"Why do you do it?"

Not always the easiest question to answer. I was looking back through my jottings and came across this entry, about twelve years ago. It may give a clue about why we continue this work. Not happy reading.

"The darker side of life in The Gambia was brought home to me on my second trip. An elderly man who had been collecting fruit from a tall tree with the aim of selling the fruit to buy a cup of rice to feed his family, fell to his death a few feet from where I was standing. Our efforts to save him failed. He had been warned that the tree was unsafe, but he ignored the warning. The taxi I was using for the day was commandeered to take his body to the mortuary, and later that same day he was buried. Many people live a hand-to-mouth existence. Things we Westerners take for granted such as education, healthcare, clean water and support in time of hardship, are simply not available to many other people. At the time of this accident I was on my way to Mandinari village, where I was providing an English Language course for the school staff. I found on the first day that I was offered food and shelter for the duration of my stay. Setting up GOES to offer a little support was the least I could do."

Post this message I still feel the shock I felt that day, when a man, about my age, died simply from trying to feed his family.
Thanks for reading this,
Tom

GOES keeps going!

What have we been up to lately? Well, the Gift Aid arrived - thank you, UK Government! Quite a lot of it has been used already because we don't pile up money in the bank. If we have money it's our duty to send it to people and places in need.
We've helped a small school by paying the wages of a couple of members of staff.
We're paying for a young woman (her education had to pause while she had a couple of children) taking a crafts course at Brikama.
We sent support to a family when their mother died.
We paid the registration fees for a nurse who studies to become a midwife.
We have helped a couple of people develop their market gardens.
We have paid for the medical care of several people between the ages of 18 months and 80 years.
We have passed money on to a friend who is building a school.
We have paid school fees for young children to attend nursery schools.

We are running out of money again!
Please help - I noticed that 3 of you bought Malinding ebooks yesterday - or did one of you buy 3 books?
This is a good way to support GOES - and GOES supports people in need in The Gambia.
Thank you!

Another busy day

Well, busy if you include waiting as an activity! Waiting for a cheque from HMRC, that is.
Lots of interest in the latest book, 'Chasing Freedom Home' - please will some of you who now have a copy post a nice review on Amazon? If you do hopefully that will increase interest in other books in the 'Malinding' series and so make a welcome contribution to GOES funds!
 The next, and possible final, book in the series is now into its second chapter - about 3,500 words so far. We went to Gladstone's Library for the day - I took 4,000 words with me but I had read them aloud, in private, thank goodness, and I was far from happy with the result! So the scissors came out and there was a severe editing session this morning.
 After lunch, with cake, the muse was a bit kinder and I've re-written several passages - hope they'll sound better.
 Best wishes to you all, and thanks for your interest.
Tom

Chasing Freedom Home!

Chasing Freedom Home is the title of the latest 'Malinding' series of Kindle ebooks. I've just downloaded the text to Amazon and, fingers crossed, it should be available to buy ( $3) from this time tomorrow. As usual, income goes straight to the GOES bank account, where I hope it will soon be joined by the Gift Aid income from HMRC.

Where does the money go? To the Gambia - recently providing support for a very small boy to have an eye operation, to a young woman who, with your help, needed proper medical attention to discover that the lump she had found was not cancerous, and to support the family of a lovely old lady who died recently.

 We have just taken a little time off to play with our latest grand-nephew in the park, and enjoy singing nursery rhymes at full volume in the back of the car.

 I'll report again soon!

Tom

It's a 24/7 job!

Twenty-odd years ago, when we retired from the day jobs, I wondered how I would fill the rest of my life. J was already settled into her new life as a full-time student and I turned to voluntary work. Voluntary works means you do something you want to but don't get paid for. I enjoyed it immensely. The I lapsed into running GOES. The enjoyment increased by 100%, as did the worry about not being able to do more! J joined in too, having reduced her study a little after the third degree ...
 But there are no office hours - which is brilliant. For example, having finished the latest 'Malinding' series book, we thought we would have a relaxing visit to Gladstone's Library. Great idea; good food, good company and lovely surroundings. Quite true, but GOES was still with us! We left with a car full of beautiful clothing donated by a Library friend who had listened to us talking about The Gambia, and decided to help. Some will find its way to West African villages, some will be sold and the money raised will help to stock medical supplies for clinics.
 Still determined to relax we decided to get a new set of wheels for J. We've both been cyclists from the age of eleven (quite a while ago!) and J decided she might be safer on 3 wheels now. So, we toddled along to another beautiful location, the Juicybike showroom in New Mills. We played with an electric trike in the car park and decided to give it a new home. We also were given a set of panniers and a trunk bag (goes across the top of a set of panniers), all superb quality, to help raise funds for GOES. Many thanks to Bob Wales and Sarah (and all the Juicybike staff) for their support, and for the fact they are excellent people who know their trade and how to look after their customers properly.
 Back to work on Tuesday with the Gift Aid claim, the cover design of the book (Chasing Freedom Home) and selling the donations, probably on eBay, the gifts we've been given. None of the money we raise goes into our pockets - every penny and pound will go so improve the health or education of some one in The Gambia who needs help.

