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| Posters proclaiming views of the new Gambian government |
This is the first of a series of newsletters we'll be
sending over the next few months on our visit to Sohm in January/February this
year.
We had useful meetings at the Lower Basic and Senior
schools, met with and continued to fund our sponsored students and conferred with the
regional director of education and some of his staff, in order to advance some
of the projects we have been involved with and are looking at funding. We also caught up, and cemented our relationship, with FirstAid4Gambia, which has done so much to support our health work in the Lower Basic school.
We will report on each of these in more detail, with photos of progress, over the coming
months.
All of this activity, of course, takes place within the new
political climate and circumstances that The Gambia finds itself now.
A year ago today - Independence Day - the new president, Adama Barrow took office,
after almost a quarter of a century's misrule and plundering of the country by
the former dictator Yahya Jammeh, now in protected exile in near-by
Equatorial Guinea.
The country seems more at ease with itself and efforts are
being made to retrieve the money Jammeh stole from the country and put on trial
some of his corrupt henchmen. This
process will, doubtless, take years to fully bear fruit.
One very visible difference over the last year is that roads
are no longer adorned with billboards of endless photos of Jammeh, with his
preposterous vainglorious boasting, like the one laughable one, below. Photos
of Barrow, by contrast, are rarely to be seen, outside of news reports.
No more vainglorious Jammeh
with his preposterous claims
Instead, far more progressive and enlightened ones, of a
"public service" nature are to be found - such as that at the top of
this article and others encouraging people to pay their taxes (!) and extolling
public health and safety messages, such as those - below - calling for an end
to female genital mutilation.
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| Billboards extolling progressive ambitions, in the new Gambia |
Posters, of course, can be empty gestures and propaganda
tools. The difference in tone and
message between the old and the new, however, seems very real - and to be
greatly applauded. Another progressive move was announced by the new
government, today - the end of Capital Punishment in The Gambia.
One of Jammeh's legacies was the encouragement of Chinese
investment into the country. Some of this is apparently benign, like funding
infrastructure projects, such as roads and bridges.
Cynics may draw parallels with
similar "Chinese aid" elsewhere in Africa, where these constructions are mainly channels to
help the Chinese transport minerals out of the country, in fulfilling their 21st century economic imperialist ambitions.
The Chinese intervention is being felt widely in the country
now - and opinions (now open and freely expressed) among Gambians are very much
divided on how beneficial the impact will be for The Gambia in the longer term, compared to that accruing to
China.
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| Nice, new embassy for the Chinese, in the former Bijilo Hotel |
The Chinese, meanwhile have installed themselves in the
former Bijilo hotel - as their new embassy and are getting to work on other
projects.
Among them, shamefully, is the
destruction of a near-by former monkey park reservation, which has been
bulldozed down to erect an 800-seater conference centre. And, as is the case
elsewhere in Africa, much of the labour being used to construct it is not
local, unemployed, Gambian workers, but staff brought in from China.
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| Monkey Park destroyed, to make way for swish conference centre - progress, Chinese style |
A beach at Sanyang, meanwhile, is being dug up by the Chinese, because as
local rumour has it, traces of interesting minerals (gossip says either oil or
cobalt) have been found there. Watch
this space!
Future, monthly, newsletters will update you with progress
over a number of areas we were able to advance in Sohm. Among them will be:
- Update on student sponsorship activities
- This year's investments in the schools
- School twinning arranged with a Luton primary
- Difficulties at the senior school
- Report on progress with major works at the Lower Basic
- Sohm 2020
