Two schools.

During the course of our latest trip we were able to visit several schools. Most are doing well, even though several are operating in difficult circumstances. It's great to see the combination of eager student and enthusiastic teachers. We were saddened to see that one school, which had been the pride of its village, struggling. The number of pupils had dropped, the classrooms were in disrepair and the qualified teaching staff had left. There was an air of desperation: basic educational materials - paper, pencils, chalks - were lacking. A couple of rooms were occupied with junk, another had not been repaired following damage from a falling tree. A gardener and a caretaker had been dismissed and the school garden, which had previously provided both food for the children and a small income from the sale of surplus crops in the local market, had fallen into disuse. We provided what help we could but it was beyond our means to fund the repairs and wage bill for the little school. It appeared that the people who had sponsored the school for several years had been unable to continue and the villagers had withdrawn many children and sent them to a new kindergarten a short distance away.
 We made a couple of visits to this new school - what a difference. The head teacher already was in charge of a large lower-basic (Junior) school and had decided to provide the youngest children with fully qualified staff, breakfast every day, medical support if needed and a very happy atmosphere. She funded much of the initial cost of this operation from her own pocket. We made a contribution towards the cost of rice, provided a large number of dictionaries which had been presented to GOES (and for which we had paid Thomas Cook a large sum of money as 'excess baggage'!) The school seemed a truly happy, industrious place of learning.
 I'm haunted by that other, crumbling little school. We had known it in happier days, I had sat in the shade of a tree and taught previous generations of teachers a little more about English language and told stories to youngsters who seemed to enjoy hearing - and helping to make up - tales from two continents.

You could support GOES by buying any or all of the Malinding  series of Kindle ebooks. Who knows, you may be the one who enables an autoclave to sterilise an instrument used in an operation to save a life!

Well, what did we do with your money?

Just looking back over the notes we made during the week we were out there - and remembering that one day was lost because the country ran out of petrol! Here's a list of what we did with your money:
 Sad one first - we gave money to an old lady; her son has travelled to Europe to seek his fortune (he was lucky enough to survive the sea crossing to Lampedusa but was arrested and to the best of our knowledge is now in an internment camp). He was trying to support his mother, wife and children and is now unable to do so. We gave his mum cash to buy food for the family and medication for herself,, but we heard she died two days after our return home.
 Better news now - the young woman who was told she had breast cancer and travelled, with your help, to Dakar for treatment, discovered that she did not have a cancerous growth and, after a final check, is back at work supporting her family.
 The young lady who received a modern wheelchair is increasingly independent.
 The village clinic we support received gifts of medical equipment, supplies of over-the-counter drugs and money to buy prescription only medications.
 We met a young woman who is working 13 hours, seven days a week, fifty weeks a year,  to support her family, including a very bright twelve years old sister who wants to be a doctor. This child suffers from a severe version of Sickle-Cell Anaemia; we have been able to donate sufficient money to enable her treatment to be continued, possibly also in Dakar.
 The little boy with suspected cancer of the eye has also received treatment in Dakar and returned home. He has not lost the eye, though sight has been damaged. He has to return to the hospital for a final check.
 A 'hard working family' has received help to improve irrigation of their small holding and to purchase cement to re-inforce the walls of their home which was damaged in last year's rains.
 We continue to support a number of adult students studying nursing, business studies and IT courses.
Bags of rice and sacks of cement go to families in need, money for house repairs, books, clothing go to others.
 The boy who received treatment for a heart condition is a teenager now, anxious to catch up with the education he missed due to his condition. You helped him to continue his studies. You should have seen his smile!
 Our next job is to prepare a claim to HMRC for Gift Aid, which will of course go back into the GOES bank account to continue the work you so kindly sponsor.
 Thanks also due to those of you who have bought the Kindle ebooks in the 'Malinding' series from Amazon. That money goes directly into the GOES bank account and helps to fund the activities listed above.

Fundraising - what we've tried so far ...

We have tried sponsored cycle-rides, writing books (five so far - Google 'Malinding'), and selling things on Ebay ( a hat-sizer, a very small locomotive, a 40 year-old Seagull outboard, two scooters, a bike, a boat and an unidentified navigation device, to name a few.) We use Easyfundraising as a search engine, which pays GOES 0.5p per search - it all mounts up. We beg for donations and old reading glasses and new medical supplies: I think people run away when they see us approaching

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.

Update on our activities

We have been busy, honestly. It's the time of year to concentrate on raising funds here and it's the rainy season over there! Rain isn't very good for the village houses and there are always repairs to be done, cement to be bought, corrugated roofs to be repaired.
Last night the ValeRoyal Writers' Group, together with the Dead Good Poets of Liverpool, held a wordfest at the Blue Cap Hotel in Sandiway. Invited poets performed and local poets made good use of the 'open mic' sessions to entertain their audience.
The raffle and the sale of books produced 3000 Gambian Dalasis (£65 in UK money!)
The VRWG book was the Summer 2010 mini-anthology of the group's stories and poems, (shortly to be followed by an Autumn Collection). Mark and Tim and Jenny and Liz worked long hours to publish and print the books ready for the show.
We're still waiting for the arrival of Gift Aid (it's the return of Income Tax on donations made by friends of the charity). To be honest, we're still waiting because I was late applying for it. In the end I had to take me by the scruff of my neck and force me to sit in front of the computer for three hours. Job done. Why was I making such a fuss about it?
Anyway, the Charity is back in funds. Because there is always a need for help by the time you read this most of the funds will have been sent to people in The Gamble. We don't let the money pile up in the bank when it could be working for people who need it.
We sold our little boat too, on Ebay, to raise some money for a particular urgent case. I must admit that we now have a habit of looking at things and wondering how much they would fetch at auction! Last year the scooter went and an out-door classroom arrived in a Gambian Village.
The tandem was sold and several children went to school .... one way of getting rid of the clutter!