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During Bakary's last week we did some
extended shopping trips to buy presents for friends and family back
home. An extra case had to be purchased to hold all the gifts, and
Bakary had to leave some of his own things behind with us, as
otherwise his luggage would have been severely over the permitted
weight for his flight home.
His last weekend was spent seeing a bit more
of London - he first travelled by train to visit a Gambian friend in
South East London, from whom Linda Murgatroyd collected him and took
him to stay with her in Stoke Newington for a couple of days. She
took him to see many of the London 'sights', including a boat trip
up the Thames and an extensive tour on an open-topped double decker
bus. We collected Bakary from her house on the Tuesday evening and
had a delightful supper with her - many thanks for all your
kindness, Linda.
The following evening, after a day of yet more shopping, we
entertained Paul Clifford from the Plymouth-Banjul 'Super Trooper'
team to supper (see the Super Trooper page). Paul was pleased to
meet Bakary, to discuss possible projects and how they might meet up
at the end of the rally in Banjul.
That brought us to the last day of his visit - as usual, the last
couple of weeks had just flown by and several things we had hoped to
do had not been fitted in. Never mind - next time, maybe....
We have had several emails from Bakary since his return - he is in
touch with a couple of the schools he visited in UK and the prospect
of linking with one of them looks extremely good. His new baby
daughter has now been named - Nyima - and all the members of his
family are well. He has started the course on Information Technology
that he was hoping to attend and the luggage we sent out that he
could not take on the plane has arrived safely. We are starting a
new class & staff-room block project at Bakalarr, in conjunction
with the 'Super Trooper' rally team, and Bakary tells me this is now
under way - we hope to see some progress during our next visit.
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