Pageant News

Hi FRLPI

Sunday night, Matt's watching Match of the Day and all is well in the "1st World". I've still been feeling pretty tired today but would love to be with you all. In church today we were already talking about our trip to Durban in 2009. I've been transcribing, editing and completing my "Palm" diary this afternoon and will get a copy to you when done.

It was lovely to read your news and the lovely pictures of you with Fatoumatta and Isatou. 12 compounds in a day! You must be so tired.

Here is a picture of you all on Thursday on the Barra-Banjul ferry!

Looking forward to more news from you!

love

Chris :-)

My first experience of Banjul market. The craft area is tucked away in a warren of stalls behind the main market street. The girls have done this before; Lauren and Frances take charge of negotiations and fetch us a keen price.



Pippa, Ian and the girls still have a packed programme of visiting over the next few days and it is with considerable sadness I cannot join them for this. We say our farewells and I get my final bits and pieces together while waiting for the transfer coach to the airport. The fundamental question, 230 dalasi left - is this enough to buy lunch? One toasted sandwich and a fanta later I'm down to 60 dalasi. I give a miserly 10 dalasi note to the bag loader on the coach keeping 50 dalasi for a bottle of water after immigration.



The plane is late arriving and I chat with several groups who have visited schools on trips organised by hotels or are doing something ad hoc to help. Several others have not stirred from the tourist ghetto.

We take off 75 minutes late. I am feeling very tried now; we touch down at about 23:30. I make the last train out of Gatwick with 7 minutes to spare and crash out at home after a shower at 01:50.

An amazing trip with amazing people. As a sign off from this Blog here is the only video I took to give you an idea of what Gambian roads are like. We are driving on just dirt track here - disintegrating tarmac is far worse...


My experience has been of many Gambians who are stoical, gracious and welcoming. It has been a privilege.

Chris

PS I find I have brought home one of the hotels very small hand towels (about 1 ft square). If you read this, FLR, please could you pay the hotel an appropriate sum for me and I will pay you back. Thanks, C <>< :-)

After four hours sleep we were loudly awakened by Ian crashing down the door of our hut. Without being able to see, we packed up back into the minibus for a six hour journey to a remote village called Jarreng. We travelled half the way on the north bank and then crossed back to the south bank - the reason why we don't do the whole journey across the south bank is because the roads are impassable! The roads were still very bad in places, and it was very bumpy which meant a few banged heads! We arrived at Jarreng Basic Cycle School to see all the sponsored children there - Frances' sponsored girl, Fatoumatta, ran across the school yard as soon as she saw us!
Afterwards we drove into Jarreng village to meet the children's families and to give out sponsorship money and gifts. This was also the first time Chris had met the boy he sponsors, Yusupha, and they got on really well! We found all the children well and they were all very pleased with their gifts. We also gave out the PAGEANT gift token items which we bought earlier on during our stay, to the people whom Yankuba thought needed them the most. The mosquito nets went to the pregnant women, and the cooking pots and serving bowls to the poorest families. We were given lunch at the village before we set off back to our guest house. After a few mishaps, including a puncture (luckily a new tyre only cost D160 which is about four pounds!), smashed wing mirror and cows falling in the river, we arrived back ready for bed.

Catching up a bit here. As the girls say, we visited several compounds a couple of days ago. Everyone we visited was so gracious in receiving us. This is a particularly lovely shot.

Yesterday, I slobbed in the morning but when the kids all arrived it was all action. We played beach footie. The Gambian lads are quick and skilled, but sand and size helped me. I played for the girls team who tended to swarm round rather than pass. Shades of Thisbe for me in defence.

The girls jumped the Atlantic breakers and were surprised by a big fish but no one was eaten.

Frances meanwhile lounged luxuriantly on the beach (how long before she spots this?).

Tomorrow, we are off up country for two days and have get up some unearthly hour to sample the delights of the ferry. I think I'm pretty much packed and have been putting in ineffectual training on the volleyball court in preparation.

