A good tool is half the battle

On this trip to The Gambia, we made sure to bring as many tools from Norway as we possibly could. We had two large suitcases stuffed full of power tools, and we also made sure to buy accessories and spare parts. We brought several drills (including a hammer drill), a circular saw, a jigsaw, an angle grinder, a sander, and, not least, essentials such as drill bits, screws, plastic anchors, hardware, brackets, and other small items.

But why on earth did we lug such common and simple items with us? Can’t we just buy them down here? Well, a great deal of what we need is available here, but there are two major problems. First of all, it takes an incredibly long time to find a place that has exactly what we need. Moreover, the quality of pretty much everything you buy is incredibly poor. For example, we bought an extra set of “bits” for the drill to make sure we wouldn’t run out of the ones we needed, but when we started using them, they broke within minutes. The metal was way too brittle and soft. The ones we brought from Norway lasted the whole day, and they’re still perfectly fine.

The same goes for screwdrivers. We bought a set here that looked really good and cost more than similar ones back home, but it didn’t take long before the tips were ruined. And the list just goes on. The corrugated metal for the roofs is thin and soft like cardboard, and you absolutely must not walk on them. They can’t handle it. It’s really frustrating.

Still, we’ve had to buy certain things here because they’re so heavy or take up so much space that we couldn’t fit them in our carry-on luggage. We now have a pressure washer, which comes in very handy when cleaning hundreds of square meters of walls and tiled walkways. We’ve acquired an electric chainsaw, which makes the job much easier when we need to cut down a tree or trim branches on trees that have grown so large they could damage buildings. We have a great generator that allows us to use all our electrical equipment out at the school in Bakalarr, where there is still no power grid. And last but not least, we have a large pop rivet gun that lets us repair all the chairs where the seat has come loose. In the past, people tried to fix this with screws, but the results weren’t nearly as good as the “original” method.

No, it’s just as they say—with good tools, half the job is done—and we’ve really noticed the difference. This year, maintenance has gone much faster, and the results have been much better than before. The future looks bright.