Isatou Sey is a 35-year-old woman living in Wellingara Village in Kombo North, Western Region. She is seeking monetary assistance from individuals, philanthropists, the Government, donors, NGOs and companies to go for overseas treatment in Dakar.

According to her medical report from the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital (RVTH) in Banjul she is suffering from serious abdominal pain and other complaints.

Isatou is calling on everyone and anyone to help her travel to Dakar and get the medical assistance she needs.

Anybody who wishes to assist Isatou Sey can contact her on the following numbers: 9949678, 78221711 or 6422975

-Aloa Ahmed Alota

A Living Mirror: The Life Of Deyda Hydara was launched on May 3 2008, as part of the activities marking this year’s celebration of the World Press Freedom Day in the Gambia. The decision to have the book launched on World Press Freedom Day was widely hailed by media practitioners because Deyda Hydara fought relentlessly for press freedom throughout his journalism career.

In this interview with Baboucarr Senghore, Aloa Ahmed Alota explained why and how he wrote the book with his co-author Demba Ali Jawo.

Excerpts

What motivated you to write this book on Deyda Hydara?

Our writing a book on Deyda Hydara is a commitment to a friend and to a cause we all share. We believe, as Deyda Hydara did, that press freedom is not an abstract concept. By contrast, we insist that press freedom is indispensable to progress in the sense that where the press is free, it is able to hold political and business leaders accountable to the people. The upshot is that there will be an efficient and equitable distribution of resources, which in turn will lead to improved living standards for everyone. The book therefore serves the dual purpose of keeping alive Deyda Hydara’s beliefs and ideals and of denying his killers the satisfaction of wiping out his memory altogether. Seen in this way, we agree with the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword.

What difficulties did you face in the course of writing this book?

A lot of people were afraid to talk about Deyda. One of them who had claimed to be his friends told me “I don’t know that man you’re talking about”. With a few others, I had to convince them that I was not going to mention their names in the book. Then they agreed to talk about him.

But were there people who supported you during the writing of the book?

Yes, many of them. Mrs Adelaide Sosseh gave me a lot of support. She not only gave me money, but she also helped work on the drafts. We both worked together on Chapter One and Chapter Three of the book, with her making so many corrections and providing useful details. George Christessen was always there for me. I had unrestricted access to his office and his home throughout. I can’t forget Swaebou Conateh without whom the book would not have come out in the shape it is now. He made me rewrite each chapter at least four times. He would sit down with me in office and we would spend at least six hours during each session re-writing sentences, paragraphs and scenes. He would look at a sentence and say, “You have to do this again. It is not sharp enough.” He gave me many books and magazines about the press in the Gambia. I owe a lot to him because without him I would not have had any insight into the state of the media in the First Republic. Ousainou Jagne of TIMBOOKTOO also gave me a lot of financial support. Pap Saine was also very helpful. And my friend and brother Lawyer Borry Touray gave me all the hope and assistance I needed. When I had almost given up on the project, he gave me a lifeline. My friend Amadou Dibba was equally very helpful. Hawa Sisay-Sabally is another wonderful person I met in the course of this project. Another person who helped a lot is Dr Lenrie Peters. Others include Babou Sowe and Ousou  Njie Senor. And the Hydara family was, and still is, most supportive.

Why are you donating the proceeds from the book to the Deyda Hydara Trust?

Money is important, but it isn’t overriding. Deyda Hydara stood and died for certain values, which I believe should be kept up. I think the money that comes from any memorial about Deyda Hydara should be spent to promote those values. With the Deyda Hydara Trust in place, we will be able to give scholarships to needy but deserving students in secondary schools across country, starting from the 2008/2009 academic year. We will be setting up the Deyda Hydara Scholarships Committee very soon. It is this committee that will formulate the eligibility criteria for the Deyda Hydara Scholarships.

So this project is a thankless job?

No. I have been compensated in ways I could never I have imagined. A college in America has adopted the book as a textbook for its students. A publisher in America has also contacted me for a book deal. I have already sent the draft of the book to the publisher. It’s an ambitious book, about 350, 000 words long. A Living Mirror is about 80, 0000 words. This new book A Killer Also Dies should be out in 2011. It isn’t a biography; it’s purely fictional. There is also this talk about making A Living Mirror into a movie. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Are there things about Deyda Hydara that you left unsaid in this book?

One single book cannot tell the entire story of Deyda Hydara. The emphasis of this book is on his professional life as a journalist. I think more books will be written on him in due course.

Did you make any recommendation in the book for the authorities to track down the killers of Deyda Hydara?

I have said it before; I’m a storyteller, not an investigator. And D A Jawo emphasised it at the book launch that we did not set out to investigate the murder of Deyda Hydara. I think there are people who are paid to do that.

