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Busy doing nothing – Hacer ocupado nada

Week two has come and gone very quickly and after writing what turned out to be, in many people’s opinions, a somewhat depressing post last week I have decided to try and be a little more positive. The days have been cooler now as the region enters its winter period. Clouds have sheltered the sun and we have been able to walk a little without perspiring like mules. I have taken to riding my motor cycle to work even though it is only about 1km. It is certainly quicker and we only have to pass a customs post and army and police checkpoints. They are everywhere in the Gambia and locals are astonished when I say there are no military checkpoints in the UK. “What none?” “No none at all!” “But do the army patrol the streets?” “No.” “Wow!”
Our day begins at 6:30 when we get up, shower, drink tea and make our way to work. There is no electricity until around 11:00 so we sit in the office we have made for ourselves and prepare for work. The region in which we are working is vast. There are some 66 government and 20 plus private schools, both Christian and Muslim, which are supported by the government and numerous Madrassa schools which teach the Koran, although many of these are now supplied with English speaking teachers so they can also teach the prescribed Gambian curriculum. The schools are grouped into seven different clusters each supported by a cluster monitor. It is Lynn’s job to support them and their schools. That some of the schools are about 40km and therefore half a day’s travel away means that it is going to be difficult for Lynn to get to them. I don’t like the idea of her tootling around the less populated regions of the Gambia alone on her motor scooter. Consequently Lynn spends much of her time preparing training materials for the Cluster monitors and the schools. Meanwhile I am spending my time teaching the Education staff how to use Excel while removing trojans, viruses and worms from every computer in sight. A small note here, thank you Catherine for all your help in understanding the subtleties of Excel it has come in very useful. I have spent three days rewiring the electric sockets so that we have power in our room and the main office, brown outs permitting. Now there is small job of rebuilding the old computers, Pentiums III are the latest they have. I also spend a lot of time setting up email addresses for staff and cluster monitors and helping the Senior Education Office prepare an application for a UK university.
So after a hard day only beaten by the Records clerk who has slept, played solitaire, tidied her hair, eaten breakfast, lunch and chatted to every visitor who enters the building before discovering that she has a desk but nothing to do when she gets to it we all finally go home. The compound we live in has finally accepted that we are not going to sit outside and chat with them all day so they tend to leave us alone and we shower, rehydrate and go out into the village to play petanca or petanque for English purists. We always begin on our own before being joined by various locals who have appeared out of nowhere and stopped to watch to play with us. This is both fun and dangerous as, while some have the idea and play very well, others throw the boule head high and with great velocity in random directions. We finally stop when the crowd of around 30 begin to get restless, we only have 12 boule after all. We then make our way home and treat the compound to the best of Leonard Cohen or various artists from Dylan to Katie Melua.
We have replaced Lynn’s ‘soaps’ with Talking books which we share while doing jobs at the end of the day. We occasionally watch a film on the laptop but then by 8:30pm we have had it and are in bed by 9:00.
To keep this post very positive I have not mentioned the toilet backing up and rows with the landlord about who pays for it. Neither have I mentioned the highlight of watching Liverpool thrash Manchester Utd in a tiny video club in Basse surround by hordes of locals all of whom turned out to be Manchester Utd fans. Now that was fun.
La semana dos en Basse ha sido mejor. El tiempo es más chulo y ha sido más fácil trabajar. Cada día despertamos en 6:30 y paseo a la oficina de educación. Tenemos que trabajar con la electricidad cuando esto no viene a hasta 11:00. Entonces preparamos materiales de formación para profesores y escuelas. Muchos personal gambiano, en la oficina de educación, gastan mucho tiempo que a veces duerme, a veces charlando y a menudo comiendo o bebiendo el té. Ellos se enfadan de ser pedido hacer algo que ellos piensan no es su trabajo. Por consiguiente el oficinista de Archivos no hará nada a menos que ella tenga un registro al archivo. Sus archivos son desorganizados, desordenados y polvorientos aún ella pasa su tiempo peinando su pelo, durmiendo y gastando el día.
Esto nos vuelve locos.
Por las tardes vamos a la tienda para comprar la comida para la tarde entonces nos vamos a casa, ducha y porque no hay ninguna huelga de electricidad para jugar petanca en nuestro pueblo. La gente aquí nunca ha visto o ha oído del juego pero ellos están muy interesados y siempre quieren probar. Unos están muy bien pero los otros son muy peligrosos. La electricidad viene a aproximadamente 20:00, pero es cansada y se acuesta por 21:00.
Perdemos la comida buena de la casa. Los grandes filetes de Mateano y el maravilloso vino que lo acompañan, pero entonces cada día nos traen más cerca nuestra vuelta. Hasta entonces esperamos que podamos ayudar al menos al departamento de educación a ayudar a la gente joven de la Gambia.