Friday (Day 7) Our last visits

I had been looking forward to Friday because that is the Badjie bin day and I wanted to get a photo of the bin man, we had seen him around a few times but always on the move. No specialised recycling lorries here, no wheelie bins hydraulically emptied high above their heads, just a man and a donkey! He must have thought I was very strange asking him to pose, and it was also strange watching him take away the cardboard boxes that had started their journey in the homes of excited sponsors.

Today was a little more leisurely, just two schools in the morning and a general distribution in the afternoon. Sol loaded up the car and we collected Sidat, (by now a permanent fixture) and we headed of to the first school. It must be so hard to keep these little schools going, they rely totally on the fees

they charge but can't charge much as the parents couldn't pay, they have to either build the school themselves or rent off the government and pay all the wages for the teachers as well as general upkeep and maintenance, it is no wonder Ginger and Sol get a standing ovation every time they visit.

There were a few S4K kids to check up on and some resources to give out. As it was a small well disciplined school this was done pretty quickly and the song singing kept to a minimum. I think we were in and out in about 40 minutes (which was a record) and then off to find the new school.

 Now one thing I hadn't appreciated about the roads in Gambia, apart from the few main tarmac ones, there are no roads. There are dirt tracts that come and go, with no real signs and no junctions, when you turn from a main road to a dirt track you just bump over the edge and very often the wind and rain have eroded the dirt away so there is a huge dip. In some places I noticed it was now impossible to turn off unless you were in a 4x4.

So we were heading down one of these dirt tracks, past some men felling a tree when it dead ended, We turned round and asked the men for directions to the village and we followed their instructions but missed the turning which was just by a wall so we turned around again, took the turning and drove straight on for a mile or two. By now we were getting a bit wary so when we passed a lovely young girl walking along the road we stopped for more instructions, she actually lived in the village so we gave her a lift home. The school was quite small and built just behind the headmasters house, he had a little veg garden fenced off with the smallest banana tree I have ever seen. His school was lovely, only a few years old and he had a sign above the door listing the 'friends' that had helped build it. Ginger asked if he already had support but he explained they helped fund the building but that was all. It was still nice to see others (in this case Germans) were willing to help this incredibly friendly little country.

We were shown round and gave out the books and pencils we had and Ginger explained that once a school is on her radar she doesn't walk away and that whenever she could she would help him out, I thought the poor man was going to cry.
As we were now near the home of one of Gingers kids we nipped in to drop off a much needed toothbrush, how she keeps the small details of all these kids in her head is beyond me!

The small settlement (not big enough to call a village) was right on the Senegal border and it was good to see border control posts and little medical offices where anyone wanting to enter Gambia had to go through rudimentary Ebola checks. I must admit to being quite taken by one of the soldiers and persuaded him he wanted a photo taken with the Toubab!

The general donation of clothes started quite well, a few came over to the car and were given a variety of items but soon the word spread and there were kids running over from everywhere, soon followed by their mothers. Sol and Sidat tried to control things by making them line up but when that many people get that excited they just don't listen. Ginger shines in these conditions, where as I tend to back away and hide ...or at least 'protect the car' We made sure the soldiers got the pick of the men's clothes so they were happy..

Ginger had been in touch with a toubab that had rescued a pregnant mare who had been overworked as a beach horse. She now had a 4 day old foal to look after and we had planned to go visit and give her some money towards expenses. We had an hour to kill so went to 'Wild Monkey' for a cold drink and to use their free wifi so Ginger could update her facebook pages. So many phones are needed on different networks as the signals are so unreliable...while she was updating I got to try on a curly wig, and absolutely LOVED it!

Time had come to visit the new mother and foal, called Princess. She seemed very well and took a fancy to my top!
After a nice walk on the lovely, near deserted beach we  headed home for food and Sol treated me to Senegalese Wrestling, the first time the tv had been on. We then went on to watch a film, eat more lovely food, help Denba with his schoolwork and fall into bed, happy but sad that my last day was coming.