Several members of our group had brought simple teaching materials with them to donate. On several trips to Africa it had become apparent that one thing which children yearn for is education (contrasting with their contemporaries in the UK who don’t realise how privileged they are). It is not unusual for African street children to beg not for money but for a pen. So our guide found this school in a remote village where the Sahara meets the Atlantic and we left them with some new exercise books, pencils and pens.

One of the two classes was being taught French, which is the lingua franca in much of West Africa.

In the second picture, the man in the blue shirt is the senior teacher, and his assistant has his arms folded. The man in the thick woollen pullover and the scarf (?!?) is one of our guides, and the man facing away from the camera is one of our drivers. The man in the blue T-shirt kneeling down is a retired geography teacher from north-east England.