Saturday, March 23, 2013

Outing with the Tenengfara Ladies


The first week I arrived at site, last May, my first task to accomplish was to open a bank account with my women’s group. We had gotten a $5000 USD  emergency relief grant for food aid, and couldn’t access the money without an group bank account.  So knowing almost no Mandinka, I, my counterpart who speaks English and has become my babysitter, and 3 women headed to the bank account about 25K away. Between all the bureaucratic non-sense, getting passport photos of 3 women in the middle of the African bush, paying to open the account, dealing with slight corruption, and directing this entire outing while speaking no local language. Let’s just say it might have been the hardest and most challenging work assignment I have yet encountered as a volunteer. The only things that were getting me through that week, was that the community would get the food it desperately needed and that I would never have to set up another bank account in Gambia again.

That was true until a week ago. I have recently, completely a USAID grant for a community garden complete with a chain-link fence and a well. It is in the process of being approved by DC as PC Gambia has already approved it. Everything was going smoothly, bank account numbers turned in and then I get a call from the office that informs me that any government funds won’t transfer to the bank account we have near village because that bank is considered by the US to be unreliable. Now, yes, the previous money was also from USAID and went to that account, but I was told that it wouldn’t work for this grant, the only option we had was to go to a larger town, farther away with a bank that was approved by the US to transfer funds too. I thought it would be the same set up as the previous time, so I had meetings with the alkahlo and village leaders to request, 650D which is about $14 USD for transport for 2 women and myself. It was actually a huge argument, because to my home-people that’s a lot of money. After about 30 minutes for fighting back and forth between villagers, I had had enough and just said, fine, if you don’t want the garden, then don’t give me the money, I’ll simply call peace corps and tell them that we have changed our minds. Suddenly, everyone was agreeable and the money was given to me.

Early Monday morning, we headed to Soma, about a 2 hour journey once you are on a gelle. I wanted to leave at 7am because the gelles fill up fast, and the earlier gelles tend to stop less often. But everything here moves in Gambian time, which means slowly, and we got to the road around 8:30am, an hour and a half late, not bad. Travel went well, no incidences. We get to soma around 11, and as we are all hungry I treat the women to breakfast of egg sandwiches and tea. Then we head to the bank, the bankers immediately tell me that I need a tax identification number, it’s a new requirement, to open the account. These women can’t own land, officially own nothing that they can pay taxes on, so they don’t have tax ID numbers. The women’s group was registered with the state but they had forgotten the paperwork. And now it wasn’t just 1 passport photo, but 2, and they needed to have ID’s which they had but they had to be a new biometric identification card which the women didn’t have because they hadn’t left tenengfara in a few years. The bank manager absolutely refused to let us open the account, saying that we would have to go home, figure everything out and then come back with the proper paperwork. I was exhausted, I had been dreading this day and this was the last thing I wanted to hear. I told him that while parts of Gambia were moving forward with development and new regulations and rules, there were many areas of the Gambia that were standing still, while the bank had AC and a flat screen TV broadcasting CNN, the village has mud huts and pumps for water. It was a visual divide of the two worlds and it felt so much more powerful when I had two of my women from village with me.  I couldn’t go home empty handed only to have used the villages money for nothing. So I shed a few tears and showed the bank manager my passport and somehow managed to open the account by promising him that I would return with all the proper paperwork, ID’s, and photographs. The account was 500D to open, about $12USD, but much more than I had thought. After the bank was somewhat accomplished, we headed across the road to immigration where we had to fill out paperwork for the women to have their ID’s renewed. They had photos taken, and paperwork stamped which cost 50D, which is so ridicules. The ID’s themselves were 400D. The immigration office was more stressful than the bank; the officers are pumped up with their authority and find it part their jobs to ask me every question about myself, America…blanket harassment at times.  But we got the ID’s renewed, we got the bank account set up even without proper documentation, a few more 100D spent then we thought but it’s all for the garden. And hopefully, my bank account opening days are finished. But this time, I did it without my counterpart, the basics were accomplished in one day, and in this life we just have to focus on the positives. And in the end will be a garden which will increase food security for my village.