Banjul & Back

That’s Banjul done and dusted for this week and me coming the closest I’ve been to getting the sack from a job for many, many years. One minute I’m the golden boy of Project management, the next… well, what can I say? In my defence it really wasn’t my fault m’lud! As I emailed Anita earlier it’s a good case of “if the deals sounds to good to be true, then it probably is”.

In fact it’s been an interesting couple of days; after sorting out a few bits and pieces early yesterday morning, we got on the road to Banjul in the trusty old Nissan Terrano that the Scoots team brought out in 2011 at about 10.30am. It’s close on 200 miles and 4 ½ hours from Bansang to Banjul, although thankfully the unmade section gets a little smaller each time I do the trip; down to about ½ an hours drive now. So lunch of an omelette roll and cold drink was taken in a little shack café in Soma Square and at 15D ( about 30p) it was a bargain. Our driver this trip was Sira as our usual driver Sutay’s vehicle was in for service and as well as myself and Morro the builder we were giving a lift to one of the male nurses who was attending a conference in Banjul, although I must say that I now understand why out Swiss sponsors always insist on having Sutay as their driver.

After dropping off our passenger we visited 3 different window companies plus a couple of builders merchants before heading off to  a compound belonging to a friend of Morro’s where we were going to spend the night. The compound was at Serrakunda but on the opposite side of the road to the tourist strip and far enough away from the road for there not to be any noise other than the distant sound of the ocean breaking on the shoreline. There was only one guest room which we were going to share but having spent a lovely evening sitting chatting outside on a sort of lounger under the trees, I thought it would be great to actually sleep out under the stars. I’d taken along both sleeping bag and Mosquito net just in case they were needed so with Morro thinking I was completely barking I soon had the net set up from the top door hinge and it draped perfectly over the lounger giving me full protection from any little bitey pests. And so I enjoyed one of the best nights sleep in a long time, drifting off whilst watching the stars twinkling above me.

I awoke early as usual, in fact about 5am, although I didn’t actually rise until nearly 6, and headed off down the compound to a little roofless shed for my morning ablutions . The shower was a large bucket of nice cool water dispensed from a much smaller bucket. The toilet utilised the same hole in the floor as the shower and was simply flushed using the aforementioned small bucket. All was scrupulously clean and smell free and in hot climates like this what more is needed?

Then it was back to confirm the order for the windows for Paediatric Ward… and that’s when my day sort of fell apart! I had originally requested a price on replacing the windows with the same size as they now are, but had been asked at the hospital about making them larger to increase air flow as the ward get very hot late in the day and once the electricity goes off, so do the fans. Therefore we had decided to price up for windows double the size, instead of 1200 x 950 they would be 1200 x 1800. Ahmed has assured us last night that as the larger ones were standard size rather than specials, not only would they be the same price but he could give a bigger discount…. Like I said earlier…  “if the deals sounds to good to be true, then it probably is”. The reality was that as one would expect they were nearly twice the price! My only saving grace was that Morro had heard the entire conversation and agreed with what I was saying. However at the end of the day the guy wasn’t prepared to work at a loss (there’s a surprise) but he did increase the discount to a little over 10% and throw in 5 free replacement windows for the operating theatre suit that Dembo had not changed, worth £500. I guess I managed to salvage just a little of my wounded pride!

From there it was a short hop across town for Morro to collect a nice new shiny chainsaw with one of the longest chain bars I have ever seen and head back to Bansang. Breakfast by way of the ubiquitous omelette rolls was taken in Brikama, then a couple of hours later it was lunch back at Soma… and I though I was going to lose some weight on this trip. In fact I skipped lunch in favour of a walk around the little town market and square and just had a couple of cold drinks.

Back on the road things ran smoothly enough with me dozing in the heat of the afternoon. At one point as I awoke I noticed a strong wind whipping things up to the left of the road and then spotted a small whirlwind blowing through. Although I’ve seen them in Western Sahara and Mauritania, this is the fir time I’ve spotted a “twister” in The Gambia but it was a very small one, rather than picking up cars, it was struggling to pick up the myriad of plastic bags through which it was blowing… And so to Bansang but not without the Nissan overheating quite badly. Watching the bubbles coming out of the radiator I’m pretty sure it has a blown head gasket or worse. Not good on an engine that has only been replaced a couple of months ago.

Arriving back at the house I found Tanya sweeping, scrubbing and washing everything in sight with the fervour of a demented demon!  The maintenance boys had finally finished their 2 day job at the house (after 7 days) and Tanya was celebrating by doing a spring clean. That inspite of having been up delivering babies for most of the night and then working a full shift . AND she’s on call again tonight. So trying to bring a some little bit of balance back… I cooked dinner! A sort of Spanish Omelette topped with grilled cheese and stir fried crispy cabbage. It couldn’t have been too bad as the plates were both very clean at the end of the meal.

Next Tuesday sees me repeating the process as I go down once more to Banjul, hopefully with Sutay, to collect Anita for her long awaited return to Bansang. A couple of nights at Luigi’s with lots of meetings and chores to perform will no doubt see the time simply fly by… 

Sorry there are no photos today but when I got my camera out last night to take some shots of our lodging I found I had left it switched on and the battery was completely flat. Ho Hum!