Friendship Gardens

The women's gardens that we helped to create a few years ago are flourishing. The they are understandably very proud of the amount of produce they are growing, so here are a few photographs.....

Shipment

Our shipment is now all packed up and on its first leg of its journey... in Terry's horse box. It will go to the shipping agent tomorrow, and then to Felixstowe to all be put into a container on a ship, and hopefully arrive in Banjul, The Gambia about 23rd April. Sankung will then collect it from the port, take it through customs, load it all onto geli geli's (local transport)and take it up country 200km to Si-Kunda village. It will then be distributed by him to Pakalinding, Toniataba, Fonkoi Kunda and Si-Kunda schools, the Red Cross in Soma, and Soma Hospital. There are also more supplies in this shipment for the Skills Centre. So many people contribute to our supplies for our shipments, for which we are very grateful as it means we are able to send twice a year.

First 2 days of our Feb/March trip to Gambia

Gloz and I took off from Gatwick South at 8.20am on Friday, 26th Feb 2010. We arrived 7 hours later in Banjul.
We first of all made a visit to Busumbala after leaving the airport. This is where the compound is going to be built. There is water now in a standpipe available in the new compound we are building for a family, and students who are going to the coastal area to further their education.
6.50pm: We arrived at Sunshine Coast B&B – a great place to stay at Cape Point, Bakau. We discussed our immediate requirements to organise, made a list for Sankung of meetings to organise, in particular Soma Hosp, Red Cross, Mr Touray, Toniataba School, Women of Sikunda, PTA, and VDC, Pakalinding School to discuss internet access, and also the youths of Si-Kunda as a follow up from the meeting we had in November, a lot to sort out, but I am sure Sankung will manage! we need to sort out transport for tomorrow, supplies to buy, change our money to dalasi, and go to the bank, Gloz and I had a very enjoyable meal in the restaurant in the evening, the staff are lovely here, as is the owner, Liz, she will do anything to help and always make you so welcome.


Saturday, 27th Feb, 9.30am. Sitting in a little roadside stall having a drink, because the market isn’t open (found out later that it is a public holiday). There is no sign of Sankung, cannot call him as he has his mobile switched off, supermarket not open so cannot get our supplies either to go up country this morning, Oh well, I am sure it will all happen eventually, the sun is shining, we are looking forward to the week ahead, what more could you want!! Maybe Sankung has decided we have given him too much to do! I am sure he will turn up soon.

We decided we had just enough time to visit the Botanical gardens in Bakau, it is beautiful, we have a guide showing us round, so many varieties, dutchmans pipe being one of them, it is cool in the gardens so it made the walk very pleasant. We will visit again when we have more time as we did have to rush it a bit, but at 50 Dalasi each it was still well worth the visit. It is situated near the market on the opposite side of the road just as you start walking up towards Cape Point. Of course it was one of the only times I didn’t have my camera!! There were lots of varieties of birds, lots of paths and seating areas, we really enjoyed the visit.

We did some shopping eventually once the supermarket opened, but we didn’t have enough money, so left it there to collect later. Back at the guest house, we sit and wait for Sankung.

We set off about 12pm, and pass the University of Gambia where Lamin Njie attends. The students don’t all go to the same building, it isn’t big enough, so lectures are shared in about 3 locations down that street, one of them being the Gambian Development Institute, I took a photograph of that to send to Lamin's sponsors.

Its 12.35pm, we are in Serrukunda, there are no geli geli’s available because of the public holiday. So we make our way to Banjul to the port in the hope we can get a ferry to cross the estuary to the North Bank to find transport to take us to Farafenni.

Gloz originally said we would arrive at 6pm, I said 7pm and Sankung optimistically said 4pm! So I think we may all have underestimated our ETA!

In Banjul at 1pm, Gloz and I still in the taxi, Sankung has walked off somewhere, the luggage has all been transferred to a handcart, G and I are just cooking in the back seat while all this is going on, wondering what is going to happen next. Not the usual amount of transport about, the noise is usually deafening with so many people pushing and shoving, shame Gloz couldn’t have seen it like that, but there was a Muslim celebration last night with praying going on all night, hence the public holiday today.

Its 1.25pm and we are sitting on the ferry on the ‘top deck’ waiting for it to leave. It’s a beautiful sunny day, we are sitting overlooking the estuary, some of the passengers on the bow of the lower deck are playing djembes, we are eating our packed cheese and tomato rolls, and enjoying ourselves.

