...maybe it's maybe time...

Bansang October 16-19

There is a saying here that goes like this: “Gambia maybe time.” It means exactly what it implies, if it implies anything at all. Time here is relative. Time here is maybe. Maybe it is time and maybe it is not, or maybe time in the Gambia might be immaterial. But then again one might argue that all time is immaterial.

This past Thursday Erika, Rachel, Jamie and I embarked on an epic journey, a journey that is the embodiment of “Gambia maybe time.” We were to assemble at the UTG Administration building by around 9 and to leave by around 10. Renee suggested that given the parameters of maybe, we wouldn’t leave until around 1pm. The journey was a trip to a far away town in a far away time called Bansang, where we were to visit NAWEC’s water treatment plant in the area, an area with a notoriously high iron content in the water. This venture was all part of our Environmental Management in the Gambia class, and we were accompanied by 21 of our colleagues (that is a very Gambian word to use).

We arrived maybe around 9:45 but no one seemed to be there. Professor Dele was not yet kicking either. A call was made to him, and he said he would arrive in 20 minutes. I found out that some of the other students were relaxing across the street at the canteen. I joined them and eventually ate half of a piece of tapalapa bloated with a boiled potato, a hardboiled egg, Jumbo spice, mayo and ketchup.

The Student Union Hyundai Coaster bus was the vessel of choice for the trip, but it was in the garage that morning being repaired or something, so we weren’t able to leave yet. The time for departure was 11, then 12, then 1…then eventually 3. Apparently the bus hadn’t been run in 3 months, so the battery then needed to be charged. Eventually, we were able to load our luggage on the roof of the coaster, and pile in.

There was a problem with the scheduling of drivers, so eventually we got a driver, because the other driver didn’t want to go or maybe there was a more definite reason. The chosen driver then drove us to his house so he could pack his bag for the 4 days upcountry. Then we went to buy fuel. One might think that all of this should have happened long before, especially since the drivers knew of the trip, but no.

Then the driver said that the bus was making some kind of noise and needed to be returned to the shop because they just paid them. So across the street from the Elton Station in Senegambia we switched buses, and loaded everything on top of a second smaller coaster. By this time it was 5pm and Mr. Femi happened to drive by us and stopped to witness the smuggling of luggage and suggested that we leave the next morning. Regardless of his suggestion we continued on our trip.

It is interesting that we switched buses, because the alternative bus we were loading up was the one that broke down so many times on the trip from Dakar, but we were assured that it was fixed. The interesting part was that we were loading up a bus that was designed to hold less people then we had. We had something like 27 people in a 25 passenger bus, or maybe it was a 22 passenger bus. Numbers, like time are all relative.

My North American counterparts across the ocean might have been especially frustrated by a day’s worth of waiting, and indeed some of the Gambians were as well. Generally, though, people relaxed across the street at the canteen and sat under the tree chatting up a storm. I welcomed the down time, as it gave me a few hours to really get to know my classmates. I had never had the opportunity to talk with them so much before, so it was very nice.

We made it on the Banjul ferry by 7pm and some attendant wanted money out of us, so one of the students said, “Can’t you read? This is the University bus.” I guess it helps that it is THE University of the Gambia and the President is the Chancellor of the institution, so we were on our way.

Bansang is over 300kms away from Kanifing, so on Gambian roads the trip usually takes 6-7 hours. The trip was dark and bumpy and when we made it to the next ferry it was just dark. To get to Bansang via the North Bank, one must take a ferry across the river to McCarthy Island, cross the island and then take another short ferry. It was late so there was no ferry running. Some phone calls and honking were made, and eventually an engine across the river started running, and a ferry boat was in due course produced.

The noise that we made woke some of the people on our side of the river, so they came out and some of us boarded a small boat to cross the river. We walked around the island in the dark led by Paul, a student who knew the area well. When the bus finally crossed scraping the backside across the pavement on the ramp, we again boarded it. The ferry on the other side is one of a kind. It is a barge with an engine, and there is no particular way of controlling the craft. Instead a steel cable runs across the river and is connected to the boat, ensuring that the ferry plows across the water sideways rather than drifting downstream.

We arrived by 3:30am…enough said.

Our accommodations were these very nice 3 bedroom houses in the country side owned by the International Trypanotolerance Centre (ITC), an institution that does research to improve livestock productivity. The development was designed to house foreign researchers who were doing bovine crossbreeding. It seems like a bunch of cow manure if you ask me. The organization ran out of funding for the site, so it is no longer in use, and the generator is broken so there was no electricity. It was a very relaxing weekend though. Electricity is not important.

