Two Weeks Gone

We moved into the Big Brother house with relative ease. Six happy campers to fit into four rooms which meant four of us sharing and two getting the luxury of a room each. I organised the straws to draw the rooms and funnily enough myself and Vicky ended up with a room each. I can’t understand why they all thought I’d fixed it!

We tasted the real Gambia and visited a local village. Everybody welcomed us as we piled off the bus lots of smiling faces and handshakes in true Gambian style. We were introduced to the Alkalo (head of the village),the Imam and all the village elders. We meandered around their crops and gardens and finished with a mountain of food and hospitality. They were very apologetic as they couldn’t teach us to dance because of Ramadam, which was probably just as well because I think I would have needed a few bevvies before making a fool of myself.

Pounding the streets is best done at the crack of dawn. As the Imam calling everybody to prayer at 5o’clock and the local rooster are in competition at being my alarm clock I have had no problem getting up. The local mutts ignore me as I plod past, why did I bother getting my rabies jab I ask myself. I did get a bit worried when I saw two vultures watching me from the top of a lamppost. They seemed to be discussing whether or not I was dead. I never thought I would say it but it is a pleasure when the sun goes in.

Language training has been very brain aching. Fifty year old brains don’t seem to like learning new things. Anyway I thought I would do what my housemate Vicky does and practice my Mandinka with the people we meet in the street. My first encounter was with a guy who spoke Fula, the second was from Mauritania and the third guy only spoke Wollof. As you may have guessed I’m not yet fluent. I’m the first to be evicted from the Big Brother house. Tomorrow I head off for Brikama and my own pad so stay tuned.

Welcome to my washing machine

Meeting the Elders

The Hairdressers

The Ladies of the village

Everybody in

A loo with a view

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

Not quite there yet!

No you're not seeing things, not quite there yet. Just thought I'd post a couple of pics to remind me what good old England looks like and of course some of the motley crew I used to work with.