My School's Sign

'What Boys Can Do Girls Can Do Better'

Oh Gambia, your heart's in the right place but...

So what exactly am I doing here? Well my official title is ‘teacher trainer’. I have been posted in a medium sized village in the middle of the country. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from one end of my village to the other (that's with a lot of greeting going on along the way). There is one school here and it is called a Basic Cycle School. It includes a nursery school (pre-K) and grades one through nine, oddly no kindergarten. If students wish to further their education after grade nine then they need to travel to another village and attend a Senior Secondary School (grades ten through twelve) of which there are only a handful. There is one class for each grade here and each one has approximately thirty to forty students in it.

Classrooms

(There was an art teacher here who painted all these murals.

They are really cool looking.)

All right, I’m just going to say it. Gambian schools are a mess. There are some really well intentioned people here and some very industrious ones as well but a lot of what goes on here is just ridiculous; the beginning of the school year for example. School officially begins in the beginning of September. Approximately fifty percent of the teachers and about seventy percent of the students show up around three weeks after that. Then they all sit around for a couple of days waiting for the Ramadan break to start and then they all take off for another two weeks. When everyone eventually finds their way back by early October classes begin although on paper they’ve been going on for a month now.

The inside of a typical classroom.

Okay! We’re all here now, let’s get started! Take out your notebook and copy the two pages worth of ‘notes’ that have been taken directly from the textbook (we’re talking paragraphs here) and are written on the chalkboard. You don’t speak English so all of these notes are complete gobbley gook? Be quiet and write them down before I get the stick out. Done? Good. Let’s ‘read’. I’m going to read a story line by line and you are going to repeat it back to me at a high volume. Now to be fair there is a teaching strategy called ‘echo reading’ in which students basically do this exact thing. It’s supposed to help with fluency and expression BUT it is just one of many strategies that a teacher should be using (look at me acting like an actual teacher, lol). When it’s the only strategy being used we call it memorizing, not reading. These kids’ memorization skills are pretty impressive since they’ve been trained to do this from day one of their school careers. It is not uncommon for me to show a kid who is in grade six a story they ‘read’ in grade two and for them to be able to repeat it to me while barely looking at the words. Unfortunately they can’t read the word ‘in’ when it’s isolated though. Time for math? Okay, let me write more ‘notes’ on the board that include the word ‘set’ about fifty times. When you’re done copying that I’ll bark questions at you and then bark praise (Very Good!) to the person who randomly guesses the correct answer. Then when you are in grade nine we’re going to give you nation wide test filled with obscure questions about obscure facts that you are unable to read. When you do poorly we are going to berate you and tell you that you are not working hard enough. We are trained teachers so clearly the problem lies with you. Yeah, so I’m here to try and turn some of these things around.
My Office

(Lol over the computer. Apparently the first time they plugged it into a generator it blew the whole thing. Peace Corps is always looking for IT volunteers by the way.)

#1: Gambian teachers have been taught in Gambian schools so their language skills are incredibly sketchy and their critical thinking skills are pretty much nil. They are great when it comes to practical things like planting the garden or getting the gigantic bags of rice from World Food Program from the road to the school but it gets dicey when we dive into the world of academics. This sounds bad and I really do enjoy these people but when it comes to working alongside them within the school it’s often like trying to teach a third grader how to be a be an effective instructor. It’s really tempting to just do everything yourself but that’s not going to create any lasting change so I’m going to have to really try to include them in the process. Needless to say that is easier said than done.
Problem #2: There are literally NO teaching materials here. Okay I take that back, the president has actually put quite a bit of money into education and is very supportive of it. ‘Quite a bit’ being a relative term considering the level of poverty here. The children have textbooks that are great, much better than the ridiculous tomes we used at my American school. Unfortunately the natural elements here are not conducive to books having a long life. Rain, heat and mud huts aren’t really ideal conditions for book preservation. On top of that, the books are soft covers. All of this equates to the books having a life of one to two years, tops. After that they completely fall apart and there are no replacements. The books were adopted a year and a half ago. When it comes to teaching materials it’s pretty much the textbook and chalk. There is a big push by the Ministry of Education for the creation of teaching aids by teachers but that’s kind of hard to do when the school is given very few, if any, markers, scissors, or paper. No seriously, the school where I am received ZERO supplies for the school year. Teachers’ salaries are also really low here (it’s a much lower status job than it is in America which I’m sure some of you will chuckle at that but I stand by my belief that teaching is a pretty good job back home) so there is no way anyone is paying for anything out of their own pocket.

Things that Gambian schools need:

Scissors: (The art teacher borrows my pair almost every day. I’d give them to him but then I’d have nothing to cut with.)

Markers: (You really can’t make many effective teaching aids without markers. I let everyone use mine and they are all duly impressed by the scented ones.)

