Gambian Television
5 May 10
Sam Glover Blog
The Gambia has only one television channel: GRTS. It’s owned, controlled and run with great efficiency by the government. There was another channel a few years ago, but it was deemed to be showing incorrect material.
Programs tend to be of an informative, public-interest nature - generally centring on the fine work of His Excellency the President Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Jammeh Grand Master of the National Order of the Republic of The Gambia. There are also regular televised concerts in which names of national mobile-phone operators are sung to traditional Kora music.
And let’s not forget the evocatively named ‘Cash Chamber’ – a noisy game-show that sees participants locked in a glass box with a large quantity of small denomination Dalasis notes and a powerful fan. The idea is to grab as much floating money as possible in two minutes. In exchange for their dignity, participants can win upwards of £50.
The public’s hunger for modern drama is addressed by a range of Brazilian soap operas. These are dubbed into pigeon English by a small team of American comedians. Of the three currently on air, Shades of Sin is by far the most popular. It’s as subtle and racially-loaded as the title suggest.
Due to the absence of anything else to watch, SoS has become an intrinsic part of Gambian culture. Its catchphrases are widely repeated, and the finer points of its subplots form the basis of many a bush-taxi conversation. I’m regularly addressed as ‘Tony’ – the program’s principal baddie – on account of our mutual tallness and pastiness of complexion. I don’t mind this at all, as I quite like him. He has Keanu Reeves’ eyebrows. Less ideally, I sometimes find myself answerable to a nickname coined by Tony’s adversaries. Happily, what’s probably a mortal insult in native Brazilian translates as ‘ugly giraffe’. I’ve been called far worse things.
I’ve become addicted to SoS to the point of getting grumpy and irritable on the evenings that it isn’t on. Of course, repatriation to the UK will mean going cold-turkey. Withdrawal will be hard. Hopefully immersion in all the British things that I’m currently missing will help to pull me though. I have a worrying vision of myself humming the SoS theme music and shivering violently while feasting on London Pride, bacon and The Archers in a hot bath.
The Phenomenon of Gambian Timekeeping
3 May 10
Sam Glover Blog
Gambian timekeeping is unique and unfathomable. Although in theory Gambian time is identical to GMT (give-or-take an hour during summer), in practice it lags behind British time by an unpredictable and infinitely variable margin.
There is no clear formula that converts GMT to Gambian time – merely a sort of telepathic intuition that Gambians possess and foreign nationals do not.
To myself and jole rider’s education director, Saidu Gbla – who originates from Sierra Leone – the phenomenon is a constant source of wonder, bewilderment and frustration.
Here follows an example of Gambian time in action:
I recently attended a concert by Lamin Jobarteh – a kora musician who’s widely accepted as The Gambia’s biggest musical celebrity. The gig was advertised as starting at 7:00 on a Sunday evening.
Preempting a degree of Gambian time dilation, I arrived an hour late. I was the first person there. The only thing that suggested the primary school venue was about to host a concert was a motley regiment of chairs.
The PA system arrived at 8:30. It came on a public bus, which rattled into the centre of the schoolyard and waited patiently while a handful of passengers helped to lower the massive speakers from its roof. This done, the passengers re-embarked and it continued along its route.
Musicians, instrument and various items of stage paraphernalia turned up sporadically over the subsequent two hours.
Lamin Jobartehof putting the kettle on. After several rounds of attiah – a volatile African tea – two of the wives wandered off and Mr Jobarteh began to tune his cora in a desultory sort of way.
Then first notes were played in anger at 11:30.
The amazing thing was that locals didn’t start to filter in until 11:15 – four-and-a-quarter hours after the scheduled start time. I asked a number of people how they knew this would be the right time to arrive, and they invariably replied: ‘that’s when it starts.’ They found it utterly bizarre that I’d turned up at 7:00.
The gig was impressive, although by the time it began I’d drunk all my beer and was beginning to feel cross and dehydrated.
