Not all Doom And Gloom #1

Meanwhile, in The Gambia, it's not all doom and gloom (as some online papers would have you believe, naming no names or anything). I received this report from a friend of mine who goes to work in Banjul everyday, from Taborkoto:

There's been a transport problem for a very long time, going to Banjul in the morning, and going home from Banjul after work. The problem is that there are more passengers than vans and also that, whilst people congregate at West Field in the morning, the van drivers would rather run the Serekunda/Taborkoto-Westield route, than the Banjul-Westfield one, because the latter has only one-way traffic in the mornings (to Banjul), whilst the former has guaranteed two-way full trips.

So, in order to solve the problem and keep the wheels of the country running (most of the passengers who wait for vans at West Field are civil servants or students), there are police officers now posted at Westfield every morning. They don't use force (not even having truncheons on them) but talk to the drivers instead - any driver with an empty van trying to run the more lucrative Taborkoto-Westfield route is asked nicely to turn around and run the Banjul one instead (drivers who already have passengers are allowed to go on). All the drivers I've seen asked have complied. This has made it much easier to get transport in the mornings, and made the work day as a whole much more pleasant. I think this is a very good example of how the government can step in to help citizens, in small but ultimately important ways.