Catch up post - and birthday treats!

I have been tardy with my posts... the office have asked me to support the writing of the Annual Country Report, and so I have been doing the Monitoring, Evaluation and analysis for all of our thematic areas - secure livelihoods, education & TVET (technical and vocational education and training), and participation & governance. Needless to say it has been keeping me busy, and I have become absorbed in logical frameworks and assessing whether outcomes and outputs have been achieved for year two of our country strategic plan. 

But it hasn't been all work... At the weekend I went to a school fete with Ellie, who works at the International School here in Fajara. Ellie used to be a volunteer, but returned to work in The Gambia after her placement ended. The school fete was mostly about food - stalls and stalls of fried chicken, pepper chicken, breadcrumbed chicken, curries, and gambian dishes like domoda, fufu and soup, and ebbeh. But it was a nice day for people watching!

On Sunday Ellie and I met early at Serrakunda market to pick up some things from her tailor and look at fabric. My clothes are really suffering after a year and a half of hand washing and drying in the hot sun. The African fabrics are fine and have stood up to the rough treatment, but my English clothes are worn thin and full of holes. So I have been looking for material to make some new dresses. I quite enjoy buying from the off-cuts at the front of the market stalls; often two metres from the end of the roll. You have to be careful, some is flawed or marked, but sometimes you can find some great pieces without the commitment of buying from a big bolt of fabric. And you can usually haggle down to a much better price. So Ellie and I browsed the offcuts and the fabrics, and both came away with some good finds. 

I'm often drawn to blues, reds and greens, but on Sunday my theme was pink! The middle one was from a bolt, not an off cut, but I was given a good discount from the man I took my brother and Richard to buy from. 

A blog post of mine wouldn't be complete without a food pic - this was an evening meal this week... late home from work and totally uninspired I ended up making a delicious luncheon, mustard, lettuce and onion sandwich with homemade chips. Yum!

And the week has gotten even more exciting than homemade chips... because today is my birthday! Last night I went to Ellie's for dinner, and an episode of Breaking Bad - and was surprised with an amazing gift of cupcakes! 

We had a lovely evening, and today I woke to a cupcake for breakfast, cards, and presents from the wonderful Lucy! 

I didn't eat them all for breakfast, I promise!

Lucy's present arrived on Tuesday - and had most definitely been nosed through by customs. It's the first time that one of the packages that has been sent to me has been opened, and while I don't think anything was taken, it still feels weird that it was looked through before I got it! Most things were just opened a little bit, to test that they were what they were meant to be on the customs sticker I guess, but the clothes parcel was and truly ripped apart! But - it didn't spoil my enjoyment! 

Slightly rifled through! 

Exciting gifts!

A wonderful package of vest tops and leggings, candles (which smell great and will be much appreciated as we seem to be in perpetual darkness at the moment), shower gel (huge luxury after using cheap soap!) a great looking book and a gorgeous nail varnish. 

I had to paint my nails straight away! 

So now I am at work, and back to the grindstone, but a lovely start to the day and a happy second birthday in The Gambia! 

My fairy cake house

Recently my landlord moved back into the compound after 33 years in Los Angeles. He likes colour, and decided to give the house a makeover... I present my new pink and purple house, with before and after photos for comparison! 

Back in November 2012

18 month anniversary

Today marks my eighteen month anniversary as a VSO volunteer in The Gambia. I recently re-read my 'one year in' reflections post, and mostly things still stand... But paradoxically I feel both more settled and less settled than I did back in September. 

More settled in that, naturally, as time passes I get even more used to my surroundings and feel even more at home. Showing my brother around at Christmas compounded my feelings of 'this is where I live and this is what I know'. I can make more comparisons; I've had two Christmases here, two dry seasons, seen more people leave and more people arrive, and have survived two annual partnership review exercises.

But as each month passes I get closer to the end of my placement, and now at 18 months I'm 75% through. If I left tomorrow my placement would be considered a successful placement - I would not be an 'early returner'. As I hit 18 months, it's officially time to start looking at what I'm going to do next. And that's why I now feel less settled. I've actually been keeping an eye out for jobs since Christmas, but now it's time to step up the search. By doing VSO I am fulfilling a life long ambition. I had been waiting years to build up the professional experience and find the right time to go. In the 9 months from application to placement it was all I thought about. So what do I do now!?

