Project Gambia Reflections + images Hello everyone, I am back from my week in the village of Gunjur, Gambia and currently still trying to process all the experiences, new connections and opportunities that I have been privileged to be part of. Your contributions have been put to immediate use buying storybooks, resources, specialist equipment for children with additional needs (as you can imagine, resources that are very rare in this part of the world, alongside sadly rare compassion for families with children who have additional needs), support for language, literacy and handwriting. We also made contributions to the food programmes and clean water equipment. Once again, a thousand thanks to all of you who contributed to this, to the many of you who far exceeded the £1 I asked you for and for converting my recent birthday into financial contributions rather than gifts. Every single £ $ and AED made a difference last week and will do in the future. Gunjur, like most of the Gambia is extremely poor. Attendance at nursery and school is relatively expensive and removes that child from any earning potential whilst they are there and so it is a big decision for families to make; the balance between money for food and living expenses today or an education to support a future tomorrow. How lucky the majority of us are in not having to make this decision. The village of Gunjur and the villagers are delightful and incredibly hospitable. We were welcomed everywhere we went, in particular by the children who shouted ‘Tubab’ at us - meaning ‘white person’. A 3 mile trek in 36° hot sun enabled us to visit the District Chief, the Religious Head of the Village, the Head of the Women’s and then the Men’s Communities resulting in us receiving a blessing which meant that we could proceed with our work there. The family that I was staying with have 7 children, aged 2yrs – 17yrs and within 10 minutes of being there they had given me a Gambian name- Narcece Bojang. For the rest of the week, this became my title. 5 of the children currently attend school. Prior to the trip many friends hypothesised about my bathroom facilities, or the potential lack of them. I was incredibly lucky and actually had my own outdoor loo! Listening to the wildlife and the neighbours at critical times became a typical experience. Our week consisted of visiting nurseries and schools, a whole village meeting to decide on the ways that the nurseries can contribute to becoming more locally sustainable, a visit to the only college in the Gambia to work with teachers in training, 2 staff training days for the cluster of nursery schools in Gunjur and embedding ourselves in the local community and with our Gambian families. Truly an amazing experience. I learnt about their focus on community, family and the importance of sharing the little that you have with others. So very different to the greed and imbalance of wealth and health that we see throughout the world. Everyone’s life is hard, but the women more so. Their physical work is relentless each and every day, but they stay happy and positive; they are an inspiration. The expectations of children are also high, clear boundaries and also lots of love. The children are always smiling, play is simple and they are great ‘risk assessors’ as those as young as 3 years old walk miles to school on their own each day. Gunjur has had electricity for the last 6 months, but it is still a rare luxury. My host family have 2 electric lights in their home- 1 in the main family room and 1 in my room. Head torches are highly prized and the memory of my donation of mine to the youngest son half way through the week will stay with me forever. £1 spent in the UK becomes priceless elsewhere in the world, as homework can be completed by torchlight. Water is either drawn from the village well or from a borehole. Clean water is shared throughout the village to help prevent malaria. Currently the pipes are being cleaned to bring running water there in the next 3 months- its arrival will be transformational. The community is colourful, accommodating, hardworking, aspirational in terms of education as a way out of poverty, dignified, caring and has great integrity. The world is of course, an unequal place and not everyone who could choose to do the right thing does, those who could make the future positive and fairer don’t always, and many in our own communities still display overt greed and a disregard for equality. What will stay with me is the fact that a very little goes a long way, my own sense of guilt at the amount of waste we all produce, the things we waste money on, how we use our time and the futility of worrying about trivia. A trip like this could benefit so many! Gambians are grateful for every type of support, over and over people asked me to say thank you to those of you who donated; I am honoured to pass their thanks on and I want you to know what that means to them. On my last morning I gave some money to my host family with the suggestion that they use part of it to send their young daughter- my namesake- Narcece, to nursery, (they start formal school at 6yrs and nursery is optional from 3yrs) for the next 2 years until she is ready for primary school. I included money for a uniform and her first ever pair of shoes. The family cried and asked me what school I would like them to send her to in my honour; to say I was speechless with emotion is an understatement. So I’ll leave the last words of this letter of thanks and memories to Yankuba, Narcece’s father: “Narcece is much happy that she will be going to school, she was crying. Narcece is saying a big thanks to you for helping her future, once again the family is saying a big thanks to your family, we are grateful and we will make you proud”
Posted on: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 13:49:24 +0000
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