Snakes, Linen and Charlie

So I've spent a large portion of my personal professional development week (a lecture series that, summed up, teaches us not to be bad people) reading my Gambia travel guide. Whilst it has provided me with many excellent tips it has also provided me with a few lines that made me laugh and I thought I'd share a selection of them:

• There are only 9 seriously venemous types of snake
• If you find yourself to be the host to a tumbu fly grub, try submerging or smearing vasaline over the affected boil which will make it easier to squeeze the boil and pop the grub out
• The Gambia Public Transport Company have run their buses into the ground and it is not known whether they will return
• We strongly advise you not to stroke Charlie the crocodile no matter what the local guides may say

With only 3 days to go until we fly I've been attempting to manage a compromise of goodbyes and preparation. So yesterday involved purchasing 2 pairs of linen trousers (in an attempt to look as colonial as possible) and then a meal out at the Milestone in Sheffield, followed by a drink at Kelham island pub with my girlfriend. As well as this a sudden realisation that I know nothing about statistics or indeed anything about tropical medicine has struck me. On top of all this we have a unbelievable 60kg of luggage allowance each on our flights, due to going with the Moroccan equivalant of BA, and I have felt a need to at least something that will be of use for the Gambian people (as I will definitely not be). This led me to scour the medical school yesterday for old versions of BNF's and now have a bulging bag of out-dated drug information which I hope will have at least some use to the Banjul Royal Victoria Hospital (even if it is to hit me over the head with after experiancing my non-existent pharmacological knowledge). 

It is likely that my next post will be from the MRC Hospital in Fajara. In our briefing document we have learned it has tennis courts. Might need to get practicing if Murray keeps dropping sets like this...

A Slow Start

OK, before I start, I do realise that the title is not great. While Graceland is a fantastic, and possibly my favourite, album by the immovable, unflappable genius that is Paul Simon, it features South African music. This blog is instead to detail my trip to The Gambia (the The being actually in the name of the country) which is distinctly West African with what I understand to be a bustling, distinctive music scene. I hence apologise for the lack of accuracy. But still, to be associated with such a great album is no great insult.

Anyway enough rambling; as most of you will know my name is Alex. I don't anticipate many people other than those who know me to have the patience or indeed desire to follow this blog but in case you do than you can find a fun little sum-up of my life in the box on the right. In no less than 10 days I will be boarding a plane set for Banjul, Gambia (stopping along the way at Casablanca) with my friend Lauren Maddy to work for the Medical Research Council. This blog is in essence a device to supplement my lazyness, as I intend for it to replace postcards to let everyone at home know what's going on.

I know little about Gambia, my initial knowledge being limited to the threats the travel nurses have layed upon me (to sum up quickly - Malaria = bad, Yellow Fever = bad) and a short news story I remember a few years ago detailing the Gambian President's claims that he can stop people dying from AIDS. On further inspection it turned out this was accomplished by feeding them a combination of cornflour and ground up flies, causing them to die from starvation rather than AIDS....  Despite my best efforts to spend the last few lecture days reading a travel guide hidden within my notes, I still feel wholly unprepared having never been to anywhere like this before (the closest being a midweek jaunt to Morocco a year and a half ago).

However into the unkown and all that, I am ready to immerse myself into this small African country and hopefully to take you along for a bit of it. Time up, Heather is in the pub and on her own. I wonder if they have Farmer's blond in the Gambia...