So Roisin, Kelsey, Alice and myself headed into the town with Mussa guiding the way. I think everyone who has met Mussa is inspired by him. He has such strong morals and clearly is devoted to children; it really is inspirational just to talk to him. So as we walked into the town centre we were approached by a group of young men (we all soon learnt this was expected if we went outside the school walls), I think most of us just found it comical


with the amount of cheesy chat-up lines they’d come up with. They would often hang round us until we reached the town where they would quickly disperse when they would get some looks from other locals. The food market was an experience in itself. The fruit and vegetable stalls were extremely bright colours, and all the food looked delicious! We had to go to the small shop to buy the cheese and meat (very similar to spam, disgusting!), but the bread was bought in the mornings when the allocated people would go to the bakery to get breakfast. The bakery was different—health and safety would have a field day! I loved going to the bakery and out to lunch; it was one of the best parts of the day to go out of the school walls.


We became close to many of the children but we each had a group of children we were extremely close to. In my case, there were four girls named: Kaddy who was 8, Ounie who was 10, Kadjatou who was 11. Last but not least, little Fatou who I got really attached to she was so sweet and was often sent to the market to get her food for her family of 16 people, she was 5 years old. I remember one morning, we walked out of the library where we slept and I heard my name being called, the girls had come to school nearly an hour early so they could see me, they were incredible. We adored the kids, and they were so happy with nothing, it was amazing, they would always beg us to finish work and come play. If we were outside then they would try to teach us this creative game which could only be made from having nothing, it was so complicated and only involved sand – which there was a lot of! When we left the school, no matter how far away we went, if I turned around there were always Kaddy, Ounie and Fatou following behind. Over the days, we all became really close to the children.


Whilst


working you would often get men at the window, and one day I asked them to move to I could sand the windowsill. Suddenly Kaddy ran over and said “No, no, no.” She then dragged me away and said “You don’t


152


Gambia


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157