Day 13

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Today’s agenda consisted of leaving Tandaba and heading towards Banjul. Before leaving Tandaba camp, we had a bunch of W&J uniforms and school supplies to hand out to the local school children. I was very touched when I saw how happy the children were to get a pack of pencils or a box of markers. Americans would not even think twice about getting a gift like this. I probably have thousands of pencils in my house and I do not take this simple writing material for granted. Regarding the W&J uniforms, some of these people might only have two or three outfits total in their entire closet. Getting something else to wear must have been extremely exciting. One thing that I was surprised about was that some of the people that we were giving stuff to were quite greedy. One lady complained that we didn’t have straight legged pants for her. Others were begging Buba for money and asking if he had any more stuff that they could have in his room. I thought that they would all be very grateful for what was given to them. I am not sure if this is greed or they really do not have anything and are simply asking for more. I did learn, however, that such simple things to Americans change lives for these Africans.


Adults with W&J baseball uniforms and school children with new school supplies and W&J uniforms

We had a long bus ride to get to Banjul. We finally arrived at the Guest House (the name of our Hotel). I finally have my own bed but there is no wifi here. There is a fast food restaurant and bakery right across the street from our hotel. We all decided to go and see what they had. I really wanted a cupcake or cookie. I ended up getting a piece of cake because that was all they had. This might have been the worst piece of cake I have had in my life. The cake was so dry and did not mesh well with the icing. Oh well, it was still something sweet. This place did have wifi but I could not get anything to load because there was so many people on the network. Here’s to three days without wifi… We had pasta with some weird sauce for dinner. I only ate the noodles. I am starting to feel sick again. My throat hurts and my sinuses are draining. This is how al my colds start. I am not in the mood for this and I do not want to be sick again. Everyone wants to go out to the clubs tonight and they are all pestering me to go. I am getting annoyed with all of them. No means no and they won’t take that as an answer. I know my own body and I do not feel well enough to go out tonight. I want to sleep.


Goodnight from Banjul,


Andy

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