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An Afternoon in Africa

The Gambia 1986

By Barbara Jo Shipka

February 21^st, 2015

I had finished my contract in The Sudan and was on my way home. I decided to stop and visit Trish and John for a few days. We had all worked together in Somalia some years earlier. On one day, Trish needed to make a field visit so I went along. Children were learning in an outdoor ‘classroom.’ The littlest ones were on their mothers’ or older sisters’ backs. The little ones who could walk were playing everywhere. After school was finished, some kids made their own version of a bao board in the sand, others did a wrestling performance for us, the staff posed for a photo and the children seemed to especially enjoy being photographed. It was a wonderful afternoon.

Except for a few of the black and white photos, these images are scans from 35mm color slides. In some cases, where the color had deteriorated beyond what I could mend, I converted them to black and white. They tell a story of a wonderful afternoon in a very small village hours away from the Gambian capital, Banjul. We traveled by boat and truck to get there.

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