Hello guys! This past weekend Russell, Matthew, Heedeok, Allison, Molly, Alexandra, and I went to Senegambia. It was really nice to get away from Bwiam and go to a more developed/westernized city.
July 17, 2009 – July 19, 2009
This weekend we decided to leave Bwiam. (In case you guys don’t know that’s the village that I’m staying at…) We left on Saturday morning around 5:45am. The ride to Senegambia (a 2-3 hour ride) went so smoothly. We didn’t have to wait 20-30 minutes to find a taxi. Our first stop was the bank. I exchanged some money for this coming weekend. We dropped by a book store and the European market afterwards. The European market was fairly big. It was really similar to Ko-Mart back in Dallas. We ate breakfast there and headed off to SeaView, the really cheap hotel. We swam around the pool area and relaxed for a bit. We then went to Paradisso, a well established Italian Pizza restaurant. It’s probably the best pizza I’ve had EVER. I think my standards for food went down ever since I got here though… haha For dinner we ate at a Chinese restaurant. We got there around 8:00pm, and they served us dinner at 10:00pm. It was by far the worst service ever! But I think that’s just how it is in The Gambia. Everything is like 2-3 hours late! That bothers me so much.
On Sunday, we went to the Brikama Craft Market. I bought a bunch of souvenirs. It’s really fun to bargain with the local dealers. You get this really good feeling when you bring the price down to 60-70% it’s original value.
July 20, 2009
After staying in outpatient for a week, they moved me to the pharmacy. Pharmacy isn’t as boring as I thought it would be. There’s a lot of sitting around, but I’m actually doing work. I get to prepare the medications that the patients need. The best part about this is that I get to learn Mandinka from the pharmacists. I’m learning more Mandinka today than I’ve done these past few weeks!
July 21, 2009
I worked from 9:00 – 11:00ish… The thing with pharmacy is that you get out really early, which means that you have a lot of free time in your hands. And that’s not good since you’ll be bored! But today I ended up borrowing this book called Lamb. It’s pretty entertaining. I also ended up tie dying today. It’s a lot easier than I thought it was. Although the end result wasn’t that great… haha Maybe I’ll get better if I try it again?
I’m starting to get a little homesick… I think it’s because I’m going to leave Bwiam pretty soon… On the bright side, I’m getting to know my group members really well. I feel a lot closer to them. It’s probably because we spend the whole days together. haha Well... until next time...
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go john! woot! it took me a while to figure out what ko-mart meant...
ReplyDeleteYou know, if you "borrow" a book over there and don't return it, I don't think that it'll ever get back to it's owner!
ReplyDeleteDid you get me a souvenir?!
Maybe things are more relaxed in Gambia, that time delay is just a reflection of how laid back everything is compared to our high-functioning surburban/urban lifestyles.
No jungle love in Africa?
i didn't know you had a blog, that's cool :) i'm glad you update it more than i did when i was in india. you'll be glad when you look back at it.
ReplyDeletewhen do you get back? august?
dude 2-3 hours? thats worse than asian time? i guess thats what you call african time hahaha im so funny! :P
ReplyDeletedude i thought pharmacy was boring. when i volunteered at peoples community clinic, they made me sit in a closet and count pills til i died...