The sound production also limited my enjoyment. The Gambian approach to anything electronic that generates noise is to turn it up until it distorts. This applies to telephones, car radios, televisions and – it turns out – massive PA systems. As a result, the beautifully harmonised vocals and delicate lilt of the cora were amplified to a tortuous assault of rasping, high-pitched caterwauling. I employed the traditional British clubbing technique of plugging my ears with toilet paper.
Proceedings eventually drew to a close at 3:30am, by which time I’d been asleep for some hours. It seems the bonus of living in a country with massive unemployment is that nobody worries about having to get up on a Monday morning.
Gambia's Car Problem
12 Apr 10
Sam Glover blog
We have a car problem. Jole Rider's long-suffering Toyota Hilux, Trixie, has been pronounced dead. Fortunately, the condition is temporary.
Trixie was donated to us two-and-a-half years ago by a generous participant of the Plymouth-Dakar rally. Coincidentally, she was also called Trixie. Trixie (the truck) has since been fulfilling Jole Rider's gruelling daily needs with great aplomb. Whether delivering children to schools, carting around bicycles, duelling with banzai Taxis in manic Serrekunda or traversing streams and jungles up-country, she has been a pillar of strength and dependability.
Until, that is, a few weeks ago. She'd been showing disinterest in starting for some time, but this now turned into a complete disinclination to do so.
Push-starting generally proved efficacious, and myself and Jole Rider director Boyo Touray quickly learned to build this into our travel routine. Summoning sufficient manpower to arouse Trixie became an entertaining and sociable exercise at the start of every journey.
But the situation was less than ideal in certain circumstances. Such as when a Policeman in bustling central Banjul took umbrage to my 'attack is the best form of defence' approach to conserving momentum. He demanded that I park up and accompany him to a cosy office in the nearby Central Police Station. When the legal festivities had drawn to a close, we were faced with the tall-task of push-starting Trixie on one of the world's busiest, loudest and most undulatory city streets. Although, miraculously, nobody died, the incident illustrated that the time had come to right Trixie's wrongs.
Boyo and I got down to business at the Jole Rider base in Gunjur. After a brief flirtation with Trixie's lightly-foxed injector pump, we stumbled upon the underlying cause of her starting problem: severe compression loss. Given that the engine had covered close to 400,000km and seemed to be full of sand, we surmised that a complete rebuild would probably be in order. Disassembly confirmed this.
Fortunately, the Gambia has a heavy reliance on 2.4-litre Nissan diesel engines. In fact, these power-plants are second only to donkeys in their ubiquity. We therefore had no trouble tracking down new pistons, sleeves, journal bearings, gaskets, a timing belt, and all the other sundry items required to bring the engine back to as-new condition. A respected local mechanic has been commissioned to carry out the work.
In the meantime, I've been reduced to hitch-hiking and flagging down bush-taxis. The latter are the mainstay of Gambian transportation. They generally comprise of Mercedes vans in various states of decay (usually advanced) loaded to the gunwales with people, firewood, livestock and other bulky paraphernalia. The most bodies I've seen in a single 3.5-tonne van is 28 (not including the goat).
These bush-taxis crab, grind and fart their way to almost anywhere you could wish to go. Although far from comfortable, they're a great way of getting to know people - often in painfully personal ways.
On the rare occasions that access is required to somewhere that isn't on taxi routes, hitching is the brightest option. I've had mixed success here. On a particularly dark night, I stumbled torchless onto an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere, only to be picked up within two minutes and delivered to my door. The next day I had to walk 7km in 37-degree heat. Karmic payback I guess.
Hopefully, Trixie will be back with us in a matter of days. But the fact remains that she is not capable of fulfilling Jole Rider's increasing needs on her own. She's regularly required to be in two-or-more places at once. Also, many of the 50+ schools we support can only be reached through many hundreds of kilometers of challenging off-roading, and this isn't really her forte. Basically, she needs a big sister.
Our plan is to find a 4x4 Totota Hilux (or something of the ilk) in Europe and drive it overland to The Gambia. Naturally, a tidal wave of media coverage will be involved.
Does anyone have a spare Hilux lying around? Or know of a company that might be able to donate one in exchange for lashings of international publicity? If so, please get in touch. If not, any donations towards the purchase thereof will be massively appreciated.
