Our Pen Pals from The Gambia
Ms. Cogley's son went to The Gambia for a visit. He was going to visit a
school there, so we wrote letters to other fourth grade students hoping that they would write back to us and we would have pen pals from Africa. Ms. Cogley bought pencils that said San Francisco on them and sent them, too.
Nathaniel took the letters and pencils with him on the plane and hand delivered them to the headmaster of the Essau Lower Basic School across the river from Banjul. The headmaster introduced him to the year four teacher. Since we had sent 18 letters, the teacher picked out 18 students to write back to us.
Nathaniel toured Africa for a few weeks and then went back to the school and picked up the letters. He took packs of school supplies to each student who wrote back to us. He also took their photographs and brought all the letters and photos back to us at John Muir.
The students from Essau School told us about their school and their studies and themselves. They have a big garden where they grow vegetables to raise money for the school and also to eat at lunchtime. There are 1600 students at Essau School so students have to go to school in shifts.
There are other students who want to write to American students, so we are hoping to get more classes interested in writing to them. We are excited to have pen pals and will be writing back to our Gambian friends soon.
