Welcome to The Gambia

Here at last. Nik dropped me off, not everything went to plan. We did think that we could whisper sweet nothings across a table whilst consuming our last bacon butty together before I zoomed off into the vast blue yonder. Unfortunately it was not to be. The van was too high to get into the short stay car park so I was bundled out, landed on the tarmac, my back pack was hoisted into position and resembling Sherpa Tensing I fell into the departure lounge at terminal 1. I managed a pitiful wave through the glass door and watched Nik kangaroo off into the distance (I bet he was secretly pleased that I wasn’t there to nag him about being in the wrong gear). After spending ten minutes sitting on the loo crying my heart out I gave myself a good talking to and went in search of some familiar faces, I found them, funnily enough they were going through the same emotional turmoil that I seemed to be experiencing.
The plane wasn’t the most luxurious, Flintstones airlines comes to mind, at one point I thought we might have to flap our own arms to get air bound but we all arrived safely. Only one of our happy band lost their bags en route. The heat as we stepped on to the tarmac was something else – Who turned up the sun! After fending off all the ‘BUMSTERS’ ( a recognised term for chaps who try to extort money out of one by fair or foul means, I’m sure they’ll feature in future blogs), we bundled our bags into waiting VSO pickup trucks and headed for sanctuary. It wasn’t long before we were stopped, the army was out in full force all tooled up and looking rather scary. The reason for the delay soon became apparent. The president zoomed around the corner in his stretched hummer followed by a cavalcade of swish vehicles and instead of leaving in a hail of bullets packets of biscuits rained down on the crowds lining the streets. Phew, panic over. Welcome to The Gambia.
Life seems like a holiday at the moment we’re in a hotel with a pool, all very civilised. This will soon come to an end when we start our placements and are dotted around the country. The next couple of weeks involves settling in, learning about the culture and a new language (Mandinka), which will be a bit of a challenge as I am still coming to terms with the English language. Well until next time, I shall sign off, smother myself in mosquito repellent and climb under my mosquito net and hopefully drift off to sleep serenaded by the rain rattling on the tin roof on the other hand I may be kept up all night by yelping dogs, enthusiastic birds and the klunk of the fan that resembles something like a cat in a blender (sorry cat lovers). June xx