Wednesday June 17 2009 Working with GamMol

Both Justin and I decided to take this week off from the classes to begin our work with the NGO GamMol, located in Sanyang. Tuesday was our first day of work there so we traveled to the village from Fajara that morning and since we arrived about 20mins early we decided to go make a quick visit with the Bojang family, where we stayed for two weeks earlier in the trip. As soon as we walked into the compound all the kids came running up to us, well me more than Justin haha, and wanted to play with us again. It was funny when Aminata saw us she came running so fast with the biggest smile on her face right passed Justin and just jumped on me, and Baby Awa, who was just starting to get used to me when we left a little over a week before this, wrapped her arms around my legs and would not let go until her mom pulled her away from me. It was so awesome to be welcomed back like that it was as if we had never left.
On our first day at GamMol we travelled to a school in a small village with a few of the men from the NGO to fix some desks that we at the school but were too big for the children there. This school was funded by GamMol and has probably a little over 100 students, who were all very welcoming when we arrived. At the school there is also a borehole which was paid for by GamMol and is used to supply water not only to the school but also to the entire community. There has been a piping system put in place by the NGO and there are numerous taps throughout the area so the people of the community have access to clean drinking water. The second day was spent working on a hand pipe in the village of Sanyang. This job required us to take apart the 15 meter pipe that is in the borehole as well as the hand pump itself. It was pretty hard work but I really enjoyed what we were doing since having clean and easily accessible water is very important and without this pump the women would have to travel a lot farther just to get water. We were given the next two days off since they didn’t have any jobs planned but I’m really looking forward to working with them more when we are back in Sanyang at the end of this trip. All of the people at GamMol seem to be very passionate about their work and are very willing to teach us about what they do as well as listen to any ideas that we might have.

Monday June 8 2009 – Friday June 12 2009 Classes at WACD-TC

On Monday we started classes at the West African Community Development Training Centre or WACD-TC. This training centre started out as West African Rural Development (WARD) Project which was funded by CIDA and began as a six year project. Since the project was so successful, it was decided that the courses would still be run by GTTI under the leadership of different facilitators. The WACD-TC was eventually formed by the original facilitators and now consists of four different modules, of which we are participating in Human Relations Development. The classes have an informal education style with mostly participation based discussion classes. After being in these classes for a few days I realized that they weren’t exactly what I was expecting. While the course material and activities they have planned is very useful, it is something that I have already been exposed to in various other classes in school since it has mostly been based around working in groups. I have come to realize that the benefits that I will receive from participating in these classes are going to come from the interactions that I have with my classmates.

Saturday June 6 2009 Move to Serekunda

Yesterday Justin and I moved back to Serekunda to stay at the same place where Lindsay, Jordan, and Adam have been for a few days called Sunbird Lodge. Since it is the off season there are only a few other people staying here so it’s really quiet and absolutely beautiful and only like a 5 minute walk to the beach! Each room also has a small kitchen which is amazing and I’m definitely looking forward to being able to make my own food again. It was actually really hard for me to leave the house I was staying at in Sanyang since I had gotten so used to having so many people around and having all those kids to play with all the time. I’m definitely going to miss the family when I’m away but they have invited us to stay there again when we are back in Sanyang so I think we are planning on going back for a couple weeks. Since we have been back in Serekunda we haven’t done too much, but we were able to visit the fruit and vegetable market just down the street which I had been looking forward to since there aren’t really any vegetables available in Sanyang. We also spent the day at the beach today and we got to see the local fishermen pull in their fishing net. To start they go out in a big canoe and drop the net, then there are two sets of men, one on each end of the net, and they just keep pulling on the net until it’s all the way up on shore and anything they catch comes in with the net.

Thursday June 4 2009 Second Hospital Visit - Just a Tour This Time

Today Justin and I were given the opportunity to tour through and meet with people from the Sanyang Community Health Clinic, GamMol Foundation, and a Sanyang Public School. We started our day at the health clinic where we were given a short presentation on what they do and which communities they serve. We were then given a tour of the facilities there which consists of three buildings which house a dentist office, a maternity ward, and a general admissions ward. Currently the centre is being powered by solar energy however once they are connected to the electricity which most of the community is powered by they will move the solar panels to another facility which needs them. We were informed of the improvements which they plan on making to the health clinic which includes expanding the waiting room, acquiring a new ambulance, and demolishing the maternity ward to build a new two storey building. During the tour I noticed there weren’t any patients currently being treated there however it was mentioned that as soon as malaria season starts, which is soon, the centre will be packed.

