June 8th

Good morning lovely people :) 

For this who look forward to reading my blogs I apologise that it has been such a long time since my last post! I haven't been to the headquarters for a long time which means I haven't had adequate Internet! 

Well, the rainy season has well and truly arrived! Mangos of all shapes and sizes are falling off the trees left right and centre, some even as big as my head nearly! And I have to say that I am now addicted to them, since they are so plentiful I eat them with pretty much every meal! Nothing better than coming in after a day of work and eating a cold mango out the fridge, delish!! 

The rains also bring little rain bugs. As kids my friends and I would walk around after the first rain collecting the little things in a match box and making homes for them. Therefore, for old times sake, I did the same and collecting loads of them in a box :) I think I had a little bit too much fun though!

Another, less exciting, thing that comes hand in hand with the rains is a very busy clinic! There are many more Mosquitos which means the the rate of malaria cases increase. Nasty things like scorpions come out so we have more people coming in who have been stung by scorpions! And also the cases of general sickness increases, especially among the HIV patients. 

With all that in mind, any of those things could happen to me. So please pray for my health and protection against scorpions and tropical diseases! Other than that just pray that God blesses my last few weeks in the Gambia and that I really enjoy my remaining time :) 

I now won't be in Pipeline until I'm leaving so this will be my last update until I arrive home! I look forward to seeing all of you, and telling you all the things I couldn't possibly it into a blog post! 

God bless you all and I'll see you soon! :) 

27th march

Hey everybody! 

Hope you are all well :) 

Well I have now been in The Gambia for a month and a half! So now I'm settled in quite well, and getting used to the work and getting to know the team! For the last month I have been working as a general helper while someone went on holiday :) so this means I've been working in the storerooms and stock checking and making sure everyone has what they need. Starting Monday I will be working in the afternoons with a Gambian midwife, so will hopefully catch a few babies :D other than that I will be doing some admin work as well. 

In the evenings we are free to do what we want, so sometimes we watch movies with a big projector, or play pgames or go on walks. 

One evening we went fishing in the river, and although we caught no fish, we caught loads of crabs (which we ate for tea) and Robyn caught a snake! Which was taken away and promptly had its head bashed in with a rock by one of the locals! 

Hey dad, just to let you know that there's a good connection on facebook free call, spoke to Aiden for a while, so maybe I could call u at tea time?(After boiling) 

Another afternoon it was really hot (yes Sam G it was really really hot) so we went to a swimming pool not far away to relax and cool down in the water! Although the water was warm so it wasn't as refreshing as we were hoping, but was still nice to sit in the shade and swim and have chips :) 

We also took the youth group to the river one Sunday afternoon to go swimming! Although a lot of them couldn't swim, so we spent some time teaching them and playing with the ball! We also drank Ataya which is a type of tea, I forgot to take a picture though, sorry! 

Last week we also got a cat called Mister Ginger :)

(This cat knows how to spend Sunday afternoons) 

We got him to catch the mice and keep other cats away! But at the moment he's still really little so he hasn't been very effective just yet, and it's also a bit annoying that whenever we put him outside to play and hunt and stuff he cries and cries until we let him back in...

(He also tries to get in through the window) 

Not sure if that's a good sign given that the cat is a practicality not a pet! I think we've spoiled him already! :/ 

And this weekend has been a weekend off to spent the day yesterday at the beach and went to a nice restaurant and just basically relaxed :) was lovely! 

Will blog again next time I'm somewhere with Wifi :) 

God bless! 

Sibanor

Hello all :) 

Well this week has been interesting! I moved to Sibanor which is where I will be staying for the next few months. 

All week I have been meeting people, like all the members on the team, my house mates, the Gambian workers and also the local "church people" which is quite self explanatory! I have also had a look around the clinic and around the village and experienced proper Gambian food (not always nice but it fills a hole) 

The temperature in Sibanor is noticeably higher that at the coast, but I have a fan and good electricity, praise The Lord! 

( there was a goat stood in the window!) 

There are 3 of us living the the house, all shorter termers, the other 2 are from the states and from Germany. 

I don't have many pictures of Sibanor yet, but will remember to take some and so you can see  bit of the surrounding area and the clinic and my house, although I did take one picture of a visitor in my room (again thank The Lord for mosquito nets!) 

This weekend has been NGO (none Government Organisation) day where people from the WEC projects in The Gambia explain what they're doing and what their plans are to visitors from different organisations and sometimes government officials. Was quite interesting! It was also the monthly prayer day where the team discuss business and things that people want prayer for, like sickness and if people are leaving or arriving then then there's prayer for that as well. 

Today has been a day off so we (the other short-termers and I) went to the beach this morning :) but we had to walk because today was a cleaning day which means that between 09.00 and 13.00 the road is shut and is swept and cleaned and no one is allowed to drive! So a street that normally is really really busy, and quite dangerous to walk by looked like this... 

I'm off back to Sibanor tomorrow, so Internet won't be good, I shall blog as and when I can :)

Hope you are all well! 

Week 1

Hey everyone :) 

So I have been here a week and so far it has been like a holiday! Over the past couple of days I have been to various fellowships, one being the sukuta fellowship which takes place in Wellingara. This is the youth hostel, and I took some pictures this time! 

I also had some Mandinka lessons as well! Which was interesting, I now know the millions of greetings they say to each other!

