The Visitors

or closer to there fields. But the whole caravan keeps on mowing, due to the fact that all the seats are taken in the cars.

Peter van Minderhout, Director Corporate Communication & HR from TNT and Arlene Mitchell, Director School Feeding Programme of the WFP are together with officials and the TNT-volunteers on there way from Kerewan to Ngerr.

Linda and I - decided that this is a community very worth supporting together with the next groups of volunteers. We announced to the headmaster and the alquaila (head of the village) that we will bring some visitors (or strangers, how they are called in The Gambia) and that we would like to have Parents Teachers Association PTA meeting to discuss the needs of the school.

From having been to this place we knew that we had to take a smaller sandy road to that village - after passing a green sign "Memmeh 4 km →" - we had to turn left at the big tree where the broken down car is getting more and more rusty in its shade. The whole trip to Ngerr took us about 2  hours for a distance not more than 45 km. By the time we came closer to the village we could already hear the children welcoming by shouting "welcome" and waving at the cars.

Linda and I decided to stop the cars and walk the last 500m to the school. Women in traditional dresses were dancing with there sleeping babies bounded to there back and Linda and I joined them for a while. It is very unusual that there is music played during daytime in the Ramadan - but it seemed that there where exceptions made for the strangers.

We where invited to take our seats under a newly build conference room in front of one of the classroom buildings - 6 wooden sticks with lots of dry grass on top to give enough shade for all of us. It was decorated with pieces of fabrics with local pattern. Inside there where tables and lots of chairs and benches for all, who where invited to the meeting. Somehow it seemed that nearly all members of the village where at the school - old, young, women, men, babies and students.

Followed by the greeting ceremony, what is similar like a state dinner at a government official and takes at least 45 minutes Linda and I introduced ourselves and explained that we will soon be leaving, but that two other volunteers will come soon. We promised that with this volunteers the community will have a second meeting to discuss who will do what - to create a child friendly school to study.

The need of the school where explained by the head of the PTA and the women as: classrooms, a kitchen, latrines, a working well and a milling machine.

After this all participants went to the what is on ground and what needs to be improved to create as said before a child friendly school.