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