The Gambia Project

I would like to thank the following people that made donations for the education project. The children really needed the assistance for their school fees, uniform’s and school supplies. Without your support, this could of not happened. Everyone here appreciates your support. I wanted to share the first eight students.
A big thanks to the following:
Ray & Joanne Walton, Betsy Walton, Karen Scheifer, Lorrie Tritch, Jay Gold, Joni Klassen, Cyndi Pederson, San Wong, Bing Feng, Thao Le, Glenn Yanagi, Sakura & Family, Kazuko Machida, Alma Reed, Thanya Ruenprom, Ringga Bell, Sally Godwin, Jane Godwin, Kimmy Hyunh, Wei Wu, Hugo Van Tran, and Lauren Wiedt.
THANKS AGAIN! Each student will be able to go to school for six months and hopefully I can continue to help them in the future.

Last night went with a friend to just relax at the beach, to talk and escape for a bit. It was a beautiful sunset.

It was a very long trip back to West Africa. One of my luggage was stuck in Chicago for a few days so I spent time with my friend Dawda at his family’s house til last thursday and spent the whole night travelling by road back to The Gambia. I wanted to share with you a few pictures that I took there. I have a great new little friend and her name is Ben.

From all the prints that I made when I was home, sweet Isatou won the awards of popularity! The little girl from the village of Sara Samba has touched so many.

I was just going through some images that was shot in the past and saw this one. It was taken last September when we left the training village. It was the morning I was leaving and wanted to take one last shot of the family. Rambo which was the family’s dog died so a little memory for him as well.

Last Saturday was the Iowa Asian Heritage Festival. I have been a photographer for the Iowa Asian Alliance for the past five years. It was the first year that I was not a photographer. My friends at the festival let me setup a small booth to sell my prints that I took in The Gambia. All the proceeds will go to help sponsor children with books and school fees. Well, I didn’t get to sell all the prints that I wanted but interest to talk about my experiences with The Peace Corps. If anyone would like to buy some prints, please contact me, I will be going back on June 1st.

I’m currently on vacation back at home. I have been gone for 10 months and great to be back with family and friends. There is no place like home but I do miss my good friends in The Gambia and trying to get all re-charge to go back, still have 14 months to go! Just wanted to show off the Walton Family here, the portrait was taken a few days ago by my friend Thao.

In The Gambia, the thing to do is just to hang out somewhere, talk, look at people and chill. These are some shots that I saw when my friend and I were in Banjul sitting around on the weekend.



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