Blogs from Banjul, District of Banjul , Gambia, Africa - page 2

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

A year ago today I was on a plane on the way to The Gambia trying to persuade myself that everything was going to be fine; that I wasn’t mad for wanting to leave my family, friends and job behind to come and live in some unknown middle of nowhere for a pittance. Now in two days time I’ll be heading back home. To say it’s been an amazing year is a bit of an understatement. I had no real expectations when I came out here because it was too difficult to imagine. All I wanted was to vaguely like the place and not feel homesick all the time. The job has had its ups and downs but I’ve met some fantastic people that have made everything worthwhile. I’m almost as scared to go home as ... read more

So I'm here. I arrived at 2:50am which was fun to 28 degree heat plus ridiculously humid air but I got here in one piece. I managed to mess up my timing spectacularly by not realising that Gambia is one hour behind BST so the first thing I did when I got into the airport was to make sure mum knew that I was ok and that the time was slightly different or else she would be worrying. Passport control took forever but was pretty simple. No visa needed just need to rememeber to go back after 28 days and get my passport restamped. Getting the luggage was fairly simple too but what came next was quite something. After collecting my luggage I joined a queue...at first I couldn't see why I was queueing but then ... read more

On the 20th April my great friends Lilli and Kebba got married. It seems ages ago now but I’ve been home for a holiday since then so I’m just catching up. It was a proper Gambian affair which was worlds away from the weddings we have back at home. The day started very relaxed with our favourite breakfast of nebe (beans in bread with onions) with both of them round at their house. There’s none of this bad luck for seeing each other before the ceremony. Lilli and I then went back to my flat to get all dolled up. Lilli had two outfits; one which Kebba’s sister had given to her for the day time and one that she’d had specially made for the evening. Hair and makeup done and outfits squeezed into we went ... read more

The hot, as they say, has definitely reached Basse. According to the BBC the temperature reached 42° though without any breeze it felt even hotter. The heat wouldn’t be so bad to deal with if the generator at the local power station could handle the heat, but like everything else in Basse at this time of year, the temperature gets too much and it, along with everyone, stops working properly. Having electricity to charge my laptop so that I have something to occupy myself with on an evening suddenly dropped straight down my list of priorities; without electricity the fans don’t work and even worse than that, the fridges don’t work so you can’t get your water cold. The water from the tap, when it decides to come on, comes out warm enough to have a ... read more