The next day we visited NAWEC’s water treatment plant for the region. An electric motor pumps the water from a borehole 1.5km away from the plant. The plant is on a hill so that after the water is pumped, the rest of the work can be done by gravity. A fountain pumps the water and then it goes through 3 filtration pools, it is chlorinated and deposited into a big tank and from there it goes to the valleys below. It was much more interesting than I am making it sound. The plant was built in 1999. Before then, the people drank the iron filled water directly from the borehole, and before that, directly from the river. It is not the cleanest river in the world, and as far as the NAWEC staff members know, there was never a study made to see the effect of the iron in the water on the people of Bansang.

We relaxed the rest of the day. Or at least the guys did. Taking on their gender roles, beforehand the womenfolk volunteered to prepare the meals on the trip. The men took on their responsibility of relaxing and drinking attaya while the women labored under the hot sun and over the hot fire. Cooking in the Gambia takes forever, as it involves picking the dirt out of the rice and then cooking over the fire. It also takes a long time to cook for 27 people. Out of all of the men on the trip only 3 of us helped with the food. Two Gambian men and I helped pick the rice, but we didn’t do nearly as much work as the women.

After sorting the rice, I decided to take on my gender role, and went to chat with the men. The conversation of choice, my choice, was a debate about gender roles in the Gambia. I proposed that women do all the work in this society while the men sit around drinking attaya, smoking cannabis and relaxing. The other men mostly agreed. The argument was made that it is the man’s responsibility to bring money to the family and it is the woman’s job to take care of the household and cook. Someone said, “So you are advocating for gender equality.” Of course I was.

Consider this: Man is naturally superior to woman, so it is his place to sit back and relax. Consider this also: One of the guys in the class made the argument that physiologically men are more capable of making decisions and that they always have more sound judgment. For this reason, according to one of the guys, if a job is open and there is both a man and a women applying for the job, the man should always take it because he able to make better decisions. He is also physically stronger and therefore mentally stronger. The woman is made from the rib of man, so man is naturally superior. Women cannot be Imam’s so they are naturally inferior. The justification the men gave for sitting around and doing nothing while our peers cooked was a mixture of culture and religion. The Muslim women would argue that it is culture and not religion, or maybe an abuse or misinterpretation of religion. Another guy made the argument that man is superior because in some study the boys chose to play with guns and the girls with dolls and that women aren’t generals in the army. I told this person not to go the USA and join the military because he would have a woman commanding him. The debate ended with me going to do the dishes and asking which of the men would come help me. I had no takers accept for the 2 guys who were already helping.

Because we made it in so late the night before, we had “breakfast” at lunch time and “lunch” at dinner time. Around midnight, a few of the guys in the class went around to the girls’ house demanding dinner. As you might expect the girls response was deservedly filled with wrath. The next morning one of the guys involved was decidedly sitting away from the girls, because I am sure they wanted nothing to do with him.

I also had some interesting debates about gender roles with the women. The girls all adamantly supported gender equality, but because of the way their society functions, they were still the ones to cook and clean. They made it clear though, that they were upset with the men’s lack of appreciation. I might add that the perspective of these girls is atypical or if it isn’t, their vocalization about the issue is uncharacteristic. They are all young empowered Gambian women of a different socioeconomic background than the majority of the country…and they are all chemistry and biology majors (whatever that might imply I am not sure).

One of the guys managed to acquire a generator from town to power a boom box. I joined them for a while for a while, but I turned in early as I was still tired from the night before.

The next day we went to McCarthy Island to the quarters where the slaves were stored before they were shipped away. The British traded guns and alcohol for the slaves. The holding quarters was a horrible building where the slaves could not stand up all the way. In the chamber there was no light and food was given through a hole in the wall. The most stubborn of slaves were chained up. We also saw a building where the even more stubborn would be imprisoned in the dark for a few days and upon reentry into the light they would be blinded. All in the name of “civilizing” and Christianizing.

That night we had a lecture from a young Environmental inspector from the NEA. He said that there was far too much work to be done and a lack of resources. Six of him might get the job done. I think that he is doing lots of good work, if only more of it could be done.

We left the next day around 11am, and returned, ndanka, ndanka, around 11pm. A few of the people fell sick the night before departure and that morning, so before leaving Bansang, we visited the hospital. One of the girls was so weak they gave her an iv of glucose to drip into her system on the trip home. We stopped at some pre-Islamic stone circles on the way back, but the SMCM group will be going there this weekend, so I’ll tell you about it another day.

Eventually we made it back, as always, on “Gambia maybe time”.