How did you manage to get the book published?

At some point in the project, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) got to know about the book and showed a lot of interest in it. After reviewing it, they decided to take it up as an advocacy tool for press freedom campaign in Africa. They sponsored everything. But there are other organisations that encouraged us in one way or another. They are Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Media Foundation for West Africa. I must say Ben Akoh of OSIWA was exceptionally helpful. He took me as a younger brother and did all that he could to get the book published. We are also grateful to Leonard Vincent of Reporters Without Borders.

So what are your future plans?

I plan to spend the rest of my life reading and writing. That is the only way I feel is right.

The book is now on sale at TIMBOOKTOO, Garba Jahumpa Road, Bakau

Seyba Traoré, aged 11, and his brother Moumini, 9, set out each morning with big bags slung over their shoulders to sort through the capital’s many rubbish dumps in search of scrap metal - car or motorbike parts, old lamps, curtain-rods - any old iron objects will do.

They sell on their haul each afternoon at 12 US cents per kilogram to a buyer they know only as Hamdallaye.

”Sometimes we can earn up to US$4.80 a day, and if there is a large pile of scrap we can make even more,” Seyba told IRIN. "Thanks to this money, we can eat well, and we have clothes.”

Moumini and Seyba are just two of the many children who dominate the supply-side of the increasingly lucrative scrap-metal trade. It is common to see children bicycling around the capital laden with heavy pieces of iron to bring to shops that are opening up all over the capital to buy and then sell on the scrap.

Ousmane Traoré, 13, left his parents in his village of Kelaya, 160km from Bamako, to become a scrap scavenger. "It's tiring, this work, I have to sort through all sorts of rubbish and it smells bad, but what can I do? I earn my living in this rubbish and I can save a bit of money for my parents at home.”

Higher profit margins

As the industry grows the profit margins are getting higher each year, even for the children. Shopkeeper Madou Sanogo has been buying scrap in Boulkassoumbougou, a neighbourhood in Bamako, since 2002. “When I started you could buy 1kg from a supplier for 1 US cent, now it’s 12 US cents it really is a booming industry.”

But it is the buyers - mostly adults - who are reaping most of the benefits. Sanogo continued: “I buy the scrap at 12 US cents per kilogram and will sell it on to buyers for double that.”

Sanogo first got involved through his brother, who was a mechanic and collected scrap in their yard. “One day I met an Indian man who bought the whole lot and asked me to look for more. That’s when I had the idea of opening this shop… We signed a contract and now they regularly pick it up,” he said.

Many of the buyers come from other West African countries, and some from as far as India to export the metal for resale.

“Better than begging”

“If I collect enough metal”, Yacou Coulibaly, who owns a scrap shop, told IRIN, “I can re-sell it to a Côte d’Ivoire businessman for a small profit… with a trailer full of scrap I can make a US$600 profit.”

And some of this money ends up benefiting the state. According to an adviser in the mayor’s office, many buyers are setting up legitimate businesses, paying US$335 for a licence, and contributing an average of US$7.20 in taxes per month.

“They also help clean up the city by clearing piles of scrap metal that litter the streets,” Coulibaly said.

However, as the business has internationalised and the wages have increased, the market is getting overcrowded. “Now it is difficult to find enough iron, whereas before, that wasn’t the case. Our supplies are dropping bit by bit,” he complained.

Despite the difficulties, many buyers and sellers are pleased to be involved. As Coulibaly put it, “I think this is better than begging.”

The youths and women of London Corner in Kanifing municipality are increasingly taking ownership of their environment when it comes to keeping it clean and fit for healthy living.

In an apparent response to President Yahya Jammeh’s encouragement for environmental cleanliness, the people of London Corner, largely youths and women, on Saturday embarked on a cleansing exercise in London.

The exercise, co-ordinated and spearheaded by the former acting mayor of KMC, saw a huge volume of rubbish cleared in the face of human resource and logistical challenges.

Speaking to this paper during the exercise, Mr. Francis Gomez explained that the intervention of the youths and women of London Corner was an apparent response to President Jammeh’s call for all to get involved in keeping the environment clean for our common good.

“Nobody needs being reminded about the importance of environmental cleanliness. The benefits inherent in clean environment are there for all to see,” he posited.

According to Mr. Gomez, in cognisance of the significance of clean environment, there is an overwhelming need for people to take more pro-active actions than rhetoric.

“Everybody must get involved. Like the president, he did not only call people back to the land but was himself involved in farming. So why not put all hands on deck to keep our environment clean,” enjoined Mr. Gomez.

