All the oranges in this country are yellow

PC isn’t a vacation. A lot of people think we get paid to live in a foreign country while we sit back, drink tea, and enjoy the exotic cuisine (or sometimes not enjoy the exotic cuisine). That happens, but the rest of the time we are actually trying to get work done.

If at times we seem sedentary, it’s not because we want to be, it’s because our counter parts ran off to a naming ceremony, or the committee can’t meet because they are harvesting peanuts, or everyone in the office that you need to talk to has gone to the capital for a 3 week training. Besides, I can’t learn Mandinka by never socializing.

So, what do I do?

My primary job is working with a Nursery School to develop its infrastructure, work on teacher development, sensitize the community towards education, and make sure the school and all its little parts are working within the bureaucratic structure of Gambia. I’m basically an accidental education volunteer. The work sounds fancy and all, but there is nothing fancy about grass roots work.

I mostly work with the school committee to get things done, meet with the teachers to try to get them on board with fulfilling their contracts and work on their teaching skills, and bounce from building to building trying to get papers signed often while being told a list of several more hoops to jump to get my task done. An example of this is how I have tried to get my school’s committee registered for basically the last 9 months.

Working with the committee has been one of the single most frustrating parts of my service (besides cross country travel, trying to rescue birds that are “pets”, and getting called Toubob every other minute on a bike ride). There is a silver lining though, because with each encounter, both pro and con, I learn a little bit more about the culture and the people in my village. I don’t think my committee can be used as an example of all Gambia groups, at least I hope not, but I’m still learning from it anyways.

The main reason for writing this blog is to tell a little story of a sign. It’s a bit taller than me, white, and says “Kanubeh Nursery School” in the colors of Gambia. It was purchased by 3 of the 5 people from the NGO Gambia Up-Country Development when they visited about a month ago. The NGO are the funders for the nursery school. For safe keeping I put it in my backyard after they left and I was given the task of following up with the Planning Department to make sure we can legally put it up.

I went to the Planning Department ready to take a piece of paper from place to place to get signed and approved. To my surprise they had already taken it for me and just needed to put one more stamp on it, which they did right away. It was good to go! I didn’t have to do anything! The sign could go up right away. A Christmas miracle really.

When I got back to my village I jumped out of the geli just a couple feet from the Chairman of the School Committee. I don’t know the word for sign, bury, or put in the ground but luckily there was an English speaking guy (1 of maybe 5 in my village) close by and I had him tell the Chairman we could put the sign up this week, hopefully before the heads of the NGO come next week (at the date of publication, today). I knew things weren’t going well when the Chairman said a paragraphs worth of speech, starting low and eventually talking forcefully while wagging his finger. There was a pause before my translator said “you know, he says the committee was not informed about the sign, and to ask them for the labor, people are working in the fields, and they do not want to do it because they were never told about it”. I thought “They were given this sign (expensive) and now they won’t put it up. Seriously people!?”. I said “ok...ok...uh, ok” and walked away. But later I thought “Wait, they were informed of it, invited to come paint it, and some members showed up to drink tea and paint.” I asked the Chairman’s brother to talk to him.

I met up with the Chairman’s brother and he said “I haven’t talked to him, but the committee is upset, they were invited over there and then one of you told them to go to the school to see something. They were invited then pushed out. They are not happy”. Remembering this occasion I think we started the 3 rounds of tea (because any good social event HAS to have tea), around the beginning of round 2 the sign was done, we told them it was done and didn’t have to stay. Possibly we went to the school to work on something. I don’t honestly remember how it went down. But this brings up something I constantly experience here. An example is the word in Mandinka for the color orange and yellow. It’s the same word but one is the darker version of the other. To an American they are different colors, to a Mandinkan they are the same. With this sign incident the NGO and PCV’s saw the sign painting as over and didn’t want to waste the committee member’s time. With the sign incident the Committee saw that they were invited over, tea was brewing and that they were shoo’d away prematurely.

