Heading up river
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2007
1
11
13
Trip End
Dec 16, 2007
Tumani Tenda to Basse,
Gambia
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Here's a disconnected journal of my thoughts during our upcountry trip. There are a few days missing while I was sick (see entry 10), but I hope you still find something interesting in it.
29/10: Abuko Nature Reserve
The beginning of our upcountry trip started close to home at the Abuko Nature Reserve, with a presentation by a group there working to preserve and study biodiversity in The Gambia. Originally run by foreigner, it had recently switched into Gambian hands, an important sign of a growing pool of educated Gambians (President Jammeh especially supports science education), and independence in development. Over the course of our trip this, along with other distinctions in how aid is used would become increasingly noticeable.
Before going on a tour of the reserve to see the lushness of Gambia, along with some adorable monkeys, we heard about the really amazing range of Gambian landscapes. There are the beautiful, wide beaches, there are flat, open savannahs, there are overgrown forests, there are the distinctive mangrove swamps and extensive farmlands. We would see all of these during the days to come, on our little tour of the country.
The presenter also talked about what I'd expect to hear from an American environmentalist (overpopulation, global warming), except the more religious tone of Gambia did seep in when he explained Gambia's biodiversity as God-given. I really have to wonder how much the unchallenged, all-encompassing religiosity of this country affects his view of reality.
30/10: Tumani Tenda: meeting with the alkalo
This was the first of our several visits with the village leaders, or alkalos. These leaders have, since colonial times, been seen as the intermediaries between governments and the people. They are usually old and weathered, with a soft-spoken pride and reserve. Much different than the kind of charismatic, lively, booming public speakers that are more typical of national political leaders, even in Africa, these leaders clearly embodied the principle of respect for elders. I also cannot substitute 'men' with the word 'leaders,' as one of the alkalos we visited was actually a woman. Leadership is passed down a family, where the eldest living descendent of the founder of the village leads. Women are not excluded from this succession, as long as they have been married. Another form of leadership in the villages existed in the form of Village Development Committees (VDCs). These committees are required in all villages by law, and are supposed to assess, organize and oversee programs in the villages that will advance the social and economic well-being of the village.
Tumani Tenda was without a doubt my favorite village of the entire trip. It is truly a remarkable one for the strong communal foundations it has laid. In this developing country, villages find themselves in a tight spot. Often they suffer from rural-urban migration as youths leave the village to go to senior secondary school, and often don't come back, as the city offers them more opportunities to earn their own livelihood. (Though, unfortunately, they often do not succeed in this, and then find themselves in a poverty much different than they would have been in in their village, surrounded by family and friends). Other villages have felt negative effects from their contact with foreign countries. They may develop a sort of learned-dependency from a series of aid programs that are in the end unsustainable. Or even the smallest amount of tourism may alter their youth and culture, teaching their children to depend on handouts from tubabs while older youths adopt more intricate livelihoods of exploitation as bumsters. Either way, there seems to be a sense that any cultural pride and self-sufficiency is threatened by modernization, and that only adopting foreign influences will allow them to survive.
But Tumani Tenda seemed to have avoided this. The village is relatively young, about 40 years, established by the current alkalo's grandfather. It has grown to about 325 people, spread out among 22 different compounds (closed in areas with several separate houses and communal space and sometimes wells or other communal resources). A couple families followed the founder to the village, so there are now seven extended families making up the village. The village is based around communal land which all villagers work and share the benefits of. This communal aspect seems to touch on several different parts of life. Parents are expected to provide for their children, even after they've gotten married and established families of their own. This means that fathers must provide the new things necessary for their sons' new wives, and the children continue to come meet at their parents' house from their own compounds. This goes far to prevent rural-urban migration. The alkalo stressed that even after moving to the city for schooling, youths almost always come back, knowing that a life and a strong family establishment is waiting for him.
In addition to the communal land, families have their own individual farms, and often get money from small gardens or other goods. This allows several families in the village to actually put expendable income in the bank for future needs.
Beyond this, the village also set up a nursery school using village funds, and pays for the students' school fees and uniforms as a way to take care of children while their parents are working during the day. Also, the funds from the communal land go to pay the taxes for the entire village. The result is that in the end, all members of the village are provided for, and no hunger exists. Even things like malaria drugs are provided by the village. The social ties of the village as a whole are strong and productive, different age groups get together and do projects, like the women who crochet purses out of recycled plastic bags that can then be sold for village money, or the boys an girls group that rotate helping villagers on their farms. The whole village shows signs of this communal work; there are intricate, handmade fences, gardens and paths weaving through the compounds, school, forest, farmland and mangroves. Seeing the women working making soap together in their beautiful dresses, or students in their clean uniforms playing football in the schoolyard, it seems this village could thrive forever, with its own proud niche in the modern world. Though they have received outside aid, the village runs off of their own ingenuity and hard work. They have many creative projects running constantly, overseen by their village development committee.
