Wednesday June 17 2009 Working with GamMol

Both Justin and I decided to take this week off from the classes to begin our work with the NGO GamMol, located in Sanyang. Tuesday was our first day of work there so we traveled to the village from Fajara that morning and since we arrived about 20mins early we decided to go make a quick visit with the Bojang family, where we stayed for two weeks earlier in the trip. As soon as we walked into the compound all the kids came running up to us, well me more than Justin haha, and wanted to play with us again. It was funny when Aminata saw us she came running so fast with the biggest smile on her face right passed Justin and just jumped on me, and Baby Awa, who was just starting to get used to me when we left a little over a week before this, wrapped her arms around my legs and would not let go until her mom pulled her away from me. It was so awesome to be welcomed back like that it was as if we had never left.
On our first day at GamMol we travelled to a school in a small village with a few of the men from the NGO to fix some desks that we at the school but were too big for the children there. This school was funded by GamMol and has probably a little over 100 students, who were all very welcoming when we arrived. At the school there is also a borehole which was paid for by GamMol and is used to supply water not only to the school but also to the entire community. There has been a piping system put in place by the NGO and there are numerous taps throughout the area so the people of the community have access to clean drinking water. The second day was spent working on a hand pipe in the village of Sanyang. This job required us to take apart the 15 meter pipe that is in the borehole as well as the hand pump itself. It was pretty hard work but I really enjoyed what we were doing since having clean and easily accessible water is very important and without this pump the women would have to travel a lot farther just to get water. We were given the next two days off since they didn’t have any jobs planned but I’m really looking forward to working with them more when we are back in Sanyang at the end of this trip. All of the people at GamMol seem to be very passionate about their work and are very willing to teach us about what they do as well as listen to any ideas that we might have.