We set sail, a nice cool breeze, very uneventful enjoyable 45 minutes spent on the crossing to Barra on the North Bank. How they work out the loads on these ferrys I have no idea, there are some huge lorries on it, and goodness knows how many people.

I brought a Dictaphone at the airport to record everything instead of writing it all down, how much quicker it is, and it’s brilliant!! (…Its taking some time to type up now I am home though!!!) Our ferry will be docking soon, these ferry’s are quicker than they used to be and there are now 3 instead of 2 ferries, so at least you don’t have to wait for so long now.

After unloading at Barra and pushing our way through the crowds we hire a cart to carry the luggage, including 3 sacks of netting for the women’s garden. We get to the geli geli park, and wait, and wait. Eventually at 3.35pm we get in an 8 seater taxi, well at least there are 8 of us squashed in it., luggage piled on top

One hour and 25 minutes later we are in Farafenni!!!! The road was amazing, best I have seen on either north or south bank, road markings, occasional road sign, even one bus stop sign miles from anywhere, so it was a very good journey. 5.05pm we are looking for transport to take us to the ferry. Sankung finds us a horse and cart, so we all climb on, and off we trot and quite a speed, The horse does his job well, and we were deposited at a taxi park. I shall use the term ‘taxi’ very loosely, it was devoid of almost any interior, and was in as bad a state (almost) as the vehicle we used in Georgetown a few years ago, hot wire start and off we go towards the ferry port on the river. We arrived safely enough and then got another cart to take our luggage onto the ferry. We have to wait a while for it to fill up, then arrive once more on the south bank, another cart to take luggage to a taxi, we met a lovely young lady from Fonkoi Kunda who is in her 3rd year of teacher training, she managed to get a sponsor, and seems very grateful for it. We all pile in the taxi and go via Soma to Si-Kunda. Eventually arriving about 7pm, which is exactly the time I forecast! So seven hours and several modes of transport later we finally arrive! Hurrah!

One of the first people to greet us was Njie… and she called me Marje… Marje would have loved that! She was so pleased to see Gloz was with me, they always get on particularly well. The call to prayer started almost as soon as we arrived so Sankung disappeared for a while. Gloz and I started getting ourselves organised by unpacking all our luggage, and checking out the storeroom.. Sankung certainly had got a surprise for us, as it was now resplendent with lots of deep metal shelving, absolutely perfect! All our plastic boxes of supplies were put away, and it all looks so tidy, covered in orange dust of course, but very tidy. It makes a lot of difference, and we can now be so much better organised. Our whiteboard proved to be as useful this time as it was last.

Gloz and I decide an early night is on order. Well it was about 10pm eventually.

Feb 26th - March 5th - trip to Si-Kunda

Gloz and I returned early hours of Saturday 6th after a very enjoyable trip. We only managed a week this time, but still managed to achieve all we wanted to, so it meant early mornings and late evenings! first update below, with more to follow ...
Si-Kunda School has had a 'makeover' - The teachers have painted the entire school, including the kitchen and the surrounding school walls and gates; A wall has been built to define the school garden from the playground; The storeroom has been cleared; Furniture has been made for the two teachers offices; Metal shelving; The roof and ceiling have been repaired in one corner of the school; Seedling beds have been prepared in the garden; A new metal lid has been fitted to cover the well; Paths made in the school grounds; and generally all the school is looking very tidy, spic and span! We attended the school's first PTA meeting, with a lot of good suggestions being made and it was agreed which actions should be first priority. School attendance is rising, and school dinners are now being supplied Monday to Thursday, with Tombolu being the school cook, we joined in one lunchtime and the rice was extremely tasty. She cooks it with some peppers and onion, and when there are vegetables harvested in the school garden the produce supplements the rice. To add to the rice we provide, we have been allocated some ground in the rice fields, with the promise by the elders of the village that groundnuts will be grown for the school also. Any surplus will be sold to go towards the school fund. The schools needs new classroom blackboards, but apart from that it has quite a lot of supplies to keep it going at the moment. The childrens desks and benches soon need to be replaced, but we are hoping that these will be done soon by another organisation, so we will wait to see it this happens, if not, then we will have to try to do something about it. The school is progressing, the teachers and pupils seem happy, there are improvements still to be made but with hard work and determination this school will continue to improve.