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The Last Lap

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.