Grafting in Gambia: Sporting Success

Just like we have the FA Cup and Wimbledon at this time of year in the UK, we have our Inter-house athletics championships and inter department football tournament here at the college. I just happened to be invited as chief patron to the opening game of the football. I have a sneaky feeling I was given this honour because I’d chosen the biggest and gaudiest cup, got it engraved and cuddled it on my lap all the way back from my hols in the UK for it to arrive safely in the middle of an African football field. Anyway I thought I would just have to sit on the sideline and smile sweetly – wrong. Before the match along with my colleague we had to make our way down the line of the two teams shaking hands and trying to think of something encouraging and intelligent to say. I was trying desperately to think what the Queen and Princess Anne would do at times like this. In the end it just turned into a quick good luck.

Event number two was the athletics. We boarded the bus at the college, three to a seat and everybody else squashed like sardines in the aisles. So a sweaty start before we even got there. The girls were something else, best dresses, scarves, wigs, make-up, the lot! I said to myself they must have their kit in a bag but there were no bags to be seen. As the races commenced it was clear that their dancing kit also doubled up as running kit. The only addition was a pair of socks to protect feet as they pounded around the track. ‘Flo Jo’ couldn’t even compete with our girls in the glitter and sparkle stakes. A fun day was had by all with blue team coming up tops.

Are they running or dancing?

We are now into our last term and it seems like a mad dash to squeeze everything in. While the students are busy scribbling notes from the board I get the job of cuddling babies as Mum writes. This week I had a five week old little girl to rock to sleep. As I was cooing into her eyes I noticed something was a little odd. After taking a closer look with my specs on I realised that when Mum had applied her own make-up she also gave baby pencilled in eye brows. Seemingly it’s the done thing, nobody seemed to bat an eyelid.

I’ve just returned from my final trek of the year. This time the girls outnumbered the boys which was very unusual – girl power. Our team leader was also a fallen Muslim who liked a little tipple so when we got to our destination we just happened to seek out the only Christian compound in town that sold alcohol so we were all happy. We took a mini farmyard back with us. It all started with a chicken we bought for a birthday present which was shortly followed be a second and then two ducks all of whom kept slipping their shackles and flapping all over our bags. We then had to make an emergency stop wrestle our feathered friends to the ground and get back on the road. Never a dull moment.