Setsetal (Written March 29)

Last Saturday we were heading back from Basse after a short trip visiting friends. We arrived at the car park around 8am and tried to find transport back to our village. The fact that the market was closed should have been our first clue - last Saturday was Setsetal in Basse, which meant a) that no vehicles would leave until 1pm and b) that everyone was supposed to be cleaning up the city.

Living in the Gambia one thing I have noticed is that there are no trash cans and no real waste management system. When you are done with something, for example the plastic bag your panketos (think donut holes) were in, you toss the bag on the ground. This very quickly results in a lot of trash lying around. To combat this, the Gambian government has said that every month each village should have a Setsetal day. In theory, this should happen on the same day all over the country but in reality its implementation is a bit random and haphazard. Once people collect the trash it is burned - I know this is not good but I have yet to come up with a better solution.

Back to Basse - if we were waiting for 5 hours for the geli to leave because the entire city was busy cleaning then it would have been ok. We at least would have been delayed for a good reason. Instead, we saw a few trash fires in the distance but even after walking through a good part of the city, I didn't see anyone cleaning. Grrr....