weeks to change the biggest problem in Region Six I fear we will fail.
What problem you ask? Well going to work for many people is signing in at the office and then sitting under the mango tree, see post May 3^rd, all day. They refuse to consider that they are lazy, refuse to concede that they are not working and refuse to contemplate a change in behaviour. In our office the sign, “How can the Gambia change unless you change first” brings many comments but no understanding.
So the future, as we await our first Grand daughter is one of consolidation. Running workshops again, three planned already, preparing for the ‘Teacher of the Year Awards’ an innovation we introduced to try and motivate teachers, and then finally preparing the ground for the new term as we also prepare for departure. Look out soon for some inspirational video and sound clips or teaching in our region.