Blogs from District of Banjul , Gambia, Africa

Dear All Hello! And greetings from The Gambia, my 75th country!! Perhaps this should be cause for some sort of celebration, definitely a landmark in my country counting, and well on my way it seems to completing my target now of reaching 100 before I retire (I have eased my earlier target of visiting every country on the map before I retire, for the sake of keeping life simple and more enjoyable!). But definitely an important number to reach, and very proud of myself to have seen so much thus far. The Gambia is an interesting country – the smallest country on mainland Africa, at 11,295 sq km, and one of the very few in the world to continue using the definite article (particularly after Ukraine, Lebanon and Sudan all moved on from that). It is ... read more

It is an interesting place, the Gambia. Very African but also quite used to package tourists. Once away from the tourist hotels, life is very basic. The weather is wonderful. Every morning is warm and by mid-day the sun is high in a clear blue sky. In the evening, it is still warm enough to eat outside – fresh fish, rice and vegetables are the staple diet. We eat out on alternate nights, otherwise cooking in our little apartment. The kitchen is tiny with one ring and a microwave, limiting the menu. Our Kingfisher apartment is in a complex of four, with a very small shared pool - a bargain at £20 a night. There is only one other resident, seldom seen Bob - born in Harrogate and spending his winter in the Gambia. We really ... read more

Hi all, Im sitting in Madrid airport waiting on my flight to gatwick but thought i could update you on what i have been up to in my last fews days in gambia. I will write one more time after this but mainly so i dont have 13entries, its not a nice number. Appologies once again for spelling and punctuation,i am on my kindle which makes it more difficul. Friday was my last official day on the ward so we did one last ward round. This was fairly uneventful until it transpied a small child required an urgent blood transfusion. I had the same blood type as the baby girl and was happy to donate as i knew suplies would be sterile and it would be safe. I stopped following the ward round and got cross-matched ... read more

Hi all, So when I last wrote it was Saturday, we were undecided about our plans for Sanyang. It turned out that the rain stopped at about 1pm. I went for a walk to Bakau which takes about 45 minutes, forgot to put suncream on as I didn't think it would be that hot after so much rain, big mistake! I tried the post office and looked for a post box but they had taped that up and the post office was closed so I figured I would wait until the week started again. I also went to the tailor and gave him some material to make me a skirt and some cut-off trousers so I'm looking forward to seeing how that will come out in due course. I got back about 3:30 and it was ... read more

Hi, So I have been in Gambia for 3 and a half weeks now, half way through my time here. I've had a good few days since I last wrote so I will fill you all in now. Friday I woke up to sunshine which was lovely. Nisha had been on call all night but hadn't been called to the ward at all over night so she was very pleased. After handover we decided to start the ward round, there were lots of jobs to do so it was just me and Nisha on the ward round. Julian was observing the boy with the pericardial effusion as he was having it drained in the morning, they managed to extract about 1L of fluid from around his heart. He was started on TB medication as the presumed ... read more