07 November 2016
Days 5 & 6
Sunday.
We visited
Wandifa’s and Abdoulie’s compounds. This is the first time we have seen
Wandifa’s new family house that he spent nearly three years building. We last
saw it in February when it was obviously near completion and now Wandifa and
his family have moved in. It certainly is a great building with plenty of land
around. Wandifa is quite rightly very proud of it. There is a picture of it
below and we will post some more when we get back to the UK
In pride of
place in the garden is the orange tree planted in memory of Ian on the day of
his funeral and over the coming years we shall watch to see it grow and bear
fruit (which Wandifa tells me should be in about 3 years).
We sat in the
garden, chatted and played with the children and then went over to Abdoulie’s
compound for a very enjoyable time, again just chatting and admiring the
garden.
Back to
Wandifa’s where Mariama had prepared and cooked for us the most wonderful lunch.
A chicken benachin with chicken (obviously), rice and many different vegetables
including, in our honour, ordinary “British” potatoes – something of a rarity
in The Gambia unless served up as chips in a restaurant. We all sat down
together to eat this splendid meal.
Feeling quite
full, we then returned to the hotel. Our grateful thanks to Wandifa, Abdoulie
and their families for their hospitality.
The orange tree
planted in memory of Ian
The outside of
Wandifa’s new house
Monday
A day visiting
schools and compounds, mostly to pay fees and meet newly sponsored students,
who get presented with a filled pencil case and have their photos taken for
their sponsor.
Firstly, to SOS
Senior Secondary School to pay fees. This used to be a straightforward job of
handing over the right amount of cash and getting a receipt. It took about 10 –
15 minutes. It’s now a bit more time-consuming. You get an invoice and have to
go to a specified bank and pay the cash over, get the receipt and return to the
school with it. We also wanted to pay our sponsored student’s exam fees which are
payable separately. To do this you have to go to a bank (a different bank, of
course), pay the fee, in return for which you get a scratch-card, which you
take back to the school, where its number is used to confirm payment of the
student’s exam fees. It took about an hour and a half in total.
On then to the
exquisitely named Mrs Bucket’s Afrikanaria’s Nursery School. Yes, really! The
Headteacher named it because she was a great fan of the well-known sit-com
“Keeping up Appearances” and its star Patricia Routledge. We went there to meet
a newly-sponsored student.
The Head is a
delightfully enthusiastic and dynamic person and we would like to be able to
help the school. The most pressing problem is that in one corner of the school
playground there is a dump for scrapped parts of cars – doors, bonnets etc
which is not properly fenced-off. This is a real danger to the children as well
as an eyesore.
A couple more
visits, then back to the hotel
