{"id":1473,"date":"2008-02-27T08:44:07","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T07:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/?p=1473"},"modified":"2008-02-27T08:44:07","modified_gmt":"2008-02-27T07:44:07","slug":"a-first-experience-of-the-gambia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/?p=1473","title":{"rendered":"A First Experience of The Gambia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Marc Sanderson, Volunteer<\/span>
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<\/br>As we sit here putting the finishing touches to our new website (which we hope you find interesting and useful by the way), I am transported back to my first visit to The Gambia in September 2007.
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<\/br>Simply looking through my photographs, many of which are littered around this site, reminds me of a trip which literally altered my world in a single week.<\/p>\n

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And the thing is, it’s not easy to explain why it was so life-changing. Why it was so unexpected. Why, in fact, I have struggled to put that trip into words ever since I returned.
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<\/br>I think what surprised me most about the trip was the sheer joy, the hope and exuberance I found in a country which I knew to be suffering from the most appalling problems and privations.
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<\/br>Of course we saw and heard the most heart-breaking things as we visited the schools, walked round the communities and met the children and their families. Everything I’d read and heard had at least prepared me a little for that. After all, this is one of the world’s poorest countries we are talking about here, a country where people are suffering from poverty, hunger and disease every single day.
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<\/br>But what caught me completely off guard was the amount of smiling I saw – every single day. And the laughing. And the children playing football in the street – just like at home. And the sheer positivity of nearly everyone I met.
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<\/br>This was not a place full of people waiting for good things to happen – this was a place full of people doing their very best to make those good things happen.
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<\/br>People who needed a new nursery for the children weren’t sitting around waiting for Government funding – they were out building that nursery. People who needed somewhere to live were busy building a house. Any help the AOT was able to give was just that – help. With just a little funding for materials, or perhaps to cover a few essential running costs, I was watching Gambian people working, creating and striving to make life better for themselves, their families and their friends.
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<\/br>I think that’s why I’ve struggled so much to explain myself since I’ve been back home. I simply can’t do justice to the sheer inspiration these people gave to me in just a single week.
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<\/br>I guess what I can say is that they continue to inspire me every single day – to approach everything with a much clearer perspective on what really matters, to approach the world with a much more positive ‘can-do’ (ugh word!) attitude, and to do what I can to find the few little things they need if they are to continue helping themselves towards a better life.
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<\/br>I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marc Sanderson, VolunteerAs we sit here putting the finishing touches to our new website (which we hope you find interesting and useful by the way), I am transported back to my first visit to The Gambia in September 2007.Simply looking through my photographs, many of which are littered around this site, reminds me of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Marc Sanderson, VolunteerAs we sit here putting the finishing touches to our new website (which we hope you find interesting and useful by the way), I am transported back to my first visit to The Gambia in September 2007.Simply looking through my photographs, many of which are littered around this site, reminds me of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanoystertrust.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}