25.2.14 Tuesday. Naata and Nemasu

Fiona set off for Nemasu this morning where she is helping the staff produce visual aids, and Steve went to Naata with some firewood for the kitchen.  I spent the morning doing accounts and writing up the blog.  We are getting ready for a school party from Belle Vue Girls’ school who are arriving tomorrow, and are travelling up on the north bank of the river to Ndungu Kebbeh early on Thursday morning. 

I rang Kebba and asked him to come back a day early so he can look after the house whilst we are away, Malik has had to go away for a while.  Steve came back with the bread, Fiona arrived home and we all had lunch in the garden.  Kebba arrived home later in the afternoon and rang the taxi driver for me to check on the progress of the minibus.  Unfortunately the taxi drivers father has passed away and he has gone to the provinces with the minibus for the rest of the week!   Onto Plan B another bus needed, fortunately Kebba was home because he managed to find one for us, the extra special priority letter that Ousman has got us to cross the river on Thursday has the registration of the first minibus on it, it is now too late to change it and so we will just have to hope that the ferry authorities understand our dilemma!    The new taxi man arrived to talk about arrangements and everything hopefully is sorted now!

Fiona, Steve and I went out to the quiz, and once again beat the other teams, our winnings now amount to about £100 for the charity.  Fortunately we are friendly with the other teams and a lot of banter goes on, which is why the team name is still 'The clever Bastards from Yonder'.

24.2.14 Monday Wages Day

Steve and I set off to the bank this morning, and then Steve went on to Naata to deliver the wages whilst I went and queued and queued in Trust Bank to transfer the Kumbija wages to Mr Sowe.  Monday morning, a huge queue, I was 15^th in line,  and only one counter open, obviously a worldwide problem in banks.  After spending a long time in the bank Steve collected me and we drove home for lunch, stopping on the way to collect newly baked bread for our sandwiches.  Fiona arrived back from Nemasu and we had lunch before going to the storeroom to load the delivery for the nursery school in Serrekunda.  The head teacher here had found us on the internet and asked for help with school resources and furniture.  We loaded chairs and boxes onto the truck and set off for London corner to find the school.  We found the nursery here in a huge compound which is owned by a former ambassador to  the USA, and has a very large playground, the school itself is in a house and they are using the rooms as classrooms.  Resources are scarce and so she was very grateful for all the goods we delivered, books, paper, crayons and toys for the children to play with.  After looking round the school and chatting for a while we went onto Banjul to meet Ousman and try to collect our residents’ permits, no such luck as the plastic they are produced on is still out of stock.  Steve then went on with Ousman to police headquarters to get the clearance letter for the truck, but no luck there either as the power was off and they could not type the letter.  We gave up at that point and went for a cold drink before leaving Banjul for the day.  We called at Yashmina on the way home for dinner, I went down to the taxi park to finalise arrangements with the minibus for Thursday when our students are crossing the river.  I couldn't find our taxi anywhere and finally another taxi driver said he would ring him and find out where he was.  Apparently his taxi has broken down and is in the garage being fixed!  he promises me it will be ready for Thursday, lets hope so!  We had dinner and then returned home, arriving back at the house after dark, which here is around 7.15pm. 

23.2.14 Sunday. Long Journey

Doug arrived just before 7 this morning to go with Steve to Kaur.  Fiona and I managed to have a bit of a lie in before rising for breakfast.  Today we both had washing to do, so spent the morning washing before going to the storeroom to sort out a delivery to a nursery school in Serrekunda for Monday afternoon. Most of the boxes have gone from the storeroom now, except those for the clinic which Pauline and Chris B will deliver next month.  We decided to go out for Sunday lunch after our work in the storeroom and so returned home to wash and change, before getting a taxi to the tourist area for our lunch.  It was very pleasant sat in the shade outside the restaurant and eating our lunch whilst enjoying a glass of wine.  After a pleasant meal we walked part of the way home before getting a taxi back.  An afternoon relaxing, before settling down to a film for the evening, and to wait for Steve and Doug to return. The tiles had been delivered and the rest of the furniture to Jamwelly, also the lunch money for March to Loumen and Jamwelly.  The ladies garden at Loumen has been locally fenced and Steve was able to deliver seeds for the vegetables that the ladies intend to grow.  Doug had been able to help Steve out with the driving and was delighted as he had spotted 3 new birds and was able to take photos for his collection.  They arrived home around 9pm, dusty and dirty but happy that the mission was accomplished. Great for Steve to have some male company for a change!

22.2.14 Saturday. Day off!

Steve has decided to drive back to Kaur tomorrow, there and back in the day, to deliver the rest of the tiles and some furniture for Jamwelly.  So this morning he had a well deserved lie in whilst I did the accounts for the charity.  Fiona and I then went to the storeroom and sorted some things out for tomorrow to go with the furniture.  I had made an appointment at the hairdresser this afternoon, so Steve took me to the salon and then went off to do some shopping for the house.  We called at the storeroom on the way home and loaded everything for the morning, before returning home to change before the 3 of us went to GTS for the evening meal followed by an early night.

