greetings from kabafita lower basic school. how is everyone in england? we hope you are all well. we...
TRANSCRIPT
Greetings from Kabafita Lower Basic
School. How is everyone in
England? We hope you are all well.
We are in the middle of the dry season and every where is very dry and dusty. It will
not rain again until April.
The bananas are just coming in to season here. You can see the bananas are green but
when we pick them and leave them for some days they turn
yellow and are ready to be eat.
On February 18th The Gambia celebrated 50
years of Independence. We
were once part of The British Empire and Commonwealth.
Portuguese settlers first came to this area of West Africa in the 1500s. And they introduced peanuts
from South America. Peanuts are now our main
export
Under the Tudors and the Stuarts the
British and The French fought over who should control this part of Africa.
The French formed the
country called Senegal which surrounds The
Gambia. French is spoken there.
But the British wanted to control the River Gambia because it was an important trading
route and was used a lot in the slave trade
So The Gambia is a long thin country 20
kilometres north and south of the river. The
British run the country as a colony up to 1965.
But now we are independent country and we have our own Government and our
own currency the dalasi. We also have our own flag, stamps and national anthem.
Here is the Gambian flag. The blue represents the
river. The green the fertile farm land and forests and the red the sunny climate
here.
And here are the words to our national
anthem and we are going to sing them to
youClick speaker to hear us sing the National Anthem.
On February 18th there were big celebrations at The National stadium.
Even our president was there.
Each school sent 20 children
and two teachers to take part in the big
march.
We have only had two presidents since we gain independence in 1965. Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara was our
first Prime Minister. He is the man on the right. He became the first President when we became a Republic in 1970. The man on our left is our President now: His Excellency
Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Jammeh. He came to power in a coup called The July 22nd revolution twenty years ago and
he has ruled the country ever since.
Our current President has done much to try to develop our country and tells us what
to do to make The Gambia strong. He has many
important messages for us.
The mobile phone companies like
Comium and Africell sponsor many bill boards celebrating
Independence
We hoped you enjoyed learning
about The Gambia. We say bye for now.
Next time we are going to tell you all about African
drums and african
drumming. Bye