The aftermath of the teachers’ sit-down strike of 2018 resulted in my posting from Kaur Upper to Kayai Basic Cycle. The latter is located in the tail of Niani. Though not farther from Wassu, the poor condition and the inaccessible nature of the bushy road made the journey to be time consuming. After we had received our memo from our regional directorate, Mr. Touray and I reluctantly set out for Kayai, which we had interpreted as a form of punishment for our involvement in the industrial action, which came with a package (increment of salary) disguised as a blessing. On the onset, the strike was seen as a gross insubordination and effrontery since it was organized and masterminded by young teachers who realized that we had not been well remunerated. Civil servants, especially teachers were receiving pittance as salary despite the pivotal roles they play in national development. To correct this gross injustice, the young teachers embarked on an industrial action, which turned the country topsy-turvy. I could recall the threat issued by the former VP to allay the situation, but which in fact had exacerbated it, “All those who are involved in the sit-down strike will be victimized if they refuse to report to the school by the 28th September, 2018. We’ll use the law. We have plans to replace you with retired teachers because we will not allow a parallel union to the GTU,” Ousainou Darboe was quoted as saying. Upon the broadcast of this statement, some of our parents confronted us and insisted that we report to school of which we declined because we knew that we were fighting a just cause. Moreover, we refused to show white feather because we neither wanted to be the ones who watched it happened nor the ones who wondered what happened. We wanted to be the ones who made it happened. Thus, retreating wasn’t part of the options.
After few round table discussions, the demands of the “Young Teachers for Change” were accepted with condition, which terminated the sit-down strike and brought it to a halt. However, some principals who were in a loggerhead with some of their teachers used the strike as a mechanism to get rid of them, which subsequently made my friends and I victims of the so-called sit-down strike as many had described it. We journeyed from Kaur to Wassu on one fateful Monday. Fortunately, that day coincided with the lumo of Wassu, so we didn’t scramble for vehicles prying the bumpy road of Kayai. We boarded the vehicle and waited for other commuters who would come to the lumo for selling and buying of their farm produce and livestocks. This is the ritual during such days as there were only two vehicles that used to pry the road from Wassu to Kayai on Mondays. Apart from that day, you would either call a friend or a relative at Kayai to pick you up with a motorbike, or you spend the night in Wassu as it was far and risky for one to trek alone through the bushy, lonely and hilly road to Kayai. When everybody had taken a sit, the driver who was known by every Tom, Dick, and Harry, occupied the front seat facing the steering wheel and ignited the dusty old vehicle, which coughed vroom and released dark carbon monoxide then made an abrupt stop. He ignited for the second time, but it reacted the same. For the third time, it became normalized by making a pleasing sound to the delight of the apprentice who was seated at the back sit. After long and tedious drive, we finally reached an isolated farmstead at Kayai, which was inhibited by a Fula family whom we later learned to have belonged to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Sect. Couple of minutes, the vehicle made a stop at the umbilicus of the village where half of the villagers would converge after finishing their daily chores. We alighted off the vehicle and asked about the location of the school. We were seen off by a lanky boy who later became one of our Students and errand boy.
Kayai is a small village comprising three clan namely: Sula Kunda, Douma Su and Santo Su, which are closely joined together like a Siamese twin making it difficult for strangers to tell them apart. To have found ourselves in such a remote and strange place is something to write home about. The next day, we became acclimatized. This was sure because our coming had been reported to the villagers before we arrived. Therefore, everything such as accommodation and feeding had been put in place prior to our arrival. In the following day, Tuesday to be exact, we left for school and made our first appearance in class. The students at Kayai were smart, vivacious and amiable; however, they lack the grammatical competence as a result of the influence of the Mandinka Language. Still I can’t help laughing when I recalled the day one of my students, Sainey, in Grade Seven reported a colleague of his to me in substandard English. Initially, he spoke in Mandinka, which I reprimanded him for and insisted he speak English or return to his seat. Filled with vengeance, he tackled the bull by its horns and reported his tormentor, “Mr. Darboe, you better talk to the Amadou?” He reported.
Also, in another occasion, I was teaching Uncountable Nouns. Upon defining uncountable noun as a noun that cannot be counted or noun that do not have any plural form, I gave money as a typical example. Knowing full well that money can be counted, all the students shouted in unison, “Mr. Darboe, Wota Kenola,” meaning that cannot be possible.
This didn’t happen to me alone. It happened to my friend who was posted there with me. He was teaching Agricultural Science and, in his explanation, he told students that cattle live in a pen. As he said this, his statement was belied by the students. Being a Wolof who couldn’t speak Mandinka, he invited me as an English teacher so that I could bail him out before he would be robbed off his dignity. I came and confirmed the statement of my friend to be true by reiterating it. That day, I was able to convince them only after looking up the word in a dictionary, and afterwards going around from one table to another to show them the possible denotative meanings of the word, which was greeted with nodding of the head coupled with the saying “Haa, Tonyaleng,” to confirm the truth of our assertion.
Actually, I really enjoyed and experienced a lot in that village as there was where I knew and tasted “Soso Churo” and “Jaa Berro.” However, after that term had elapsed, I unceremoniously left teaching field for the University of The Gambia to study Political Science without scholarship and a study leave owing to our victimization as an aftermath of the sit-down strike. As a result, I did only one semester under School of Arts and Science ’cause I couldn’t get a scholarship, which made me to differ my course from 2018 until 2021 when I was given a scholarship with the condition of changing my school and renewing my contract with poverty.
Abdou Darboe is a student at the University of The Gambia.