And the most substantial grant they have had was one they actually won, based on their past projects. There is in general a different tone to this village. They have taught their children to see foreigners as neither benefactors nor aliens. We especially appreciated this. Rather than having children screaming "tubab, tubab, gimme five dalasi" after us, we could just play with them like normal children.
The village did complain of some water shortages during the dry season, but only their animals felt the effects of this, but as a whole the village looked quite well off, and every house we saw was made of mud blocks or concrete, with tin roofs and plenty of space. The children were well cared for. In the basic school in the village every student had textbooks for every subject, including one on environmental, social and communal values. The 6th graders seemed to grasp their assignments much more than the seventh graders some of us teach in the cities. Rather than struggling just to copy information of a story, they were responding to critical questions on it.
However, it must be acknowledged that this is not just a bucolic paradise. The only clinic is 5km away, and the emergency mode of transportation is a donkey cart. For this reason, elders tend to stick to herbalist treatments. There is no real record of medical cases or deaths. Also, the school at Tumani Tenda does not have enough qualified teachers for all of its classes, because the typical salary (500 Dalasi per month) for a trained teacher is not enough to lure people to the provinces after they've been exposed to the more modern city life during their schooling.
Also, this village was not immune to the problem of gender-based division of labor present in villages throughout The Gambia. Men consider themselves the cash-crop farmers (usually this means groundnuts). Women, on the other hand, are expected to help with the cash-crop farming, as well as grow other products like rice, maize, and garden vegetables, take care of the children, tend to the house, cook, collect firewood, and engage in crafts to earn supplemental income. So while men have little to do during the dry season, women are constantly struggling. One woman who was part of the village development committee spoke strongly and confidently on this, and everyone took notice as she talked. She called women the strugglers, who often found themselves providing for their families instead of their husbands. Though this may provide them with greater self-respect and freedom than they had previously, it was not a fair or intelligent system.
And though many seemed to embrace the communal refuge of the village, there were some who are still captivated by a wider world.
While showing us her house, one woman named Binta told us her story in clear English. She'd been born in the village and then went to senior secondary school in the city like many others. However, unlike the others, she met a rich man and married him. This took her far away from the tight, village community she'd grown up in. She entered enthusiastically into a wider world where community is more of a vague idea than a daily reality. She developed an appreciation for MTV and 'refined' her English by listening to it. She traveled beyond Gambia to see the world expand with her own eyes, even living in Turkey for a while.
But, after several years, her husband died and she slowly felt that ticket she'd had to a different world disintegrate until she was forced to return to her village. However, it seemed like Binta had been a little too far removed from this community to continue to be satisfied by it. She was very honest with us strangers that she was not happy with the small, communal village life. One of the only uplifting things she mentioned was her pride in getting 200 Dalasi on her own for the "garden eggs" (eggplants) she grew. Perhaps there is something true about Pandora's box when it comes to communalism. When you've experienced an individualistic world, enjoyed your personal successes amongst neighboring poverty, or suffered misfortune while your friends succeed, it might be impossible to be satisfied in a communal world ever again.
A man named Mr. Sidibeh was leading us on this trip, he was an old Gambian man who
had spent his life traveling around the Gambia collecting traditional songs, stories and cultural information to compile for the Gambian National Council for Arts and Culture before modernization diluted or wiped them away. The dark brown fedora he wore everywhere gave him a distinct classiness, and the slow way he walked and talked barely above a whisper seemed to emanate importance - you really had to quiet down and lean in close to hear what he had to say, and he had a lot to say. It is easy to make superficial assumptions based on the snapshots of Gambia we tend to see, but Mr. Sidibeh had detail after detail of the histories and truths below the surface in each village.
A few snapshots from Tumani Tenda, my favorite village by far.
While we were upcountry, the limited electricity (there were some lights powered by a generator for a couple hours at a time at some of the places we visited) made us much more acutely aware of the sunset and the coming of night. We all tended to gather around a source of light, and at Tumani Tenda this meant all of us around a fire and an attaya pot. Prompted by Mr. Sidebeh, we exchanged the stories, jokes and riddles we'd learned over the years with Gambian ones. Some awkward silences revealed just how difficult in can be to translate both words and cultures.