First Report From jole rider Gambia
08 Apr
Sam Glover blog
I am Jole Rider's new Gambian correspondent. In fact, this is just one of many job titles that fit my position loosely. Research assistant also seems suitable, as does mechanical theorist, dogsbody, food taster and beard-in-residence.
My appointment to these positions has been some years in the making, but came to a head in the new year, when myself and my former boss decided that I should become unemployed. Living in a caravan in the Lincolnshire fens and working in Peterborough had instilled in me two things: a hatred of the English climate that bordered on neurotic and a fearsome desire to get a long way away from Peterborough. Moving to The Gambia has addressed both.
I've now been gainfully employed at the hotter end of Jole Rider's operation for three weeks. Acclimatisation has been slow but generally liberating, spurring me to shed such bourgeois western concepts as cutlery, running water, toilet paper and not having mice fighting with insects under my bed. Sweating has been intimately involved.
I'm lodging with Jole Rider director Boyo Tourey, along with his two wives, 14 children, an armada of extended family and a busy chorus of livestock. After the isolation of the fens and general grumpiness of off-season England, it's lovely to be living in such a friendly, vibrant and in all ways sunny atmosphere.
Boyo's daughters Maima and Sohna, and his niece Nanna - who've collectively assumed the role of my mother - have been terrorising me with nightly Mandinka lessons. I'm not the best of students, but I have managed to pick up a few key phrases. The one I've found most useful is 'ma-fa ham', which means 'I don't understand'.
And the food's excellent. In seems that in the past I've only experienced dishes designed around the Gambian interpretation of the English palate. There's a widely held belief that 'beige', 'flavourless' and 'deep-fried' are at the top of our prandial wish-list. Happily, my insistence upon eating from the communal family bowl has bought a revelation of fresh, delicious goodness - big on chilli, garlic, pepper, onions and home-grown vegetables that taste far better than they look. I've adopted a policy of not looking at any animal parts too closely, for fear that they'll look back at me.
Other news in brief: I've learned to identify numerous weird trees, I've had two run-ins with the traffic police (one of them expensive), I've been bitten by a diversity of exotic insects, I've found out how to buy Julbrew beer wholesale, and I've ridden a bicycle for the first time in 10 years. The latter was hard work and seemed dangerous. I can't see it catching on.
Everything's going swimmingly on the Jole Rider front, too. We're basking in the afterglow of the safe delivery of out 16th container of bicycles and a very rosy meeting with the Minister of Education.
We have an exciting number of grand plans poised to spring into reality over the next few months. But right now, we're running around like dead chickens (they really do this - I saw it this morning) in preparation for a visiting tribe of students and teachers from Abbeyfield School, Chippenham.
It'll be nice to have some people around with pastier legs than I.
Loading 15 contains the 5000th bike
28 Oct
Today was a day of celebration for jole rider, the team, its friends and supporters. The 5000th bike being sent to Africa was loaded today.
Every time we do this we find a way of squeezing more bikes into the container. This time broke the 400 bike barrier and then tucked a few thousand tyres, tools, pens and books in just for fun.
You can watch a time lapse of the whole event by clicking here or see some of the stunning photos taken during the day here.
Thank you so much to Chris, Tarol, Stephen, Ian, Ray, Mark, Sian, Steve, Tim, Vicky, J, Sim, Justin, David, Hugh, Keith, Saidie, Hadley, Heidi, Sam, Nick, Martin, Briony, John, Gillian, Sue, Patrick, and so many more who helped to make this day the success that it was.
Please call us on 0870 609 2007 if you would like to donate a bike or even help at the next loading. We would love to see you there. I promise it will make your day as it does mine every time I do this.
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We're Happy!
20 Oct
We’re happy! The Criminal Justice System have awarded us a grant.
Young People – Fresh Choices is a jole rider pilot project to reduce crime in Wiltshire, by working with teenagers excluded from school.
