Big Curry and Soma

Firstly, big thank you to those of you that bought raffle tickets or made donations to the Big Curry Night. We managed to raise over 80,000 dalasi which was great and will make big difference to the Charities that receive the funds…I’ll keep you posted.
(John P you won a golf umbrella, I’ll do my best to get it home for you. I won a haircut, which would have been wonderful had I not had my haircut the day before, what luck eh!)

Jodie led the volunteer troops (and even made us wee aprons to wear much to the delight of certain ex-pats with slightly odd fetishes!) We ran around like headless chickens for half the night and then relaxed and joined the party the other half. Food, drink and music were great and Marney and Justin prepared a quiz (I’ll put on the blog for anyone that is interested, email me your answers if you like and I’ll send you them back with corrections!) The night before the event, Marney, Jodie and I sat up chopping and blending about 100 mangos to make cocktails so were delighted when there was plenty left after the party had ended for us to enjoy.

Ive also been 'up country' for few days. We had been planning to work in some of the regional offices for ages but with legendary Gambian planning things kept changing. Just to continue in the same vein, on the day we left I was due to be collected at 11am and was finally met at 3pm….Anyone that knows me well will be amazed to learn that I was reasonably relaxed about the delay.

My 'road' after one evening or rain...

The journey itself was easy as we were in an air-conditioned vehicle (thank you Bespor!). It gave me the chance to see The Gambia outside of Kombos and remember how the majority of people live. The roads in the Gambia are terrible. Basically there are two main roads; one on the south bank and one on the North. While the North Bank road is now at least tarmac the entire way, the south bank road is little more that a large dirt track most of the way along the country. Because of that, all the NGOs, Charities and anyone that can afford it have 4 wheel drive vehicles, they then tear up the poor roads and create even more of a mess of things. A bit of a vicious cycle really.... As rainy season is in full flow now, parts of the road were almost like rivers and we drove past lots of house and compounds where people were wading about in muddy water up to their thighs. I have no idea how they can be living as the water must have totally flooded the homes. And we have 2-3 more months of progressively worse and worse rain…It’s heartbreaking really but people here are used to it as it happens every year. And as most of the rural people farm the land they are always so happy to see the rains that having the houses flooded is just a side issue.

I stayed in Soma with Julie (her blog is on a link on mine if you are interested). The first night Sovie, another volunteer, cooked dinner for us and we sat in the pitch black admiring the stars…They really are countless as there are no artificial lights corrupting the view. The second night, Julie took me on a tour of Soma on the back of her motorbike. It took about 30 mins, the highlight of which was the local bar where we bought a take out carton of wine!

The local Bar

We also stopped at the local market to buy dinner. I really am spoiled living in Kombos as we can get most things we need. Julie was very over excited as there were ‘greens’ at the market. They turned out to be sweet potato leaves but as they were they only green things she had seen in a few weeks, I could understand her enthusiasm! During the evening (whislt feasting a sweet potato leaf salad!), we sat and watched an almighty storm come in! It was quite spectacular to see and the rain was great, so much so, I decided to enjoy a ‘real’shower and danced naked in the rain at the back of the house.…Julie and Sovie just humoured me but refused to join in the fun! As there is no running water in the houses I thought it was as effective than the normal ‘bucket’shower. I was quite sorry to come back to Kombos so soon and would happily have stayed a few more days, if only to give me more of a chance to miss by relatively luxury life.

The work we carried out was fairly successful and the regional teams were supportive and interested which I was surprised and pleased about. I still have my reservations about the system and its benefit/impact in the Gambia but I remain determined to do what I can to implement it in the best possible way.

Training at a Regional Office


A final note. Many of you have commented on my Gambian meetings summary, I can assure you it is 100% true (you really don’t need to make things up!) Anyway, this week, at another meeting, the same person that lay in my lap to take a phone call demonstrated another way of going undetected whist using a mobile in our meetings… The phone rang so he stood up, walked to the window, wrapped the curtain around him and continued with the call so there was a large talking lump coming from the window dressing! I had to literally suck my cheeks together to stop myself from exploding with laughter, it was the type of thing my 2 year old nephew might do! Nobody else batted an eyelid! Is it really me?????

Planning to go to Senegal next week so more news soon x

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