Only two weeks left in the West...

8th June - 12th June

I have thoroughly enjoyed the people, the culture, the weather, well...maybe not all the food, but certainly, I have immensely enjoyed the scenery!

The Gambia is referred to as 'the smiling coast' and you can see this everywhere you go. People are friendly and helpful, and often go out of their way to make you feel welcome!
While working with PIWAMP we have been to see many projects, but are yet to do any engineering work, or get our hands dirty! As I count down to my last three weeks in The Gambia, I grow anxious that my time here will be more of a tourist visit, and not enough of a work visit. Work at PIWAMP has been very interesting (neat for site seeing), but unfortunately I do not feel as if I have contributed anything other than taking up space in the car.

This week, Adam, Jordan, Justin, Megan and I went to start a certificate course with the Western Africa Community Development - Training Center (WACD-TC) which is a division of the Western African Rural Development program (WARD). I have been a little disappointed with my work placement so far (not actually having done any engineering work ourselves) so I was excited for a change of pace and scenery, and the chance to be doing something productive.
Not knowing which course it was that we were taking, I was surprised to find out that it was actually a course on Human Relations and Development, and not the Community Development course that I was expecting.
The human relations course is four weeks long and consists of effective group dynamic studies (including goal setting, working in groups, etc), gender issues, and conflict resolution. The course starts with two weeks of effective groups, then one week of gender issues and one of conflict resolution. The topic I am most keen to study in this module is gender studies. I have a hot button for women issues, and the chance to study this in a development setting seems like an opportunity which I cannot pass up!
Given the short amount of time I have left in The Gambia, I decided that attending the gender issues section would give me the greatest benefit from this course, while still allowing me to do other work before I leave. I spent Monday and Tuesday in the WACD-TC classroom in Churchhill's, and have decided to go back to the course for the start of the gender studies section.

Wednesday we went to Banjul to try and sort out our visas, but unfortunately we have to wait until next week to do that (almost expiring our 28 day tourist visa). The next day I decided to spend some time in a primary school, getting to see the teaching styles and subjects, helping out and talking with all the teachers and kids. I went to a private school called Zenith Preparatory School which is actually owned by my sister's mother-in-law's good friend (if you can follow that one!), Mrs. Clark. The Zenith School has two campuses, one of which is around the corner from where I am staying in Fajara! I was introduced as Auntie Lindsay from Canada, as all the teachers are called either Auntie or Uncle.
The kids are learning to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division at the age of 5. They start learning their A,B,C's at the age of 3/4. The education level is certainly more advanced for this age than that of Canada's. Most of the children here are in addition learning to read and write in english, which is typically not their native tongue. The children were in revision before exams, so I was able to lead some of their revision exercises.
In the class, I certainly was a novelty and very popular with the girls who all wanted to stand next to me and hold my hand. However, one thing that did strike me, was that I did not get called toubab once while in the school. A common thing when walking down the streets in The Gambia is for the kids to exclaim "Toubab!" and point as they notice us, the same as if we would exclaim "Moose!" (or any other less common animal) when not expecting to see one. I think this attributes to the fact that this is a private school, so the children are typically from better off families, whose parents are lawyers, politicians or doctors.

[Me and the girls from the third grade PE class I helped out in]

Next week I return to PIWAMP on my own, as Adam and Jordan continue to take the WACD-TC course. I am hopeful that I will be able to work on a specific project, and really have to the chance to 'get my hands dirty' per se.

For now, I am off to the beach! Ta ta!