Blogs from Gambia, Africa - page 3

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 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

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

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