10 November 2016
Days 8 and 9
Day 8 -
Wednesday
To the North
Bank today. A very early start. The kitchen staff kindly opened early so we
could get some breakfast before we left. In the cab and off to Banjul Port at
6.15am for the 7.00 ferry. A good crossing saw us in our cab at Barra, the port
on the North Bank, at 8.00.
The cab we had was exceptionally noisy and bumpy
particularly on the North Bank roads which are mostly untarmacked and made of
compacted sand with many potholes and ruts.
The North Bank
is very different from the South Bank. It is considerably poorer and the
villages and communities are fewer and farther apart.
After about one
and a quarter hours we reached Albreda Lower Basic school where we met with
Fafa Jobe, the head teacher, and the regional schools cluster coordinator. We
have carried out projects before at Albreda LBS (see PAGEANT Albreda page) and
were here to talk about new projects. Fafa kindly provided us with a breakfast
of bread and sardines.
The school has no mains electricity and wants a solar
installation; a panel and storage batteries. These would be used to power the
computers in the resource room and some security lighting for night time. One of the
issues we have is that the school already has 8 solar panels on the roof that
are not being used, along with some batteries that don’t work. We were told
that they could not be used because they belong to The Ministry rather than the
school and couldn’t be used without permission. Getting permission would be a
long process. Bureaucracy at large!
We handed over some money for projects
approved so that they could go ahead – the construction of a perimeter walls
and tiling of the teachers’ quarters. Albreda is so remote that the teachers
need to live on site. Fafa than told us of some further refurbishment projects
he would like to carry out.
We then went to
Bakary Saidykhan’s house in Juffreh. Bakary is Wandifa’s brother and is also
father to Ousman, who Kathy and I sponsor. We chatted and were kindly provided
with some lunch.
We then
returned to the port via Aja Fatou Bojang Senior Secondary School, Albreda
where we met with Ousman. We arrived at the port very tired, thirsty and dusty.
There was one
final treat in store. As we crossed the river a school of dolphins passed by.
There must have been at least 20 of them. Seeing them certainly helped make a
tiring but rewarding day.
Unfortunately,
no pictures today as I had a flat battery in the camera and had forgotten to
pack the spare. Sorry about that. Pippa will add some when we get back to the
UK.
Day 9 =Thursday
A quieter day.
We started by visiting 4 schools to welcome newly sponsored students and giving
them their pencil cases and taking their photos. We were also chasing up
missing reports. We do need the reports to check on progress.
We then went to
The Reach Centre, which I hadn’t been to before. On the campus there is a
school, a church, a hostel for young students, a study centre and a library.
I’ve not seen anything quite like this in The Gambia before. One of our
sponsored students lives there enabling easy travel to school.
On then to the
Lutheran Nursery and Lower Basic School. We ae funding a project there to
provide piped water from the mains into the school premises. Unfortunately, the
Water Board has not completed the final pipe work into the schools so we were
unable to sign off that project as completed.
We did talk about some other
possible projects including running water pipes further into the school to the
toilet block and paying for those toilets to be refurbished. Other possible
projects there to consider include now windows, as the existing ones are so
small that they let in very little light, and possibly some suspended ceilings
to provide heat installation.
More tomorrow…
The young
persons’ hostel at The Reach Centre
Lutheran Nursery and Lower Basic School
