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...