Updated
April 17, 2005

Helen's arrival was not without incident, but she quickly settled and moved into the flatlet that GTS found for her, minutes from the Bakoteh school she was to teach in.

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The President's visit
In her second week the president visited the local community and Helen and 20 chosen kids go to represent the school

The prologue
The month leading up to Helen's arrival had been punctuated with fuel crisis after crisis and planes were arriving at all sorts of times due to refueling on their way to Gambia. GTS arrived at the airport to meet her flight and watched the passengers disembark, go through customs and then leave - No Helen. We checked the flight checked everywhere at the airport- No Helen. We drove back to the restaurant. We got a phone call that Helen was at the airport waiting for us. - We returned to the airport and there was Helen. JMC had two flights that day, the one Helen was on was due to arrive first but had stopped to refuel, the later one had not stopped and arrived first, but no one at the airport knew - that's Gambia - it's a JMC flight -who cares which one has which number.

Settling in
Helen stayed in with GTS for the first few days, while she acclimatized to the weather and the surroundings, but within the first 10 days was settled into her little flat and had already started at the school, here is her first report.

Comment

GTS is keen to help education in Gambia not only by providing sponsorship and material resources, it is also essential that English spealers get involved in day to day education at Gambian schools.

There are at least 7 languages spoken in Gambia BUT education is primarily carried out in English so any help that can be given to teachers and pupis is generally very welcomed and fantastically valuable in bridging gaps and reducing prejudices of Tubabs

If you think you could help, please email us. A few months helping in Gambia does not cost very much and despite being work it actually provides such a change that it is really a relaxing holiday.

Comments to GTS

GTS has several other working holiday volunteers in the pipeline but would like to aim at having between 5 and 10 at all times in a number of different schools

We are also looking at offering similar placements at village clinics and hospitals

If you fancy three months away in the sunshine that in total will cost you around £1000 contact us now.

Created July 7 2003

I didn’t know what to expect on my first day at Bakoteh Proper Lower Basic School – I was so nervous ! The school educates, or should I say, tries to educate some 2000+ kids from the ages of 5 up to 12 at which point they may, if they’re lucky, move up to the senior school.

There are 2 school sessions a day.
Half the kids come in the morning 8.30 until 1.30 the others 1.30 – 6.30.
I am overwhelmed by the greetings I received from both children and teachers. There is the Headmistress, Mrs. Chow, 2 deputy head teachers and some 60 teachers.

The conditions everyone has to work in have to be seen to be believed. I can only describe the buildings as huts similar to the prisoner of war camps you see in the war time movies. There is no glass in the windows, which means there is so much noise from the other classrooms.

On average there are 30 - 40 kids in a class

Kids in Helen's class

But whilst they have very little in terms of material things everyone is so happy. I was horrified to learn that there are no more than 30 English text books to go around approximately 300 kids – is it surprising that Gambians are poorly educated ? And as for exams, there are no test papers, so the teachers have to write the questions on the blackboard and when the kids have finished one set of questions, the board is wiped clean, then the next 20 or so questions are written up – so very time consuming when the kids only have 5 hours a day at school !

“What resources would you buy for the school Mr. Beyai if you were given £1000.00?” I ask, “I really would like to have a library for the school, we have very few books. It’s important that the children are able to read but how can they with these ?” He shows me some of the books that some kind person has donated love stories, horror stories and car manuals not that he isn’t grateful because the teachers read the books not suitable for the children.

My 'minder' for my stay is Mr. Omar Beyai, his specialist subject is math's, although it's worth noting that all the teachers in the school have to teach all subjects, when I say all subjects, they are in the main Math's, English, Social Sciences, music / drama and games.

After many introductions to teachers, deputy heads and the headmistress the day starts but little did I know there would be no lessons today.

The importance of fair elections is explained and the marble tube displayed

Today is school election day. A new Head Girl, Head Boy and their respective deputies have to be elected and it's all very official. The IEC (Independent Election Committee), this is the committee responsible for Presidential elections and the like, arrive at the school to carry out the elections. Every child in the school has the chance to vote. Classrooms are used as polling stations and already some 1000 kids are lining up to vote in the heat of the day. The ballot boxes which have the photos of each candidate on them, are shown to the kids by the IEC then a small amount of sand is placed on the bottom of each ballot box. Why ? Well there are no ballot papers, marbles are used. To vote, each child has his finger dipped in ink, this is checked at each polling station. There is a tube going into the ballot box and this has a bell attached to it. When the voting marble is placed in the tube the bell will ring and the official knows that the vote has been cast properly. The voting process takes all day.

The successful candidates elected

Then the votes are counted and the candidates notified of the results. As an outsider it is so frustrating to see all the kids standing around, some up to 4 hours, doing nothing. Why on earth they didn't bring each class out one at a time to vote heaven only knows, but then I'm having to learn the Gambian way of life which in essence doesn't appear to have any sense of urgency or importance.

The following day, the whole school was called to a special assembly so the headmistress could announce the election results. Such excitement when the results were disclosed - the kids went wild, clapping, dancing and singing - you'd have thought they'd won the lottery ! Both Head Girl and Boy have to give a thank you speech to explain what they will do to make Bakoteh Proper School the best school in The Gambia.

The Dressdown Boys

It's 'dress down' day on a Friday but that doesn't deter the Headmistress from making an example of the kids who are late - they are disgraced in front of the whole school.

Having had a chat with her earlier I know she won't stand any nonsense from either pupils or teachers - when in school everyone has to work to the best of her ability and when it's time to play, then everyone plays hard.

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