15 November 2018
Day 8, Upcountry trip
We (Carole, Abdoulie, Wandifa, Yankuba and I) set off a little after 6am, down the normally heavily congested, but now blissfully quiet, road to Brikama. Here we turned left to follow the main South Gambia highway to our destination of Soma and surrounding villages, roughly halfway down the length of the country.
It was a delightful journey...good road, villages just waking up for the day, forests and fields looking so green - and not too hot!! As it got towards 8am we passed hundreds of children walking to their schools, first in one direction and then, as you passed through the village, coming from the other direction. Then, several Km further on the process was repeated with different uniforms for the next school...and so on. As Carole said, it put a completely different slant to the idea of the school run!
We arrived at Misera BCS just before 9am and met the newly appointed headmaster, Mr Ceesay in his office. The previous headmaster has taken a sabbatical to do a university course and Mr Ceesay, formerly his deputy, has been promoted in his absence. The new deputy, Mr Touray, was also there and proved to be extremely helpful regarding the main purpose of our visit. He is the head of technical education at the school and we were coming to see the new building that had been been erected since our last visit - the large woodwork, metalwork and home science classroom block.
new building at Misera BCS
They have done a very good job on this building and we were very pleased with it. We discussed the finishing touches that we agreed it needs... a tiled floor for the home science room plus a tiled worktop running the length of the shorter side of the room with spaces underneath for storage; a skim of really good quality concrete for the other two floors to withstand the hopefully heavy use it will get; shutters on the windows for security (two very nice ones have been fitted to the small office windows, so we agreed that similar ones should be made for those in the main rooms). We hope to get the estimates for this work during the next week.
We also discussed the gift of £500 for tools from Battle Rotary club. Mr Touray is coming to Serrekunda this coming weekend, so he hopes to have collected prioritised lists for the various subject teachers and it may be that we can go on a shopping trip with him! We had taken two tool boxes and a few handtools with us as a start for their collection, with which they were very pleased.
There were two requests for further projects - toilets and a staffroom - but we explained that we must finish the technical block before we can start on anything else.
All in all a very good visit... and as we left we passed the new building made to house the food vendors who come to the school to provide lunch for the children...
All in all a very good visit... and as we left we passed the new building made to house the food vendors who come to the school to provide lunch for the children...
Misera canteen building
Our next stop was at Wandifa's old family compound in Kanikunda, to which we were taking a number of gifts. First, some hats and dresses made by some of our very kind donors...
children at the Kanikunda compound
children at the Kanikunda compound
.. and also mosquito nets and buckets for the families, bought as part of our ethical gifts scheme.
mosquito nets and buckets for families
Next stop was Wonto's compound (Wonto is one of Wandifa's sisters, a truly lovely lady). We gave out some more gifts and Wonto gave us a large bunch of bananas and a huge bag of shelled and roasted peanuts. We sampled a few of the latter at her house and ate most of the bananas on our way home - delicious!!
Pakalinding UBS was next. We had gone to see how the very long wall, funded last year, had been done. It looks really good and we congratulated them on their excellent work.
wall at Pakalinding UBS
At the very end of 'our' length of wall was an old section that is two blocks lower. The students have scraped out footholds in this section so that they can climb over and go out of the school unnoticed when they want to!! We agreed to fund the extra height on this section of wall and the filling in of the footholds, but I am not sure that this will stop them if they are determined!! We did NOT agree to adding the height to the entirety of the old school wall, as this would be very expensive and the students do not seem to wish to escape over those parts of the wall!!! So far, at any rate...
We then discussed their proposal to make a long smooth pathway from their entrance to the centre of the furthest classroom block, to enable wheelchair access for several students who wish to enter the school but cannot do so as the terrain is extremely rocky. They have already provided an estimate for this, so we can discuss it at our next trustee's meeting.
A couple of our sponsored students are at that school, one of whom had only just given us his last year's report. We went on to his grandma's house to give her the money, for which she thanked us...one of her great granddaughters was there and she was delighted to receive a very pretty poncho made by one of our donors.
We had heard that the proposed bridge across the river Gambia was nearing completion, so we felt that as we were only.a ten minute drive away it was worth going to have a look. For Pageant members who have accompanied me on previous trips, the bridge is at the place where the small ferry crosses to Farafenni. (Some people will no doubt remember the cow that jumped off the ferry into the river...)
All this will soon be a thing of the past as the bridge looks to be very close to achieving its advertised opening date of January 2019.
All this will soon be a thing of the past as the bridge looks to be very close to achieving its advertised opening date of January 2019.
the new bridge
What a difference that will make.. there must have been fifty or so lorries queuing for the ferry when we were there, most of them Senagalese crossing The Gambia to get to the other part of their own country. The ferry only takes two at a time...need I say more?
(One of the cars coming off the ferry was of particular note, mainly due to what was on its luggage rack!!)
(One of the cars coming off the ferry was of particular note, mainly due to what was on its luggage rack!!)
luggage with horns!
Our last stop was at the local hospital, once again to the maternity unit, with baby hats and bootees. This time we were allowed to go into the ward and give out some of the items ourselves...maybe because we have helped the nurse in charge in the past.
hats and blankets for babies in the maternity unit
Finally, back into the minibus for the journey back to the hotel, stopping off at the Tendaba complex on our way. We had some cold drinks and a very welcome loo-stop!
A very good run home...until we got into the traffic at Brikama. From then on it was the normal crawl, taking so much longer than in the morning. Even so we were back in the hotel by 7.15pm...a good, if exhausting day!!
Our so grateful thanks go to our great Gambian guys, in particular to Abdoulie on this occasion, as his driving, in often extremely trying circumstances, was as immaculate as ever.
A very good run home...until we got into the traffic at Brikama. From then on it was the normal crawl, taking so much longer than in the morning. Even so we were back in the hotel by 7.15pm...a good, if exhausting day!!
Our so grateful thanks go to our great Gambian guys, in particular to Abdoulie on this occasion, as his driving, in often extremely trying circumstances, was as immaculate as ever.
