Tuesday 14 April – Day 22

On walk to Sainey’s I got quite good at the long exchange of greetings, names and where you are going right now. Passing several women dressed in gorgeous bright African outfits carrying buckets on thier heads. All conversations, except the shortest ending in ‘iyoo’ for agreement. Everyone exchanges surnames, not just a first name. I’m getting the odd ` key in my text as one of the children in Sainey’s house who by my side as I type runs his nail up and down the ventilation grill on the top of my laptop!

I had a great day in the neighbouring village Albadar yesterday. I set out after a café Touba at Auntie Dei’s stall as usual, and a big breakfast of half a french stick with akarra, bean cake and onion and tomatoe sauce, followed by another half stick filled with chocolate spread from the shop next to Dei. I’ve got to know the woman who sells the akarra baguettes now, we exchange greetings, all of them, and I ask her how much it costs and all that kind of shopping conversation or as much as I can think of, in Mandinka. Mariama she’s called. She shouts over to me, Christina, Somandaa Begñadi? I reply to her how’s the morning with a Somandaa fele, the morning is here. Rather like the how are yous and the I’m here reply. I was told yesterday that my pronunciation was as good as a Mandinka here, but I’m sure they were just being kind.

I’ve still got the same kiddie next to me as I type, playing with the closure on the top of my laptop. Hope he doesn’t break it! Ni na kakou, he asks… I’ve no idea what he’s talking to me about. But he doesn’t seem phased by my lack of response.

Albadar was great. It just happened to be the very village I was hoping to find again after visiting briefly in December when I met a very helpful and chatty guy who walked around with my mum and I. Serendipitously Albadar was that village from December and Josef found me as soon as I got in to the village. What luck! I told him about the project and our hopes to fund educational projects in the area, that I’m here for 3 months to carry out an assessment. He took me straight away to see a group of men sitting under the shade of a tree chatting and making tea I think. Pap, Josef’s friend is the President of the village youth association. I spent the rest of the morning with Pap, Josef and a couple of their friends visiting the local health ‘clinic’, meeting the ‘doctor’ and seeing in the village school. We talked about the needs of the village and discussed possible solutions. I explained to Pap my intentions for carrying our the participatory needs assessment and he said he would be the first to put his name down as part of the project team. After an exhausting few hours, chatting in a mix of French, Mandinka and English, though mostly French in the heat, with only a half litre bottle of water strapped to my bike heating up in the sun, I was famished and thirsty. It had been a great morning’s work. A fantastic first step in getting to know the village. I got the group of young men drawing out a resource map of the village in the sane under a mango tree using their fingers to draw in the features, and shells and small mangos that had dropped to the ground as markers for the mosque, churches, water sources, rice field, house and rural bank. A fascinating experience. I copied it into my notebook when they had finished. I was excited to be using a technique for gathering information from the book Partners in Planning I am using as a guide for the assessment planning. At last not just interviews, but a resource map too. It’s a great way to get a better idea of what there is in the village. We finish and Pap invites me to come for lunch. I go and meet his family and they go out of their way to provide me with more bottled water and a salad lunch, not knowing what to provide a vegetarian. I apologise for being such a difficult guest and help the women to wash the lettuce and tomatoes in buckets, sitting on low stools in the living room together, pouring water from a plastic tea pot. After Pap telling me how they need a good quality water supply and that the water is worst at this time of year when it comes out of the well all sandy, before the rainy season, I secretly hope to myself that my stomach will be able to handle salad washed it that very same poor quality water. I feel fine, until later in the evening. I’m still a bit dodgy today. In the compound I stay in I drink bottled water and wash and cook with water from a mains tap at one end of the land, avoiding the well water. Although I know other Europeans here who are much less cautious and have no ill effects.

