shaking hands with a croc

beef domada. (It is tasty honestly!)

(Mohammed again!)

Sifting rice baobab tree

slicing okra

On the weekend we managed to get up and do the tourist thing and visit Katchakali crocodile pool at Bakau despite a very noisy yousson dor concert at the nearby stadium which went on until five in the morning. We wandered through the hot, dusty streets of Bakau and some helpful locals pointed us in the right direction so eventually we found the crocodile pool. There were crocodiles everywhere. You had to be careful not to trip over them. I don’t know what they had done to these crocs but thankfully they seemed to be incredibly docile and accepted tourists patting them and putting teddy bears on them! Hmmmm. Phil tells me they are docile because they use all the energy they have just digesting their food so there is none left to do anything else, like bite tourists. I know the feeling!

Rachel visited the compound in Brikama where she will live and returned with tales of 3 bedroom pink houses with ensuites and vege gardens. The rest of us are beginning to think that we got the raw deal with open air pit latrines and bucket baths. Liz, Pete and Phil’s compounds in Janjanbureh are opposite a hotel with a bar and swimming pool. In Soma, Kate, Kanti and I, at least, apparently, have a bar. We live in hope of the occasional Julbrew!

We are going to the market with our language teachers tomorrow so I have to swat up on my market vocabulary like - I’m a volunteer I don’t have much money. ( M man koodoo soto n te mu volunteer le ti) I’m learning! I also know how to say leave me alone (m bula) and goodbye (fo naato) which have come in handy. The general greeting here is Salaam aleykum and the response maleeykum salaam which is a general arabic greeting. Mandinka isn't a written language really, so the spellings vary. Lots of words that they don’t really have in Mandinka you just add oo. But like in Welsh.


So we went to market. It was early afternoon and extremely hot. Most of us have the typically British approach to haggling ie pay the first price they offer. Its all a bit confusing as to what you are supposed to haggle for and what you aren’t. A lot of things particularly food stuffs sold in cups or bags are fixed price. We came away from our market trip with some tomatoes, a bag of okra and some chilli peppers. We did engage in some Mandinka banter with the market ladies who seemed quite amused by us.

We have been a bit braver with the shopping, buying bread and sandwiches from the bitikos which are little shacks on the corner of the streets that sell tapalapa which is the Gambian bread. For about 10 dalasi you can get a sandwich with mayo or beans. I also got a squashed beetle and some ants in mine but it still tasted nice!

We had a recipe sharing day today which was really good fun. Maimuna who is in charge of admin at the vso office and nya Isatou showed us how to make beef domoda and okra stew and introduced us to some of the more unusual Gambian vegetables like bitter tomatoes, okra, sorrel leaf. Domoda is a traditional dish here made with meat and vegetables and lots of peanut butter. Maimuna also showed us how to make a drink out of Wanjo (dried red leaves looks a bit like pot pourri) and another drink out of the fruit of the baobab tree. Sometimes called the monkey bread tree or if you want its scientific name Adonsonia Digitalis. I think any benefits such as the vitamin c, calcium etc are negated by the amount of sugar and vanilla sugar they put in it to make it taste nice. The domoda was very nice but the okra stew not so nice and it had pieces of African land snail in it! It was fun using the giant pestle and mortar to grind the chillies and spices but when I did the tomatoes I ended up with most of it splattered up my trousers and the walls! The Gambians just estimate everything when they're cooking but it seems to turn out well. They also don't waste any of their ingredients. They use everything.

We learned some important practical stuff like sifting the bitiko rice to get rid of the weevils and hooking up a gas stove, dealing with the cockroaches that live in your pit latrine etc.

We all passed our Mandinka exam. I got 80 percent! But I did mess the oral part up badly.
It was a good day though because me and Kate got to babysit Mohammed while everyone else did their exam. Now we are having a celebratory baobab juice in our favourite internet cafe Timbuktoo which has a lovely breezy balcony where you can escape the intense heat. It's getting hotter every day and walking any where is punishing. Thank God for the orange stalls every 100 yards down the street where they peel the orange for you and cut off the top and you suck the juice out. They're really refreshing and only 2 dalasi.

Tomorrow is Kate's 30th birthday so we are going out in the night for dinner and a couple of Julbrew. Kate's even going to straighten her hair for the occasion. I on the other hand have got used to having humidity hair and generally looking scruffy and sweaty. It's hard to look even half way decent in comparison to the Gambian women who dress immaculately and are poised and elegant. Kate asked Maimuna the secret of walking in high heels in the thick sand. She said we Gambians don't rush. We walk everywhere majestically. We ordered a birthday cake from la Parisienne and we are going to mama's restaurant, cheap and cheerful for some fish yassa or domoda.

