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The new VSOs have arrived in The Gambia all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Showing them around and giving them the low down on life in The Gambia has made me realise how much I've learnt over the last 6 months and how much my life has changed. Who would have thought that my name would now be Fatoumata Ceesay and I would be practically living with my Jola boyfriend Abdou Gibba?!
So much has happened since I last spoke to you I hardly know where to start. For one thing I have moved house. I now live in a 3 bedroom house in Pipeline. My neighbour is a Rasta called Lamin and we have a hammock, 2 huge mango trees, a grapefruit tree and banana trees in our compound plus loads of chickens and a cat called Bakau 25. Abdou and Lamin have become the best of friends and can mainly be found sitting outside drinking tea and saying 'Yo man, blessed love' to each other repeatedly. We live in the same compound as Aloysius, a VSO volunteer from Uganda, and we all share a food bowl together every evening so now I feel much more settled and like I have a Gambian family.
Do you know why I moved? In early February I went to the Kartong Festival with my friends for the weekend. I took my tent and camped for two nights at Boboi Lodge while my friends stayed in round huts. We chilled on the beautiful beach which was deserted apart from a few tourists and some cows. We bought fish from the market, barbecued it on the beach and shared it Gambian style. When everyone had had their fill of fish we headed to the festival in the grounds of a local school and watched the entertainment provided by cultural groups who danced, sang and played music.
We arrived home tired on Sunday afternoon. My heart sank as Abdou asked "Who's in your house? The door is open?" and sure enough I had been burgled. The front door had been wrenched open and my laptop was gone along with my external hard drive, MP3 player and mini-speaker. They had rummaged through my cupboards and drawers but they must have been looking for cash as my things were messed up but it seemed as though nothing else was stolen.
At Kanifing Police Station I wasn't surprised to be met with a load of blank faces again when I asked for help. At least this time I was with Gambian friends who backed me up. The police wrote down the details of the crime in their report book. The official police photographer took photos of the crime scene and then asked me for D150 to pay for it! I gave a statement, my second in as many weeks, and begged the police to try their best to find my stuff telling them that I need my laptop in order to do my voluntary work. They told me they'd do their best and would be in touch.
Back at home I felt so angry I wanted to cry. I remembered that I had shouted to some of my neighbours that I was going away for the weekend so I was sure that it was someone who knew of me that had done this. I asked Abdou to go to the shop to buy milk so we could have a cup of tea as I had to wait in for carpenter to fix the door. "I bought a new can of milk the other day that we've not opened yet" he said but as I opened the fridge and looked inside I realised they'd stolen my milk too.
At night the power went off so we sat in the dark in silence stewing over what had happened. I went to bed but couldn't sleep because I was still fuming. I stared at the ceiling thinking about all the work on my computer, my music and especially my photos that I had lost. As the clock struck midnight Abdou quietly started singing, 'Happy Birthday to Nicola, Happy Birthday to Nicola…' in an attempt to cheer me up.
At 12:30am there was a definite banging on my front gate and some shouting. I jumped out of my skin and ran to the door. It was my neighbour Domingo.
"Nic open up. It's Domingo. I've seen your stuff!"
I opened the front gate and 5 boys walked straight into my house. Domingo pointed at a dirty young man stood in my front room and said "This is the boy who stole your stuff." He then pulled my laptop, speaker cable, MP3 player and external hard-drive out of a bag and put them on the chair in front of me. I leant against the doorframe looking at them all in disbelief. Domingo explained that he had been going round the estate all evening trying to find out what had happened. Around 11pm he had found the boys trying to figure out the password to a computer which he recognised as mine straight away. He told them he knew it belonged to me and demanded that they all come to my house to return my stuff so, quite unbelievably, they did.
One guy told me, "Look we could easily have sold this computer. The only reason I am bringing it back to you is because you are a friend of Domingo and he is one of my boys. We know you need this computer for your voluntary work so we're giving it back to you. We are asking for your forgiveness and it would be nice if you could show us a little gratitude too, you understand? What's your name?"
"Nicola" I muttered
"Nice to meet you Nicola" he said. "I'm Quazi."
"Crazy?"
"No Quazi. It's nice to meet you. Perhaps sometime I can come round and we can hang out?"