Clear Packing Tape: (Who needs a laminating machine? I actually even used this in America when I didn’t want to wait for the week turn around to laminate something. The difference being that the classrooms here have windows without shutters/doors. If it’s not covered in some sort of plastic it’s not going to last more than a month.)
Books: (Other than the text books there are literally no books available to the children, neither in the schools nor in the community. Some of the headmasters (principals) have a smattering of donated books in their offices, because there’s nowhere else to house them, but they are often way too advanced for the students (I wouldn’t give the 9th grade students anything over a 4th grade level, at MOST. No, seriously, these kids can not read). One of the things that I will be working on while I’m here is developing libraries for the schools. At this point a ‘library’ will probably consist of a box of books in the classrooms that the children can read when they are finished with their work. Depending on what sort of support I can get I might be able to get actual library rooms set up in at least a couple schools. Sustainability is a big problem when it comes to libraries here because the Gambian teachers often let them languish once volunteers leave, something to do with a lack of ‘reading culture’, but I’m still motivated to try because when I read books with my kids at home they are riveted and they try really hard. And anyway there isn’t any developing of a country without literacy and that’s pretty much what I’m here for.)

Oreos :)

Problem #3: It’s a lot easier to write a bunch of things on the board and have your class silently write them down then it is to actually teach. And if you drill them enough they’ll have it memorized so you’ll get the added satisfaction of having ‘taught’ them something. Actual teaching involves planning, research and an investment of time and energy in creating activities (there I go acting like an actual teacher again). It can also go awry, just ask my fourth grade class about the ‘Frog’ game we attempted to play during a division lesson. Hmm, I wonder which method an underpaid, undereducated teacher is going to be more comfortable with? Slowly, slowly (‘domonding, domonding’ as we say in Mandinka. Hey, that’s one of the six things I know how to say!).

So there you have it, the Gambian school system in a nutshell.

Hope my people (Americans) are gearing up for a nice Thanksgiving. I’m having it with some Peace Corps volunteers near my site which should be nice even though I’m a little sad that I won’t be spending it at home. Alicia Silverstone just came out with this awesome looking book called ‘The Kind Life’ and when I come home it’s one of the top thirty things I’m doing/getting. This year I’m just going to have to settle for trying to concoct animal-free stuffing from the local bread, maggi , and an herb or two that I’ll pick up at the toubob shop.

My Village - Jappineh, it's so lovely.

The masses have spoken so here is a picture of me carrying my water. Well it’s really a picture of me standing in my backyard with an empty bucket on my head because there is no way I’m letting a Gambian see me take a picture of myself carrying water but it gives you the general idea.

