...and I'm back!

Hello and welcome to my biannual blog! That appears to be my updating schedule so let’s call a duck a duck, or a crocodile a crocodile considering the environment, shall we? The big news this month? I have finished my Peace Corps service! That would probably have more impact if I had been updating you on my progress thus far but I haven’t so you’ll just have to trust that it was filled with rewarding work, frustrating stumbling blocks and a lot of donkeys. Sidenote: A common joke in The Gambia is to refer to a difficult person as a ‘donkey’. I’ve had plenty of experience with both the two legged and the four legged variety. You know what is cute? A baby donkey. Let’s see one to keep this post moving in a positive direction!





Many of you saw the library project that I posted on facebook and it was indeed a success. With the support of Friends of Gambian Schools, a development organization in the UK, who gave us funds to renovate a crumbling old storeroom into an appropriate space for a library, African Oyster Trust, also based in the UK, who arranged for fantastic books to be delivered to the village, our own Jappineh Doll Studio, who raised money for bookshelves, flooring and paint, along with Peace Corps who enabled me to live in the village and take on the project, we were able to develop a wonderful place to read and learn.







Plastering the walls



A community member painting

the solar system



Jappineh School



Organizing our books



Students enjoying their library books!



Jappineh Basic Cycle School Library

Our school offers pre-kinder through grade nine classes, and everyone is welcome in the library. I developed age appropriate activities for each class and the students really enjoyed them. The pre-k class listened to a read aloud of a book about shapes, followed by doing shape puzzles. The upper grades did library scavenger hunts in which they were given a list of things to find, i.e. a person eating a piece of fruit, and then worked in groups to find pictures of those things in the library books. This sounds really easy but between the language barrier, few students are fluent in English, they all speak local African languages, and the unfamiliarity with doing anything other than sitting quietly and taking notes in class it was a bit of a struggle! Over time everyone’s comfort level went up and there was lots of participation. Students were also given plenty of time to do independent and pair reading so that they had an opportunity to discover all the interesting books our library contains.


I’m really happy with how our library turned out and I enjoyed my time with the students so much. This was by far the most rewarding aspect of my work within the school and I hope that the teachers and administration will maintain it for years to come.