(Last day of CCM. In our Friday dress!)

(Our noisy and nosey sheep!)

I don't really have any pictures of Saturday. But here's one of me giving Lynn a ride to CCM. (Cool helmet!)

An interesting Saturday!

I will tell you about my interesting Saturday but first an update about Medina Angaleh. Fortunately at the recent CCM meeting. That's the big education meeting held every month. The schools predicament was brought to the attention of the ministry and they have promised to build them a new staff quarters. So that's good news!

But back to my interesting Saturday. I haven't had many hairy travel stories for a while and this is mostly due to my brand new motorbike which is just too good and too reliable. Flat tyres and waiting at the side of a road in the hot sun seem to have become a thing of the past. Don't get me wrong I am grateful for that. But it doesn't make for exciting stories. However the advent of the rainy season makes things slightly more complicated.

Last Saturday I was running a workshop in Kwinella for nursery teachers and had to be there at nine. I had loads of stuff to take with me and had to put it all into a plastic shopping basket

and tie it all onto the back of my motorbike. Then I had my backpack with even more stuff in. It would have served me well if I knew anything about tieing strong knots but in this area I am a bit clueless. Anyway I tied the basket on as best I could and went on my way. At this time it was just beginning to rain. Needless to say I had no waterproofs on and the shopping basket had lots of holes in it! I was also aware that it was set settal which is national cleaning day and the regulation is that you don't travel after nine because you are supposed to be at home cleaning your compound. This was about eight so I had about an hour to get there. (Might I add I was already feeling a bit hard done by because it was a Saturday and everyone else was still in bed!)

Within ten minutes of travelling I had to make my first stop as the shopping basket was slowly edging its way off the back of the motorbike. So I stopped, tried to tie it back on and then went on my way again. When this had happened about 10 times between home and the first police checkpoint I thought I had better enlist some help. So I stopped and asked the nice policemen to tie it for me! Problem solved, so I thought! By this time I was also racing the black clouds which were descending and praying that the slight shower would stay a slight shower!

Well the nice policemen who had helped me out had actually tied the rubber straps so tight that the plastic shopping basket was breaking and it was still edging of the side of the bike. For quite a while I was riding with one hand on the motorbike handle and one hand holding the shopping basket in place. By this time I was also conscious that I had made so many stops that nine o clock was probably fast approaching. Adding to this every time I stopped to tie the basket back on my hands got more and more covered in black from the rubber straps and my clothes got more and more covered with oil from leaning on the bike.

When I was just about to reach Kwinella I had to stop at the checkpoint where I was duly reprimanded for travelling after 9.00. But as I was stopping at Kwinella, they let me go. Phew!

So you can imagine the state I arrived in to do the workshop. Adding insult to injury as I stopped to open the school gate and by this time the rain was coming down more heavily. I decided to untie the basket which promptly fell of the back of the back, Spilling the contents of the shopping basket (including my nice, newly printed ECD books) all over the wet sand. Thankfully, the children who live at the school, seeing my distress rushed to my aid. By this time I had also acquired a cut finger from somewhere so there was blood running down my hand. Abass and Alieu took all of my stuff in out of the rain. Jarra ran to get a kettle of water to clean my hands and Alieu even reminded me that I had abandoned the motorbike outside the gate.

I was a little bit flustered to say the least and was rather relieved when the headmaster told me that as yet only 4 participants had arrived. I now had time to gather myself before we started.

Another complication arose though as when I arrived the family and a few extras were about to have breakfast and being the very generous people that they are they insisted that I join. Having not much appetite recently I really wasn't that keen on having meat and rice at 9.30 in the morning but knowing how important food is I duly took my place around the food bowl and tried my best to eat a few spoonfuls. Only you can never get away with a few spoonfuls. " Eat more, eat more. Lucy what's wrong you are not eating." This is usually the way it goes at food bowl time.

Eventually I decided to start the workshop with my meagre 4 participants but we swapped things round a little and started to do some book making, contending with the deafening noise of the rain on the corrugated roof and dodging the puddles that were forming on the floor of the classroom. Very soon after the workshop started there was breakfast for the participants. Bread, onions, fried canned spam, fried potatoes and mayo. Also hot, sweet tea. All very nice but this time I had already had one breakfast. Again it was "Come on you're not eating, you must eat!" So I managed to force the second breakfast down.

