Bathroom

Toilet

The Corridor

View of our Street

Meet the Neighbours

Picked up again and taken to the NGO building to commence our two hour language training. After a lovely buffet lunch myself and James who is an accompanying partner/husband to Kathy walked back to the hotel as the volunteers were to be meeting there employers and other staff from their workplace to discuss programmes etc.

Local Street

After a hot walk back to the hotel and the odd Gambian trying to sell us things, I picked up Jenny, Abi and Bradley and we headed out to visit the Zenith School were we are looking to enrol Abigail and Bradley in September. The staff run a summer school for the week for those children who are behind. We found them to be very welcoming which immediately reassured me, unfortunately Vicky Clarke the Head Mistress was at home working, however, the admin assistant asked one of the security men to take us to her house, and (you wouldn’t expect that in England). We found Vicky to be an approachable no nonsense type of person, and she explained to us the school curriculum they used, which is very much like England which was a positive outcome.

Zenith Private School

School Playground

Dressing Up

Picked up for our ICT and taken to a NGO building to commence our language training. Both Paul and myself split up as Paul will be teaching in Brikama an area where Mandinka is widely spoken and I will be in the Kombos where Olof is used. Started with the basics of greeting people and the formalities around this and what is expected of you. I found the language training very helpful and after three hours we had lunch. The rest of the afternoon I found very tedious and had to struggle to stay awake which wasn’t helped by the heat in the room. Finished off with a visit from a Doctor who talked about the risks within the Gambia i.e. Malaria, this was the longest day so far ending at 5.00pm. Abigail and Bradley had spent the day with Jenny visiting the craft market at the beach, both came home with lovely presents bought by Jenny an African dress which Abi wore that evening to dinner and a drum which Bradley enjoyed practising his jamming on.

Abigail's African Dress

Banjul Capital

Second day of ICT, walked the fifteen minutes to the VSO Office, it was nice to enter the air conditioned building as I already felt hot and sweaty. We were Introduced to our language trainers and commenced the learning of the Gambian alphabet, of which there are thirteen vowel sounds. After two hours and a lot of listening and attempting to say the sounds of each letter we were tasked with writing down ten words and their meaning. The next introduction was that of the police who talked about security within the Gambia, basic common sense and what to be aware of.

With ICT finished we were dropped off at Banjul Market where we were asked to make our own way home. On exiting the car the heavens opened and we ran for shelter within the market, we were soon approached by bumsters who walked with us around the market, some areas we had to step through pools of water, and on smelling the fish section I made an exit for the main street. Once the rain had stopped we decided to head for home, crossing the road to find the best route through the pools of water and roadside drains which were gushing out water and what smelt like sewerage, with bumster in tow we found the correct bus and gave him a small tip of five dalasi. Once home I made a quick dash for the shower and gave my feet and legs a good wash, Not a very enjoyable experience.