Short UK trip

I am approaching the end of a short stay in the UK. I have been here for some medical treatment following my road accident earlier this year. I also had the chance to see friends and family, and to attend the marriage ceremony of my cousin Georgina to her new husband Ed.

Therefore I have not much new to write about my experiences in The Gambia. Instead I have added the following features to this blogsite…

I have added links to a number of video clips relating to The Gambia.

I have added satellite photographs on the maps page.And under Blogroll (see box on right side of this page) you can now find links to a Children’s Fact File about the Gambia, and to the website of The Point, an independent newspaper in The Gambia.

It has been good to see friends during this spell in the UK - my apologies if I missed you…sorry, time was limited. I look forward to getting immersed in Gambian life again…please keep in touch.

My Day

I had my shoes repaired. How much hassle is involved in mending shoes in the UK? When you have found a shop where they can be bothered to help you with a minor repair, you discover that the price will be half the original cost of the shoes, and that they wont be done until next Thursday. So I went to the market in Latrikunda and found a shoe doctor (who was patching up a leather football). He took my sickly shoe, sewed the offending straps back together and charged me 2 Dalasi (4 pence). In three minutes the repair was complete. 

The other significant event of the last few days occurred last week at the Under-20s World Cup in Canada when The Gambia beat Portugal 2-1. At the final whistle (shortly before midnight) this whole district erupted in ecstatic disbelief. People of all ages flocked to the highway, shouting, waving Gambian flags and beeping car horns. The celebration continued most of the night, and although there were weary faces in work the next morning, in this Muslim country there were no hangovers! 

Thank you for returning to my blog. This time I have written a piece about my typical day here in The Gambia. Thank you for keeping in touch it is good to hear from you.

Work

The rains will arrive soon; it has been raining upcountry already. In preparation, the roads are being repaired and flattened. Most of our roads are sand and gravel, and they easily become worn with large holes. Trucks arrive and dump piles of gravel in the middle of the road in preparation for repairs a couple of days later. And until the piles are flattened out (or stolen), traffic weaves around them like on a slalom course. In theory we drive on the right side of the road here, but in reality vehicles find their own course around potholes, goats, chickens and street merchants with barrows, attempting to find whichever part of the road is in best condition. Inevitably this results in near-misses or worse as cars travelling from opposite directions aim for the same piece of road. Following any such incident it is compulsory for the driver and all passengers to exclaim some variant of, ‘Look, he is stupid, that driver!’ and engage in theatrical gestures of dismay. As this will mostly be directed at the vehicle now behind it distracts attention from the road and leads to another near-miss with the next approaching opponent. In this way we lurch from one narrowly-avoided collision to the next as we proceed along appallingly maintained roads at mercifully low speeds.

Congratulations to Flo in Malaysia for being so nearly the 5000th visitor (5002 in fact) to this blogsite. Thank you to everyone who added a number to the lists below.

On this occasion I have written about my work here in The Gambia. Please click on Justin’s Work if you would like to read more about my work in the Department of Education (with pictures!).

Recently we waved a sorrowful farewell to a number of volunteers who have reached the end of their one-year or two-year placements. A new group will arrive at the end of August.

Mr Jussie

I do most of my food shopping at Latrikunda Market and in tiny local bitikos that stock a limited choice of convenience food. But occasionally I treat myself to a trip round the Right Choice supermarket in Kairaba Avenue where products not available in Latrikunda can sometimes be found. And as I was gazing upon such luxuries as cornflakes, baked beans and toilet paper, look what I saw on the shelf staring up at me…Mr Jussie!!

 

This blogsite has had nearly 5000 visitors now. Do keep adding your comments on the previous post (below) to tell me your number.

And before I go I have a big request. Is there anyone reading who can get me an adult sized football strip? I am looking for two or three complete strips for teams here. If someone has contact with a club which is changing their strip for the new season, please get in touch…thanks.

5000 visitors…

The number of visitors to this site ticks over at a healthy rate. ‘Just In The Gambia’ has attracted around one thousand visitors each month, that’s thirty per day.

I am intrigued to find out who will be visitor number 5000. It could be you…so keep an eye on the counter on the right side of this page, and if you are visitor number 5000 (or any other significant milestone you care to tell us about) please leave a message by clicking on comments below.

Church

To read about an engagement party, the FA Cup Final and my early visits to churches in The Gambia, click here.

Champions League

   

Congratulations to Liverpool and Milano for reaching the UEFA Champions League final. Again. Young Gambian men take a lot of interest in European football. There are many who support one English club, one Spanish and one Italian. (They do not seem so interested in the Scottish league; I am not sure why). Those who play football often adopt a nickname referring to a footballer, such as Kaka, Drogba or Essien. I have not heard of anyone calling himself Rooney; Gambians have too much dignity for that. Perhaps you have noticed that all four clubs who reached the Champions League semi finals have a number of West African players. This region of the world has generated considerable football talent.

 

I was able to watch both semi finals in surreal circumstances. I saw Milano finish off Manchester with Ebrima my Wolof teacher and some of his friends at his house in Talinding, a neighbouring district. He has a television but no electricity, so we used a generator to provide power. Unfortunately the generator was on its last legs and spluttered through the game giving intermittent current so that the picture flickered off and then back on every few minutes. At one point the generator packed in completely so we sat in the dark and giggled whilst Ebrima bumped into things around the room, looking for a candle.

 

I saw Liverpool dispose of Chelsea at a house in my street. Sarjo is a friendly neighbour who spends a lot of time sat outside internet café next door, drinking attaya. Each day I ask him how is the connection (“Naka connection?”) and he invariably replies that it is not working today, that Gamtel are causing a problem but may be the connection will come back later. Sarjo’s brother has a compound in my street which he is currently rebuilding. They are taking down one building and constructing an adjacent one, whilst still living there. So when I was invited to watch the match, Sarjo took me to this building site, disappeared inside one of the crumbling rooms and returned with a large television. There followed a number of plastic chairs plus a charcoal burner and attaya teapot, and we sat and watched the game amidst the rubble.

   

European Champions League games are shown on terrestrial national TV (there is one Gambian channel) but all other football requires a satellite subscription which, of course, no-one in Latrikunda can afford. However, it is possible to watch these games (English Premiership and games from other European leagues) at private ‘video clubs’ that charge a few Dalasi for entry. It is a bit like watching the match in the pub, except that in this Muslim country no alcohol is sold there. Living near the equator we are very pleased that Mr Murdoch chose to station his satellites directly above our heads. As a result the picture quality is usually very good, and of course the signal arrives here sooner than it reaches Europe, but the larger satellites sometimes cause problems for our vultures that have been known to bump into them when soaring at altitude.