Well, one option could be to do another placement and try another country. But while I definitely won't rule out another stint as a VSO volunteer, I'm not sure that immediately re-volunteering is the right thing to do. Financially speaking, it's time to get back on the path of paid employment. And professionally speaking it's time for a new challenge. It's time to take my pre-VSO public sector experience and my current 'hands on' experience of international development and combine them. I want to push myself, learn more, do more and see more, so that if I do volunteer again I bring even more to my next placement.

It's not time for me to return to the UK and I still want to stay in the world of international development. But this time I want to be fully on the team. As a volunteer I find myself caught in the middle... part of the team for sure, but sometimes only when it suits them, and without the power to really make the decisions. I'm the advisor, the guider, the demonstrator, and now I want to be the do-er, the manager and the decider again.

So, my CV is up to date, and I'm scanning every monitoring and evaluation, programme management and partnership management vacancy I find to see if I fit the requirements. The Gambia has been very good to me, and very good for me, but now I'm circling and looking for a new place to land!

Food glorious food

This weekend I didn't have much energy for going out, and the weather was less than inspiring. So, I mostly stayed at home and to fill my time... cooked. 

On Saturday morning I cycled to Gambia is Good, a vegetable shop that's a side-arm of an NGO called Concern Universal. It sells local fruit and veg, as well as other homemade products, and sometimes has some interesting imported veg too. It's nice to go there because a) you can get slightly different things compared to the markets and b) they weigh everything and give you a very fair clear price according to what you buy... at the market when you just buy a couple of this and half a kilo of that you never really know what you are being charged, and whether they are properly scaling down for the fact that you aren't buying a fixed quantity. But mostly it's just nice to find different products, I bought beetroot the other day for example, and they often have nice green beans. 

After buying tomatoes, onions, potatoes, cabbage, beans and plantain, plus bananas, eggs and milk powder from various points along the way home, I arrived back at the house with everything I needed for the weekend. 

First up was potato cakes, with a huge salad and homemade salad dressing. 

I managed to save a few of the potato cakes and eat them later with tomato jam. I was given the tomato jam and I'm not too sure about it... it's a sweet as strawberry jam but smells (a lot) and tastes (a little) of tomatoes... odd. 

Later on I used some of the left over potato cake mixture to make gnocchi which I added to a tomato, aubergine, green bean, and a bit of all-sorts, sauce.  

Then on Sunday morning I made banana pancakes! 

After all this food I felt compelled to do some exercise on Sunday afternoon, but otherwise spent the day reading, watching films, and working on an M&E quick reference tool. A very pleasant weekend. 

Saying goodbye

It's that time of year again when everyone seems to be leaving. Last week saw the departure of Dr Joe, Martin and Helen - three people I spend quite a bit of time with. Just to add to the feeling of a mass exodus, Nicola headed back to the UK for a well deserved holiday. She hasn't been back since last December, and I know she will have a good time enjoying everything that she has missed (especially wine!). She has gone for nearly a month, so things have become very quiet for me! 

Last Saturday Martin and Joe arranged a leaving dinner at Mama's, treating a large group of about 18 or so to dinner. We had spaghetti carbonara and creme caramel... heaven. Helen, who was unsure if she was extending or leaving right up until the last week when the decision was taken out of her hands by a lack of budget to keep her, had a fairly impromptu leaving party on Shrove Tuesday. 8 of us piled round to Helen's to eat pancakes and have a couple of gin and tonics, and in true VSO style, those who were staying raided through her stuff setting aside washing tubs and spare bottles of DEET to take home! 

On Helen's final day (Friday) we went for a walk to the beach and then along the beach up to Soloman's for a final fish in foil in the sunshine. On the way home we called in to Aso Rock, but at a freeeeezing 23 degrees we were forced home by blue finger nails and goosebump legs! Needless to say, Helen was pretty concerned about how she would acclimatise back into English weather, but thankfully I have seen plenty of pictures of beautiful Spring days over the weekend. 

Once I got home I realised there was no light and nothing to do... so I took my book, and a card from Helen, and went to my local for a drink. Helen, Joe and Martin will all be missed.