Stabilisation has ended and so the director and his management team have returned to the office. The task now is to process all of their data and generate the required reports. The local power generator for the office is still required each day as we have major problems with the main electricity supply. My campaign to remove viruses from as many machines as possible is beginning to backfire. The process of removing a virus will more often than not damage the Windows operating system (and these machines have 100's of viruses) so further work is required to rebuild the PC. The machine would be out of action when it was needed the most! The alternative would be a "working" PC spreading viruses to all users receiving copies of the reports!
During the middle of the week I received a call from the local Peace Corps working at the nurse's training school in Mansa Konko - they had a few PC issues they wondered if I could look at. The Peace Corps is a similar organisation to the VSO - American volunteers spend two years volunteering around the world - quite often in very basic conditions in rural villages (yes even more basic than mine). They do have very good air conditioning in their computer labs though!
My plans towards the end of the week had to make a quick change when a VSO friend in Kerewan needed a temporary supply of anti-malaria tablets (I had the nearest supply). The humanitarian trip to Kerewan was then extended to the Kombos so I seized the chance to stock up on restaurant food and supplies. For some reason on Wednesday evening I had decided to go for a "haircut" using a volunteer's spare "hair clippers". The result was a disaster and I aborted the haircut looking like an extra from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". It turned out the clippers were actually beard trimmers - now I had an extra reason to head to the Kombos - I needed a number 4 quick!
The trip via the north road (the south road is a non-asphalt dusty roller coaster) again went very smoothly. I met Priya in Farafenni first - we then picked Vicky up in Kerewan (I leaned out of the gelly waving my hands so she knew which one to get on) and then made the 6.30pm ferry from Barra in Banjul. To keep the costs down I'd stay with Kombos based volunteers - we still had chance to have a meal at Mama's though. We went overboard a bit on Saturday (so much to keeping costs down) with lunch at Ngala Lodge (5 star - check out www.ngalalodge.com) followed by an excellent evening meal at The Blue Kitchen (under German management no less!).
We should have returned to our various Gambian locations on Sunday but a very heavy thunderstorm put paid to that. Getting drenched in the storm also meant I needed time to dry out so we decided to get the first ferry at 7am the following morning. Watching the sun rise on The Gambia River was a magical event - the weather was also the coolest I'd so far experienced. We got to Farafenni in a record 1 hour 25 minutes. We travelled in a "set place" which is a direct 7 seater taxi - well worth the extra 40 dalasi (£1)! Expecting to be back in the office before too many people missed me I was let down again by my local ferry at Bambatenda. This time a Senegalese bus grounded itself while boarding - it turned out to be two and a half hours to do the last 16 kilometres!
What a wonderful and thoughtful friend you are. You have probably saved your friend from getting malaria (though she's such a sickly person these days I'm something else will destroy her immunity and finish her off).
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