Like the UK, The Gambia went into lockdown in March, and all schools were closed - but they have yet to open again.
The pandemic seems to have hit the country less badly than most others. Until about a month ago there had only been two recorded deaths, nation-wide and the infection rate seemed to be low.
The government publishes a simple daily summary of the situation with regard to COVID, like today's - below. It is easy to see what is happening, at-a-glance, and we have heard no suggestion from anybody that the government is lying, or making claims and promises it can't keep.
A little over a month ago, there was a sudden surge of deaths and the total number shot up rather rapidly, from two to the seventies. The government responded by extending the lockdown and introducing a dusk til dawn curfew. The death rate began to drop quite dramatically and there have only been two deaths in the last week.
Which is great news! Because the medical infrastructure in the country is fragile and it could not cope with a large infection rate.
To put the total Gambian death figure into context, we live in a London borough with one sixth the population of the whole of The Gambia, but we have experienced over three times the total number of deaths - suggesting that things in London have been 18 times worse than The Gambian's situation.
Which brings us back to The Gambian schools. They should be on the point of re-opening, but they will not be doing so. The government is working on a number of options - one is to open schools six days a week, for extended days, with all pupils attending on alternate days. There are a number of problems, of course - not the least the impact this would have on the teachers.
Gambian TV and radio have been used as teaching substitutes over the last six months, but few families - particularly in Sohm have TVs. And, obviously it would be counter-productive if people without TVs crammed into the houses of people with them. The education situation is far from ideal.
When we visited the country, pre-lock-down, in January we took a gift from the wonderfully supportive Redbridge Rotary Club. A fellow Rotarian, from Australia, had developed/invented a simple device called a Spa-Tap, as an aid to personal hygiene. Redbridge Rotary purchased a number of these and we took 30 to The Gambia with us.
it's a simple tough plastic valve that can be attached to a 2-litre water bottle, filled with tap water. Easily-applied pressure opens and closes the valve to allow water to flow, which can be used for hand washing and even showers.
We took them to two schools, so that the bottles could be filled from stand-pumps and students, on a "monitor" basis, could take them to the toilets - where there is no running water, to enable users to wash their hands after visting the facility.
Little did we know that hand-washing would attract so much attention and exhaltation just a month later, when COVID first entered our conciousness.
We hope the Redbrige-Rotary funded 30 taps have done their bit to keep COVID at bay in Sohm!
