Upcountry Journey

After three weeks in the Kombos, our final week of in-country training took place upcountry in Janjanbureh in the Central River Division, one of seven divisions of the country. Upcountry Gambia is quite different to the coastal area where I live. At the coast, the Kombos is an extensive conurbation with a population of at least 300 thousand. Here you find industry, offices, banks and shops. The few tarred streets are bumper to bumper with taxis (of both minibus- and car- variety), the major form of transport available. Away from the Kombos the landscape is flat and dry, increasingly treeless inland, and dotted with simple villages connected by sandy bush roads.

Travelling upcountry requires a private vehicle or gele-gele (longer distance minibus taxi). There are two roads east from the Kombos. The south road is old, worn and potholed, no more than a track in places. We took the newer north road, still under construction but in good condition throughout almost its entire length. This road begins in Barra, a 45-minute ferry ride away from Banjul across the mouth of the River Gambia.

     

     

From Barra it takes six hours on the good road to drive 300km to Janjanbureh. This town, known colonially as Georgetown, is situated on McCarthy Island in the River Gambia. Two ferries, one north and one south, connect to the mainland. There are no bridges over the river in the entire country but in a small number of places there are ferries capable of carrying three cars or one truck connecting the north and south banks. Many of these ferries run on a cable which, when the engine is broken or the fuel has run dry, is hauled by the passengers to pull the ferry across.

The British acquired the island of Janjanbureh in 1823, and built a fort, wharves and warehouses, and the area became a centre for trade in cloth, iron, guns, groundnuts and palm oil. A number of mission schools were also set up including Armitage High School which is still amongst the leading secondary schools in the country. Now that roads have been built on the north and south banks, both the river and the town have lost their economic significance, and Janjanbureh has become a sleepy deserted place with a scattering of crumbling ex-colonial buildings.

     

     

I stayed upcountry for two weeks. The first week (living in Janjanbureh) concluded the induction training for new volunteers. We were introduced to the Imam, the Chief and the Council of Elders, who were all generous in their welcome and who encouraged us in the work we are beginning. We gave them a customary gift of kola nuts. These bitter-tasting fruit of the kola tree are frequently used as a symbolic gift in social and business transactions. We also met a Traditional Healer and the Town Development Committee and a Kaneleng Women’s Group who spoke about their work, sang and danced. And we spent a day on the River Gambia in a wooden double-decker pirogue, and saw crocodiles, hippos and many birds.

   

     

In my second week in the Central River Division I began some field visits in preparation for my work at DoSE. I joined Jenny and Fiona (VSO Volunteers) making visits to schools in their clusters around Bansang and Karantaba. My work is based at Education Headquarters in the capital, so I will have to seek out opportunities like this to make visit schools in order to contextualise my own work and make it relevant. During this week I stayed in Bansang, 20km further east from Janjanbureh, and also made a visit to Basse in the Upper River Division, the most easterly situated major town in the country, and an important point for trade with neighbouring Senegal and the countries beyond. These final pictures were taken in and near the village of Sololo, outside Bansang.