Thursday 24th November was Election Day in Gambia. This meant a day off work with another to follow on the Friday, giving every Gambian adult the chance to travel back to their home town to cast their vote. Unfortunately it also meant no electricity throughout polling day. This conserved supplies so that sufficient was available through the night for everyone to watch the results on TV.
Ellie decided, despite the holiday, she would still go into the library of a nearby school to continue sorting the stock but for Lucy and me, the day gave us the time to begin cleaning and packing up her house. Lucy has come to the end of her two year placement here and so there was much to do. Amongst other things we had to move the heavy furniture to make sure that the entire floor was scrubbed clean. Our only shock was a very decayed flat mouse! I scraped him up and dropped him in a rubbish bag. Lucy sorted the many materials she has been using to train teachers: pens, pencils, books etc. She will donate these to some of her schools. She also has a head teacher in mind for the parachute I brought out with me. His teacher in Early Years (called ECDs: Early Child Development) has become a very skilled practioner, despite the lack of resources and the children love playing with it.
Much of Lucy’s household equipment she began to give to her neighbours: VSO and Gambian. But knowing what to do with rubbish is quite a problem for us. There are no dustbin men here. Lucy put the unwanted things outside her door as in this way things just “disappear.” There may be no refuse collection but there is efficient recycling!
While we were cleaning, Mr Fatti, our neighbour called in on us, on his way back from the polling station. He showed us the nail of the little finger on his left hand. It had been completely coloured with black indelible pen by officials to show he had voted. Mr Fatti explained that with such a high degree of illiteracy here, everyone casts their vote by marble. Each voter is given one before going alone into a room with three election boxes in the corner. The boxes bear the party colours and a photo of the leader. In this case, blue for Hamat Bah, yellow for Ousainou Darboe and green for President Yahya Jammeh. Votes are cast by dropping the marble down a narrow chute into the relevant sealed box. This rings a bell which signals the end of the process.
Lucy and I were interested in all that Mr Fatti told us. Meanwhile he was interested in the items outside Lucy’s door. He offered to give a good home to some and also to take the paper rubbish for her and burn it (and thus cremate the mouse!)
Later we went to another neighbour’s house to watch TV and see the results as they came in. It all looked rather familiar with four analysts on the couch with another standing; talking excitedly through a range of graphs that kept appearing on the computer screen behind him. By the time we went to bed it was clear that, as expected, the president would be the clear winner. In fact, when all the counting was done, his party received more than double the votes given to the other two put together.
President Jammeh explained in an interview that his country wanted “Peace and stability” above everything. Talking it all over with friends at work and in the neighbourhood I believe he is right. Almost no-one would jeopardise the peace.
