11 November 2016
Day 10 – Friday
A slightly
later start than anticipated because Wandifa’s eldest son, Mo Lamin had been
taken ill during the night and Wandifa had taken him, along with his mother
Mariama to the local hospital to see a doctor. We all hope he gets better soon.
Off then to
Kings Kids Academy, a school we have visited many times before and where we
have funded a number of projects. We were met by the proprietor, Bishop Dennis.
We attended a school assembly at which Bishop Dennis gave a short eulogy about
the work and dedication given by Ian to Pageant and the ways he had helped the
people of The Gambia. In honour of Ian a building in the school has been named
after him.
We then went on
to discuss projects. We had agreed to fund tiling in two classrooms. One had
been done but Bishop Dennis wanted to use the rest for something else. We were unable
to agree that then and asked him to provide us with a new project proposal with
costings. Bishop Dennis then showed us his long term plans for the school
involving major expansion. These plans will cost a large amount of money and
would take considerable time to complete.
We then went to
the offices of a company called The Water Point that specialises in drilling
boreholes for water
We are looking
at a project to drill such a borehole at Kani Kunda School which is way
upcountry. That school has no water at all in the school premises, not even a
well. The proposal is to drill a hole deep enough into the aquifers and then
pump the water up with an electric pump powered by solar energy. Needless to
say, the school has no mains electricity. The water would then be stored in a 4,000
litre tank which would automatically be replenished when used. Mr Touray from
the company had already supplied us with an estimate, but there were a number
of points in it which required clarification which he was able to do. We will
now go to the school next week to discuss this exciting project.
Being Friday,
we decided to have a short day. We stopped off at a bookshop appropriately
named “Timbooktoo”. We bought a few school books there and then went for a
drink at the Calypso Bar at Cape Point. The bar overlooks a lagoon lying between the beach and the land. It is
home to 20 or so crocodiles that can usually be seen basking on the far shore,
but there were few to be seen today. We did see a great display of fishing and
diving by a heron, some kingfishers and numerous other birds, small and large
none of which we knew the name of (no twitchers among us)!
Back then to
the hotel at about 3pm