I should have used the big bucket and really wowed you but I am nothing if not moral; well, most of the time that is. Which brings us to: How Karma Followed Me From the Land of Opportunity All the Way to the Land of ‘Hey Boss Lady, Take Me To America’. (Young male Gambians (in the city) have the unfortunate tendency to call non-African women ‘boss lady’. Apparently the tourists think it’s a hoot which is pretty appalling when you think about what it implies with the west’s history of slave trade in this part of the world.) The whole tourist thing is it’s own story which I’ll get to later though. So anyway, most of you know that I pride myself on ‘doing the right thing’ and I can get pretty high and mighty about it, truth be told. Well like anyone who makes a big deal out of anything I have my moments where I do the exact opposite of what I say I do. It all started the day that I was heading to the city for the weekend. With the state of transport in this country that is easier said than done. It began well, I got up nice and early, packed my bag carefully and headed out to the roadside to wait for a gely gely to pass by (crossing my fingers that one would have a seat left and stop as opposed to whipping by because it was packed to the gills as most are.). Well lo and behold I got one in about fifteen minutes and I was happily on my way to the market town of Soma where I would transfer to another gely and make the six plus hour trip to Kombo. As we pulled into the hectic carpark, where all the taxis and gelys convene, I realized with a sinking heart that I had forgotten my bank book at home. In America this would be no big deal. I’d turn my car around or hop on a bus going in the opposite direction, grab my things and be on my way. In the Gambia this meant getting on a return gely and then sitting in it for an hour and a half while I waited for it to fill up with passengers which took forever since no one travels in that direction at that time of the day. Gelys do not move unless they are completely filled with passengers. A vacant seat is lost income and wasted petrol so you are not going anywhere until EVERY seat is occupied. It is not uncommon to wait hours before getting on the road. All right, so my gely has finally filled up and we are heading back home. I should mention now that the only reason I was making the trek to the city in the first place was to get some cash. There are exactly three branches of the bank that Peace Corps uses to manage our living allowances in this country. It’s also one of the biggest and most modern so it’s not like it was a bad choice or anything. Two are in Kombo and one is on the other side of the country. Yup, if you live in my village and want to go to the bank you literally need to travel at least six hours to do so. I’m tempted to just keep all my cash in my house but since Gambians think Americans are all rich (and I guess a lot of us are relatively) we tend to be a target for thievery so I’ll sit on the gely once a month if it means that I’ll be able to buy jam and get on the internet occasionally (that’s pretty much what my living allowance will get me after rent, food and transportation but I’m not complaining, I really don’t need a lot more than a little bit of Google and some raspberry preserves once in awhile). Having my bank book (there’s no withdrawing without it) in hand I sit myself down on the roadside and wait for my third gely. Here’s where it gets tricky. No one is traveling in the late morning so a gely is even more difficult to get now. After being passed by multiple times and unceremoniously pushed aside by a bossy lady with a huge bucket of groundnuts that she was taking to Soma to sell, I finally got a seat. Now the usual procedure on these trips is that about half way to your destination the apparande begins to collect fares. He stands in the back and taps people on the shoulder while we all dutifully pass our money back. Gambians have a strange relationship with money. There generally is none and they seem sort of embarrassed whenever it makes an appearance. In the case of the gely, no one makes eye contact while passing the bills around, they act like they are passing a math test with a giant ‘D’ scrawled in red across it. Well that’s the way it usually goes but on this day the apparende remained silent, sitting in the back, making no gesture of payment collection. When we arrived in Soma everyone tumbled out of the vehicle and they started unloading the top of all the goods that people were transporting (no goats on this particular journey) which brings us to my moment of shame. With my twenty delasi clutched firmly in my hand I began to walk backwards, away from the gely. Yes that’s right, the ‘rich’ American was trying to cheat a Gambian gely driver out of an eighty cent fare. I had already paid 40 delasi to go essentially nowhere and I was about to pay another hundred to get to Kombo. I was down to my last two hundred and who knew what I would encounter on the next leg of my journey? An (inevitable) breakdown? An impromptu afternoon stop at the driver’s uncle’s sister’s brother’s house? An ever present pickpocket (although to be fair I haven’t run into one so far but they are a big problem here)? Someone was going to pay for my bad money management and it wasn’t going to be me if this guy wasn’t going to ask for his fare. Well of course the minute that I got about ten feet away from the vehicle the guy starts calling me to stop but he wasn’t looking directly at me and he was still dealing with the stuff up on top of the vehicle. So of course I pretended I didn’t know he was talking to me and kept walking (before you judge me too harshly remember that this story is all about karma and how I learned my lesson and am appropriately remorseful and humiliated). Well of course he keeps calling me and when I realize there is no way I’m getting away with this I adopt the ‘Oh, you’re talking to me?’ look and hand over my eighty cents, keeping my head down to avoid the dreaded eye contact. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking. This guy drives same route (that I take) everyday, probably knows a ton of people in my village, drives a broken down cab in ONE OF THE TEN POOREST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD and I tried to rip him off. What is wrong with me? I have no idea. Well feeling insanely guilty I make my way to the carpark where I wait another two hours for a gely to Kombo. I get it and I get there with only one broken axle along the way which is pretty good considering that on my previous trip we had a total of five flat tires. (In case you haven’t noticed, one of the reasons I’m telling this story is to illustrate what it’s like to travel anywhere in this country).