All in a week's work!

Honestly, we really do more than sit around chatting to our friends and eating delicious Gambian food. Sometimes we really are quite busy! But yes, we do sit around and chat! The art of conversation is alive and well and living in The Gambia. Everybody has a turn to speak and it's rare to be interrupted. I love this country; the eagerness for education, the kindness to strangers, the politeness of children and the gentle sense of humour.

 I'll deal with the work GOES did on this visit but for now I'm just enjoying memories and wishing I was back in the sunshine.

P.S. If you're waiting for a text from me I had better tell you I've lost my 'phone. Hope to find it soon ...

Best wishes, and thanks to all my friends for their help.

Tom

Just to convince you that we did do some work last year!

...and you thought we only played with the babies and ate huge, delicious meals?

Telephones!

Wonderful invention, the 'phone. They don't seem to have got it quite right yet; I decided to dump my old Nokia, the small brick-like gadget that had served me well for about ten years, surviving being dropped, drenched in the wettest rain the The Gambia's rainy season could deliver (that's pretty wet, if you haven't yet visited GOES territory from July through to September!). I gave myself a present of an up-date which is supposedly able to take pictures and deliver them to blogs and web-sites within moments. It's lighter and smaller than the brick. Pity it doesn't do what it says on the tin/box. Yes, it takes pictures. Then it keeps them. I've been trying for the past three months to send the pics to this web. They don't arrive - somewhere, in outer space, there are pictures of clinics and hospitals and schools floating about, looking for a home. What the 'phone does do, and seems very good at, is costing me money. It leaks money. If I check the balance at the end of one day and then switch it off for the night then switch it on next morning the balance is lower. Somehow it has spent money while being switched off! Is it going out to all-night parties? Is it connecting to Amazon and buying ebooks? What is it doing?
Sorry about the rant - I like technology when it works, really I do!
Best wishes,
Tom.

By the way, the fifth 'Malinding' book - Chasing Freedom Home - has reached 40 thousand words - half written.

Really must do some packing soon!

For the first time in years we haven't received an extra baggage allowance from Thomas Cook. THIS GIVES US A BIT OF A PROBLEM - WHAT DO WE LEAVE BEHIND? It's a headache. People have been very generous again and the spare bed is swamped with donations. Clothes, educational materials and medical equipment. We would like to take some odds and ends for ourselves, too! It's surprising how quickly 20kg mounts up. We have a ritual of weighing everything on the bathroom scales, remembering to include the weight of the suitcases.
 I have been given the loan of one of these new phones which not only can take pictures but can send them to blogs and web-sites and whatever. I'd been perfectly happy for years (and years and years) with my old Nokia - it was just a phone (oh, and it could turn into a torch, very handy on a dark night in a village!). This phone has survived rainy seasons, being dropped, being generally ill-treated, but now it's starting to fall apart. The keyboard bit is detaching itself from the rest of the phone and it's lost part of its memory (it's not the only one!)
 So I have a loan of one of these new (how new?) multi-purpose phones. So far I've learned to switch it on. If and when I learn how to take and send pictures I will 1) post some on here, just to show off, and 2) set about finding a similar camera for myself.
 Oh, and a big 'thank you' to Barclay's Bank for the gift of lots of pens - should keep a couple of schools happy!
 I've not posted on here for a while because I've been busy re-writing 'Empty Bananas' - the first of the Malinding series of books. The original version was a disgrace, I'm ashamed to say. The new edition is much improved (so I'm told) and will soon be on free offer for a few days on Kindle. I hope you enjoy it and that it encourages you to buy the other books in the series. All money from the sales goes to GOES and then on to The Gambia.
 Thanks for reading this - I know I ramble on!
Tom

Leaping, very slowly, into action again.