All's well that ends well. By the end of the workshop we had about 12 participants, the rain had stopped and everyone participated well, sung songs played games. I had to leave as soon as the workshop ended to be back in Soma, as that evening Marcus, Ellie and I were judging the Miss 22nd July Scholarship pageant. But of course when I went to leave without having lunch there was uproar and the head teacher Alagie announced that he wasn't the least bit happy about me leaving without eating. So the food was rushed out. I sat down this time to Benechin, (fried rice and meat) I was feeling rather like Dawn French in that episode of Vicar of Dibley where she eats about 5 Christmas dinners. Especially since for the last week I had been surviving on bananas and banana milkshakes!

I motored back to Soma, hitting every puddle. So the time I got back me and the bike were a mud splatted mess. Managed to shower and change in time to get down to the venue for the scholarship pageant which all went without a hitch. Apart from the fact that because it had rained all morning the insects were out in force. So we spend a large amount of the pageant being dive bombed by insects, flapping our hands in front of our faces like maniacs. Simon Cowell never has this problem I'm sure!

So that's my interesting Saturday. Thankfully this week's Saturday workshop is within walking distance and this time I am going to make sure I don' t eat for at least a day before!

Medina Angaleh

These photos were taken at Medina Angaleh school which is in Kiang district. Its a bit of a ride off the highway through the bush. It is a Fula community. A poor community. Water is a big problem there. Their borehole is broken and will take thousands of pounds to fix and the only other source of water they have is an open well. The water in this isn't really safe drinking water as a lot of different things can get into the water to pollute it. The teachers tell us that they and the children have a lot of stomach problems because of this. Their teachers accommodation needs serious renovation as you can see.

We are hoping to take a big water filter there for the school which was given to another vso by a charity which sends them to different countries around the world. If they are able to use this then at least the school would have some access to clean drinking water.

Seedy and I went along because a teacher was coming from the link school,Woodlands Kent (anyone who is a primary teacher probably knows the website!) and also some teachers from other schools in Kent who had made link schools in different places in the Gambia.

They spent two days at the school, brought them resources, lots of jolly phonics stuff, sports equipments, pencils, books etc. They spent a morning showing the teachers some jolly phonics games and using the parachute that they had brought to play games with the children which they loved!

They were very well received by the community, the school cooked lots of food for them and had a ceremony with traditional singing and dancing to welcome them. Then before leaving they had a closing ceremony and I was asked to present Becky with the community's traditional cloth which is what you see in the photo above. We also played football with the children and teachers which in the heat was absolutely exhausting!

Woodlands had also raised some money which the school was going to use for fencing their garden to stop animals wrecking the crops they grow. They use the crops to supplement the feeding of the children. Some food is donated from the world feeding programme but most schools now have a garden to grow crops to supplement. The problem with the garden is the lack of water. The water has to be brought from the village to water the crops and that is time consuming and difficult for the children. The children from Woodlands had written letters to the Gambian children and the Gambian children wrote a letter back and the children from Woodlands had also written story books which they had had laminated for the children to use in the school.

The Soma Cinema

We don't have visitors very often to Soma so when we do we tend to pull out all the stops and going in to hospitality overdrive in hope that word will spread and people will start coming in their droves.

Lynn stopped in on her way to Janjanbureh with her two sisters and her brother in law so we prepared a delicious brunch of eggs, beans, fried tomatoes and tapalapa. I say "we" - I made the coffee!

It was so good that they even came back for lunch the next day.

It was quite funny because as we were chatting, Christine said "So what do you actually do here?"

That certainly was a challenge to show them all that Soma has to offer. So Marcus took them out to sample the highlights of Soma. They were back within 10 minutes!

No only joking he took them to the local video club/sauna to watch Stoke/Bolton or Arsenal/Liverpool. Then at half time they were refreshed by a bottle of the finest julbrew at roadside bar. They liked the ambience so much that they missed the first ten minutes of the second half.

Of course now we have even more to offer in Soma. We now have the Soma cinema. Thanks to Marcus bringing back the smallest projector in the world from his visit home. So now we no longer have to be sequestered away in our own houses we can enjoy a social experience (as if

we don't spend enough time together!)

We even have popcorn.

So if anyone else fancies an upcountry adventure. You are all highly welcome. We get 5 stars on trip advisor.

