It’s been an interesting few days here in Bansang! The weekend saw us visited by representatives of Gambia Experience, The Gambia’s largest and most successful tour operator . They were making a whistle stop tour around the country visiting some of the many organisations which they had sponsored as part of their 25^th anniversary celebrations and the Bansang Staff Farming Association was one of them . .  MD Chris along with Katie who had implemented the awards project were accompanied by their local tour manager Joyce who has lived in The Gambia for about 17 years.

 Arriving on Saturday afternoon, allthough the thrust of their visit was to see the farm project,  we started with a quick tour of the Paediatric Ward, where hopefully, they could see through all the muck and chaos well enough to realise that the upgrade is going to be really good when it’s all finished.  A look around the fruit and vegetable garden and the Mite house, it was  then back to the house for cold drinks and a chat before taking them to their accommodation at Bintou’s Paradise Lodge. Later in the evening Anita, Tanya, Wandifa and I joined them at Paradise for a very pleasant evening meal  which also gave us time to discuss various projects with them that we have on the drawing board ,as well as giving them more details about the farm project which were to visit the following morning.

Sunday started with a meeting of us all with some of the members of the farm association back over at the Mite house which of course ran to GMT (Gambia Maybe Time!) It was then off out into the bush to visit the farm at Galamandah which is roughly 20km from the hospital along dirt roads. A meeting with the Alkali (chief) then a ride of just a few km more took us to the heart of the 100 Hectares of land which he has given to the Hospital’s farm association so that they can grow food for the hospitals patients. By 1pm, right on schedule we were heading back to the main road to part company having meanwhile also met with the Oxen that part of the award went to purchase and to hang the ear tags around their necks declaring them to be… Serenity and Experience….

Monday was a bit of a downer, as it started with the news that Bunja, the chief electrician’s mother had died after quite a long illness during which she had been at a the hospital in a small side ward. I had only met her for the first time on Sunday as I was working in the female ward, so it came as a bit of a shock. Then one of the tiny twins which had been admitted over the weekend lost his fight for life, and again I was holding him only hours before. About two months old, Adema and his sister Owa, who is still in there fighting, each weighed less than a bag of sugar. They had been born in their village some 30km from Bansang and brought for treatment just too late for there to be a realistic chance to save them. But the staff are doing a great job and as off last night the surviving sister was still alive.

Then as if to cap off the day we spent some time with a young patient  Yeng Walley who has been in and out of the hospital since she broke her back falling out of a Mango tree a few years ago. Paralyzed from the waist down, she suffers with terrible bed sores and after being taken home by her family a couple of weeks ago was re-admitted  in a really bad way after her family had sought help from the local traditional healer. Rather than cure, her had very nearly killed her! With her haemoglobin level still dropping inspite of having received 3 units of blood (all that was available) .

Anita and I spent some time with Yeng until I could face it no more, whilst Anita stayed to comfort the young girl , I found a quite corner in which to sit and be alone, all my past grief returning to consume me once more…  A couple of stiff whiskeys and a sleepless night did little to alleviate the problem. However, The next day saw a marked inmprovement with Yeng taking some Ambrosia rice pudding which we took in to try to tempt her with and after Anita had sat with her and painted her nails she actually smiled at us for the first time…. I just hope that the improvement has continued overnight.

Meanwhile work on the Children’s ward goes on apace! We have now cleared the bottom section of the ward completely with all the beds and cupboards lined up outside.  We now have almost 50% of the windows opened up and ready (except for painting ) to receive their new aluminium units. Today (Wednesday) is going to be a little frantic with two people from Power Up Gambia (PUG) coming over to look at the solar systems and how they can help. I have Lamin from maintenance starting on welding up reinforcing bars to the beds which keep breaking. The window man should be here about lunchtime and we are also opening up the roof of the Mite house to try to sort the Bat problem by cleaning out the loft area and then installing lighting which should discourage them from roosting there…. So once again, busy busy, busy