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Tuesday 22 November -
A day of microscopes
First, we took 10 of the Olympus microscopes
to the Teaching Hospital in Banjul. We met the professor in charge
of the teaching laboratories, who was delighted with the gift. He
said that he might send some of them to the field stations in parts
of the country where there was no electricity supply at all, as
these microscopes use reflected sunlight for illumination. This
would make a tremendous difference to these regions as, at present,
they had no way of examining blood or other clinical samples on site.
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staff at Banjul Teaching
Hospital |
unpacking microscopes at
Gambia SSS |
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Next, to Gambia Senior Secondary School, also in Banjul. This is
one of The Gambia's most successful senior schools, but it is still
woefully short of Science equipment. We found that it has been
necessary in the past for the school to borrow a microscope from an
outside source, such as the MRC or the hospital, for a few days to
enable the students to have the chance of using one for a short
time. Now we were bringing them eight microscopes of their own –
amazing!
An assistant lecturer in Biology, Wale
Adebayo, tried out the Trekker microscope and was very enthusiastic
about it – he decided it would be excellent for field work. |
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Wale Adebayo trying out
the Trekker microscope |
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In fact, we left enough microscopes with this
school for three further senior schools – St Augustine's, St
Joseph's and Nusrat – to have three each as well, and arranged for
the Science teachers from these schools to collect them. As before,
the instruction leaflets were left with the microscopes and
arrangements were made for a second visit to see how the students
and teachers were getting on with them.
Then, back to the University for the
micro-biology class. When I arrived, the class was in full swing and
the microscopes had been set up so that each was shared between two
students. One was looking at the specimen while the other was
drawing it, no cameras here, of course. All the students were keen
to show me what they were doing and I found that they had set the
microscopes up very well indeed – and their drawings did indeed show
what they COULD see, rather than what they had been told they SHOULD
see. I explained to them how these microscopes had come to be given
to their university and they were amazed (and grateful!) that they
had been able to take advantage of such a wonderful gift. It seemed
to me that these young people were keen and observant and would make
really good use of their 'new toys'. They said that the instructions
had been clear and that they had not had any trouble in setting up
the microscopes – they also understood that they had to take care of
them and keep them covered when not in use.
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Students at Banjul
University using their microscopes |
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