21.2.14 Friday. A dog for the school

We woke early as usual and packed everything into the truck before the pupils arrived for their morning assembly.  The puppy was still frightened, but had eaten and slept and was a little more friendly this morning.  I picked her up and stood with her in front of the school assembly whilst Channeh explained that some very bad boys had been injuring the puppy and that the charity were now giving the puppy to the school to look after.  She explained that they were to feed it and give it water and under no circumstances to harm it in any way.  The pupils were then asked to decide in their classes what to call it and a decision would be taken on the most popular name.  We later had a phone call to say they had decided on Tiger, I must say that the tiny brown and white spotted dog looks nothing like a tiger and spends most of her time hiding in her box at the moment.  Hopefully she will settle down and prove to be a good guard dog for the school.  We left Jamwelly and went into Kaur where we stopped at the corrugate café for breakfast and then went onto the school to collect Kebba and the carpenter to take them to Farafenni with us for the building materials..  We arrived at Farafenni and began to look for the timber we required for the roof of the library.  10 lengths of 3x2 are required, the first shop had only 3 lengths, the next place had none, we found another 2 lengths and the corrugate before we decided that we had wasted enough of the day and gave funds to Kebba to complete the search and transport the items himself and the carpenter back to Kaur, a distance of about 30 miles. We set off for the ferry where we were ‘helped’ to the front of the queue and crossed very quickly to Soma and the road home.  We picked up a mixture of 7 police and soldiers for a lift on the way and they all travelled on the back down to the kombos, which made our progress through the check points much easier.  We stopped at Kalagie for a refreshing drink at the bird camp before reaching back home at around 4.30pm to be greeted by Fiona.  As usual we and the truck were covered in dust from the journey and so Steve and I showered whilst Malik washed the truck and then Fiona came with Steve and I to a new bar on our main road for dinner and a welcome beer!

20.2.14 Thursday. Kaur and Jamwelly

Doug and Sandra arrived this morning to travel with Steve and I to Jamwelly.  Fiona is still at Nemasu and was staying alone for the 2 days we are away.  We loaded the personal items onto the truck and set off on the south bank for the ferry crossing at Soma.  The travelling is much easier now that the road is finished and we managed to reach the ferry without incident, there was more traffic than there has been over the last few weeks and we queued for an hour before crossing.  In Farafenni we went for our usual lunch of omelette sandwich and coffee before buying vegetables for our evening meal.  Steve and Doug shopped for rice and potatoes and we packed them on the truck and set off for Kaur.  The road is not busy in this part of the country, we just have to look out for donkeys, sheep, cattle and goats running across the road.  We arrived in Kaur and went straight to the Lower Basic School where the builders are converting the old meeting room into a library, the windows and tiles were off loaded and then Steve and I went into the town with Kebba to source timber and corrugate for the roof repairs.  This proved to be a fruitless exercise and we need to go to Farafenni tomorrow, which is a much larger town and more likely to stock what we need.  We went back to the school, inspected the work done so far by the builders and then set off to Jamwelly to spend the night in the school.  The journey takes us across the main road and onto a dirt track to the village, just as we arrived at the dirt track we found a small group of boys torturing a very small puppy, very tightly tying bands of cloth to its back legs and dragging it through the dirt on its stomach.  They said they wanted to kill it!  As you can imagine as animal lovers we stopped and rescued the tiny puppy which was squealing loudly and obviously terrified.  I picked it up and we took it in the car to the school where we were able to discover that its legs were not broken, but just badly bruised, but the puppy was traumatised and very frightened..  We found an old banana box and made it into a bed, much to the amusement of Channeh the head teacher. (dogs here sleep in the sand or wherever they can find)  Doug, Sandra and Steve went off on a bird walk whilst I stayed at the school with the puppy which is too small to be away from it’s mother, and waited for Kebba to arrive to sort the wages.  The puppy went to sleep and seemed to settle down, so we have decided to give it to the school for the pupils to look after and learn about animal welfare. Kebba arrived and we sorted out the wages and the bills for the week.  The building work should be finished by Wednesday.  The wanderers returned and we all had dinner before retiring for the night.

19.2.14 Wednesday. Sheilas last Day

Fiona went off to Nemasu this morning and then after Sheila had finished her packing we set off to the airport for Sheila to catch the early afternoon flight back to Manchester.  Steve and I then went on to Kanifing to buy tiles for the library floor at Kaur.  Then on to get copies of the Jolly Phonics CD for our nursery schools.  The CDs here get spoilt quickly because of the red iron dust in the air which corrupts all Cds and DVDs.  Back home we off loaded some of the tiles and went to the window manufacturers’ shop to collect the 7 windows required for the library..  Raymond, the shop owner helped us stand the windows up in the back of the truck and cover them with a blanket before roping them securely into place to avoid damage on the journey.  Back home we added as many boxes of tiles as the weight would allow and then roped everything into place for tomorrow.  Because the truck was loaded Steve, Fiona and I just walked around the corner to Neils bar this evening for a quick dinner.