Siphonophores, Bumsters, Bras and Deluges

The past few weeks have brought varied experiences.

The first I will tell you about happened the weekend before last. A group of us decided to spend the best part of Saturday at The Scene; a beautiful self-catering beach location with glorious pool. Most wonderful of all is that we had exclusive use of all facilities as the holiday season is over.  During the afternoon four of us took a long beach walk along the water’s edge, just as the tide was receding.  Suddenly the others pointed at my feet and began shrieking. This made me hop about without really understanding what the fuss was about. Luckily my jig resulted in me avoiding the danger………………… a Portuguese man-of-war.

The first thing to say is that it is very beautiful; the second thing is that it is very venomous and the third thing is that it is not a jellyfish! It is a siphonophore, an animal made up of a colony of organisms working together. Once we got over the shock, we noticed that there were a number along the seaweed line.  We admired each in turn and made our way onward more carefully.

After a while we were approached by a local beach worker. Many of these can be very helpful and polite but there are also considerable numbers who are extraordinarily pushy and who do not readily accept no for an answer. These are called Bumsters.  All levels of hospitality are on offer.
Today’s encounter was with one of the most tenacious of these! After so many months of living here we usually take such approaches in our stride and shake them off without a second thought. Sadly the last of the tourists has flown, leaving our would-be host with no other potential customers but us.  Eventually we had to resort to an extremely angry response to shake him off.  While we all understand that a developing country provides too few ways to earn a living, the experience was most unpleasant and we returned feeling we had encountered two troublesome characters on the beach!

A few days later we had the first of the downpours, complete with spectacular thunder and lightning. It is not yet the rainy season but this was nature’s shot across the bows to let us know that it is on its way.  The temperatures, humidity and mosquito count are all on the rise too, necessitating an increase in the amount of salt/sugar solution we drink to avoid dehydration.

Just lately too we have had to endure sudden long bouts without electricity. Usually it is the electric fan (or office air conditioning) that is missed more than the light but of course modern life without computers is very challenging and so power cuts are upsetting because of their loss, most of all. My laptop has a wonderful battery that keeps going usually sufficiently long to get me through but recently the laptop itself broke down for a whole week. For a while, when I thought it was beyond repair, I felt absolutely desolate…………………………But as you can see, I found a company who could get it working again – almost perfectly but with a few added foibles. As it forgives me mine, I accept these gladly, happy to be reunited with my personal post office, newspaper, radio, photograph album, video-phone, work station and cinema.

Last Thursday morning a friend  from the neighbouring GTU offices invited me to go AWOL for a few hours  on a gely trip into Banjul to an Aladdin’s cave of a fabric shop.  My purchase was quite subdued given all that was on offer and it was easy to see why Gambian woman wear such extraordinary clothes: often coming to work looking like red carpet evening guests. While we were at the market my friend took the opportunity to shop for underwear. Although a professional woman she finds new bras too expensive and so we visited a “good as new” stall. From habit I asked about size and began inspecting labels. She did not know her size and chose by inspection of stretchiness, hooks in good order and judgment made by ramming her fist into the cups.

Finally I want to tell you of much success with a project we started back in February. EFA had received a large package some moths before, containing details of this year’s Global Action Week to take place in late April. The focus was Early Years Education. My first task was to strip back the enormous amount of text to a few paragraphs (Whatever else Africa is short of, verbiage is rarely one!) Such campaigns traditionally involve gatherings, speeches and food. A generous budget enabled these arrangements to be made without trouble. However the added difficulty this year was that we also had to involve Children’s art work, without a budget.

We decided on the relatively inexpensive idea of using  children’s school art for regional displays during Global Action Week and re-using it to make a greetings card or book advocating for more investment in Early Years Education. So after the GAW festivities we needed the artwork to be sent to us.

The deadline was last week and I want you to know that a deluge has arrived from up and down the country. The response is thrilling!  All week deliveries  were made by people bringing envelopes, bags, packets and rolls the many miles to the office by gely-gely , motor bike or on foot, as well as a few by car. The contributions are almost all in coloured pencil or wax crayon and many are tracings. The quality and condition of the paper varies hugely. Funding and resources are scarce of course and few schools have the means to give truly creative opportunities. The deluge of pictures has taken me back to my days teaching in Early Years where effective cutting, combining and bordering can create an attractive and unique effect. It will take me many days to put everything together with original photos donated by Child Fund and add text. The aim is to make a poster size card / book , for presentation to the First Lady on June 16^th, Africa Day of the Child.  I will take photos of every page and am hopeful that one of our partner organizations will post them on the Internet.  If you are reading this, Sarah Jeff, I want you to know how much I wish you were here!