So now, to show their frustration they are refusing to put the sign up. The heads of the NGO are coming tomorrow and the sign is still in my backyard. What type of image are they going to be showing about their commitment to the school if they won’t even put up a sign? But, they would rather cut off their nose to spite their face. And culturally, there isn’t really a right or wrong. The westerners feel they are right, the Gambians feel they are right. It’s the same situation but the way we see it is completely different. This type of problem comes up far more often that I can count. In the end, all I can do is ignore the crap and press on.

I’m sure when the NGO comes the committee will say they were never informed, then will say they were informed but we treated badly, then eventually things will get smoothed out and the sign will go up. Part of my job is doing work while constantly taking culture into consideration. My village just happens to be far more sensitive than the average Gambian on certain issues. I’m the minority here and nothing works how I think it will. It’s frustrating but in my extremely conservative, uneducated (for now but not ever!), slow paced village that’s how it’s going to go.

This won’t be the sign that broke the donkey’s back.

And as always, here are some random pictures from my random life.








The Gang doing a Gambian style photo op. My host brothers makings spoons out of some melon, a host brother cutting hair, us trying to dance in the Dink style, the ballon drop, kids trying to knock down Baobob out of the trees, and the wrapper of some fireworks. All of the shinanigans are from New Years in Basse with my fellow PCVs and the VSO Brits.

50+20=100

There is a change going on up here. It’s slow, and frustrating, and uncertain but I see the beginnings of something that will take years and years to become something tangible.

50-50. This is the phrase you hear when people talk about women’s rights. It was supposed to be about work load and benefits between a man and (a) woman (en) within a marriage but now it seems to be used as a umbrella term for equality.

When you talk with women about 50-50 they seem in support. They think that in America and the West women live happy lives and their husbands help them with tasks and everyone works equally. In some ways that is true though probably not to extent of their day dreams. When you talk to men about 50-50 they usually laugh with a shake of the head “ha, oh 50-50, Do you guys really have that there? Ha, that’s crazy”.

Some people seem torn on the issue. From my host father I have heard “50-50, I think 50-20.” When I heard this I thought, “Is he trying to be clever because he has two wives?” But after half a second I realized “50+20+20≠100”. He isn’t about equality within his marriage in any way. He is the ruler of his compound, he wants his water carried for him, wants his dinner brought to his feet after his shower, and expects his wives to do a quick kneel to him every night. If he is thirsty they have to bring water to him even if they are far away from the water and he is next to it. If anyone is going to get beat in the compound it certainly isn’t him.

I have heard him discuss with other men about the new policy about that if a man beats his wife she is to take him to the police. I’m sure he isn’t pro about this since I have the host family that always fights during the holidays and if that law was being acted out he would have spent Koriteh and Tobaski in jail.

But then, this same man (who treats me very nicely) will say “I want all of my children to go to school. My sons and daughters... maybe Fatou Mata can be a doctor, or a pilot. Yes, I never got to go to school, but I want my children to go.” That is a VERY progressive stand compared to most of Gambia.

Recently the Vice President (“Her Excellency), along with Tostan (a huge NGO that does just about everything), and the Women’s Coalition made a trek up to the URR to do a march and hold multiple meetings about equality in Gambia. There was a radio presentation that preceded the arrival of “Her Excellency” that reached a majority of URR households and though some scoffed, some listened with quiet excitement, and some were indifferent it started the discussion about women’s rights.

My host mom’s live in an extremely conservative village. They have told me they can’t wear nail polish, no upper calves showing, no pants, hair is always covered, ect. As an example, they once were concerned that my “husband” would be upset about a picture with me and some musicians because I was sitting next to them. One time they were asking me if people lived in large family units in American or on our own. I explained that after 18 we are expected to eventually move out, get a job, and start to support ourselves. I said “everyone works. Women and men.” They both nodded and said “A betiyatta (it’s good)”. I could see why a Gambian couple moving to America would have problems. I think the change for the woman might come more naturally with some culturally supported freedoms and the man of the relationship might feel a lose of control in a situation in which he used to have total authority.

This is not representative of all relationships though. Recently while talking to a volunteer’s former host dad he told me “Love is easy, you work together, you talk to each other, we both watch the children, you support each other”. Some people are naturally a great example that not everyone is in a power struggle of a relationship.

Gambia is a place in transition. It is a country with a woman Vice President and women wearing burkas in the streets.