Greetings from The Gambia. How are

you all in England? We are nearing the end of our summer holidays and would like to tell you what we have been up to.

The summer saw the most holiest of months

of Ramadan. This months sees Adult

Muslims praying hard and fasting from

sunrise to sun set and we may try it for a day

or two but it is not easy not eating or drinking anything for 12 hours!

We know you have been back at school a

few weeks now but we do not start back until

September 22nd. But we don’t get a half term

break like you.

The month ends with the festival of Eid il Fitr. In The Gambia we call it Koriteh. We eat lots of nice foods for the three festival days.

On the first day of Koriteh we all get new African clothes and the

girls decorate our hair.

And we are allowed to ask our relatives

for some small money to buy sweets and ice

cream. Its called Salibu

On the second day of Koriteh

we get new clothes that

are more European in their design

Or a dress and sandals

Like jeans, shirt and trainers

Do you like our new shoes and

bracelets?

July also saw the 20th

anniversary of our President

coming to power.

Next February will see us

celebrating 50 years of being

an independent

country

Can you guess where I am?

I am outside the local peanut factory. We grow many

peanuts in The Gambia. We call them “ground nuts” you

may call them “Monkey Nuts”. Behind me is a mountain of

peanut shells.

You can collect the used shells for

free. We are going to use them

as fuel in our peanut burner.

The summer sees many fruits ripen. We are here at the

local fruit seller and we are buying

mangoes. We are going to have a go at making mango

jam.

First we are peeling them

and then cutting them up into

small pieces and putting them into the bowl.

And adding some sugar.

We put the ground nut shells in to the burner and

light it with a match. It burns well. We think we

should be using the shells as fuel to cook rather than

cutting down the trees for wood.

Now the mangoes are

nice and hot we are adding some lemon juice so it

sets in to jam.

Finally we put into jam jars

and put a label on the jar and allow everything to

cool.

Now we are at a very nice bakery buying

some good bread for our jam. The Bakery is

called “ The Bakers Dozen” Do you know what a baker’s dozen is? Have a look at the

“B” in Bakers. Its made up of a 1 and a 3

We tried the jam and it is delicious! Do you make jam

from your summer fruits?

The other thing that happens in August is the hard rains come. They were a little late this year. They came on August 15th. We were glad to see them because it means the farmers can plant

crops especially rice. We also find out if our roofs are strong.

Well that’s all for now. I hope

you enjoyed our news.

And we look forward to

hearing from you soon.