Week 2!!

Monday started with lots of planning for the next week ahead. Timetables, plans of action and workshops.  By now we knew that most of our plans will be changed and adjusted as we go – it is hard to plan your ‘program’ in The Gambia.

On Monday evening we held a meeting with workers who volunteered to help us with construction of the tyre structure for the playground. Out of 5 people who agreed to come only 2 came to the meeting, but despite that we had other people joining us which resulted in 5-7 people on site each day - Aliou, Freedy (Mussa Corr), Ebou Jawara, Kebba Senghore, Modu Corr, Faye Modu, MJ.

We asked everyone to help us with the construction plans and ideas, as we believe local community knows their weather conditions best. After  few minutes of conversation we were able to come up with the construction plan and even get more ideas for different structures and play spaces, sketching, conversations about materials, but mainly respect for each other and each other’s ideas.

Vicky and I didn’t come to Mbollet ba to proceed with our own vision and idea, rather to work together with local community on ideas and final outcome.  I was surprised how much more we were able to achieve just by listening and communicating with people.

Construction took 3 half days of work (8am till 1pm), and ended in trying out of 2 different ideas using tyres, on two sides of concrete tunnel. Right now what is left is cleaning and painting the tyres (as requested by the community). Our team volunteers from the village  took the initiative starting from planning all the way through design and  construction. I believe we wouldn’t be able to proceed with works so quickly if the final idea was based on the sole vision of 2 individuals coming from abroad. In fact this week made us even more aware of the work we need to do and the ways of doing it better – by working with community.

Over the weekend we visited Albreda-Juffureh Tourist Information Centre and managed to have long and honest conversation with Nuria Sanchez (one of the architects working on the project) about participatory design and community involvement in the building process, not only in Albreada but in different places In Africa. We knew that there are lots of projects which don’t consider communities needs and issues. This conversation helped us to asses our current work even more and come up with more ideas for the feature. Thank you Nuria for the great conversation and your time!

In the afternoons we organised several workshops with the children. On Tuesday we were making spoon puppets and played with them in a house made out of fabric. We realised that kids like the process of making, puppets got designed, named and later we held a ‘dance party’.
Another trial that day was a ‘den making’ which at the end turned out into something very different than we expected. Our den fabric was used to hide under, making tents, running under and on top of it, or playing a dragon. 

The same scenario was used on Wednesday when we added big mango baskets and cardboard boxes to the whole mix. There was hiding in the baskets – in side and under, imaginary car rides using boxes, woven tunnel with colourful plastic paper to look through, den making. Workshops were scheduled for around 45min, but in the end it lasted 1.5 hours. We also had conversations with the kids after every workshop, asking what they liked, what they didn’t and what else they would like to have in their own play space.

In the society where kids are expected to work and help with household duties from a very young age we discovered that given the opportunity every child can PLAY, IMAGINE, DRAW and they are more than capable to feed into the  design of their own play spaces.

Next week we will run more workshops involving older children as well  -  to help us design the play space. And over the weekend we will held the exhibition where we will show everything we did to the community so that they can decide what they like or not, what are their worries and finally help us design the space. TEAM WORK! But that’s for next week... 

Aga and I arrived fresh from England on Monday afternoon. It seemed amazing and ridiculous that a 6.5 hour flight can transport you so easily and yet so far; as we flew over the dry desert dotted with glinting remote villages and roads carved out between them, it all seemed so different and far away – and not just physically! At the airport everything felt new but still familiar, like putting on an old pair of gloves after a while. And then we were met at the airport by our friend Appapa, and it was like as if we had never left! Arriving in the village was amazing - we had lovely welcomes from all the friends, families and children and many stories to swap.

Since then we have been quite busy, but feel like there's lots more to do!!

o      We ran an initial workshop with a group of about 8 children of various ages to develop ideas. We started with the children taking photos of the playground and the things they liked. 

We then went on to explore making spaces to play. 