This evening I went to the Tanner's house for a fellowship evening, where there was a little girl named Peace (most ironic name I've ever heard!) I had 2 hair bands on my wrist and a hair clip in my hair, so she proceeded to take the hair clip out my hair and play with my hair after which she said asked "can I have one of your hair bands and your hair clip?" To which I replied "no I need them for my hair, and you can't use them in your hair!" (She's has African hair) so she said "well do you have plenty at home?" So I said I did, and she said "well then you don't need this one so I can have it as a present!" Which is sound logic, and basically sums up the culture! I couldn't argue with it! 

Looking forward to next week I am going up to Sibanor tomorrow! I will be meeting the team there and having an orientation of the clinic and the village, I'm told I'll either love or hate village life, I'm hoping for the former! I'll update you on how the week goes next week as I won't have very much Internet there! 

If you could pray that I will settle in well, and, as it's a lot hotter there, that the heat won't be too unbearable! Thanks! 

Also, just for my mummy, I saw some lovely baugenvilia (don't know how to spell it) :) 

 

Day 3 and 4

Good evening :) 

Yesterday was Sunday, so I we t to a local church in a place called Wellingara, which is a youth hostel for kids who live up country so they don't have to travel so far to get to school. 

The church service started off with prayer and worship (although at times there was no discernible tune which made singing along quite difficult!) there was then a bible study, followed by a performance the choir and then the sermon. It was quite a long service, starting at 9.30 and ending at 12.00! 

Following this I went to the Tanner's, who are a family that i know very well from when I was in Senegal and have grown up with with their boys, house for lunch. 

The rest of the day was pretty chilled out and didn't really do much else! 

Today was more orientation, learning about the culture in The Gambia, which is very similar to that of Senegalese culture. There are differences however as Senegal was a French colony and The Gambia was an English colony, e.g. The Gambians don't have siestas where the Senegalese do, I have to say I was quite disappointed by this as I was looking forward to the siestas! Also Gambians move a lot slower than the Senegalese and never seem to be in a rush, so in that sense I fit in perfectly! 

For lunch I had an African dish which was called Wolof rice In Senegal, I'm not sure if its called something different here, which was lush! 

And this evening I went to a WEC family for dinner which was lovely! They have a 5 year old daughter named Hanna who has grown up with African kids since preschool and so has a thick African accent, it's so funny! A gorgeous blonde German little girl who speaks exactly like an African child! Hilarious! 

Tomorrow I am off to Banjul the capital to see the museum and the arch, so there will be pictures tomorrow, sorry there were none today! 

Good night! 

Day 2

Hello everyone! 

Today has been a day off so have had a great time! 

We started off at the beach, before it got too hot, to swim in the sea. When I say swim I mean trying to avoid being flattened by massive waves! 

Around 11.30 it did get too hot so we went into the restaurant bar to chill and play cards, where I had a coke in a glass bottle! (African coke is much nicer than British coke for those of you who haven't tried it)

Then we went to a restaurant for lunch, where the guy working saw us playing cards and asked us if we wanted to play with his poker set! So we sat and played poker for a couple of hours. I would love to say that I came back from losing that badly, but I did not... 

After I lost the poker game, we went to a local market, where you can pretty much buy everything apart from what you're looking for! But I bought myself some material to make a skirt :) 

The market is an experience for all of your senses, especially when you walk past someone selling fish that has been out in the sun all day! I couldn't get many pictures of the market because I was a bit nervous about getting my phone out! 

So yeah, today's been a good day! 

Hope you're all having a good weekend! 

:) 

Day 1

Hey everyone, 

Last night was my first night in The Gambia, and I was COLD! It was around 15•C, although I'm not complaining because I'm told it won't remain like that for very long as the rainy starts in May. Also I'm near the coast at the moment and where I will be staying, which is further inland it will be a whole lot hotter! Even the owner of the local super market said he's glad he's not there right now! 

This week I will be doing orientation to The Gambia, learning about what WEC do here, the culture and learning a bit of Mandinka which is the most common local language where I will be staying in Sibanor. Part of orientation today has been going outside the compound and seeing shops and supermarkets where you can buy English things (at best twice the price!) I found some everyday value tesco cheese slices, which I could have purchased for £3!! I decided against this bargain... 

So far everything I have come across has been pretty much how I remember it. The heat isn't really effecting me at the moment, all the smells are how I remember it, and even sleeping under a mosquito net was strangely nice! I even had Mafe for lunch, which is my favourite African dish :) 

Later on this evening all the staff are going out for someone's 60th birthday, so I get a Chinese! Beautiful! 

Hope you are all well! 

The journey

Good afternoon readers,

I have now safely arrived in the Gambia after a long day of travelling! (Up at 4.30 and arrived in the Gambia at around 14.30)

For those of you who don't know, I will be here for the next 4 months working in a health centre in a place called Sibanor. To find out more about the clinic you can visit their website, just type in sibanor health central and it will come up! As far as what I will be doing, at this point I am hoping that as I have some experience in midwifery already I'm hoping I will be able to use those skills, but aside from that at this point I don't really know!

The journey itself was very easy and straight forward, even if it was a bit boring! Although some of the views from my window were amazing, and I did get to watch Thor 2! When I arrived and stepped of the plane, the heat didn't hit as hard as I was anticipating at around 30°C it was quite nice to be warm! Although I'm told that today was a "cold" day so I should prepare myself to get a lot hotter! Also I didn't lose anything...win!!

Again thank you all so much for your continued prayer and support, and I will keep you all updated as best I can (internet permitting!)

God bless :)