I didn't expect Gambia to be Trojan. Yet at church the Helens were called forward for a blessing a few weeks ago (it's the priest's mother's name, and a Helen had just got married). We also have our troy of Helens in VSO with Dr Helen Moore the paediatrician making up the set.
Helen arrived in the September batch and details of her adventure can be found on her blog, helenvsojourney.wordpress.com. From my perspective she has been a source of information, compassion and entertainment, and a significant lynch pin in planning activities as well as widening our circle of friends and contacts into the ex-pat community. We planned Natalie's hen do together (read about that on Helen's blog) and meant to publish a Trojan blog.
On Friday Helen completed her placement and left for the UK. We gave her a, well, the story is as follows. Among the European volunteers we planned a leaving present. Helen had little spare luggage capacity and we had little spare money. So our first idea was a film of around Gambia, some of her favourite people and some of the phrases and places that build the VSO experience captured on film. Cheap and very portable. The next day Natalie reported that Helen mentioned in passing that she had already made such a film, and had a memory book to ask friends to complete. So far so scuppered by Helen's planning. Plan B was a t-shirt covered in Gambian sayings. With no clear idea of how to get it printed this evolved into asking a tailor to embroider the phrases, onto a flat cloth which could be a sarong. Like all our beach wear Helen's has had heavy use this year and is wearing out.
So we duly tripped to Serrekunda for fabric, picked out a nice blue, refused one proposal (though for reference "a woman needs a husband like a fish needs a bicycle" takes a lot more explanation than I anticipated), got a taxi and went to the beach. That evening, after Helen left, we brainstormed the phrases that might be amusing over a couple of beers, shouting ideas over the Nigerian music of Aso Rock cafe.
The following morning I took the fabric to my local tailor, negotiated a price and spent several minutes trying to explain the concept. Eventually we decided it was a flag and the two tailors laughed with me at the idea. I dropped the money off the following morning and the next day I got a knock at the door pleading for a deadline extension due to the lack of electricity.
The following day another lad brought the finished article to my door. The tailor had taken great care, tracing the sentences onto backing paper, numbering them and laying them in order, selecting contrasting colours of embroidery thread. Unfortunately this meant the front read backwards as he hadn't laid the backing paper back to front. With minutes to go to get to Helen's Beers and Tears do, I checked the paper could be carefully removed, and examined the result. Not bad and certainly a reminder of The Gambia, as well as the trickiness of communicating across cultures. Laughter accompanied showing the other VSOs behind the bar and, most importantly, Helen seemed to like it.
The following day we met on the beach. Helen came into the sea to take her leave and there were hugs all round, timed to avoid being pushed over by the waves. She walked out of the sea and away from Leybato, casting a few looks back.
And so the troy of Helens dissipated. But, by coincidence, the female UK volunteers all have strong connections to Chorlton. I suspect we'll be sharing Eggs Benedict or tapas on Beach Road before any of us really know it.
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