All right, fast forward to the next day in Kombo. After getting all the cash I needed from the bank I headed to Serrakunda which is a really crowded market town akin to something you might see in a movie that is set in the middle-east, minus the bhirkas (it’s generally head wraps only although a veil has been known to make an appearance). So I’m shopping for this elusive hand dyed indigo fabric that is produced locally and I’m not having a lot of luck. There is a ton of fabric here but it’s all imported from neighboring countries and more recently from China. I’ve asked a couple of shopkeepers and they all seem a little confused but eager to help, nevertheless I strike out over and over. As is always the case a Gambian hears my plight and steps in offering to lead the way. Well my policy on this sort of thing is to generally go with it unless something feels particularly fishy. I have found Gambians to be overwhelmingly warm and welcoming and while one must proceed with caution I really do think that most of them have their heart in the right place. The PC security director would probably have a stroke if he read that but I can only go with my gut and that’s what it’s told me so far. I’ve had a lot of really nice experiences that I wouldn’t have had if my guard was up too high. So my new friend Lamin takes me around and after a few mistrials we find the fabric in question and he gets me a good price. He’s very chatty, find me a Gambian who’s not and I’ll give you twenty delasi which I think we’ve established would be quite the accomplishment, and insists that we get lunch before I head back. Well it’s pretty clear that I’ll be paying for said lunch but that’s okay, he found me the fabric and he’s been a pleasant shopping companion. True to form another random Gambian hears the lunch plan and starts to lead us through the market to a place where I can get the bean sandwich I want. We end up in this dark little cave of an eating establishment furnished with a couple of card tables, a couple of lawn chairs and a huge stand alone freezer. After much back and forth it becomes clear that not only does he not have my bean sandwich available, he doesn’t have anything that I would consume (vegan), so he ends up offering me a sandwich that consists of bread, three slices of tomato and a cut up cucumber, yum. He gives my friend Lamin a plate of sketchy looking rice but all is forgiven when he places two ice cold Cokes in front of us. Well the first rule in Gambian dining is ‘Establish a price before anything reaches your table’ but clearly I did not need to do that since everyone was so NICE. I mean he was being all grateful to Peace Corps for their contributions to the country, we were talking about geography and poring over the world map stuck to the wall, he was telling me all about his family. Um yeah. Of course when the plates were clean he asked for payment that was approximately five times what the meal was worth. When I gave him the ‘You’ve got to be kidding me look’ he got all crazy defensive and started ranting about not seeing color and taxes and whatnot. Oh boy. Well ‘Choose your battles’ is all I have to say about that. It was pretty clear where this whole thing was going if I was going to argue and that wasn’t someplace I was interested in being. I think I succeeded in shaming him a little bit by telling him that he was robbing me over and over as I walked out and I’m sure that kept him up at night (while he was gleefully counting the three hundred and seventy five delasi I gave him: that’s approximately half a month’s rent in Kombo! To keep things in perspective that’s only fifteen American dollars). So there you have it, I tried to cheat a gely driver out of 20 delasi and ended up getting cheated for 375 . In my own mixed up way I was actually relieved. I was plagued with guilt over the 20 until I got ripped off and then I immediately felt like everything had balanced out and I was on the right track again. Welcome to my conscience.

Hilarious things I’ve seen and/or heard

1) A fifteen year old ‘gangsta’ wearing pearls! As I’m pretty sure is true with youths around the world , a lot of teenage boys here are big fans of American pop culture, namely gangster rap (move over doctors, apparently bad taste doesn’t have any borders either). When I tell them I’m from California they all ask if I know 50 Cent, to which I answer ‘yes’ of course. On a side note CDs have not made it to The Gambia. The few people who are listening to music on boom boxes or in gelys are listening to cassette tapes. I have finally found a group of people who are slower to adopt new technology than myself, yay! Let’s ignore the fact that there is no technology to adopt. So anyway the boys love their bling which is kind of hard to pull off when you are living in a country as poor as this one. Nevertheless, in the markets you are apt to find some super cheap ‘gold’ chains along with an assortment of costume jewelry straight from China. Well the kid sitting next to me on the gely got most of it right. Baggy jeans? Check. White(ish) t-shirt? Check. Sneakers? Check. Bling? A strand of ultra white plastic pearls. It was too adorable for words.

2) The Science teacher at my school telling me that he wanted to ‘move his bowels’ and then we would chat. Okay I know I’m ten but I’m the kind of person who becomes uncomfortable when Europeans refer to the restroom as the ‘toilet’ so you can imagine my reaction to the above statement. Every time I think about it I start laughing; it’s been a week.

3) The Gambian Can Opener. So I’m standing there with a can of tomato paste and no can opener. I ask my friend Ebrima if he has one. He looks at me quizzically, gets a large knife, plunges it into the top of the can and starts sawing. Who needs all these new fangled gadgets anyway?

The culprit.

4) The donkey with an itchy rear end. First of all have you people heard a donkey bray? Oh my god it is horrible sounding! The poor things sound like they are dying. Peace Corps made a big point out of warning us about it in training because volunteers have been known panic, believing that the donkey in their backyard (if you live in The Gambia you are pretty much guaranteed a donkey in your backyard) is in distress. Well anyway I was sleeping peacefully on my foam mattress one night when I was jolted awake by something banging against my corrugate metal backyard fence. I figured it was an animal but I wasn’t sure and it’s a little unsettling to have something threatening to break down your fence at two o’clock in the morning in a West African village. Of course I did the sensible thing and just hoped it would go away but after about two hours of that I had to investigate. Well let me tell you, venturing out to see what is causing a ruckus in the middle of the night when you are living in rural Africa is not something one is eager to do but I had no choice, if that fence had come down I’d have bigger problems than witnessing some hoodoo-guru African tribal ceremony in the middle of the night. Well to my delight all that was waiting for me when I got back there was my adorable 18 year old neighbor Ebrima and a donkey that had been bitten a few too many times by the ever persistent mosquitoes. Ebrima was out there trying to shoo him away because he heard him from his house and thought that ‘Kaddy might be scared’. Oh Ebrima.