11 February 2008
Update from Banjul (Saturday to Monday)
On Friday night Sarah arrived at the hotel to join the Pageant team. Although she had had a long day travelling she had much more energy than us. Saturday was quite a busy day; in the morning we all went to see Fatoumata at her senior secondary school. Fatoumata is studying science and hopes to go on and study medicine at the university. There are only six girls in her class, nearly all of whom want to study medicine or engineering when they have completed grade 12. The schools classrooms were fairly well equipped with science equipment materials, microscopes, test tubes and Bunsen burners and Fatoumata told us that she enjoyed her studies and doesn't find them too difficult. Next we visited Isatou's compound were met some of Pageants sponsored children and gave out presents, mainly clothes games and a football. We stayed and played with the children - two of the children had malaria but they didn't seem too ill as they were well enough to play football! Afterwards we also visited another compound to see other sponsored children and met a gorgeous week old baby before returning to the hotel.
