Pageant News

Carole, Regina and I set off for Banjul this morning with our trusty trio... Regina was very keen to come as Ebrima, one of her sponsored children, lives there and is attending Albion LBS.  One thing became very apparent as we drove into the city - the roads are still terrible, in places even worse than last year.  

road in Banjul

Rumour has it that there are some improvements happening somewhere, but we didn't see any!!!

We found Ebrima in school and he arrived in the headteacher's office looking slightly nervous...he was relieved to hear that he was not in trouble but was being invited to come swimming at our hotel on Friday.

We then went round several other schools, seeing and photographing the Pageant students and checking they were all in the right places and classes.  At one school we found a group of students enthusiastically painting their names onto their T-shirts.  They had cut their own stencils and were now applying the paint... obviously a popular class!  

students personalising T-shirts

Next, on to the big hospital, which is still called the Royal Victoria by most people, even though it is officially called something far less colonial.  We found our way up to the maternity wards, but were not permitted to present our gifts to the mothers in person. As at MRC, a senior nurse accepted them on their behalf.  

hats and blankets for babies at Royal Victoria Hospital

We then went for a cold drink to Timeless, which used to be Billy's in the 'old days'.  We made use of the large table there to spread out some drawings and discuss a new project, currently called the Pageant Power Hut (a solar energy project for students in a poor community, of which more details later) and to estimate the cost of the materials needed to build the first structure.  The local knowledge of our three guys proves invaluable on this sort of occasion, I feel we now have a good idea of the outlay that will be needed.

Our last call was to the industrial area in Kanifing, where we bought some tools as a start of the equipment for our new woodwork, metalwork and home science building at Misera BCS.  Some excellent haggling by Abdoulie in particular got the cost down considerably!!

Back at the hotel now...the electricity has just gone off as I am writing this, so no WiFi and no Aircon.  I think I will go out and sit in the shade by the pool...