We’ll train the young people to refurbish bicycles which will go to African schools, and they’ll also be involved in creating exhibitions - so the whole community can see how this project has changed their attitudes.
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The Story of a Langster no247
13 Sep
Who remembers the Langster road bike we ran a draw for earlier this year?
The bike is a beautiful, fixed wheel, Specialized “London” limited edition headturner , as you can see.
It was donated to jole rider by Daniel in Wiltshire [the second of two lovely bikes].
Well, the bike was won by Nigel in Bristol. Nigel, though, determined that the bike was better off with someone keener, fitter and possibly younger, given the hilly nature of the roads in and around Bristol.
Harald, of London [appropriately], is now the proud new owner of the Langster, but only after being beaten in the ebay bidding for it by…can you believe, his own wife, who secretly wanted to make a present of it for her loving husband. Isn’t love fantastic!
Apparently, Harald had been drooling over this bike on ebay throughout the bidding, and who wouldn’t!
We think the bike couldn’t have been sold or bought by nicer people.
Nigel made a donation to jole rider out of the proceeds.
I wonder if we will hear what happens to the bike next? ??
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Loading 14
26 Aug
Today the jole rider team and friends loaded the 14th shipping container bound for West Africa. In 3 hours we packed the 40ft box with over 360 bikes, 1000 brand new tyres, desks, chairs, books and 50,000 pens. Having been lent a sound system with speakers the size of fridges, this was the first loading we've ever done to music (it was more like a night club if I'm honest).
We were honoured to not only have the help of 5 members of Six Acres, who support adults with learning difficulties, but also to receive 15 bikes which they themselves had refurbished.
Gillian and Sue have a habit of cooking hotdogs whilst we're all busy loading and then holding them hostage until the work is done.
It is always a proud moment when the container doors are closed, You know the next time they are opened, it will be infront of a crowd of smiling African faces.
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bikes4Africa Day - Tesco Extra, Cirencester
02 Aug 09
On Sunday many of the jole rider team were busy tinkering with bikes at our monthly Spanners Day. Helen and David were at Tesco Extra in Cirencester collecting even more bikes which will be given a new lease of life in West Africa for secondary school children living too far from school to walk. With David putting the word out on local radio beforehand, a number of bikes, and of course donations, were gratefully received. This included a beautiful red adult trike which the owner is happy for us to sell. We will be offering it for sale at the jole rider bike shop very soon.
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to yet another successful bike collection in partnership with Tesco. Particular thanks to James Maxwell (Manager) and Dave (Security) who looked after us during the day. Details of our next bikes4Africa day will be available shortly. Our bike stock is growing again!
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Let's Get Moving!
30 Jul 09
On a very wet Thursday morning in Wales a huge bicycle move was taking place to replenish jole rider's rather diminished (none) bike stocks. Pip (a member of the jole rider team) left home at 05:30 in the morning to meet Gary from W F Hall Transport at Bluestone Leisure in Pembrokeshire.
The aim was to load over 400 ex hire bikes and deliver them to the jole rider bike station at Hullavington, Wiltshire. W F Hall who are extremely supportive of the bikes4Africa programme provided a 45ft shipping container, truck and willing driver, Gary.
Once all 434 bikes were loaded and transported to our bike station, another group of volunteers were ready and waiting to unload. After two hours, a lot of sweat and grunting, some swearing, bruises, pulling, lifting, hoicking, levering, more swearing and a little blood our bike stocks were 434 bikes better off.
The unloading team - Bill, Martin, John, Gary, Chris, Christian, Helen, David and Pip all looked absolutely shattered (as the photos to the right show) when the job was complete.
Thank you to everyone who made this move possible, especially Gary and W F Hall.
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Listen to the Spokesman...
30 Jul 09
Anthony 'AJ' Raybould is another one of jole rider's finest volunteers. They don't come more commited than this. AJ took a day out of the family holiday to help load these bikes! Click on the video to the right to hear what AJ has to say on the matter. Thank you Amanda for standing around in the cold and wet with the children whilst AJ and others got these bikes away. We gather the free ticket to Blue Lagoon went down really well with the kids after. Fantastic!
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