My name is Omar Janneh. I was born on 03/03/67 in a village called Kaur Janneh Kunda, which is to the east of The Gambia on the north bank of the River Gambia.

Kaur is large and is one of the oldest towns in The Gambia with many different ethnic groups such as the Mandingoes, Wolofs, Fulas, Manjakos, Serers, Mansuwankas and others. It has physical features such as low hills, streams, lakes and rivers.

A primary school was built there in 1947 for the children in Kaur and the neighbouring villages. Later, in the 1950s, a Junior Secondary School was also built. Now in Kaur we have Primary, Junior Secondary and a Senior Secondary School.

I attended Kaur Primary School from 1973 – 1979 and then went to Kaur Junior Secondary School from 1979 – 1982.

I further went to a vocational training school in Banjul from 1983 – 1987, where I was trained in bricklaying, block-laying and concreting, and acquired a City & Guilds Certificate.

I worked as a masonry craftsman for a few months and then, in September 1988 I joined the Education Department as an unqualified Primary School teacher. I taught for a few years and then in 1992 I joined the Gambia College to be trained as a qualified Primary Teacher. I completed my training in June 1995 and then, on 1 September 1995, I was appointed as a qualified teacher. Since then I have been teaching as a qualified Primary School teacher up to the present date.
I am now teaching in Sinchu Baliya Lower Basic School, which is one of the largest primary Schools in The Gambia.

I am married with two sons and three daughters. I also have two adopted children, a boy and a girl. My hobbies are scouting and gardening.

Pippa, Ian and Kemo Ceesay met me at Sinchu Baliya Lower Basic School in October 2002 and gave a microscope to my headmaster so that we can use it in our Science lessons. So, being the Science Resource Co-ordinator in our school, the headmaster gave it to me so that we could start doing microscopical drawings with my Science Club children, and we did. Then, in February 2003 the group came back to award prizes and certificates to the children who came out with the best drawings.

Since then our relationship has developed through their helping the school with teaching and learning materials. Pageant built a Science Resource Centre for us and Pageant members are now sponsoring many children in our school. Every year Pippa and Ian visit the school in February and October and now both the children and teachers are benefiting a lot from their sponsorship.

On the way back from the launch party, still feeling slightly funky, I stopped in to Pippa and Ian's for their ‘meet Omar day’. They had some of their members round and were keen for me to talk to people about the Banjul Challenge.

I spoke to Omar about his visit to the Edison supported schools which he genuinely enjoyed, being pleasantly surprised by the level of interest and questions that the pupils had for him. Thanks to Jonathon Miller at Edison for organising what sounded like a pretty packed day fro Omar.

I also met Kemo, Pageant’s representative in Gambia and spoke to him for a while about the kind of things that Pageant are doing and he was really keen to show Dave and myself round when we’re in Gambia, we also have his number in case of logistical hiccups at the Senegalese/Gambian Border.

At some point soon we’ll be launching a couple of files containing lists of car related equipment that we are looking to ‘acquire’ before we leave that will be auctioned of with the vehicle and breakdown of our costs and donations.

However as an item that is highly prized in Gambia and is easy to transport.

We’re looking for old mobile phones, those bricks you’ve got sitting in a drawer somewhere ‘just in case’. We want them! Chargers would be good but it’s not essential.

Solar panels are also really high on the wish list, not that anyone is going to have any lying around but a contact would be useful if anyone’s parents relatives or partners etc have any connection with the industry.

One of the Pageant members, a German lady whose name has unfortunately escaped me due almost entirely to a complete lack of sleep Saturday night, has raised the possibility of a GPS unit and possibly satellite phone donation from the company she works for which would be seriously helpful.

Next in the diary is a meeting between Omar myself and Dave and Edison.

Laters

www.bluedotdisplay.com



Chris and I would like to say a big thank you to Gav Wren at Blue Dot Display for supporting team IBFC in the sticker department. I went to Uni with Gav and recently badgered him for some graphics sponsorship for the car. Luckily for us, he's a top bloke and has agreed to supply the stickers for the techni-coloured visual assault that will be the Trooper, in a few weeks time once she's re-painted... Once again, many thanks and please visit the company at the URL above.

