The next stop was Collikunda to stay with Isatou John. It was a really interesting day we observed a few schools and one of which was a teacher with the worst classroom management I had ever seen. The children were wild, even wilder than the crazy class I had my first year of teaching. The teacher taught by yelling at the top of his voice and encouraging the children to do the same. I had to observe with my fingers stuck in my ears. The class varied from two years of age to eight years of age and some of the children participated in repeating words of the board while the younger ones walked around bopping each other on the head. At the end of the lesson the teacher talked to Mr Korita completely ignoring the children who then started laying right into each other. I took the children for a while to try and get some order. We played a game which settled some but any time my attention shifted from one to another they started fighting – not just a punch or hit, but a wrestle to the ground punching and kicking type fighting. After twenty minutes with no intervention from the teacher I had to leave them to it and go to the car – so the children decided to mob me and no one could get them to stop. It was amazing, but also the only time I have seen it happen here. the Gambian children are usually very quiet and respectful of their teacher.
After the crazy kids we went to Isatou’s village. We couldn’t reach her phone so we ended up meeting her walking back to the village from her school. Her village is a quickly growing farming village. Her father is the village Marabou (religious man) and his family is huge! The family compound was a village in itself. We met her father and the men prayed and chatted to him. He didn’t speak English but he managed to communicate to me that the village was growing quickly and that education was expanding but a major issue for the village was health and they needed help in starting up some health services.
In Isatou’s village the men again set about washing and praying so I was left to my own devices for a while. I wandered out and found the women cooking. They only spoke Wolof so I sat with them and helped to pick husks and stones out of the rice so it was ready for cooking. They were a little bemused with me as I couldn’t understand them at all and they couldn’t understand me but they liked the fact I was helping. After a while though it got too hard so I joined my colleagues in a woven grass shelter behind a traditional hut with a woven roof. It turned out to be a really long afternoon because I had very little to do and felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know whether I should sit with the women or men and whether my ignorance was offending anyone. Anyway I got through it and we went in the afternoon to visit the farmland around the village. Because the rains were coming all around the countryside people were sowing peanuts , cous cous and millet (also rice in wetter areas). The village had a tractor but they were using cows to pull along the sowing tool, which was like one till off a combine harvester – I have take a photo for you. It was amazing to walk out across the field and see how the Gambians farm. I also really liked the ‘cattle dogs’ who slept and walked along with the big herd of cows.
Along the way to the fields we passed a group of women at the well, who were very excited to have their photo taken. I found I really enjoy the women in the rural areas, although we don’t speak the same language.
That night I got to sleep in a traditional hut with a woven roof, while my colleagues slept outside under the woven grass shelter (on mattresses on top of bull ants nests but they said they liked it). The shower was again a cement block on the ground with a woven grass fence – but less ants this time.
After the crazy kids we went to Isatou’s village. We couldn’t reach her phone so we ended up meeting her walking back to the village from her school. Her village is a quickly growing farming village. Her father is the village Marabou (religious man) and his family is huge! The family compound was a village in itself. We met her father and the men prayed and chatted to him. He didn’t speak English but he managed to communicate to me that the village was growing quickly and that education was expanding but a major issue for the village was health and they needed help in starting up some health services.
In Isatou’s village the men again set about washing and praying so I was left to my own devices for a while. I wandered out and found the women cooking. They only spoke Wolof so I sat with them and helped to pick husks and stones out of the rice so it was ready for cooking. They were a little bemused with me as I couldn’t understand them at all and they couldn’t understand me but they liked the fact I was helping. After a while though it got too hard so I joined my colleagues in a woven grass shelter behind a traditional hut with a woven roof. It turned out to be a really long afternoon because I had very little to do and felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know whether I should sit with the women or men and whether my ignorance was offending anyone. Anyway I got through it and we went in the afternoon to visit the farmland around the village. Because the rains were coming all around the countryside people were sowing peanuts , cous cous and millet (also rice in wetter areas). The village had a tractor but they were using cows to pull along the sowing tool, which was like one till off a combine harvester – I have take a photo for you. It was amazing to walk out across the field and see how the Gambians farm. I also really liked the ‘cattle dogs’ who slept and walked along with the big herd of cows.
Along the way to the fields we passed a group of women at the well, who were very excited to have their photo taken. I found I really enjoy the women in the rural areas, although we don’t speak the same language.
That night I got to sleep in a traditional hut with a woven roof, while my colleagues slept outside under the woven grass shelter (on mattresses on top of bull ants nests but they said they liked it). The shower was again a cement block on the ground with a woven grass fence – but less ants this time.
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