Title says it all; actually had a phone call from the Co-op Bank yesterday. My missing correspondence has been found, but due to some clerical error we have to start all over again but a debit card will be sent, together with a new PIN so I can start to use the bank again. Great! Hurrah! When? Don't get too excited - it will take seven to ten working days ... in other words, we're back to the same position we were in five weeks ago. The difference is that this time I have a real live, named, person to speak to. So it all may turn out for the better, but not just yet. The good news is that the Bank will present GOES with some money as an apology. We'll see.
 I had a good day working at Gladstone's Library today - 1,300 words added to the fifth book (not thought of a title yet - 'Returned Empty' is my best effort so far but I don't really like it.
 Friend S (you know who you are) has been coaxing his friends into raising money for the cause - details when I have their permission to print them!
 HMRC have received our application for Gift Aid and I hope it will be processed before we travel out to The Gambia in November.
 So, the future's bright (but not just yet).
Best wishes to everyone,
Tom

Progress - or lack of it - report.

Hello again. Still waiting for the Co-op Bank to get round to customer support! Ten days after informing them that my bank card was missing I still don't have a replacement! This is the Charity account and I can't get money out of it ... the GOES system is that when we receive an appeal for help, and approve it, I potter along to any UK bank, pop my card into the slot, key in the code and amount required and take the cash to Bayba via Barclay's Bank. With luck the money is available in The Gambia the same day and I'm informed when the collection has been safely made.  Sadly, the system fails because the Co-op is working so slowly. At least, I suppose they're working - I've no evidence to show that they are.
 However, there is a little more money waiting for us - the pretty little Victorian table I mentioned a couple of weeks ago has now sold (for £26 ) on EBay and is ready for the buyer to pick up.
 I'm faced with filling in a lot of information for the American tax authorities, who want a slice of the 'profits' from the sale of the 'Malinding' series of books - it won't pay the National Debt off! I've put 'Stories for Gambian Children' on free offer next week (4th - 8th August) if you're interested. It's a short book of short stories I've told in various Gambian schools - well worth the offer price of £0 !
Thanks for reading so far.
Tom

The sun shines but I go to work!

You might think that at my age I'd have more sense! Still, there's another book to be finished. In it Ed's eldest son, Ed-Lamin, has finished Uni in England and has settled down to live happily ever after with Jane, his beautiful girlfriend. There was a General Election six months ago but the people of England were either too lazy to vote or too disillusioned to care. So, as a result, an extremist party - the Purity People's Party - gained power and set about ridding the country of 'undesirable aliens' by rounding them up into concentration camps. Ed-Lamin is captured by manages to escape by  -  well, that would be telling and I need you to buy the book and support GOES! Anyway, it may or may not end happily!
 So, that's why I've spent a sunny day indoors. The pile of reading glasses donated by kind people in Cheshire for use by short-sighted people in West Africa grows - more please. We're not sure that we'll be able to take heavy stuff like reference books out this time because we've not heard from Thomas Cook about an extra baggage allowance yet. Fingers crossed. Light stuff we can manage in our pockets - mobile phones (always welcome), memory sticks, spectacles and such like, please !

Writers to the rescue!

Our friends at Vale Royal Writer's Group have generously contributed their work to a small anthology - poems and short stories - to help raise funds for GOES. We sold the first batch at our Summer Wordfest when VRWG joined with the Dead Good Poets of Liverpool and performed at the Blue Cap Inn at Sandiway. We'll have the next edition ready for the Winter Wordfest in December. If you would like a copy - excellent value for £2.50 ( inc. postage) - send the money and you'll receive a copy of this original work! Fourteen poems and stories for less than 18p each!
Thanks to all the writers, and a special 'thank you' to the printers and publishers - Liz, Mark, Jenny, Tim and Co.
Roll up - collect in person and it's yours for £2.00 !

Jones Nursery School, Mandinari

A rare view - only one child in sight. The school, built by SHINE, has been supported by GOES and other charities. The co-operation seems to produce the best results for the children of the village. The new classroom, built by a Dutch couple, blends in perfectly with the original structure.