Thanks for the comments and emails. Keep them coming. It's really good to hear from everyone! Fo naato (goodbye) Suutoo ye diyaa (let the night be sweet)

The toubab blues

Another cooking triumph by Kanti and Pete, home made paratha and spiced vegetables. Really tasty! We seem to have become obsessed by food. I think because we are all anticipating living on tomatoes, onions and rice for months up country. So we like to wander round the supermarket gazing longingly at all the “toubab food." We have all become accustomed to having toubab (white person) shouted at us. Mostly by the kids. “ toubab give me dalasi ", "toubab how are you?" Kate has decided to cash in on the toubab phenomenen by writing a hit song called toubab blues. But Kate maintains its not ready to share with the world yet. From the snippets I have heard I think she’s right. I do envisage us sitting on our porch up country making up countless verses to toubab blues.

From what the other volunteers have told us there is a big different between life up country and life here in the Kombos. Here you can get everything you could want really. All the western type food, electrical goods, mobile phones etc. They have very good petrol stations just like ours back at home. There are quite a few bars and restaurants. Up country it you have to get mostly everything from the market and apparently during the rains nothing much really grows so vegetables are hard to come by and you only get potatoes, tomatoes, onions and a few other things. The prices are also more expensive. On the up side they say you get hastled much less up country because of the lack of tourists. I haven’t found the hastle a big problem though and people generally leave you alone if you are firm. The majority of people we come across are very friendly and welcoming.

Public transport is really cheap here. We get around the kombos either by walking or using five fives which are green and yellow taxis. Mostly anywhere around here costs five dalasi each, which is incredibly cheap. Getting a gelle gelle back from Banjul only cost us 8 dalasi each and it is quite a way. They can try it on if they think you are a tourist. Apparently tourists will pay up to 200 dalasi for a taxi ride which is a massive amount. Unqualified teachers here only earn about 500 dalasi a month.


Yesterday we had a talk by some current volunteers Courtney and Paul about the small project fund which they want us new volunteers to get involved in. The money is donated by the British High Commission for community projects, such as refurbishing libraries, classrooms or small business projects. The idea comes from a group in the community and they have to submit a proposal and apply for the funding. But us volunteers have to oversee the projects, go and do site visits, make sure that funds are being used appropriately and write reports on the project. Some of the projects that have been done already seem really good. It seems like a really good thing to get involved in since the projects come from the locals themselves they are more likely to be successful. Some of the volunteers have said it has been the most worthwhile thing they have done here, as any changes they make through their jobs they can’t really see the impact of because change is very slow and they are up against so many different factors.

Next Week our language lessons finish and we have an assessment, written and oral. Although I don't know what they will do if we fail. Next weekend is our up country trip, staying at 2 different camps. I say camps but they're more like hotels really. There should be more to tell then!

If anyone wants to message me it's probably better to make a comment on the blog because blogspot seems to be a lot quicker than yahoo for some reason. Couldn't get on yahoo at all today. xxx L

Our Gambian Nightclub experience

The beach!

My first cockroach

The lady in the picture us our language teacher

Kate, Rachel and I by the pool at the Safari Garden Hotel

Dinner at the Kanifing house

We have the day off today, as it's Gambian Independence day so we have been out for pizza and are now spending a relaxing afternoon at the internet cafe. It's tough this volunteering! Kate is speaking to her parents on skype, and we all said hello (the wonders of modern technology).

Last night we had our first (and probably last) Gambian nightclubbing experience. This came about after our cultural awareness session with Adrian who has been working out here in the disability field for five years. He invited us to go along to an evening of Gambian reggae and live music. Since it didn't start until midnight some of the others weren't up for it. But Phil, Rachel and I dutifully went along to lama lamas. It didn't start off too well as we met with some bumsters as soon as we got out of the taxi who followed us up and down the road proclaiming that we were all one big family and inviting us to their shop. We finally found lama lamas which had changed its name to Alabamas still with our newfound friends hanging on wanting us to pay their ticket to get in. It turned out to be quite good after a few beers. The music was good although no live band. Adrian finally turned up after being caught up in a bit of a skirmish. He was fine though as he had his local friend Lamin with him to help. Lamin is apparently a really good Gambian drummer and offers drum lessons to the volunteers.

Adrian's work is all about disability awareness raising. He does a lot of work in sports so some of us are going to have a look at his wheelchair basketball training session next week down at Westfields.

Anyway off to do some Mandinka revision now as we have a lot to learn and a test next week. Lots of love xx

The Kanifing House

We did make it into Banjul, at least 4 of us did. We wandered through the very smelly market and were accosted by lots of market vendors. We did try to practise our Mandinka but that seemed to encourage them even more so we made a hasty retreat and found the museum of the Gambia. We then took a walk up the arch to see the view over Banjul which was good and finally we got in a gelle back to the hotel. The gelle had lots of holes in it and did sound as if it was about to give up towards the end of the journey. But it was very cheap and the locals are usually very accommodating.


