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...