Dave
After finishing work on Friday night, Steph and I bundled our camping gear into the car and set off for the 'official' launch party for the rally, being held in a field in Devon! It was soon established that we'd not brought a map, but hey, who needs maps?! On arriving in Collumpton we discovered, unbelievably, that the local supermarket was shut (it was 10pm), there were no off-licences and we had no beer! However, this soon faded into insignificance as Chris had arrived early and bumped into some fellow Group 1 Swiss boys who'd flown over from Zurich. Being Swiss, they were on the case and far more organised than us, sporting a homemade table, a digital pen-knife and most importantly, a big bottle of Pimms, lemonade and all the correct fruit! This set the scene nicely and we started to put up our tent and say hello to the people that had already arrived...

Chris
..........friday night continued with groups of people arriving up until fairly late, my recollection starts to get a little hazy from here on inverse proportion to the amount of Devon scrumpy I had left to the point that the next thing I’m completely sure about is Sat morning.

Sat morning was whiled away in Exeter generally blundering about, most importantly we replenished the stock of alcohol and ate brekkie in possibly the most pikey Woolworths I’ve ever been in.

General discussion was being had about a sociably acceptable hour to resume drinking when someone wandered past the tent about 12.30 with a can of Fosters which we unanimously decided was a good enough excuse to crack the bar open. With about 8 litres on Number 1 on offer I think we managed to greet most people in Group 1 with a complementary glass and ended up with a big ole group of people hanging around for the Group 1 leadership ‘election’.

We modelled the democratic process directly on Monty Pythons Life of Brian, blessed are the meek, blessed be the Pimms, follow the Holy Sheesha etc etc. Seeing as we didn’t have anyone called Roger or Roderrick we appeared to decide Fionna was now our leader mainly thanks to her son handing her an important looking file at an opportune moment, nice one Harry.


Dave
Next up was the hog roast, more drinking and a massive question and answer session, with Julian standing proud on a ladder and doing a very good job of giving out all the info, considering the rain and the large, drunk crowd! Now the real fun began, with a couple of bands playing in the barn and bit of a disco ensuing. I danced like a God as usual and the music was going well into the daylight hours... May I also point out that Chris thoroughly lived up to reputaion, furthering Group 1 and international relations... hehe. Other points of interest where the compulsive urge to wheelspin, handbreak-turn and do dohnuts in any vehicle being driven anywhere in the field. Top car surfing by the boys in the volvo.

Chris
Gernerally I had an excellent weekend all told, it being reassuring to find out that there was a really nice mix of ages and nationalities and that in general Group 1 rules. Had a good chat to veterans of the run and the odd team showing off their wheels. The film unit from Thailand (with Bloody Mary in hand on the morning of day 3) were floating the idea of Group 1 get together closer to the time……?

Oh yeah, and we picked up some maps and stuff. Into the desert, Hooyah

More pics to come and some stuff on the Pageant meeting I went to on the Sunday on the way back to sunny Brighton.

Those that know me will already know of my illustrious career of cars (starting with a mini, when I was 16, which I bought for £70 and proceeded to take apart, never to re-build!). It is therefor with a little tear in my eye that I finally got rid of the Cavalier, donated by my Grandpa when I was at University and sat on my parents' drive for two years after buying the thoroughly sensible Volvo! However, all is not lost... Not only did I have it scrapped for free, but I also managed to salvage some rather useful bits to transfer to the Trooper! I pulled out the front seats as they're just in perfect nick and I couldn't chuck them (not sure if we can make them fit, yet!), but most importantly we now have a booming, desert flattening, Essex-style sound system, with my old 6x9s and head unit! Much jiggery-pokery involved in sussing out the home-made wiring that Uli has put in, but it all works and you can hear it outside the car, so all the kids will look us. Sorted.
Have also discovered that the tail light problem was not as simple as first thought as it lies somewhere in the loom, which in some places sits outside the shell and is exposed to the elements!