A New Roommate

I would like to introduce my new roommate and friend, Harold. Certainly better company than Jordan!

Wack Tack

Today we had our first session at The West African Community Development Training Centre (WACD-TC), or Wack Tack to save yourself some time. There are about 20 participants involved, Gambians and some Canadian kids.

The training centre used to be called the West African Rural Development (WARD) Training Centre and was housed at the Gambian Technical Training Institute(GTTI). Lots of acronyms. The project was originally funded by CIDA and is now self sustaining. They offer four different courses, or modules. The module we are in is called Human Relations and Development.



Although I'm sure we will benefit from the course material itself, I think the real lesson will come from sharing ideas with our classmates. Even after one day I have noticed how different my ideas are from my group members. Its a great opportunity to learn and meet new people.

2 weeks of work: Banjul, Bulok and Beyond

So we have been in Gambia for more than two weeks now and we are starting to get a feel of how things work around here. The pace of life and work is much more relaxed than back home. At the ministry of agriculture, the first couple hours of the day are very slow with plenty of socializing. It seems people are more concerned about each other than getting a quick start to the day. There is a lot of waiting around which takes some getting used to.

The first two weeks of work have been orientation. We have been all over the country on the North and South banks. The ministry of agriculture has a lot of interesting projects on the go, almost all to do with water management. 

A lot of the problems we have seen are due to less rain fall each year. Some rice farmers need embankments to retain water in their fields because there ins't enough anymore. Less rainfall also means that salt water creeps further and further up the River Gambia. Salt and farming dont mix well so many fields can no longer be farmed. So there are projects to keep the salt out before this happens as well as projects to relcaim land that has become salinated.

Erosion is another problem. We have seen roads that have become river beds, eroded around 1 metre down from their original levels. Dykes are used to divert water away from villages and into the river valleys.

So far we have just been given the tour around different project sites. Now we have 2 weeks of class. So I'm hoping the real work starts after that.

I caved

Alright so I can't take Jordan's constant pestering. I caved in and made a blog. I assure you it will be superior to his in every way.