School

Berni fans (hello mum) may recall that back in September I achieved gainful employment as a visiting lecturer at the University of The Gambia. I had some trouble remembering this myself, after a rather pleasant six week Christmas break.  But there I was, back lecturing  for just ten days, when  school closed again.  This time the reason was a week with  two public holidays in it. (Public holidays here entail a day off before to travel home and a day after to travel back, so two in a week and the whole week is a complete write-off). 

Rather bad planning, I hear you say, to start a new term a week before there is another week’s holiday. But you would be wrong. Not bad planning. No planning. 

Holidays here tend to be announced the day before.  Sometimes this is understandable, because some Muslim holidays depend on the sighting of the moon, and so the date cannot be anticipated. However this holiday was the Prophet’s Birthday, which, one might think, fell on the same date each year.  After days of speculation we had not come any closer to discovering whether it would be the Tuesday or the Wednesday (speculation by me and my western colleagues I might add – Gambian colleagues were happy to wait and hear and were bemused by my demands for a firm date).  On Monday afternoon we had still not heard so called the administrator for an answer. He in turn called the Chancellor of the University. He confirmed that the University would have a holiday if it was a public holiday, for which we would have to watch the 10pm news that night.

Now all this was all of critical importance to me. Monday was Valentine’s night and someone was having a party. At 9pm I was in someone’s flat and my near future involved either staying at the party and making merry, or going home to prepare my morning lecture. In the end there was no announcement on the news, but lectures were cancelled anyway due to the confusion.  This is how things are organised here. Leaving things to the last, last minute is the norm. (I suspect that there are those amongst you who might suggest that waiting till 9pm the night before to prepare a lecture is also leaving things to the last minute.  Those people can keep their thoughts to themselves, thank you.)

What else to tell you about the University? It is by turn weird, cool, frustrating, challenging, amazing and moving. But mostly weird. Here, for your general amusement, are some of the more bizarre episodes.

This one from my friend Danny’s blog:

During the first week of classes we wanted to get email addresses for the students. One

student gave me her address as annaomendy@yahoo.com. Hers was among many, many,

many to bounce back. I called Anna (and the others) to my office. I asked if that was

her address. She corrected me – there was a full stop, annao.mendy@yahoo.com. Great,

problem solved, I must have misread her handwriting. I send out the next email round.

Anna O. Mendy bounces back again. A couple of days later (and now three weeks from

our initial attempt), I called Anna, walking through the halls, into my office.

“Anna,” I said. “Your email address still isn’t working. Is it annao.mendy@yahoo.com?” "Yes"

“Well it isn’t working, it’s bouncing back. Are you sure that’s it?” “Yes”

“…Do you have an email address?” “No”.

Well, that’s good. The next day, with a little help from her trusty Canadian contracts lecturer,

Anna O. Mendy had her very own email address, and would no longer have to make it up,

apparently in the hope that she would magically stumble across the syllabus in a pretend inbox, if

the pretend inbox had her name on it.

My favourite exam quote, and apologies for those who have heard this before, was about the Victorian legal philosopher AV Dicey.  ‘AV Dicey invented the rule of law in 1066 but it was later adapted by Aristotle’.  Nice teaching there, Berni.

And finally, another little tale to give you a flavour of life in The Gambia. Last Saturday Pete and I were feeling a little, er, delicate, after enjoying our Friday night a little too much.  In our weakened state we phoned for take-away from our local restaurant. Fatou assured me that she would send the same person who had delivered to our house before and so knew where we lived. (A crucial piece of information for this story is that streets here do not have names, and houses do not have names or numbers, so describing where you live is tricky. Especially if it’s ‘by the mosque’. I have *literally* no idea now Gambians find each others’ houses). 

Two hours later and no food. A rather tetchy Berni (and if you’ve ever suffered a hangover in a tropical climate, you will know it is no joke), called Fatou, who assured me that ‘he has just got in a taxi’.  Half an hour later a phone call.  ‘I am outside the Methodist church’.

 ‘Where is the Methodist church?’

 ‘I don’t know’

 ‘Do you know where I live?’

 ‘No’

‘Didn’t you come here before?’

 ‘No, this is Fatou’s son, I have never been to your house’.

 ‘Did Fatou tell you where I live?’

 ‘No’.

This kid had got in a taxi without knowing where he was getting out.  In my view this took not-planning- ahead to a whole new level. But if nothing else, your average Gambian is endlessly optimistic.