Pap Jibril Diatta, the youth association Basamei president tells me the priorities for education in the village are repairs to the school building, a good water supply to the school, a lockable cupboard to protect books and birth certificates from mice and termites in the classrooms, and lighting to provide extra-curricular classes for those who need extra tuition in the evenings. In the village they need water pipes to all the houses, not just two in the centre, nearest the tap that a Dutch NGO installed, that can’t currently be used as the key has been removed; and electricity to power fridges and freezers to conserve food. Pap says as villagers can’t conserve the fresh fish they catch, they have to go fishing every day to eat.

Pap talks about a strong community spirit in Albadar, he says they work differently from Abene, the community pays into a fund every three months to pay for the (limited) health facilities, and the unqualified ‘doctor’ on site. The have a youth association and I learn an association for the renovation of the village (ARA). They seem organised and community minded. Pap says people don’t migrate looking for work in other villages like people do in Abene. They stay in the village and work. Education is important to them and as well as paying for the health clinic themselves, they also built the 6 school class rooms themselves. Although they are currently in need of repair, after damage by termites, and the goats who seem to live on site as I saw through some of the windows, of the other rooms. In just two weeks of school holidays, which come to an end today, the goats seem to have left their mark all over tables and chairs! There must be a lot of cleaning up to do before teaching can start again this week. Because of the importance the community places of education, Pap says there are good literacy levels in the village and very few are illiterate. He also says that although the state funds the teaching staff, if they hadn’t put up the school building themselves it wouldn’t have happened.

I ask him what people’s dreams are, what they want and hope for out of life. He tells me their dreams are simple, to have a good home, water and electricity.

I am interested to find out more about the income sources in the village, income levels and financial independence and status of women in the village. I am impressed to meet the President of the Associación por la Renovación de Albadar, Vivien Diatta, a woman. We meet later as I make my way out of the village to cycle back in to Abene. She and a circle of 20 other men and women, I note mostly women sit under a tree. Pap says they are meeting to discuss how they will go about re-planting the mangrove fields from what I have understood. I’m tired at this point and may have misunderstood!

I had hoped to meet with Abdoulaye Diao, the Regional Co-ordinator for Tostan, from Ziguinchor when he was due to visit the Kariba Dianna school he funds in nearby Dianna today. But he is in Diolulu instead and says he will call me when he is next here. I hope he does as it will be really interesting to ask him about their projects.

Hawa Touré who is due to open her new Diannah English Language School this week send sme a text to my mobile. Says she has been inundated with registrations of interest in her classes, and been to the local school where 80 children attend. The teachers are very keen for the kids to attend the free classes she will offer. I tell her I will cycle up to her school later today and see her to discuss teaching ideas and language level assessment. She has many years primary school teaching experience from the UK, but is new to teaching English as Foreign Language. She takes up my offer of help, as an experienced EFL teacher. She would like to provide the children with class books and have lighting for the classes in the evenings after the sun goes down.

On my visit to the health clinic in Albadar I find three rooms, one with a sparcely stocked medicine cabinet and scales bearing the Unicef logo for weighing children. Idrisa (or Jabirou) Coly tells me that vaccines get wasted as they don’t keep long without refridgeration. They would also benefit greatly from further training as the ‘doctor’ is unqualified. Kabirou says children are underdeveloped, if the healthy weight at a certain age is so much, they fall below that number. Poor diet he says is the cause of their underdevelopment.

When I finally get back in to Dianna after unexpectedly being out all day I stop and have along chat with a new friend, white European, we are both glad to speak to someone who comes from a similar cultural background. She’s been living in Abene 4 years and is sceptical about the benefit of aid and development work in Africa. We agree and disagree, but when I tell her that I believe that a sustainable approach in collaboration with local people can work she wishes me well and hopes that it can make a difference. Should we accept things as they are, or try to work towards positive change? I am optimistic. I think it’s a discussion point we will come back to again.

I’ll head off home now and hope to visit the internet café later to copy this in to my blog. An easy cheese sandwich awaits me I think. I can’t be bothered to cook. But I really need to fin an alternative to eating so much bread. It would be so much easier, and cheaper if I ate meat and fish like the others in the compound. But I can’t bring myself to do it!