Our Water Project (written April 24)

As many of you know, for over a year now, we have been working on getting a nearby community access to safe drinking water. After countless hours of work with the community and more setbacks than I even want to think about right now, with the assistance of a US Government grant (a SPA grant, for those of you who know what that is)...we did it! The community now has three public taps where they can access safe, clean, piped water. Last Sunday the community threw a party to celebrate the “grand opening” of the taps. We even made it into the local paper! Here is a link to the article: http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/d250000-sankwia-water-project-inaugurated

Here are a few pictures from the event, courtesy of our new sitemate Travis (whose camera is much better than ours, and more importantly, not broken!):

Us giving our speech in Mandinka and English


Community members watching the presentation


Posing at the official handing-over of the keys (for the tap locks that hadn't been purchased at that point). After this was taken, we dramatically turned the tap for the photo opp with water running...drumroll....and no water came out (the water usually isn't on in the middle of the day, so this wasn't actually reason for concern, just funny).


Me with two of the community women


Two more of the village women (and baby) watching the program


Our village chief doing the ceremonial ribbon cutting on one of the taps

Politics

As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are strictly forbidden from involvement in local politics (for a lot of good reasons), but given this is an election year, it is pretty difficult for us to completely avoid hearing/reading about politics. For example, just like in the US, newspapers have started publishing political editorials. We thought all of you at home might be interested in seeing a sample of one such editorial: http://observer.gm/africa/gambia/article/wuli-east-by-election-1

Comic Relief

The other day I was helping a friend set up internet access for an internet cafe he is trying to open. After spending all day working with him, I obviously had to be invited for lunch. Unfortunately finding spoons can sometimes be a problem, so I had to eat with my hands. At first, I did not think this would be a problem, but apparently I am a little out of practice at using my right hand to eat. Two bites in my friend turns to me and says, "You eat like a small African child!" I know this would be easier to visualize with pictures, but as Sarah said our camera has seen better days. In case you are curious and want to know how to eat like a small African child I would suggest following these steps: 1. Grab food in your right hand and try and squish it into a ball. 2. Fail miserably at balling your food and have a hand full of rice spread out over your palm and not in an easy to eat ball. 3. In order to protect your clothes raise hand up and tilt head back and then try and quickly place the food in your wide open mouth. 4. Smile to yourself because you successfully got lunch into your mouth without getting half of it all over your clothes. If you successfully follow all of these steps (even better if you fail at step 4) you will be eating like a small African child. If, on the other hand, you would like to eat like an adult African you should follow these directions: 1. Grab food in your right hand and successfully turn it into a compact ball. 2. Turn hand almost vertical and magically keep your food from falling to the ground. 3. Lick ball of food off your hand. If you can manage these seemingly simple steps, you will be able to do something I cannot do, and eat like an adult African. Good luck!

Last picture update for a while

It pains me announce that my trusty camera has been retired. While not the best camera in the world, it served me well for the past year and a half. Part of me hoped it would last another year or so, until we get back to the States for good, but I’m not completely surprised that the heat, dust, bumpy roads, etc, here did it in. My parents generously offered to send me a replacement, but I won’t get it for over a month, so unless I can find some magical do-it-yourself fix, I’m going to have gap in my pictures. That being said, here are the last few pictures I took on the camera (with a few stolen from Kelsey mixed in):

Re-wearing our naming ceremony asobis at swear-in. A little on the sweaty side, but at least we look happy, right?

“No Mocking” sign on a geli geli we took back from Kombo after All-Vol (it was supposed to say “No Smoking,” but it was misspelled with an extra “c” and missing an “s”

Our friend Umi all gussied up and ready to go somewhere. Have I mentioned that sometimes being around Gambian women makes me feel seriously underdressed??

Sunrise over the river at Kalagi, getting ready to start our (mini) Lower River Region HIV Education Bike Trek. We went to three schools and taught a half-day curriculum to ~60 kids at each. I’m proud to say this was truly a cross-sectoral initiative…we had volunteers representing all three Peace Corps sectors in The Gambia!

One of The Gambia’s few bridges

Getting ready to roll out

Sheila came along for the first two days…she was a real trooper!

Baby Mangroves Josh, Kelsey, and many others helped plant on the river bank

Lindsay and Kelsey posting on the bridge with the mangroves seedlings in the background

Me in action

Look closely the names on this class list. This is not a joke. Thank god I’m not a teacher.

