Before his recent holiday to The Gambia, Derby Evening Telegraph photographer Martin Elliott made a local appeal for medical supplies which he would share out among the people in the west African country.
Here, he talks about his trip and the people who benefited from Derbyshire's generosity.

When the man wearing the Osama Bin Laden T-shirt demanded to see my identification, I thought I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.

We - me, my son Martin Jr and our guide Papa Jaiteh - had been stopped at one of the many road checks along the main Gambian interstate highway on our way to deliver medical supplies to one of the many smaller hospitals in the regional districts.

I had a suitcase full of supplies, including syringes and needles, vegetable seeds, sterilising tablets and boxes of surgical latex gloves.

I had intended to deliver the supplies to the local hospital in the country's capital, Banjul, get a few photographs and that would be the end of it. Martin and I could then get on with our holiday.

The first day in our hotel we had bumped into a couple from Dundee and another couple from Hastings, who told how they had funded some children's education after visiting a local school.

They recommended Papa - or Pat as he liked to be called - as their driver guide.

A devout Muslim, he became a trusted friend and would barter for us and take us off the beaten track, allowing us to see the poverty which blighted his country.

We told Pat about our medical supplies and he suggested we travel with him to his village. His district - the Central River District - had a small hospital encompassing many of the surrounding villages and, like most of The Gambia, it had little in the way of medical supplies.

There was also a festival in his village, where we would be welcomed and would experience the 'real' Africa.

So it was after watching the red dawn rise over the African bush and the small mud hut villages come to life, where women and children carried huge bundles of sticks and basins of water on their towelled heads, that we made our way to Niana District, in the Central River Division.

Either side of the crater-filled road were sparse villages, wandering goats and here and there a donkey. Every now and then were checkpoints.

The road was under repair and patches of grey interspersed the billowing red dust as we passed trucks full of pilgrims returning home to celebrate the festival.

I came eye to eye with Osama Bin Laden - albeit just on a T-shirt - at the next checkpoint, as the combat-fatigued guard studied my press card.

'Remain calm,' I kept repeating to myself as I tried to ignore my conscience screaming out how stupid I'd been to take such a risk with my son's life.

"Why you take medical equipment to The Gambia?" the guard asked.

"Because they need it," I replied as truthfully as possible and, to my surprise, not in a squeaky voice.

He handed me the pass back and shook my hand, adding: "You are a good man."

He walked away. I do not think I had ever been so scared in my life.

Another three hours and we reached Pat's village, Barajalli. The village had no tap water or electricity. We gave it some vegetable seed and some basic medical equipment.

The we went to the Kauntaur hospital, which was very basic and reminded me of an old, dilapidated, railway station waiting room.

We were introduced to the chief medical officer in charge that day. He was Kebba Tamba, a trainee nurse, who was delighted to receive the supplies and thanked the people who had sent them.

That evening the village put on a display of Mandinka drumming and dancing under what Pat described as the village electricity supply - the moon.

We ate local rice and peanut sauce and enjoyed the festivities. We returned the compliment by getting up to dance, met by the villagers' laughter.

The dance was a mixture of Mandinka stamping and a Highland Fling. It proved to be the best night I had spent in the country.

Next morning, after washing naked over a hole which was surrounded by corrugated iron and doubled as a toilet, we donned the Hafkan robes that Pat had bartered for us in Banjul and attended a festival to celebrate the Old Testament story of Abraham, who was about to sacrifice his son before an angel intervened and he offered up a goat instead.

Afterwards we were told that the Imam had thanked us for bringing aid and seeds to the village. Now the villagers would sacrifice their goats and the celebrations would begin.

Unfortunately we had to leave, as we were to fly home the next day and could not risk any delays on the seven-hour journey back.

We said our farewells and set off for Banjul.

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