Something interesting has happened at work this week. Despite most of it being Kate and I playing Solitaire on the laptop. We met the cluster monitors who told us a bit about the jobs they do when visiting schools. They have a pretty big remit, a lot of it seems to be collecting data about numbers on roll, number of girls and boys, teacher attendance etc. Also they are responsible for monitoring teaching and learning in the schools. Doing lesson observations, looking at planning and schemes of work, curriculum coverage, supporting heads with record keeping. They have a lot to do but they don’t actually have a class to teach themselves. Am not sure how this works in practice but I daresay we’ll find out. They had a big drive to get girls into education in the Gambia so the girls don’t have to pay school fees but the boys do. So our job is really identifying training needs and delivering training to the teacher trainers who can deliver it to the teachers. But I think in practice a lot of volunteers end up working directly with schools and teachers, doing demonstration lessons and then team teaching and observations to monitor improvement. The cluster monitors seemed to want our help with writing funding proposals as well, not really sure about how to do that, although I daresay we can find out.

The other interesting thing that happened was finding out about the small project funds. One of the cluster monitors wanted us to acquire funding from VSO to renovate a teachers quarters in one of the schools, which is apparently dire, falling down so much that they all have to sleep in one room. This sounds like a very worthwhile project to me so Kate and I are going to go for a site visit so that we can support the proposal and then it will be our job to monitor the project and see that it is all happening.
We have also just been for a site visit to another project that wants funding. This is an NGO that does adult education in Literacy and Maths for people in the community and does tye dyeing and soap making classes that will generate income for the women in the community. They also want to plant a garden there and grow things to sell at market. So we are going back to have a look at the classes next week. I’m quite keen to learn to do tye dye myself! These two things I think will be great to get involved in and will help us to get to know some people in the community.
Kate and I talked to our caretakers wife Faye yesterday about planting some things when the rainy season comes. At the moment the soil is so dry but when the rainy season comes apparently its easy to grow things. During this time they tether all the goats up so they don’t wander from compound to compound and eat everything. It will give us something to do at least! Her sons are going to help us dig the garden. Mr Jawneh is going to get us both a bamboo bed on the way back from his trip to Basse so we will then have space for visitors to stay! You will be highly welcome as they say here. I’m not really selling it with the scorpions and mice though!

Another bit of good news – the mangoes are out and they are very nice as well, sweet and juicy and very cheap! Another fruit other than bananas – hooray!

We invented yet another tasty treat – digestive biscuits with chocolate spread which they do in big tubs here, sprinkled with the roasted peanuts that the ladies sell in the market for 1 dalasi a bag. It’s the nearest thing to a snickers we are going to get. Also we tried to do those banana things you do on the barbecue, we sliced open a banana put chocolate spread and peanuts inside and then wrapped it in tin foil to see whether it would roast in the sun. But we couldn't leave it long enough before eating it so the tin foil was a bit unnecessary.

Our fun with the goats continues. As the baby patch boldy made its way into Kate's house to explore yesterday while its mother Gregory stood at the door bleating. It was quite amusing. These goats give us hours of entertainment.

One thing I forgot to put on the post when we were doing the workshop in Basse which rather tickled us, was a nursery rhyme that was put up on the wall in one of the schools. A very well known nursery rhyme but here it was given am unusual twist.

One, two buckle my shoe
Three, four, knock at the door
Five, six, pick up sticks
Seven, eight, lay them straight
Nine, ten, big fat cock hmmm!


maybe we need to do a workshop on rhyming words!
While cleaning out their library in Janjanbureh Pete and Liz found a peace corps translation of some Mandinka nursery rhymes. This was one of them:-

"Two little dickie birds. Tom, Dick and Harry
The two little birds flew over.
My hand is at the anus of one
The others anus is at my hand." Again I say hmmmmm!!!