Grafting in Gambia: The Back of Beyond

No sooner were we back at work and we were sent to the far flung reaches of Gambia. What had we done to upset our leader, I asked myself. Then I remembered way back last term I just happened to mention that I hadn’t been out to region six on my expeditions yet. Whoever did the trek rotas must’ve remembered my words and decided to despatch myself and fellow volunteers armed with a few gallons of mosquito repellent, hand sanitizer and enough toilet roll to serve a small army. In fact, toilets were our main topic of conversation for the whole week. We started our week with nought out of ten for the state of the toilets. It was a miracle that we didn’t come back with a severe dose of cholera. Things got progressively better over the week. Teachers evacuated their quarters to put us up and also shared their food bowls with us wherever we went. We could not thank them enough especially when you consider some of the hardships that they have to endure. One school had nowhere to house their staff so they ended up sleeping in the store rooms in the back of their classrooms.

Breakfast on the road

Our first school visit, not very water resistant.

The school kitchen where various shades of brown with rice are prepared - yum!

The cook with a small bowl of rice.

The scenery and experience was awesome. I’m sure tourists would have paid hundreds to follow in our footsteps. Our last nights accommodation was the best, we even had a T.V. to watch. Sleeping wasn’t all that easy. As well as the heat an army of earwigs invaded our room so the night was spent flicking them off various parts of our bodies. When we compared notes in the morning we decided there was probably just one earwig and the unfortunate creature was just being flicked from bed to bed.

I have just had a very welcome stranger (visitor), my baby, who now towers over me and nearly breaks my ribs in a warm welcoming embrace. In his words we had an awesome week. Very conveniently the Presidential elections coincided with his visit which meant I had time off work and we could do the touristy thing. We had a mixture of beach days, forest days, luxurious hotel day and watching premiership football in the local video clubs (a shed with a telly), there’s no escaping it. We paid our 20p entrance fee and was treated to a rendition on ‘You’ll never walk alone’ at the end of the Man City game. It all seemed very surreal, I couldn’t quite understand why Kenny Dalgleish was wearing gloves and his nose was turning blue when we were sweltering in 40 degrees. Is it cold in the UK?