Well we were finally thrown out of our hotel haven to fend for ourselves in the Kanifing House. Its bucket baths and candles all the way now. No it's actually a good house. We have a gas hob, fridge and electricity and a 24 hour security guard. We have only had one power cut but we played poker by candlelight. We have enough gadgets - ipods, laptops, shortwave radios etc to never have an excuse to get bored. The maid comes into clean twice a week and I also pay her to do my washing. So the roughing it hasn't begun in earnest. We are taking it in turns to cook, although I have to team up with Phil to do my turn as it's really not my forte. We are off to the market after this. Kanti cooked us a delicious potato curry and Pete has made us homemade crisps, homemade chapatis and rice pudding. I landed on my feet with a house full of people who can cook. I have decided to try to engineer a labour swap. Ironing for cooking. That seems fair

The only thing about the kanifing house is the noise. The cockerel doesn't seem to want to keep his crowing hours to dawn but prefers to crow every hour throughout the night. The call to prayer at the mosque is very early! Then comes the dawn chorus of birdsong. So sleep is hard to obtain.

We spent another day at the beach on Sunday and treated ourselves to lunch at Kizzys and a bottle of the local Julbrew. We had our fair share of bumsters on the walk up there. One maintained that he knew us from the hotel and he wanted us to come and pay our respects to his wife as he had go married yesterday. They're really not that persistent though. You can usually shake them off pretty easily.

Kayira be

(This is Mohammed, our language teacher Nya Isatou's baby)

So far we have been introduced slowly to Gambian society. VSO have been babysitting us by providing all our food, taxiing us around etc. We are staying at the Safari Garden hotel which is a little haven complete with swimming pool. I think they are lulling us in a false sense of security before they turf us out to fend for ourselves. We had a rest day on Sunday and made it to the beach and went swimming in the Atlantic. The waves were quite powerful and it was good fun and great for escaping the heat.

We began our Mandinka language training this week which has been really good fun. Our trainer is called Nya satou (pronounced nice a too). She is lovely and we have had quite a laugh. My group is Phil and Kate. Phil is the high flier in the group and we all laugh at Kate who tries desperately hard but finds it all exasperating. The staff at the hotel have also found it exasperating, I think, putting up with our attempts to practise on them, but they are very patient and try to help us learn. Greeting is a big thing in Gambian society and people find it very rude if you don't take the time to greet them and ask about their family. So we have been practising our greeting dialogues.

The other volunteers are great and we have had a lot of fun. The make up of the group is Phil, a youth for development volunteer from Leeds, Kate who's my next door neighbour in Soma, from Brighton but orginally up North, Rachel from Victoria in Aus, Phil and Liz, a married couple from Cardiff, although they're really English and Kanti, who's Canadian but originally from India. Kanti is also going to be our neighbour in Soma(which is great because she's a legend but she's also going to cook her speciality Indian dishes for us and has brought her entire spice rack with her.)

The evenings we spend playing various games in the hotel by candlelight. The name game, the alphabet game. Kanti usually keeps us amused with her superior joke telling ability. She usually begins to giggle as soon as she starts telling the joke, most of them about Morons. We were all a bit baffled when she started talking about maroons but we soon caught on. I think you had to be there really!

Today we met our employers for the first time and learnt a bit about what we might expect at our placement and what might be expected of us. Our employer is Mr Bah who is head of training in our regional office. We had to make a 3 week plan for the beginning of our placement and draw a map to our compound which went something like cross over the river and turn left at the mango tree and you're there! We are only half a kilometre from our office. But we have 84 schools in our cluster. Our furthest school is 80 kilometres so we have to do those schools by motorbike. Apparently there are 2 peace corps volunteers also in the area. They come from America as do all the peace corps volunteers and they are graduates working in health. So I daresay we will see a bit of them. The peace corps works slightly differently from VSO. They have 9 weeks language training and then they stay with a host family in a village and are fully immersed in village life. They spend 27 months out here.

Anyway tomorrow is our trip to Banjul where they leave us there and we have to get a gelle back, which should be fun. Friday we are kicked out of the hotel to fend for ourselves. We are all living in the VSO community house in Kanifing so watch this space.

Anyone who wants to write me a letter the vso address is VSO The Gambia, PO box 677, Fajara, The Gambia. I have a pigeon hole there so any mail just goes in there until I get a PO box up country. Lots of love xxxx

Farewell uk

So far so good! Made it to the airport and am nearly on my way. Didn't sleep much due to party goers doing tarzan impressions well into the night. However lack of sleep, I fear, might be something I have to get used to. Had to have the obligatory parting shots of me with luggage and listen to many well meaning words of advice from mam and Dad. They can at least relax in the knowledge that their bank account might recover now. Anyway there's definitely no going back now!