Ramatoulie Krubally aged 13 years

93k	You can download this report as a Microsoft Word Document by selecting the Icon to the left.

We first found Ramatoulie aged 3 years, sitting on a tiny stool in a small school run by a Nigerian lady, Rose, in 1997.  She was sitting quietly in a class of 5 year olds and we had gone to the school to look for a child called Nyrah Conteh.  Nyrah’s father had recently suffered a bad injury at work and so was unable to continue to work or pay for his daughter’s education.  The teacher of the class took Nyrah to go to find the parents to come to meet us so they could hear the good news that their daughter’s fees would be paid for in the future.  We were left outside the classroom and suddenly became aware that the class of 25 small children were sitting in complete silence waiting for the teacher to return.  I entered the classroom and pointed out various pictures on the wall.  The class responded with shouts of ‘A HOUSE’, ‘A CAT’ etc!  Then the teacher returned and took over.  He asked for a volunteer and all hands shot up.  One small boy was chosen and stood at the front of the class.  Then he began shouting ‘Capital A, small a’, ‘Capital B, small b’ and so on right through the alphabet with Bill, my daughter Joelle and myself just amazed that this little chap could go right through the alphabet without hesitation at 5 years old.
Little Ramatoulie, whilst beautiful from one side of her profile, had a harelip which was quite disfiguring.  We approached an Egyptian doctor who agreed to perform an operation to rectify the disfigurement free of charge.  Ramatoulie was found to have malaria and had to stay in hospital for 6 weeks.  It cost the charity just £50 as we had to pay for her food and for her mother’s fares to visit her.
	The next time we went to see Ramatoulie she was not in school.  The teachers said she hadn’t been for more than a week but offered to send one of the teachers with us in the taxi to the house.  When we reached the house it was to find that there was no sign of either the mother or child.  The ladies of the village said the landlord had thrown them out for non payment of rent.  Suddenly, one of these ladies cried ‘there is the mother’ and sure enough, she was there having come to see her former neighbours.  An incredible coincidence that we should have been there at just the right time to re-establish contact!

 

In 2000, we paid a visit to Ramatoulie and her mother at their poor little house at Brikama.   The mother had remarried and now there were two small sisters.  Fortunately we had taken quite a lot of clothes (including the denim jacket which she still manages to squeeze into 5 years later!) and hair ornaments and trinkets, at least enough to be shared.  Ramatoulie took me aside and asked if she could have a bicycle!  She is such a sweet child who is completely at ease with me now, that I delight in her requests, delivered in a low whisper!  Sas told me that she had to walk 4 kilometres there and back to school and so we went to the market to buy a now very treasured yellow bike.

In February 2006, we visited The Gambia with Hilary’s daughter Helen and the two grandchildren, Thomas + Laura (see Helen’s report)   As we told you in that report, we had a party on the sand with lunch at a beach restaurant for children who had done particularly well and who didn’t live too far away.  This time I had brought Ramatoulie some yellow shoes she had asked for but her feet had grown almost too much.  She forced her feet into the shoes!  There was a really cold wind blowing and it was nigh impossible to keep the little girl warm but she still did some colouring in books with the equipment Helen had brought.

We last saw Ramatoulie in November 2006 when we had another beach party.  As my special sponsored child, she was allowed to come again!  She is now quite tall and appears very confident and not at all fazed by the lingering disfigurement she will always carry around her mouth.  It is clear that it does not give her a problem. We will follow Ramatoulie’s progress until she leaves school and add to the story next November.

Back to Home page

Copyright © Schools Aid for Gambian Education
(Sage) 2005