This communication barrier was no problem later when we entered the nursery school at Tumani Tenda. Rather than the zoo-like observation (from both groups) that we sometimes feel when we tour through different groups and organizations around the Gambia, we entered on a much livelier, interactive note. After we convinced the students to teach us "hands, knees and toes," complete with motions, we taught them "when you're happy and you know it." We hardly came off as students engaged in intellectual observation, especially as we sang "I'm a little teapot" in the next classroom, but we were satisfied with the experience.
There seemed to be a silent, content tone among the group as we were winding our way through the farmland, forest, and mangroves of the village. It was all lush and coloful, the nature was interrupted only by the marks of hand-made, simplistically beautiful fences, paths, and huts. It is a paradise, in an environmental sense, that this village lives in, that we got to marvel at for a couple of days.
31/10 (Halloween!) Juffree
Wow. Maybe it was just the ferry crossing and the long bus ride, but I did not find this village nearly so peaceful and hospitable as Tumani Tenda . We'd heard before that this village did not have quite the idyllic village tone. Instead of being based on communalism, it shows the taint of a tourist culture. This village, along with the neighboring village Albreda, were major British and French (respectively) trading posts, including for slaves. Alex Haley actually took the story of the slave Kunta Kinteh and traced his origins back to Juffre, from which the series Roots emerged. For this reason, a few tourists attractions have popped up in the town. Though little of the income of the town is actually derived from tourism, the taint of it shows clearly on the culture. The youth especially has come to depend on extracting money from tourists. Older youths become bumsters who generally hassle and sell sex, drugs, and other random commodities to tubabs. Younger children have learned to run in mobs after tourists, screaming "tubab, tubab," and extending their hands for us to hold before thrusting them into our faces and crying, "gimme!" If we do give them something, they will converge in a mob, and the smallest will undoubtedly come out crying. There was no sense of order like there was in Tumani Tenda, the parents are nowhere to be seen while their children run around, even till way past dark. The only people really paying attention to the children are the young men, who occasionally yell "Achey!" at them, the same thing you would yell at a stray dog to go away. And we happened to be there when the consequences of this tendency showed themselves in the worst way. A few of us were hanging out by the river one afternoon. We'd seen plenty of kids playing and washing in the river, but had paid little attention to them especially after they started up with the "tubab, tubab" shouting we were getting increasingly sick of. I was further from the water, though some of my friends were actually out on the pier when we heard the loud wailing of a woman come down the road. When we looked up we saw a large crowd - it must have been half the village - coming down the path. A passerby filled us in on what had happened: apparently at some point two of the boys in the water had started shouting because the third boy they were with did not come to the surface, but no one heard. They grabbed his clothes and ran back to his mother. We weren't sure if he had jumped and hit something, or simply been carried away by the surprisingly strong current that we'd seen move closer to the shore, but none of us had heard any shouting. It was a very, very disturbing experience, and it added a darker shadow to the village than it really should have had.
But there is something important to be said about the learned dependency of this village and others that are exposed to tourism. When there is a lack of self-direction, the results can really be horrible. Mr. Sidibeh, who had worked with Alex Haley during his research, saw clearly what happened when Haley and others tried to provide aid for the village. He told us that one year he brought 80 bulls and thousands of dalasis worth of seeds and farming equipment to the village. The next year when he visited, he found that they'd slaughtered all 80 bulls, used and spoiled all the seeds that season, and sold all the farm equipment. Though I did only see a limited part of these villages (the alkalos we met were not particularly talkative, and we stuck mostly to the historical attractions) they simply did not seem self-directed. They did not have the motivation or the pride to take their own development into their hands, or even use the aid they did receive in a sustainable way. I sometimes thought the idea of learned dependency was an excuse Republicans used to spend less taxes on welfare, but it seemed to be a very real factor in this village. There is so much talk of rural poverty and how they're falling behind in the modern economy, it seems easy for a village to assume they need the handouts of foreigners and forget about working hard to come up with creative programs on their own.
3/11: Daru School Project
This brightly colored school is nestled in a small village upcountry that we stopped by at on our way to our last stop upcountry, Basse. This lower basic school is 10 years old, with 311 students, 12 teachers and 10 different classes. We got the feeling this school was a little exceptional as soon as we entered the headmaster's office and saw the clean, organized lists of class and extracurricular schedules, and pictures of smiling villagers constructing the school. Whereas some schools have far fewer teachers than classes and sometimes simply do not hold classes, this school hadpecial teachers for agriculture and the environment, and organized drama, debate, and environmental clubs. The headmaster then pulled out a neatly organized binder of all the students standardized test scores since the school began, revealing some surprisingly high marks.
