Early Fri morning, Rog went with Lucas. Here's his account:
"I went to the bike shop with Lucas today. He bought four bikes and a unicycle for a bit over $100 US. He was very impressed with the order and supplies at the shop and said that he thought that it was probably the best bike shop in Gambia. The bikes will be ready to pick up next Wednesday. It was nice to see my bike mechanic buddies again!"
Lucas hopes to connect with them when he gets the MyFarm bike shop ready to go.
I was back in the labs helping out and reading aloud to the kids. Both spent part of the afternoon creating games. Rog worked on a 5 Peg game and I finished up a checkers game then started playing with some older girls. At one point, another girl came in and I asked if she wanted to play. She said in Gambia, many believe if you play checkers your family compound will break up and you will not have any children. I asked if maybe we shouldn't be playing…she said, no it's a superstition only. One of the local teachers came by so I checked with him. He said yes many believe that but it's not a problem to play. The younger kids wanted to play Doggie, Doggie and I also showed them London Bridges & Duck, Duck, Goose. Wore me out! In the evening, we actually lucked into figuring out the PlayStation so we watched one of Karl's movies. Saturday morning we were off to the beach…to do a beach clean. Becky drove 8 kids & us in their up jeep-truck which you started with a large screw driver. Rog wrote this:
"We went with Becky to do a beach clean up. Took many children with the hope to teach them the value of keeping the environment clean for the health of the animals and for people. A man who lives in a shack on the the beach cooked breakfast for at least 50 volunteers. He encourage us to eat the chicken wings, onion stew , and bread that he had prepared.
I hesitated but he said, "Don't discriminate just enjoy our breakfast!"
It was very tasty. When I thanked him for cooking he said, "Your words water my heart." He was very grateful for our efforts in cleaning the beach. Our group picked up about 10 big garbage bags of trash (mostly plastic) in about two hours. Much of it had come in from the fishing boats that are constantly offshore."
Later in the day, I read aloud to a group of teenage girls who were enthralled with the story, Thank You Brother Bear and laughed out loud hearing There was an Old Lady. Since no one had done any cleaning in the volunteer house, I swept & mopped up the layer of red dirt. I'd hate dealing with this dust all the time!
Next morning was Sunday and only the tech students were here. Carmen, the gardener & I transplanted a plant after I mentioned I noticed an empty planter by the entrance. He thanked me profusely for pointing it out and had someone take a picture of us planting it. Rog & I worked on making a Tower of Hanoi & a triangle per game. We're hoping the kids will now be able to make more for themselves or to sell. Around 3, we called a cab & went to a nice beach restaurant that Lucas recommended for a delicious shrimp dinner & cake too! Three waiters took our order over a course of about an hour before we finally got our food. So Gambian! But it was just realizing & nice to be at this popular beach on a Sunday evening. It was crowded with white tourist, Gambians, football players, horses back riders, bikers, ladies selling fruit, drummers and many swimmers. The cab ride there & back was like the craziest carnival ride ever. We bottomed out and avoided other cars & pedestrians by inches as we took the back roads avoiding traffic. Actually it made me a bit seasick!
On Monday, we climbed back into the firetruck & headed to the largest prison in Gambia. MyFarm has started a program to teach skills that the prisoners can use when released. Last year, they introduced micro gardening & soap making. Our team was so excited when they opened the gate & immediately saw a huge, bountiful garden and looking down the driveway was more! A big bag of soap bars was evidence of another success. The prison warden was very welcoming & before long we were building more table to plant, working up new ground & adding compost and making mango jam. Rog helped disassemble pallets teaching them to use a crowbar—right up his alley. The boards were used to build more tables. I was the assistant making jam. Mangos will be plentiful soon so making jam will be a great way to store or sell them. We put some jars in the solar oven to sterilize them & cooked the mangos & sugar over a small charcoal burner right in the classroom. We filled 8 jars then poured some in each of the 20+ prisoners & guards' hands. They licked it up grinning & smacking their lips! We didn't get back until 4:30. Since we'd not had any lunch…we were starved but full of satisfaction!