I thought maybe I should write something about work in case anyone was under the impression that all I do is swan about going to naming ceremonies and party in the Kombos!

There are some schools and villages that you really take to heart here and Medina Sancha is one of those for me. It’s a new school built by the community out of trees and branches and other local material. A very aesthetically pleasing school. I especially like the twisty tree trunks which act as the main supports for the structure. However not entirely practical when you consider that soon it is going to empty with rain for hours at a time. Here’s hoping that a concrete stucture can be built in the next few months! Water is difficult there because there is only an open well which is something like 45 metres deep so it is not safe for the children to be anywhere near and the water isn’t suitable for drinking. They have to bring water from the village. There are only 3 classes, 1 nursery class and 2 grade 1 classes but some of the children in the grade 1 classes are up to 14 years old. If they haven’t been to school before they start in grade 1.

I would decide to like visiting a school where the journey is like a cross country scrambling course with deep sand for much of the way and an unlikely amount of horse cart traffic. But anyway its usual here for me to turn up for work with sweat pouring off me and covered in dirt.

The headteacher is extremely dedicated and hardworking. He was posted there as he can speak Wolof and therefore could build relationships between the community and the school and teachers. After meeting him at a worskhop that I was involved in he asked me to come and work with his unqualified teacher who hasn’t had any training. So I willingly went to try to teach her some basic classroom management strategies.

I have to say it wasn’t a particularly easy week but in the end was extremely enjoyable as I got to know the children and the teacher, Delam, better. It brought back memories of what it is like to teach all day. But here of course you are teaching all day in the searing heat. Delam is only nineteen and had had no training at all so you really have to try to understand what it must be like for teachers like her. She is posted in a village far away from her family and trying to survive on not much money. And of course I suppose I was at first really exacerbating the classroom management problems, having a toubab visitor causes great excitement! Then of course there is my limited wolof, as I am myself a Mandinka. So there was a lot of sign language. One word that was firmly entrenched in my Wolof vocabulary by the end of the week was “toglen” (sit down!). These children were lovely, funny and very willful. I loved the way that they rabbited on to me in Wolof convinced that I should understand what they were saying to me! One little girl, Ndey Yassin said something to Delam (the teacher) one day and Delam laughed so I asked her what she had said. “She told me I was very ugly!”

We put some classroom rules in place complete with drawings and a song. We did a storytime each day. I did it in English and Delam in Wolof. We made a book of our favourite foods. Really not as easy as you might think! Especially when their pencils keep breaking and we only have one pencil sharpener. We went outside for some outdoor games, duck duck goose, (gambianised into goat, goat sheep) and traffic lights, although I am not convinced that the children in this villlage have ever seen a traffic light. Every day at break time we all sat together and had peanut porridge and sour milk, (chiurro gerta)which is actually very nice! At the end of the day I was always invited home for lunch by the headteacher or Delam. So at least my Wolof greetings improved - slightly!

This one is mostly for the benefit of the smaller blog followers namely my niece Isabella who I thought would enjoy these pictures..... The children of the compound - Nyara and Arabiatou appeared at our door giggling excitedly one night with their heads wrapped in scarves. The scarves were removed to reveal hair all adorned with minties, bubble gum and butterscotch. It came out that it was commonwealth day the next day and it was a tradition for children to decorate their hair with either sweets or beads. I can imagine the schools the next day were very colourful. I also can imagine that the children were a nightmare as they were the following evening when they had eaten all the sweets in their hair! They did save us a minty though.

Naming cermonies galore! This one was the child of Seedy's niece. It was a more elaborate occasion than the previous one. Complete with many gifts bought by the relatives, fabrics, baby clothes, rice etc. It even had a compare (here called a griot) who was doing a rather good job of getting everyone to part with their money. He even did a translation in English especially for us.

Prayers were said collectively with all the men sitting on mats together and then exchanging cola nuts.

There was food, food and more food. Then music and dancing into the night. We managed to escape before anyone dragged us to the dance arena. Phew!

We should perhaps have left before though as this was one of Ellie's first outings on the bike. The village of Sankwia was only ten minutes away but the road resembles a scrambling course so doing it in the dark was quite a scary initiation. I did lose ellie when she came unstuck in a rather deep crevasse at one point but she eventually emerged.