Bamako, charity and rubber stamps
The London flat is filling with bags again – fat, stretched holdalls packed with pencils, pens and games. Straps are wrapped around the stacks of football shirts and baby clothes waiting for the flight. We leave Saturday.
In Bamako the rain is still sheeting down, running eight inches deep down the street where we are staying and washing rubbish into the river. The humidity is 97 per cent, temperature climbing. The Workshop is sagging and stretched under the weather, demanding new roofing, unholed tarps and time to dry out. But the kids are still playing, running around in the rain.
And somewhere in Senegal a container is moving up the country filled with a Northumberland school room. I hope. More to the point, somewhere in Bamako a customs officer or border policeman is sitting with my paperwork on his desk. I hope is his ready with the rubber stamp that says ‘Yes’.
That means there must be a lorry, as battered and rusted, disel-choked and dangerous as any other on Malian roads, which I will hire next week to drag that container the last few miles to the African Workshop. I bet the driver is asleep under it in his hamock now. And then – when we open it – there will be desks, chairs, tables, instruments, books and supplies for our project’s kids which we last used near Newcastle.
And hopefully – inshallah – the next stage of the African Workshop will have truely begun. Thank you for all help help and support along this journey!
I’ll be updating regularly from Mali so check back soon.
Lots of love,
Ben
Leave a Comment