Next we moved on to meet with the directors and take a tour of the GamMol Foundation. GamMol is an NGO working out of Sanyang in The Gambia which works to provide water to small communities through pipe networks and hand pumps. Justin and I are both very much looking forward to working with this NGO as supplying clean drinking water is a necessity for rural communities. Also since the work is engineering related we will hopefully be able to bring some of the knowledge we have acquired through school to the projects.

After touring GamMol, we were given a short tour of one of the local public schools. At the school there are approximately 400 students ranging from toddlers to grade 4. Each grade has two classes resulting in there being roughly 20 students in each class and also located on campus is a small cooking area and cafeteria as children are served both breakfast and lunch each day. As we came around to each class the students sang us songs they we learning and as we left the class most students began following around. By the end of the tour most children from the school were just following us around shouting “toubab” and “what is your name?” over and over, which we had become quite accustomed to after living in the small community for almost two weeks already.

Wednesday June 3 2009 Concrete!

For the past two days at the garden, Justin and I have been working with another local man to mix concrete by hand and fix the base of one of the water reservoirs that were recently constructed. These were probably my favourite days at the garden even though they were strictly just hard manual labour, it felt as though I was actually accomplishing something. I’ve found it interesting both how something like that kind of work can make me feel so much better when my morning started out less than great and also how easily I can go from a horrible day to and amazing one in just a few hours.

Sunday May 31 2009 Paradise Beach

Yesterday Justin and I decided to head to the beach since it was our first free weekend in Banjul and our first real chance to just relax by the water. We met up with the peacecorps volunteer, Tammy, down on the beach for some lunch and she introduced us to a few of the locals who work at the beach bars. As we were about to leave we ran into Kebas and he invited us to have a JulBrew with him at his beach bar. A few hours later we were still sitting there listening to his stories of when he was in India attending college and the struggles he went through dealing with a new culture. He mentioned that if he had been given the opportunity he would have left the day he got there, however the experiences he had were a very important part of his life. It was so interesting to be able to sit with him and hear his stories and how he overcame any problems that arose while he was in another country.

Saturday May 29 2009 First week at Bojang Kunda

We finished our first week of work at the garden which basically consisted of just random jobs around the garden that they needed help with. It’s been nice being around the women at the garden who speak Mandinka though because they have helped me to start to pick up the language. I absolutely love living with the family here in Sanyang now!! For the first few days honestly I was kind of looking forward to the end of the two weeks there when I could move back to Serekunda but now I can’t believe I’m going to have to leave these people. They are some of the most friendly and generous people I have ever met in my life which is partly due to their culture. Family is a very important part of their life here and all of the extended family lives in the same area which is called a compound here. There are probably about 20 kids in the compound which are under the age of about 8 which is so much fun and at times a little overwhelming. The three kids that live in the house I am staying in are Adema, Aminata, and Baby Awa. They are absolutely adorable and probably most of the reason I love being here so much because every day when I get home from work I am absolutely exhausted but they are always at my door waiting to play.

Wednesday May 27 2009 Working at the Garden

Justin and I started working at the garden on Monday and so far it has been interesting to see the work the women are doing there and how everything is run. There was a meeting that we got to sit in on today about projects and events they have planned for the future and what they hope to accomplish at the garden. We also met a peacecorps volunteer, Tammy, who is working at the garden. It’s nice to have another person around to understand the experiences that we are going through and the frustrations we have. So far at the garden went haven’t been introduced to any engineering related work, we have just been working on the fencing around the garden and helping them measure out individual plots. Hopefully we will be able to start something more engineering related soon. We did find out in the meeting today about different projects we could work on and the most interesting one I heard about was working with an NGO called Gammol. They deal with water pumps and boreholes in various small communities around Sanyang so hopefully we get a chance to find out more about that organization and work with them when we are back in Sanyang at the end of the trip.

Sunday May 24 2009 Moved to Sanyang

Today Justin and I moved to Sanyang village, which is about a 40min drive from where we were at the YMCA. Alpha and Demba had arranged for me to live with a family in the village there and for Justin to live with a different family nearby which was really good idea but I was so nervous about living with people I didn’t know and I didn’t know how much English they would speak and I can’t really speak much Mandinka and I feel like I don’t know enough about the culture and I’m afraid I’m going to do something which will offend them while staying here. After meeting Keba, the father of the house, he insisted that Justin and I both stay at his house which made me much more comfortable knowing that he would be there. Many of the adults and older kids can speak English fairly well so its easy to communicate with them and the younger children just want someone to play with so that’s pretty easy too. Keba gave Justin and I Gambian names, Justins is Lemin Bojang and mine is Mariaema Bojang. I’m still not completely comfortable here but I think after a few days that will change as I get to know the people here.