Meanwhile, Aji Fatou John, Chairperson of London Corner ward, Pa Modou Njie of Mauritany ward, Doudou Minteh of London Youth Association and Sheriffo Kujabi of Jokor Society were all thanked by Mr. Gomez for their vitality during the exercise.        

Surviving the world’s highest inflation rate is resulting in people ditching their professions and embarking on work, which they had never previously considered.

Mavis, a qualified nursery teacher, has swapped her life as an educator for that of a sexworker and now cruises for clients in the up market hotels of the capital Harare.

"I am a professionally trained infant teacher, but last year I decided to quit the profession as the money that I was earning was not adequate to sustain myself,” she told IRIN. "The odd tourist is always good for business because they pay in foreign currency and they are always very generous with their money."

Although foreign tourism has dropped off considerably in the last few years because of the country’s political and economic woes, Mavis said there was still a class of people in Zimbabwe who were able to afford her services and the best place to proposition them remained the hotels.

"If I was still working as a school teacher, I would be earning just over Z$300,000 (US$7.5 at the parallel exchange rate of Z$40,000 to US$1) a month, but now, I can charge as much as Z$500,000 (US$12.5) per night regardless of whether the client wants my services for a short while or for the whole night."

Mavis said that the majority of her clients were married men, who had to get home to their wives. "When clients cannot be with me for a long time, I can double my earnings in a single night,” she said.
Her new work carries with it the risk of AIDS, as one in five Zimbabweans aged between 15 and 49 are infected with HIV. "I would not do anything as reckless as unprotected sex. I am an educated person and I know the hazards. There are some clients who demand to have unsafe sex and even offer to pay more but I insist on the use of condoms or cancel the transaction," Mavis said.

More than 5,000 teachers failed to report for duty when schools opened for the new term two weeks ago.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions estimates in its latest economic review that hyperinflation had reduced wages and salaries to renumeration received in 1965. An average public servant earns about Z$300,000 (US$7.5) a month, while the cost of living for a family of six for the most basic requirements, such as rent, food and school fees, is estimated at about Z$2 million (US$50) a month.

Independent economists contend that the official annual inflation rate of 3,713 percent is less than half of the real rate of inflation. In a recent weekly newspaper column, economist, Eric Bloch said "With inflation having soared, based on the Consumer Price Index (it’s) in practice exceeding 8,000 percent.” The Consumer Price Index is a measure of price rises affecting a specific basket of goods.

"The hyperinflation is so pronounced that an estimated 85 percent or more of the population is striving to survive with insignificant incomes, far below the Poverty Datum Line and more than half of Zimbabwe's people are suffering at levels below the Food Datum Line, being the minimum resources needed to avoid malnutrition," Bloch said.

Domestic duties
Sarudzai works as a domestic helper for three young female journalists, doing their laundry at the weekends and general house-cleaning one day a week. The journalists were initially perplexed by their maid, as she seemed “too intelligent” for such menial work, and became a good source for news story, particularly regarding the police.

The conundrum of their maid’s life was exposed when the three journalists were stopped at a police roadblock and among their number was a police officer who looked vaguely familiar: then it dawned on them the policewomen were their domestic helper.

After some initial embarrassment and a mumbled apology from the policewoman, the coincidence was to change Sarudzai’s life. She resigned from the police force five months ago, after her unmasking had led to options for better-paid work.

"When I came out in the open with the journalists, they introduced me to a lot of their friends who I now do part time work for. I am very grateful for the break which they gave me because while I would have been earning Z$400,000 (US$10) as a sergeant in the police, I now make Z$3 million (US$75) a month from doing laundry and cleaning for young professionals in Harare," she told IRIN.

The government has said 15,000 public servants have resigned in the past 12 months and half of all government posts were vacant.

Entrepreneur
Robert Chimedza was at one time a manager at a Harare hotel, but because of the dwindling number of foreign tourists visiting Zimbabwe, his employers told him and his colleagues that their salaries would be reduced in line with the slump in tourism.

Instead of accepting the lower wages, Chimedza resigned, took his six-month redundancy cheque and cashed in his pension. "I pooled my pension and requested the salaries in advance and raided the foreign currency black market and bought as much foreign exchange as I could," he told IRIN and then he left for neighbouring South Africa.

"I had done my research and established that a lot of companies and government departments did not have foreign currency to buy supplies in South Africa. I made arrangements with pharmacies to import basic medical supplies," he said.

"After selling my products at the prevailing black market rate, I raid the illegal foreign currency market, go and buy some goods in South Africa and supply local companies because the manufacturing sector has all but collapsed and is now dependent on people like ourselves to import basic products," Chimedza said.

He has no regrets about his decision to resign from his hotel job and said his entrepreneurial talents had rewarded him handsomely, as he now owns a house in one of the township suburbs and drives a car imported from Japan.