Goodbye my friend

Burama went off to the UK to visit his sponsors about three weeks ago. He is due to return tomorrow. The day I said goodbye to him was one of the more strange days I have had in the Gambia.

I was originally supposed to give mentoring at Burama’s school but he told me he was granted leave the day before and would be getting ready to leave so I visited two of my students in Kanifeng, who were both Nigerians who had moved to the Gambia.

One of the classes was three year old students who had only recently started school. The idea of ECD is so new in the Gambia the teacher was trying to teach them like seven year olds using teaching aids to show them the different shapes. The effect was really interesting – play centres were the only thing that would have worked with her class, but it is so far from the idea of what education is that rarely do teachers use them. Anyway her lesson was interrupted constantly by children repeatedly wandering up to me to shake my hand or wandering up to the front of the room, or wandering out of the room all together. She did take them outside to draw in the sand, but most kids used the opportunity to squat.

The teacher then left the class to come to the principal’s office with me at the end of the observation and then left the school altogether (students still in the classroom) to show me how to get to another school. Play in education is so foreign to parents that teachers have difficulty using it without complaint and that it is your responsibility to be polite to guests so you must make sure they know their way. It all winds up with things being exactly opposite to what we know.

At the end of my teaching observations I planned on going to the VSO office in Bakau to use the internet and to also ask advice on if it was ok for me to help one of my students get a Visa to go to a workshop in the UK. The advice from my VSO advisor was that unless I was inviting the student to the workshop I couldn’t help the student. He quoted the case of the Zimbabwean football team that went to Australia to play and then skipped their visa. He said in many cases Gambians don’t honor their visa even if they have got good reasons to return to the Gambia – there is just more opportunity to support their families abroad.

When I was on my way to the VSO office Burama rang to say he was still in Bakau if I wanted to catch up and since I had some jobs to do and he was on the way he said he would come along. So I met him and we walked on to meet one of his classmates so I could give her a book. It is not the nicest thing to walk alongside a Gambian guy – especially a young good looking one like Burama because everyone assumes the wrong thing.

We reached the student’s house, she told Burama off for being the closest student to her and for not working together with her more. They then had lots of discussions in the local language. Then Burama gave her some money and she came back a while later with water and ice and I realized he had given her money to go and get me a drink (though I have found the water in Bakau fine to drink so I didn’t need special water – they just knew most white people won’t drink the water they drink). I did find it interesting that the man/ woman thing is so strong here that Burama who at home would be the student’s equal, can actually tell her what to do. Before we left the students house she did make a point of telling me Burama had a girlfriend and I realized my mistake in visiting someone with Burama because that it automatically gave the wrong impression. I had hoped actually been that by linking them up they would start to share teaching ideas and work together out of college. Burama tells me that because she is married he cannot work with her because her husband may think that they were up to something else and cause problems for both him and her.

While we were at the student’s house I got a call from the student applying for the Visa and he asked that I look at the forms and check it was ok, even if I couldn’t support him. Burama said he was heading the way I was going and would walk me, but I was really nervous because I thought now I am just going to give two people the wrong idea. In the end though we all met up and Burama was much more help than me because he had just been through the process.

The process of applying for a Visa is so hard for Gambians I felt so sad to watch it because it is just so much harder for them. Burama did say that it made him angry at white people for making it so hard for Gambians to travel but when I explained the idea of not letting criminals into other countries he understood. Still even I felt it was nearly like kicking someone who is down. The student applying had started his own school, was married with kids, had farming land and was an important person in his village. He had all the paperwork to say his sponsors were paying for the ticket and the expenses for him to come back and that they would vouch for him, but in the end it was rejected because he didn’t have a recent original copy of his sponsors bank records (and how many people would send their bank records across to someone in a foreign country, the system is crazy!). It cost the student three months wages to apply two times and both were turned down.

The student who did apply was a good friend so I saw him the next day at college and explained there wasn’t anything untoward about me walking with Burama – he said he didn’t think it was unusual for a lecturer to be helping a student. Later that week however when I mentioned being friends with one of my students to June’s cleaner, who I am giving reading lessons to, she gave a big lecture. She told me I had the most amazing kind man and not to ever accept a drink or food from my student and never to visit him or have him visit me and that local boys use black magic to turn your head and I was to be careful. It is amazing that something so easily accepted in our culture, can spark such different reactions.