"Hmmmm…No. Definitely not." Be mates with my burglars? He is crazy.
Quazi then gave me my options. He said "The police won't call you so if you don't call them then the whole matter will be forgotten otherwise this boy will go to prison for 6 months and he's our friend so we don't want that to happen." Everyone stared at me in anticipation but I couldn't speak because I was so angry.
'Promise me you won't go to the police.' he said.
'I promise.' I replied. Obviously I didn't think I would be tied to any promise made under duress in the early hours of the morning to my burglars.
'You promise? You've got all your stuff back.'
'You've not given me back my mini-speaker or my headphones.' or my milk.
Domingo asked the boys where these were and one of them pointed at my Bose speakers and said 'You've got those speakers.' Like I should be pleased they left me with one set. Domingo and Abdou agreed to speak about the matter the next day and the boys left.
The next day I went to VSO for a placement review workshop. My friends had already heard on the grapevine that I'd been burgled and so Natalie and Helen had arranged for a lovely big birthday cake to be delivered to me to cheer me up. At lunchtime the police called me to say that they had caught the thief and I had to go down to the police station.
Since then I have had the boy's step-mum, step-brother, friends, sister and mum's cousin coming round my house at different times to beg forgiveness for the boy. They say he has evil inside him which makes him do these things and that as I have got my stuff back I should just forgive him. This is a common opinion amongst my colleagues as well who say I should just forget about it. I say he's a thief and should be punished by the law. They say that's not how we do things in Gambia. The whole fiasco has been stressful and in the end VSO decided to move me so that I'm safer.
I should mention that in between trips to the police station, moving house and several bouts of illness I have still managed to do some work and we are making slow progress with the National Volunteer Teacher Programme. We held an event in February at the University of The Gambia to encourage the students to volunteer. Over 100 people came to listen. One student told the audience how he had grown up in a very rural area where there was a lack of teachers and this had left him at a great disadvantage but in senior school he was helped by Gambian volunteer teachers and as a result he managed to get into university. He said he would be happy to volunteer for one year in order to help others as he has been helped. His story warmed my cockles.
I went upcountry again for a week to visit the Gambian volunteers in the senior secondary schools to see how their placements are going and was pleased to find out that most of them are doing really well and have become valued members of their community. But boy is it getting hot up country! I don't know how anyone manages to get any work done- it's 41 degrees now and rising. I thought I was going to shrivel up and die in the midday sun as we waited 2.5 hours for the broken down ferry to be fixed and take us back across the River Gambia.
Now I'm back in the office writing a newspaper advertisement and preparing for our upcoming radio shows to promote volunteering. I'm just back from breakfast where my colleagues have been trying to convince me to marry a man in The Gambia so I can stay here for good. (Please don't mention this idea to Abdou if you speak to him!) It's taken 6 months but I finally feel settled at work and at home, it's just a shame I've only got 6 months left.
- comments
chris canham Wow it sounds like you really have settled in now! I don't know how you sound so cheerful after all of this. Is this what they call "embedded into the culture"? I'm so happy you are finally enjoying it. Missing you. Chris x
Mum Wow! I really enjoy reading what you ahve been up too. You real need to write a book it would be a best seller. On another note you don't get married unless dad and I are there to see it and dad gives you away xxx
mum I wanted to rate it 5 but got it wrone sorry xx
Jo R Just catching up on this and the previous blog; it is highly addictive reading which would indeed make a bestseller, and it's even better because our very own Nicola is the heroine. I'm sorry there has been so much burglary woven into the tale, and totally understand your anger - feel angry myself reading about the attitude towards the non-return of your speakers! - yet you seem to be handling the rough with the smooth really stoically. So glad to hear about all the cool, exciting stuff and work-related success too, plus romance of course. :-) So glad you're collecting really good people around you, only natural they want to bask in the presence of you. Love you babe, will look forward to the next instalment. XX
Barbara and Neil Nicola,or should I say Fatoumata, what wonderful and dreadful news all in the same blog. Personal life sounds great and you're remarkably cheerful about the rest. Makes our somewhat pampered life in Tanzania seem rather tame. Good idea about the book! Definitely a prize for the most unlikely VSO outcome of our group... Barbara and Neil.