If you leave Jeshwang and head towards Denton Bridge, the only destination on your mind, most of the time, is the capital: Banjul. Bustling and lively, filled with students, workers and businesspeople crisscrossing around. But what you probably never know is that, there is actually a tiny village situated in the outskirts of the capital. Yes, there is a village and it is called Ndangan.
This is a remote settlement forgotten or barely known by most people in The Gambia. The shanty Ndangan village has a population of 200 people, including children and is nestled in the muddy banks of River Gambia dotted with mangroves and fresh smell of fish wafting around.
The word Ndangan is of Serer origin, meaning ‘fishing place’. The settlement was predominantly dwelled by fishermen, originally from Senegal. However, today, the settlement is entirely inhabited by Gambians with schoolgoing children. They live in small locally built mud houses with few cement buildings.
The settlement was sparse and covered a larger area than what it is now. It only got constricted as a result of encroachment by influential business tycoons, who are allocated land in the area to build commercial stores. Access is now a problem as there is only a small road in between the stores leading in and out of the small community and the settlement is clouded with smoke from the dump site, where all the waste from Banjul is dumped.
Ndangan has co-existed with the dumpsite and scavengers since its inception.
Augustus Sanyang, the 29-year-old Alkalo of Ndangan who succeeded his uncle Peter Jatta, complained that the road leading in and out of the community is usually dark at night and unsafe for people to use, emphasising the need for proper road and electricity.
Regarding the pollution of the community by smoke emitting from the dumpsite, Alkalo Sanyang noted that “years back, there was no burning at the dump site and maize was cultivated there, but now because people are venturing into this scrap metal copper ‘ferrai’ business, they started burning and polluting the air”.
He added that the continual inhaling of the smoke could be a health hazard to the people. He said frantic efforts and constant dialogue with the responsible authorities to stop the burning and improve waste management at the dumpsite yielded no positive results. “Ndangan was there before ‘ferrai’, so ‘ferrai’ cannot relocate us,” he emphasized.
Aside from the risk of air pollution, Alkalo Sanyang said the sewage pipes connected to the river that discharge effluent into the river is also causing water pollution. “Fish breed in the mangroves but the dirty water coming from the dump site and the factories, especially during the rainy season causes small fish and mangroves to die. Avoiding the sewage is the reason why we dug a soakaway to contain the dirty water from the washroom,” he said.
Economic activities
Ndangan is a close-knit community involved in self-help and entrepreneurial ventures to maintain social cohesion. “We are setting up bee hives where we can produce honey and cream among other things to create self-employment for both the youths and the old,” he said. He called on the government to assist the community in its self-employment and entrepreneurial initiatives to empower the youths and the women.
Ndangan is a friendly community with few but energetic inhabitants ready to make a change for the betterment of the upcoming generation. The young people as well as the old are involved in different activities like harvesting oysters and fishing, beekeeping, and pig rearing, to make income and a sustainable living to change the narrative of ‘hand-to-mouth’ existence.
Hamadi Jarju, a 56-year-old woman born and brought up in Ndangan, said the river has been her source of income and sustenance since the death of her husband 6 years ago. Hamadi lived with her husband and children in Manjai and relocated to Ndangan due to the hardship she faced in raising her children in that semi-urban settlement. She now lives her life paddling her canoe into the mangroves to harvest oysters and small fish to sell in the market in order to sustain her family.
“Since the demise of my husband, my business is what I use to pay school fees for my 5 children, feed and clothe them as well as take care of myself. One of my daughters I educated from my business is now a graduate and is now teaching the children voluntarily here in Ndangan to also attain a bright future,” Hamadi said.
To her, oyster scooping was a very lucrative business year’s back, but it has become uneasy for her of recent because a lot of people are now involved and oysters no longer breeds close to the muddy river bank. “Before, we used to gather as much oysters as we wanted a few steps away from home but due to oil spillage into the water and the plastic bags blown by the wind from the dump site, oysters now breed deep in the water. And if these oysters are trapped in the plastic bags, they get opened and become tasteless,” she lamented.
She highlighted the struggles she faces in her seasonal job and hopes that a remedy could be found which include fishermen with canoes fitted with outboard engines, which she called “machine boats”.
“We only use small pedal boats and the machine boats are more powerful than ours. Considering the speed at which they run, if they hit our boats, we will capsize. So whenever we see them coming, we take shelter in the mangroves and allow them to pass or in a case where we are far from the mangroves, we wave and shout for help.”
She said oyster harvesting is risky and one can lose one’s life in it. She further explained that it is labor intensive and lack of electricity is a great constraint. She said buying “ice-block” to preserve her oysters or fish can be very expensive.
She appealed to the government to provide the settlement with proper road and electricity to ease the difficulties in her business, and also to find a way of improving their safety at sea.
Education
The distance from the community to the city spurred the youths to build a room where the little ones are taught how to read and write before moving to other schools. This was a self-reliant initiative.
“Nowadays, the disappearance of kids is becoming rampant and we can’t afford to risk the lives of our children to be travelling far and wide. We also organize study classes for students after school so they can improve more because poor people cannot afford study teachers and this mostly affects the performance of our children in school,” she said.
Concerned about the situation of the children in the area, Pascaline Jatta, a 32-year-old lady, abandoned her well-paid job to start teaching the helpless kids. “I had to sacrifice my job to help the children because I felt they need my help,” an emotional Pascaline told The Standard. “It was difficult for me to sit and watch the kids and do nothing.” Pascaline said she was motivated by several children who were eager to be educated but their parents could not pay their school fees at nursery. “They would prefer leaving their children at home till they are 7-years-old before enrolling them at primary school which was not helpful to the kids. I decided to take up the challenge, hence I don’t know what the future holds for the kids,” she said.
She said the community used to have a teacher for the children but they could not sustain the payment for her services and had to discontinue the arrangement.
She recounted that her exprience has been mixed feelings and challenging but the love she has for the children overrides the pain she encounters along the way.
The community has only a single classroom that caters for the kindergarten, nursery and classes, which is difficult for one teacher to handle. They therefore built a mini library to cultivate a culture of reading among the children and to keep them engaged after school.
“It is not easy to combine two classes especially nursery pupils and kindergartens. Sometimes, when I am busy with the nursery, the kindergartens would be making noise and throwing toys all over. It needs a lot of patience to handle these children in one classroom,” she said. A calm Pascaline said despite her coolness, she sometimes feels like giving up.
She said the initial plan was for her to start something and along the way, they could secure the services of a teacher for her to return to her job but that couldn’t happen.
“Now, I sell oysters to sustain myself but I have not regretted my decision of abandoning my work to support the kids because as we speak, most of the kids are in secondary school while I have 12 others I am teaching right now,” she said.
“We are soliciting for government and philanthropists to help us improve the living conditions of the community and to also render financial support to maintain the services of full-time teachers.”
“The school is neglected and it’s shaping children who are already in secondary school. These are children who will take national responsibilities in the future. They are the cream of the society,” she emphasized.
NAM
Modou Lamin Bah, the National Assembly Member for Banjul North, a constituency Ndangan is under, promised to work with the central goverment and relevant authorities to address the needs and concerns of the people of Ndangan.
“The issue of the dump site is indeed very urgent but I will urge the relevant stakeholders to take it up by fencing the entire area. This will help the people of Ndangan to avoid certain health hazards. The area needs electricity which will surely help them to start thinking of preserving oysters during the off-season and other important usage attached,” he said.
He urged the people and stakeholders to cooperate and work together to change the community’s situation for sustainable development in the future.
Regardless of whether help comes or not, the people of Ndangan are resolve to keep this tiny village on the map.
