Set-Settal

Neighbourhood mule...our house in the background.

Yeah! Saturday morning and it’s Set-Settal once again! It’s Gambia’s National Clean-up Day, a monthly giant clean-up jamboree, where people are asked to stay home and clean up their immediate environment. Interesting. 

This day of cleansing is enacted on certain Saturday mornings when most businesses and all schools close across the nation to foster cleaning of trash around compounds and public areas of the country. People are called on by their President to sweep their compounds, collect their rubbish and flush their drains. By the way, Stephen Harper has never asked me to flush my drain. Set-Settal is like an obligatory day of household chores on a municipal level.  Transportation is entirely halted from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm  (private cars as well as public taxis), and the curfew is enforced by the military. This is serious stuff. 

Although we were initially told that this national cleansing binge was usually held on the last Saturday of the month, we’ve only experienced it once since our arrival here 10 weeks ago. The program seems to work well; but then we are still newbies to Gambian life and are pretty well naive about everything strange and unusual happening around us.  However, I must admit that when we ventured out the afternoon of our first set-settalian experience, the streets appeared a bit cleaner, some people (all women of course) were still sweeping here and there, and no trash was to be seen anywhere except in smoldering ditches. The aim of Set Sattal is to bring environmental sanitation through popular participation. Other benefits include removing mosquito breeding grounds and promoting good environmental practice within communities.

Initially, when it was first enacted (by nothing less than a presidential decree), we are told that people used to really get into these cleansing jollifications. Gambians would come together to do the work while singing songs in praise of the President’s munificence.   Hey, take it from someone who knows, nothing will rev up a party more than cleaning a drain pipe of dead decaying animals. Reminds me of my college days. Come to think of it, let's not go there.

In any case, I haven't heard any singing yet. But then, this is only my second Set-Settall.