Before this school began, students had to sit on the floor in shared rooms for classes. Now, with funding from the Japanese embassy, the Implemented Action group, and the help of a Peace Corps volunteer, each class has its own furnished room and teacher, and the school provides textbooks for every student. In addition, there is a dining area that provides free meals daily for the students, and - we actually gasped a little when we saw this - a colorful library with books lining one wall and filling up another corner. The headmaster and the teachers we talked to were very passionate about the benefits this school was having for its students, they were very grateful for the aid they'd received, and were now doing their best to help the school thrive. However, as we've noticed in several projects, some of the aid was unsustainable, or could have been better administered. As with Tumani Tenda, which had received a generator for the village along with the grant they won, when the necessary maintenance was required for technology, they didn't have the expendable currency or expertise to repair. In Daru, this was demonstrated through the modern boy's and girl's restrooms provided by Unicef. Luckily, Baboucarr had a basic knowledge of plumbing and explained to the headmaster what needed to be done. Also, there were many books in the library that were far beyond the level of even the oldest students at the school. The oldest kids at the school would be 12 or 13 in 6th grade, and not completely comfortable with English, and they had The Sun Also Rises among their reading material.
But these were smaller issues. As a whole, the school is a model for other school projects around the country and an asset to the community. In fact, it served as a sort of root for the community. This Wolof village, like many other historical Wolof groups, was a migratory group that moved to where political and agricultural benefits were the greatest. Their housing at Daru still shows many signs of the impermanence of their homes. Yet, with the development of important, permanent structures such as the school, the village is morphing into a more stable, permanent community.
(Malaria Break, see entry 10)
Armitage Senior Secondary School in Janjangburree
This is the only boarding school in the entire country, a leftover from colonial times when the sons of village leaders and administrators were sent here. 600 students stay at the school and attend classes in the morning shift, while another 600 come from around the area to attend classes. It's location is hardly a central one - it is one of the farthest places we visited upcountry, and an Island that you must take a ferry to get to. But parents from all over the country send their children here to get a good education, and to be protected from some of the distracting influences of the city. The school is considered the second best in the country (surpassed only by one school in the city), and the West African secondary standardized tests (WASP) scores are improving. The school itself is nestled behind a fence among trees. There are different academic buildings and dormitories scattered about, as well as basketball courts (only sometimes with hoops) that are a rarity in this football-dominated country. The dormitories are divided by gender, and are made up of several large rooms filled with many neatly arranged beds. Some have curtains hanging alongside their mosquito nets, but many are not. Each student's haven is compromised entirely of his or her bed and the space under if for his or her things. Though these accommodations are considered fairly nice given that many are used to sharing rooms and even beds with siblings in their compounds. With all the family and the friendly, communal, compound life here in the Gambia, personal space is not quite so important.
Boarding schools seem to be a slightly strange idea here in the Gambia, where family compound life is so central. The headmaster explained that having no school to serve as a comparison in the country often made administration difficult, but that by far, feeding the over 1200 students was the biggest obstacle. The costs require that students' fees be much higher than that of normal schools (1500 Dalasi per year plus board, paid at once, not including books or a uniform), but the remarkable fact is that girls do not have to pay any of the actual tuition. The efforts by the current government to encourage female education mean that girls' school fees are paid by the government. However, in addition to the fees, students must do very well on the standardized tests the take at the end of upper basic school (9th grade), to be admitted into this selective school.
And once students are accepted, the receive the benefits of the best science equipment and labs in the country, as this is primarily a science school, especially now that President Jammeh especially supports science education. This means microscopes, personal sinks and burners, scales, measuring equipment, and other usual trappings of an American high school lab. But some of this equipment is quite old and not reliable. But still, the resources are breathtaking when compared with the schools we are used to seeing, which are comprised entirely of chairs, tables, and a blackboard (with chalk as the only equipment, if you're lucky) Also, they will have teachers who are committed to the school and its students as a career, rather than as a stopping point before university or business life. This is a large problem in schools in The Gambia, many teachers take advantage of the mostly free teacher qualification to earn money to go on to higher things (the base 500 Dalasi per month salary provided by the government is not incentive enough to stay, and thus teachers lack dedication to their jobs. However, Armitage supplements teachers' salary with free room and an allowance to motivate the teachers to first venture all the way upcountry, and then to stay at the school as a career job. And most of the 33 teachers with undergraduate degrees will stay at the school, and show those signs of commitment by working with students past class hours.
It is disturbing, however, that with all these resources, the rate of students who go on to university is only 40%.
