Sketches from the Smiling Coast

Tuesday morning, we headed off to the offices of the National Environment Agency, where we met with Anneke and the staff of the NEA. We were sincerely impressed by the work that is going on there, and I was excited to think about the future collaborations that I could pursue. The GIS and mapping team were kind enough to prepare a large map of The Gambia for us.

After the NEA, we departed for Bakoteh Lower Basic School with Anneke, who works on environmental education projects with a number of schools in the Greater Banjul area. The Bakoteh School has an active environment club, so we were going to work on a pen pal exchange and green mapping exercise with this group of approximately 30 students (mostly 11-14 year olds). The impressive Headmistress, Ms. Chow, explained the details of the school to us, and the shear numbers of students boggled the mind. She was very pleased with our token of appreciation (a mini Team Canada hockey stick), which she promptly displayed on her walls among the other received tokens. Unlike the Wellingara School, we could tell that this school had received many visitors.Letters from The Gambia to Canada!
Working on Green MapsThe students worked hard on their letters and their green maps. One of the teachers took us on a very interesting tour of the school grounds, where they have been composting and planting a vegetable garden. Mira, Camaro and Dustin will be incorporating