• We found out the following things:The suggestion of making a ‘house’ was taken very literally; after using some materials to make a ‘room’ by the tunnel, the children fetched water from the well and made a model house with sand and water. The children enjoyed playing with the sand and water – all ages. Include a space for doing this sort of play (a hard surface, near a tap – where is the tap going to be? Is this a good idea when water is a problem in the village?)

o   This led us on to think about what materials we can try out to facilitate  younger children to make dens. We have seen that chidlen find materials around the site and take these to add to the tunnels. These materials are large, heavy and sometimes unsafe materials (due to sharpness) such as pieces of corrugate, half a metal bin, a large woven panel made of palm leaves, bits of wood…

We have started to think about other materials which would be safe and durable and suitable for younger children such as:

§  palm leaves

§  woven baskets

§  Pieces of light wood cut small?

§  Fabric – need to get something cheap

§  String/wool and pegs

§  Coloured cellophane (E really enjoyed trying on my glasses – looking through different materials could be interesting)

·      We have made a model to help us work with everyone to design the prototype hill and tunnel

o   The model has helped people like Kodou to understand what we plan to do; she said ”Ah.. now I see what you are planning – there is a place in a school for the deaf (St John’s) where you can see the water going underneath.”  This started us to think about how we can find ways for the water in the rainy season to flow around the structure/shape, rather than trying to make the structure strong and secure enough against the flow of water

·      We have had some informal chats with village members (Abdou, Koudou, Alagie Faye, Sidifor, Ebou Jobe) about the process of including them in the process of planning the playground and had very positive feedback. We have also shown some images to villagers (Sidifor, Maget, Abdou) and got the following feedback.

·      Materials to be strong enough to withstand the harsh climate and the way children use them

·      Secure so they cannot be stolen/taken

·      How to make sure that the youngest children can benefit from the playground as out of school hours older children like to use the site.

·      A fence around it?
Make other spaces/spots for older children to play around the village?

·      They seem to like swings and slides, as well as structures made from tyres.

           We have sorted the tyres for the prototype of the tunnel. An assortment of small, medium and larger truck tyres were delivered free to the school on Saturday 15^th April (with help from the Gambian Army!)

·      We held a meeting with the Al-Kallow, the school committee and the villagers. Issues that came up included: 

o   Fairness: in selecting the volunteers and making sure that all tribes are represented (important especially when it comes to recruitment in December). Also in relation to children doing workshops – keep a list of who does and doesn't do the workshops so the ones who don't do it can do something next time. 

o   Issues with the previous project and that because the villagers were not consulted the project cost more than it needed to, as well as people in the village feeling quite annoyed 

o   Skill-sharing – people who worked on the project before can share their skills with other people so that the village has greater skill base

o   Issues over whether to do the health centre or teacher’s accommodation as the next project. This led to a big discussion about the priorities for the village being water and health 

We have selected volunteers to work on the project – welcome to Sheriff M Nying, Baboucar Senghore, Musa Chorr, Ebou Joof and Ebou Jawara. There are lots of other people in the village who are keen to help us too, with bits and pieces such as finding cardboard boxes and woven baskets!

We also visited St John’s School for the Deaf with Maget on Saturday to see if we could find the tyre construction – but we didn’t. What we did find was an amazing outside space with lots of plants which felt like an oasis from the busy dusty main road outside. Maget took some lemon grass home to plant up, with the idea that it can be eventually used around the nursery school.  Maget was inspired to use hardy plants around the nursery and playground; not only can they add colour, texture and smell, they can help with the dustiness!

As Li Cham’s metal workshop was nearby we surprised him with a visit and got a promise from him that he weill come and sort out the issues with the roof on the nursery next week  - fingers crossed!!

On Sunday we went on a roadtrip with Colonel Hinna Sambou of the Gambian Army (he is the brother of our friend Appapa). We visited his plots of land where is planning orange orchards and got loads of inspiration for plants, fences and construction materials!!

We have a plan for more workshops, material collection for trials and building the prortotype tunnel for the week coming – so it’s going  to busy!!