Jabou, Remember the adage "God brings us into deep, troubled waters not to drown us but to cleans us"? What we are going through is the result of decades of neglect, embezzlement and downright thievery by leaders we trusted with all our hearts. Had they invested in what this government is investing in now, we would not be talking about them. We would have been talking about other things. Second, development is a process and not an event that just happens. The developments that other countries are enjoying did not just happen. It took great minds to work out strategies to pave the way forward. It is of no use however, if all we have are plans. Plans remain plans until they are implemented. I am therefore one of the hundreds of thousands in this country who happen to believe that better things are yet to come. By the way, did you know that the old and delapidated oil mill at Saro has been demolished and that a brand new oil mill is at an advance stage of construction? Did I tell you that the EU is working out the modalities of carrying out a feasibility study to determine the feasibility of constructing a bridge between Banjul and Barra? Did I tell you that we are now implementing the first of several phases to provide affordable telephone lines and Internet access throughout the country? Right now we have Siemens of Germany in the country about to start the laying of a 350 Km fibre-optic cable from Fatoto across the river Gambia and along the North Bank to Barra. This would then be linked to Banjul to provide a fully redundant transmission backbone. Our people on the North of the river would soon begin to realise the benefits of good reliable communications just like those on the south bank. These developments and more, is what brings about development and is a gradual process. The rest, such as "farmers selling their produce", "journalists not questioned for reporting the news" and much more, would follow later. No hurry about that yet. For now, we want the infrastructures built and our human resources developed to enable our children carry on from where we stop. Finally, until we can boast of Gambian Doctors curing Gambian patients, Gambian lawyers defending Gambian laws, Gambian journalists educating Gmabian people, Gambian agricultural scientists helping Gambian farmers, Gambian teachers teaching children, Gambian civil engineers constructing our Gambian roads, Gambian entrepreneurs exporting Gambian produce, Gambian farmers feeding us Gambians etc, etc, all we can see is what this government does. After all, none is stopping any of you from coming home and showing us where we are going wrong and how to do things differently. Is that asking for too much? Some of your raections to developments atking place here reminds me of the Wollof phrase "Yobanteh Galgal". We can do without that. Have a very good day, Gassa. -- There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough to solve (Mike Leavitt) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~