Chris :) <><

Everything packed, Palm synced. Even got the return tickets for those who managed to make it to the Gambia and somehow forgot them!

Next message from further south hopefully,

Chris

Love

Lauren, Sarah, Rosie and Frances

xxxxx

P.S. we apologise for any bad spelling - we are trying to do it quickly in case of power cuts!!!

Monday - today was another day doing art and crafts at KMJ. We were with a slightly older class this time (age 5), which included Mohammed Lamin, one of the sponsored children. They coloured in fruit pictures taken from the book "Handa's surprise", painted their own pictures to take home and sponge-painted another palm tree. We sung songs with actions again which the children really enjoyed and understood better than the younger ones. Afterwards we were invited to the namingceremony of a week old baby whose name was to be Mariama. We were pleased to miss the sacrificing of a sheep but got to try some of the traditional food and see the water with local herbs in that were put on the baby's head like a christening. On the way home we stopped at a school in Banjul, Campama Lower Basic, where we will be teaching on Thursday and Friday, to visit asponsored child there. We then returned to the hotel.

Hi FRL, great to hear your news and see your lovely class pictures. All this work must increase even more your respect for full time teachers (like a certain person's mum!).

Here in the UK (see, I shouldn't even be posting here yet), its bright and sunny and I'm almost packed but possibly overweight (the bags , I mean).

Tonight we're sleeping out in our church hall before it gets knocked down (the teenagers want to start already).

'Bout time Pippa and Ian posted something. Why not do an interview and post that?

D Day -6

Chris

After an early start, we had a few problems finding the school as it's positioned in amongst hundreds of identical-looking family compounds, sandy tracks and other buildings. Eventually we arrived, laden with all our art equipment; we took paint, brushes, sponges for printing, palettes, large pictures of animals and palm trees that we'd already drawn, a large roll of brown paper to use as a background for our display, crayons, sellotape and blutac for attaching the finished work to the walls.

We spent the morning with the youngest class (age 4) and started by reading a simple story involving lots of African animals. We then gave each child two pictures of animals to colour with wax crayons. This was the first time these children had ever used crayons so they were anxious at first but soon got the hang of it and really enjoyed it.

We then split the class in half to do sponge printing and painting - for many of the children this was also their first experience of using paints and brushes, but after a demonstration from us they got stuck in! They sponge printed large palm tree leaves and a brightly coloured background. We then sung some traditional English songs including 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', 'If You're Happy and You Know It' and 'The Hokey Kokey'.The children loved the singing and followed along with the words as well as the actions.

We put up the animal drawings in their classroom which really brightened the place up and added lots of colour to the blank walls. Each child also took their painting home which they were very excited about having something of their own to show friends and family. Ansumana, the headmaster, and the class teacher, Fatou, thoroughly enjoyed themselves and joined in with all the activities. They all waved us off when we left, and the teachers said they were looking forward to our return on Monday!

We took loads of photos and these are just some of them, showing the children having fun doing their drawing and painting, as well as all the equipment we took with us.

Frances, Lauren and Rosie xxx

We arrived safely yesterday after a good flight, despite being 15 kilos over our baggage allowance - luckily we didn't have to pay any extra for it and got all 11 suitcases here ok. We are now settled into the hotel and are busy planning our itinerary for the next 3 weeks, starting with our first art lesson at KMJ nursery tomorrow morning.


We'll hopefully be able to update the blog every two or three days with photos and news of what we have been doing so far, but the internet is not overly reliable, and power cuts are quite frequent as we have just discovered!

Welcome to Frances Boswell as a member of the Pageant Blog Team. She will be going to The Gambia tomorrow with several other Pageant members. Frances and some friends will be spending two weeks of their visit teaching in Gambian schools. She will try to keep us informed on a daily basis by posting to this blog. This all depends on getting reliable Internet access, so we eagerly await her first report to see if it all works.