Post Script : (added on 13th June) Here are the promised photos - at last I've got round to taking, uploading and learning how to post them!

The Greetings Card is quite large
as you can see here. Mariama,
on the right who helped
with its compilation is showing it
to FIOHcountry director, Kristina
and  Aminata, a member of her team.

The Front Cover

The Back Cover

The card is introduced by Momodou's Plea for greater equity in schooling across  income groups.
The next page details the contents.
Pupil voice make the six demands for Early Years Education ; better resourcing, full policy implementation, integration for mild Special Educational Needs, Education access for those with severe disabilities, child centred curriculum and additional teacher training for Early Years.

  The Joy of Going to School

Learning in an Early Child Development Class

 Teaching and Learning Resources


 Disability is not Inability

The School Garden

 Lunch and Hygiene

Learning Through Play

Physical Exercise

 Community Support:

Participatory Performance
Monitoring      and
 
Mothers' Clubs

The training

Most training I have delivered up until now has been one-on-one which is time consuming and can be dry, lacking the energy of group collaboration. However, at last, after so many months of striving we have managed to run two consecutive days training for eight people at the same time, a thrilling advancement. 

Those attending were mostly head teachers or deputy heads. Of course it would have been better if we had had an even larger group; we did invite more but some could not come at the last minute. If we had been able to book the larger hall belonging to the organisation next door, we could have increased the numbers invited but sadly the hall was not free. Indeed it seems rarely free although in principle I am “most welcome”. On this occasion it was being used by the auditors. As there were only three of them, I feel some negotiation could have taken place but I have learned that if senior officials are involved, negotiation is not a usual option. Highly important folk wear their stripes proudly.

Luckily, although small, the EFA building has a meeting room and a small open reception office with three other offices coming off these two. More than this, staff of every rank share responsibilities with good humour.  This meant that we could, with a bit of effort, run our training in-house and “entertain at home”. Alhagie, the messenger, whose desk is in the reception area, happily gave up his space so that we could serve refreshments and lunch from his desk.  Mariama, Assistant Finance Officer, set everything out beautifully on cloths and trays.  Lunch orders were placed (and chased up) by Jainaba, Finance Officer. Matarr, the director, who prefers co-ordinator as a more modest title was an enthusiastic co planner and presenter.

With some modification to the layout in the meeting room we were ready to roll.

It is not uncommon practice here for training to comprise an extensive power point presentation, every word of which is read aloud as projected. Often, the presenter faces the screen rather than the audience. Matarr and I agreed that such an uninspiring style was not for us. The power point we wrote was not for projection but to keep us on task and provide a record for the file. We referenced our delivery to carefully handmade charts and posters displayed on the wall behind us, recognising that most people are visual learners. We also had hands-on materials for each delegate too.

On the first day, when we thought we had covered all eventualities and just before we began, THE POWER WENT OFF! We hardly missed a stride – this is far too common an occurrence!

Mariama and Alhagie miraculously produced flasks full of hot water for tea, I have no idea where from. My wonderful little Samsung laptop’s overnight charge, could be relied upon to last the day if need be.  Only the air con had to be done without; not easy because the temperatures are building noticeably now.

It was only the inevitable late arrivals that caused us to start rather later than planned but so little, it could be regarded as Gambianly punctual and as is traditional in an Islamic country we opened with prayers. Ostensibly these are to seek blessings for the day ahead but I also took the opportunity to count the blessings already received, not least EFA colleagues here and Dom, who set up my laptop back in the UK.

Our workshop was to trial paperwork designed to support effective school management processes. It doesn’t sound the snappiest of themes I grant you, but the enthusiasm was tangible and everyone worked hard and with humour throughout.  At one point I noticed that one of the men was squinting to read the papers that were almost touching his nose. Luckily I had my spare specs in my bag. No-one commented on how he looked in my rose pink glasses with lace decoration on the arms!  

The end of training feedback on both the main purpose and also our hospitality was resoundingly positive and so Matarr can go ahead with plans to present a report at the national education meeting in mid May, only nine days away. Next week will be busy!

As well as the report to write and the power point to produce, there will also be follow up work with the attending heads in their own schools. I also expect a “training re-run” request from those who could not come.  This will have to be later and at one of their schools in order to keep costs down. Despite much effort our in-house training was not cheap; there are a variety of expectations and costs that must be met notwithstanding a nil budget!

There are other activities and initiatives in hand that will ensure very full two months ahead. This is a personal deadline as my plane home takes off eight weeks today.