Catch up

January has been a busy month for social activities, with lots of farewell drinks (or beers and tears as they are known) for outgoing friends and volunteers. While it has been sad to see people go, it has been a great opportunity to visit some new places, try some new bars and restaurants, and see more than the square mile of the Kombos that I usually inhabit.

Farewell drinks for David and Ivo took us to Kotu beach for cocktails, and a Senegalese restaurant tucked away fairly close to my place – a great find with good food (perfect for saying goodbye to David) and a great opportunity to catch up with Graeme and Jasmine who’d been up country for a week or so. We’ve also been to a pub quiz at Gaya, and tried out a new beach out past Bijilo which was lovely.

Last week was a particularly bust week. On Tuesday we had dinner at Aso Rock with Jane and Dodou as a farewell to Jane before she flew back to the UK to have her and Dodou’s baby. The evening was hijacked slightly (in a nice way) by the arrival of 13 or so medical students from Swansea who had heard from the last group how good Aso Rock was, and wanted to see for themselves. We were also able to welcome back Nathalie, who’d been away for a few weeks, and meet some new additions to the MRC crowd. There ended up being about 20 or more people, so we extended the tables as best we could, and everyone had a fun night.

The next night was Ellie’s leaving drinks and dinner at Solomon’s – a place where you can get fish in foil… a delicious treat! It was a huge portion, but it was so good that I ate until I was stuffed and the food had gone – something I haven’t done for a while!

Ellie's last Gambian supper

Before...

... and stuffed! 

And then the following day was a public holiday which happened to fall on a Thursday. Nicola, Helen and I met at mine and took a taxi out to Coco Ocean, using it as a starting point to walk back down the beach to Leybato – about 8km in total apparently. It was a great walk, and we met a lot of people along the way – some we were happy to talk to (such as the kids selling peanuts and star fruit who then tried to sell us their football – very odd when usually the children are asking you to buy them a football!) and some that were a bit too persistent (i.e. flippin’ annoying). The walk took two and a quarter hours – perhaps it would have taken less if we hadn’t had so many conversations along the way, but then that’s all part of the experience I guess.

The start of the walk

Friday was cold, grey, and a little bit rainy – in fact the night before it had thundered and rained quite a lot, which was very unexpected for this time of year. Because of the bank holiday the day before work was especially busy. We did the APR for Nicola at the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in the morning. It felt like a positive session as it was one of the first I have done where the partnership is continuing, and so involved more of a planning element. Afterwards, despite the fact that it was ‘half day Friday’, I ended up back at the office working through until 6pm in preparation for going on trek at the weekend. The evening, however, was lovely as I went for dinner at Al Basha – a Lebanese restaurant in Senegambia. The dinner was gratis due to winning a meal for two as a raffle prize at the GFD gala dinner back in December.

Saturday was cold and grey as well, and I was pretty shattered from a busy week, so I spent the day relaxing and packing. In fact I only left my house once all day for a gentle jog up to the market. I couldn’t jog back as I had eggs and milk powder in my shopping bag and was worried about returning home with a pancake!

The running needs to step up a level over the next few weeks and months as Helen, Nicola and I have signed up for a 13.5k run from Westfield to Banjul in June. This is part of an organised charity run from Basse to Banjul – a whopping 420km! I won’t be doing that – that pleasure is usually just for one person, supported by a team of runners… one of whom is Dodou. I think this is the third or fourth year the run will take place, and the final leg is opened up to as many people who want to participate. As the temperature will be seriously uncomfortable by then (probably about 40 degrees and very humid) I think I need to start preparing for it right away!