Pros and Cons - Part 1

I thought I'd use this blog post to reflect a bit on the pros and cons of life in The Gambia. Throughout the past four months, I've been able to get a small overview of what life is like for a toubab (a white person) in the Kombos, and thought it a good idea to share these with you. For this entry, I'm focusing on the negatives. Next week I'll look at some of the positives...

The walking dollar sign - I have been to a few developing countries before, and it is fair to say that I have always encountered people wishing to make the best out of the situation of meeting a seemingly rich white person. That's normal, and I usually try my best to just grin and bear it. However, The Gambia is the first place I have felt this on a daily basis. It's not just the shopkeepers who see you as a potential source of income, or the beggars on the street. Unfortunately, it fast became the local children in my area, or people around my workplace. Having no respite and being constantly seen first as a "walking dollar sign" rather than a potential friend was draining, and at times a bit sad. That, together with the constant problem of bumsters, often made me feel wary of talking to people in the street (such a shame). Many other foreigners seemed to have different, more positive experiences though, particularly those who lived in the countryside.

The working culture - the biggest daily problem for me was that I really struggled to adapt to the working culture. It is fair to say that Gambia has a relaxed pace of life, and this often spreads to the work environment. Ominously, I was told by a supervisor that I should be expected to achieve very little during the first three months of my work. This, combined with a bureaucratic structure (and the accompanying myriad of reasons as to why things cannot be done), was extremely frustrating. My mood was not improved by some colleagues who were either too busy to work because of pressing Facebook-related issues, or who simply just needed to catch up on a bit of sleep. It was a real test of my patience at times!

Some observers, including little old me, feel that The Gambia has been over-saturated by foreign aid and foreign workers. This, in my humble opinion, has led to the development of an attitude of a "well, what's the point of doing this myself? Someone else will do it" type of thinking. Some of the meetings I observed were perhaps the best illustration of this. The majority of the Gambian participants would be very keen to share their opinions about what should or should not be done, but would sometimes be unwilling to give their time up to enact any of the decisions. Thus, some projects depended largely on the foreigners to drive them through. Needless to say, the development of sustainable projects was extremely difficult - once a key foreign worker decided to leave the country, a project would often falter and fail. This is obviously not how international development work should be carried out. 

Politics is a no go area - from day one, it was clear that local politics was something not to discuss. Due to this climate of self-censorship, Gambians have developed a keen interest in foreign politics. It seemed bizarre to an outsider that the majority of people I met had a strong opinion about global political issues (for example, the fall of Colonel Gaddafi), but very few were willing to question the way their own country was being run. Ultimately, I felt both sad and frustrated about this. Sad that many Gambians seemingly felt scared to talk about local politics, and frustrated that I could not really get deeper into a topic that I'm fascinated about.


Phew! I've got that all out of my system now! Ok, the next blog post will be much more positive. I hope you're all well, lots of love,


Robert