I have experienced many moments of excitement, frustration, disappointment, commitment review. I knew that the service would be challenging but in other ways. Sometimes I get overwhelmed seeing problems everywhere around me. We can put our best in trying to teach, assist, and provide funds to fix the problems, but those fixes would be short lived and we could never see the expected results. It is easy to get caught up in “knowing” what community needs and dump ideas on them. We are acting as a parent who knows better what is best for his/her helpless child. Why would we know better than they do? The interest and request has to come from the community for the project/work to be successful and sustainable. People have to want to change, but it looks to me that most Gambians are scared of unknown, do not know what to do, or are locked in molded behaviors.
In my opinion, what Gambians need is to feel empowered, feel responsible for their lives, for their future and their children future, and for their country’s future. How far can you go with stretched hand out asking for donation? How can you build your life constantly waiting for someone to assist you? How would you know what to do if all your life you spend waiting for donors and others to give you something? How much patience do you have to keep waiting all your life? This blows my mind. I try to be empathetic and understand where they come from but I get stuck half way and never make it to the end. I was brought up to be self sufficient and independent. Especially my mom taught me to be educated, be responsible for my life and do not depend on anyone. Therefore, I get impatient by strangers and acquaintances asking me for money, shoes, bread, and ticket to America. Organizations, groups, villages wait for outside donors to come it to build a pump, bring stuff, build school and many other things. Do not get me wrong, I do not blame people for their behavior, because they have not seen it differently and do not know any other way and how to change, especially in rural areas. They have not seen how they can make things work, where to start and how to do them to succeed. There are few or non examples they can follow or look up to. That’s why people do not need stuff – they need education and empowerment that they can do things on their own, that they can save and build a pump themselves. All they need is the way to show them how. Well, maybe a small monetary support at the beginning and lots of education and sensitization. I have never encounter this word before – sensitization – but here it became a part of daily vocabulary. However, the behavior is difficult to change. There is a lot of resistance to change, especially among older people, but there are many young people who are educated and want to take the future of their country in their hands.
The situation is very complex and there is not one solution to it. Not only leaned behavior, but also culture, traditions, historical events, that spins this wheel. Nonetheless, many Gambians, foreign donors, NGOs, community based organizations are trying to put their “cent in” which, I believe, at the end of the game would result in “millions of cash”. I think it is possible, but again, it does not happen overnight. Paolo Lugari in Peter Weisman’s book “Gaviotas” states that as long as “you succeed fifty one percent we will be fine”.
