My First Trek for Work

I went on my first trek for the WFP last week.  I was only out for two days which was a good introduction to the process.  I was the WFP representative for a multi-sectoral team that was interviewing Sengali refugees in the Fonis, one of the regions in The Gambia.  They are fleeing from a rebellion in the Cassamance province of Senegal.  This rebellion has been going on since 1982 and waxes and wanes.  We were interviewing people who had come 6 years ago and people who had fled earlier this year.  We were also interviewing their hosts.  Our questions revolved around their living conditions and availability of water and food.  It was a humbling two days.

The villages in which we stopped were all close to the border which is not a fenced border.  These people have traveled back and forth for years and most are related.  However when the fighting erupted again, the refugees fled leaving nearly all of their possessions behind.  They had nothing with which to cook and no farm tools.  They were truly destitute.  Their host families, who are also poor, shared what they had with the refugees.  All of the refugees were given land on which to build their homes and the hosts helped them to build.  The hosts shared their farming and cooking tools and food until the families could grow their own food.  They were given access to farm land for growing their crops.  Unfortunately the land has been over-farmed and is not fertile and fertilizer is too expensive.  One of the villages used to have cattle and would use the manure for fertilizer.  However when the fighting started up again they sold the cattle to a village farther from the border because the rebels were killing the cattle.  When we asked how much food they had left and expected to have left after the completion of the harvests, many of them said 1 month.  That is supposed to last them until next year.

Our first stop in each village was at the home of the alkalo, the head of the village.  He would gather the hosts and the refugees and we would interview each group separately.  Our first village was less than 1/2 kilometer from the Cassamance border.  Below is a picture of  a warning sign directly behind the interview area.

They used to go into the bush and gather firewood, fruits and nuts to sell.   But after this sign was posted they stopped doing that.  Wonder why?

The next two pictures are a group of refugees and a group of hosts.  Can you figure out which ones are the hosts and which ones are the refugees?

As you can see neither group looks wealthy and neither group is.  Below you see the alkalo's home and the other part of his compound.  I include them because when we asked for household size, his compound had 36 people, all family.  Doesn't it look luxurious?  Notice the mud block construction. 

I also included the second picture because of the little boy rolling the bicycle tire.  He spent the entire time we were there amusing himself with the tire, rolling it all around the compound.  Here is another picture below in which he came to a stop.  I saw a girl playing a game similar to jacks with stones.  Simple pleasures can be found anywhere.

The final picture is one of the crops they grow.  It is a variety of millet which the Gambians call coos.  This was super coos.  Some of the plants were at least 15 feet tall.  It tastes something like sand.  Not high up on my hit parade.

As I said earlier, the trip was humbling.  These people have so little but they share what they have.  Yes, many of them are related, but how many of us would put up with relatives for 6 years?