Two months have passed, one month still to go. This blog post is written on the shore of the River Gambia, in Kuntaur. Bird sounds resonate from all directions. We often see the most wonderfully coloured birds fly over the river, above the passing fishermen on their small wooden boats. Yesterday, we even saw a whole herd of cows crossing the river!
At the River Gambia in Kuntaur, the sky is clear, despite the occasional cloud, and the water peacefully rises and descends with the tides. When the sun begins to go down around 18:30, the typical African sunset starts: the whole environment slowely gets transformed by a warm and orange glow. Every evening, we watch the sky change from yellow to orange, red and sometimes even blue and purple, while sitting on a surprisingly cosy white plastic chair. The whole of The Gambia comes to a rest, the hard work of the Gambians comes to an end: everyone leaves the field to prepare food or to simply enjoy being together. Because, from what we have seen so far, that is what makes the Smiling Coast of Africa so special: everyone is together while having fun and taking care of each other.
The Gambians seem to always enjoy the present moment and like to talk about what happened, however, ‘the future’ is rarely the subject of conversation. If it is talked about, then it mainly exists of big dreams and plans. So big that it is often almost impossible to achieve it from their current (individual) position.
Since the last blog post, we have travelled back and forth between Kuntaur and Janjanbureh. We have sat around the table with the two commerce teachers and the head of technical department, of Armitage. Together, we made plans for the week to come concerning the school’s idea of designing a business plan for a school shop and making the commerce lessons more practical. Within those two desires of Armitage, we also included our own wish: creating more awareness of entrepreneurship among the youth in the region.
These three desires are combined in a workshop during which students of the different streams (arts, science, technical and commerce) work together in groups and create a business plan for the school shop. To write their business plan, they are taught about the basics of entrepreneurship. The content of the workshop is created in cooperation with the commerce teachers and us: their knowledge is combined with our ideas and knowledge on how to make the lessons more interactive.
Before the holiday started we already met the twenty students and gave an introduction to the workshop. The school shop will be located in Janjanbureh, therefore we made them analyse the market and visit some local entrepreneurs. It was a fun and interactive day, all the students participated very well! This workshop will be continued the coming two weeks!
At the same time, we are still finding out how the best incubator program for the youth in the Central River Region can be created. Because it concerns the young people, we also want to give them a voice. We will be going ‘in the field’ with a list of questions, in order to get a better overview of the youth’s perspective of their current needs and future wishes. The question will be about their school background, their family and how they see their future.
As can be read, we have been very busy. Luckily we have had two weeks of holiday! The mother of Fien travelled to The Gambia, and the four of us spent one wonderful week in Senegal, with as icing on the cake our first hot shower since two months! We visited Natural Park Niokolo Koba where we were amazed by the ever-changing nature and its colourful birds. After the park, we travelled to the salt flats, the Sine-Saloum, where we visited the mangroves on a traditional pirogue (West-African boat) and where we followed a hyena on top of a horse cart.
Marnix stayed in Dakar to celebrate Christmas with old friends of his, while the rest travelled back to The Gambia where we had a diner at Christmas Eve in Kairoh Garden (Tanji) with delicious food and lovely company. New Year’s Eve was celebrated at the beach between all the the other cheery Gambians. Some fireworks were fired and there was music everywhere! Happy 2020 everyone!
Our last few days were very relaxed, as we took our time to enjoy the beach and to go drink a beer in our favourite restaurant/bar called Tulkuya signs, where we are served by very sweet and helpful deaf young ladies.
Time flies when you are having fun! There is not a lot of time left to finish our project and to say goodbye to all the wonderful Gambian people we have met so far.
We are looking forward to completing our research here and to seeing you in 3 weeks!
