1. Greetings from The Gambia. How are you all in England? We are nearing the end of our summer holidays and would like to tell you what we have been up to.

2. The summer saw the most holiest of months of Ramadan. This months sees Adult Muslims praying hard and fasting from sunrise to sun set and we may try it for a day or two but it is not easy not eating or drinking anything for 12 hours!

3. We know you have been back at school a few weeks now but we do not start back until September 22 nd. But we don’t get a half term break like you.

4. The month ends with the festival of Eid il Fitr. In The Gambia we call it Koriteh. We eat lots of nice foods for the three festival days.

5. On the first day of Koriteh we all get new African clothes and the girls decorate our hair.

6. And we are allowed to ask our relatives for some small money to buy sweets and ice cream. Its called Salibu

7. On the second day of Koriteh we get new clothes that are more European in their design

8. Or a dress and sandals Like jeans, shirt and trainers

9. Do you like our new shoes and bracelets?

10. July also saw the 20 th anniversary of our President coming to power. Next February will see us celebrating 50 years of being an independent country

11. Can you guess where I am?

12. I am outside the local peanut factory. We grow many peanuts in The Gambia. We call them “ground nuts” you may call them “Monkey Nuts”. Behind me is a mountain of peanut shells.

13. You can collect the used shells for free. We are going to use them as fuel in our peanut burner.

14. The summer sees many fruits ripen. We are here at the local fruit seller and we are buying mangoes. We are going to have a go at making mango jam.

15. First we are peeling them and then cutting them up into small pieces and putting them into the bowl.

16. And adding some sugar.

17. We put the ground nut shells in to the burner and light it with a match. It burns well. We think we should be using the shells as fuel to cook rather than cutting down the trees for wood.

18. Now the mangoes are nice and hot we are adding some lemon juice so it sets in to jam.

19. Finally we put into jam jars and put a label on the jar and allow everything to cool.

20. Now we are at a very nice bakery buying some good bread for our jam. The Bakery is called “ The Bakers Dozen” Do you know what a baker’s dozen is? Have a look at the “B” in Bakers. Its made up of a 1 and a 3

21. We tried the jam and it is delicious! Do you make jam from your summer fruits?

22. The other thing that happens in August is the hard rains come. They were a little late this year. They came on August 15 th. We were glad to see them because it means the farmers can plant crops especially rice. We also find out if our roofs are strong.

23. Well that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed our news.

24. And we look forward to hearing from you soon.