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Blogs from District of Banjul , Gambia, Africa
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January 12th 2013
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
January 1st 2013
Christmas and New Year are past, so it is time for some fun and sun. We are off to West Africa, specifically the Gambia and Senegal, for a month. After a charter flight to Banjul in the Gambia, we'll be spending a week by the Atlantic before we head up river to stay in a local village, join in with some cooking and farming and do some bird watching. Then we'll head north into Senegal for another week on the beach, a few days in Dakar and St Louis and a trip up into a national park in the far north. With luck, the next blog will be from sunny Africa.... read more
October 11th 2012
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
Why it's helpful to have a Lawyer as a friend
Published: September 30th 2012Africa » Gambia » District of Banjul » BanjulSeptember 30th 2012
Hi all, So last time I wrote we were about to head off to Scottish Embassy. It was fun, a lot of the members of the peace corp were there so we were able to mix with them and hear about their experiences. The food was chicken and potato salad and was very nice and good value. Scottish Embassy is basically called that because 2 scottish travellers asked to stay there while they were in Fajara and they created a bar inspired by their roots. Apparently one of the guys who owns the bar tells the story better but we weren't able to speak to him as it was pretty busy. On Wednesday we went out with the TB reach researchers which was interesting though not very educational as again most things were conducted in the ... read more
September 26th 2012
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
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September 22nd 2012
Hi all, So i've definitely been neglecting my blog a little bit this week but I have been very busy on the wards and not that bothered about logging onto the computer when I get home! Monday started with the ward round as most mondays do. I can't really remember if anything particularly exciting happened. In the evening we went out to alaeldin's for food as Josh a Vet student from Cambridge was leaving the next day. That was nice. On Tuesday it was our day to go to Old Jeshwang Health Centre so off we went in the morning. We got a taxi there but unfortunately the guy driving the taxi had no idea where he was going and got very lost, after about 40 minutes I decided to ask him to stop and we ... read more
September 16th 2012
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
September 13th 2012
Hi everyone, It's now Thursday night after a spectacularly long day or so it seemed I have finally stoppped and am now going to tell you what I've been up to since Sunday. It's been a multicultural week with a little bit of chinese, nigerian and indian thrown in the mix. Once again a lot has happened in 4 days so I'm not sure if I'll get all the right bits of the story in but I'll do my best. Monday- Handover in the morning nothing too exciting to report patient wise but I presenting my management of status epilepticus to everyone which seemed to go quite well and I seemed to have found the correct information so that was a relief. I stayed on the ward to help with the round which we managed to ... read more
September 9th 2012
Hi All, I've had a lovely weekend and there hasn't been much rain hooray!!!! I'm struggling to remember exactly what happened on Thursday and Friday but I'm going to do my best for now. Thursday- Dr. Anderson has now arrived from the UK, she is the consultant on the ward and specialises in paediatrics and research but was looks after everyone in the ward. She sat in on the hand over in the morning to listen to the new cases that had come in and offered some words of wisdom on how the cases should be managed. After that I accompanied the other doctors on the ward while she had meetings. The ward round was long but fairly uneventful we even managed to go for lunch at a reasonable time. When we got back to the ... read more
September 6th 2012
I have been in Gambia for 2 weeks today. I can't believe the time is going so quickly. I guess that's why I havent written anything on here since last Friday. Over the weekend nothing too exciting happened. On friday night after having a quick hot sandwich from a local bar we came home and chilled out for a bit. I then watched the boys play poker using cotton buds as poker chips, I still have no idea how to play! We had a few drinks and then went out at about 12:30am to a bar/club called Ozio's, it was really good fun. We danced for a few hours then decided to head home about 3am. Everyone was really friendly and it all felt very safe which I was pleased about, drinking is not a big ... read more
