It's Holiday Time !!!

After a hectic couple of hours rushing around the hospital trying in desperation to make sure work on the multitude of project we had underway was going to continue, we hit the road to Banjul with Sutay our driver at about 11.15am. The previous night had taken a turn for the worse when late in the evening Anita had decided to take a last turn around the hospital and I, foolishly had accompanied her. We started in Malnutrion which had been freshly painted… but in far too dark a colour! When we had looked at it earlier in the day at the part completed stage we had though we could just about live with it, but seeing it in it’s entirety, it was just to dark and sombre; certainly not the ambience we are trying to create in a children’s ward.  Heading up to the Special Care unit we found two new born babies one of which weighed in at a mere 0.6kg ! both were having difficulties feeding and as the nurses station has had to be moved during the renovation work to a position some way from the unit, nobody had noticed. A call to Tanya, the obstetric surgeon that is staying in the house with us, then to the Cuban paediatrician got everyone scurrying around and when we left the following morning both seemed to be doing well, although the prognosis for a 26 week, premature baby weighing in at 0.6kg wouldn’t be good in the UK with all our sophisticated facilities, never mind in The Gambia.

Arriving in Banjul, our first stop was at Ahmed the Window man’s premises to check on the progress of our order…. The first windows should have been already on the road to Bansang! Needless to say, they were not! In fact they were nothing like ready, although the manufacturing of the fist batch was well underway. Hopefully we should see them by Monday or Tuesday next week. It was o the builders merchants to look at floor tile, purchase some more welding rods for the work on the beds and to buy the maintenance guys a pair of welding glasses to replace the sunglasses that they currently use…health and safety? What’s that all about then? Managed to grab them just as the shops were closing for the night, Thursday being election day meant it was to be my only c hance… and so to Luigis for a well needed shower and a couple of well deserved drinks.

As I said, today, Thursday is a public holiday due to the local elections… any excuse will do out here! 

So Anita and I took the chance to have a HOLIDAY !... my first full day off since I arrived in The Gambia a month ago. However, even that just had to include a visit to a rather nice 2 bedroom, 3 shower room, time share apartment that Anita has been offered for a week next year to raise funds for BHA by either auctioning or selling draw tickets. Personally I favour the latter with a limited number of tickets, certainly no more than 1000 being sold at a premium price. Sleeping up to 6 people, the apartment would cost almost £1500 to rent for the week and I am hoping we may be able to include at least a couple of flights in the prize… 

 From there we headed off to the Monkey Forest which was quite amazing, with the monkeys taking peanuts from our hands quite gently, and cheeky monkey even sitting on Anita’s shoulder, much to her consternation!Apparently there are about 4000 monkeys in the forest and our guide Sulyman, really was very good at picking out the features in the park and explaining the uses of the various tree in traditional Gambian healing.

Heading back to the beach we spotted a small massage and beauty parlour so decided to spoil ourselves with Anita having an hour long pedicure whilst I had a massage…ah  Bliss! By the time we emerged, feeling rather more relaxed and refreshed it was 2pm so lunch at a beachside restaurant  with an ice cold Julbrewfor less than the price of a McChuckups burger set us up nicely for the walk back to Luigis and a visit to the local supermarket for some supplies that are nor easily obtainable in Bansang.

Tomorrow sees a fairly early start back to the builders merchants to try to source the best tiles we can find for the ward, before I get collected by Lyn and Leyland from PUG for the run back to Bansang, whilst Anita heads for the airport and home.  To say I’ll be sorry to see her go would be an understatement, as inspite of her running me ragged for the last two weeks she has also undoubtedly considerably lessened my stress levels by being there to take some of the big decisions that always crop up during a renovation project such as this. We have also heard today from Morro, who continues to amaze with his progress. It seems he has already made a substantial start on project No 2, the Mite house staff units… pictures to follow on that one.