Done teaching, Travis and I heading off to bike 25k home on the worst section of main road in the country in the heat of the day. Probably not advisable, but we made it in less than 2 hours!

Back in Sankwia for Jacob’s birthday, Jacob and I went on an early morning bike ride in the bush

Birthday boy

Look Peace Corps, we’re such good little volunteers, we ALWAYS wear our helmets!

Our new sitemate Travis came over for Jacob’s birthday lunch. We decided to make popcorn as an appetizer, but none of us had ever done it in a pan before. We learned very quickly that it pops all over the place with surprising force!

The birthday boy making moo shu chicken

Moo shu chicken, complete with tortillas and plum sauce, and fresh mango pie for dessert. Yum!

Our friends Ida and Aminata in matching white outfits for Gamo (the village Koranic reading), posing with a friend

Birthday celebrations continued on Sunday. Jacob’s birthday brunch consisted of Middle Eastern egg sandwiches with chickpea spread and ramen noodle salad with cabbage.

My camera was on its dying breath, but by massively altering the picture, I managed salvage a group shot on our front porch. Seven other volunteers made the trek to our house for the brunch.

Jacob and ET with Jacob’s birthday cheesecakes (coffee on the left, chocolate strawberry on the right)

Finally, in my unsuccessful attempts to fix my camera, I ended up with some sorta cool messed-up pictures…

Women in the Workplace - Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place (written March 19)

First off, let me make it crystal clear that I 100% support women's rights, gender equality, women's empowerment, and whatever other term you might want to use for the movement to give women the same opportunities as men. After three years working at CARE and over a year as an active member of Peace Corps/The Gambia's Gender and Development committee, I could not be any other way. In fact, I would go so far as to say I even have a feminist streak from time to time. All that being said, after a year and a half in this country and countless debates about the merits of “50/50,” as they call it here, I am finally starting to appreciate the complexity and, yes, the potential negative impacts of bringing women into the formal workforce here. Here are a few of the major factors to consider:

1) While girls school enrollment has increased dramatically in recent years, girls still are not performing nearly as well in school as boys. There are a lot of factors that go into explaining why this is, and it is something the government is working on, but that still is the current reality. The result of that reality is that when (if) they finish school, the young women are not as qualified as the men for jobs. If a woman is not as qualified as a man for a job and you hire her anyway, simply because she is a woman, in the short term, is that really helping the country develop?

2) There is a lot of social pressure for women to have a lot of babies here. We have discussed why in earlier posts. Employers (rightfully) give women generous maternity leave after having a baby, which means that when they employ women, they are constantly running off on maternity leave. Male employees would not have that problem. Again, in the short term, is hiring women knowing this will happen really helping the country?

3) Working women are still expected to perform all the typical woman's household duties (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, childcare, etc), many of which are very time-intensive because they don't have things like microwaves and dishwashers and washing machines and dry cleaners and cars to help them, which detracts from their ability to fully commit themselves to their jobs. Again, when employers hire women, they are be constantly running off to take care of these household duties, while male employees would not have that problem. Yet again, in the short term, is hiring these women anyways really helping the country?

4) Government jobs make up the vast majority of salaried positions in rural areas (the only other salaried jobs are usually jobs with NGOs or banks), and most, if not all, government jobs in rural areas are extension workers or other rotating positions. This includes teachers, health workers, agriculture and forestry workers, development assistants, security staff (police and military), as well as some others I'm probably forgetting. Rotating positions here change postings throughout the country every year or two, which results in most of the staff living away from their spouses and families. In this culture, women run the households, so a female extension worker has to choose between leaving a sister or female cousin to run her household and raise her children while she is posted on the other end of the country or moving her family around year or two. This certainly is not a choice I would wish on any woman.

So...given all those factors above, the question is, given the current cultural context, is it appropriate and beneficial to bring women into the formal workforce here, and especially into these types of rotating positions? If the answer is no, not unless the cultural expectations change, then how and what is going to cause those expectations to change? Is putting the women in there anyways, despite the fact that it is not beneficial in a lot of ways, the only way to convince people that having the women in the workforce is worth it? The Gambia is very much in transition on this issue, similar to the transition the US went through in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I'm curious to learn how we were able to successfully navigate that transition in the US. Any thoughts or reading suggestions?