Arrival

Dear family and fiends,

Firstly: All is well! No worries! I am save and healthy!

Let me summarize what happened so far:

Friday 01/10/10 at two o'clock in the morning I was wide awake, 3 hours to early, 3 hours to eager to leave. Finally I would go to the 'developing world'. This abstract description of countries where life is different compared to our developed world, but as the term suggest are also in the process to become like us. All exited to see what this is about.

The travel form home to Gatwick Airport went very smooth thanks to the direct train from St.Pancras, so at 7:11 sharp I was ready to queue at gate H for the Gambia Experience, the travel agency whom chartered a plane from Viking Airways. I expected a normal, non-low-cost carrier flight, and prepared myself accordingly, therefore no meal deal in my knapsack, but unfortunately Viking airways did bring me the joy of a Ryan air flight, however without the decent planes and flying on schedule (the plane was totally ripped off and we were almost 1 hour late), they would be far worse if they did not serve me a free snack/meal. It was not until north Africa I had the chance to buy myself some water and a pack of pringles.

Arrived in Banjul airport I was welcomed by Aladjie, a smooth talking Gambian working at customs in the airport, and a friend of my former flatmate Kia. It was his lucky day, because I had brought an extra suitcase full of presents. He gave me a warm welcome and it was nice to talk to him while the driver of the bus (bringing us from the plane to the terminal) was messing up the gear box. Within minutes the temperatures in the bus were rising steep, to levels that even my new made friend began to complain. Lesson one: friendly people but the 30kg of clean shirts would not be enough.

The MRC had send a driver to pick us up from the airport and drove us within 45 minutes to the compound. The Gambia is very green and flat, some sort of a hot version of the Netherlands. But since it is the end of the rain season, the green might be temporary. I shared the ride with a girl from Cambridge who does an internship at the local hospital. On the way it became clear we arrived in a Muslim country, big adverts of mobile phone companies shouting that you can win a trip to Mecca when you top op your mobile, and most of the shops were closed (as it was Friday). Despite the closed shops we managed to exchange some money. Once arrived there was no welcome committee and, organised as I am, I didn't have any phone number of my contact persons. What was present however were the keys to my apartment. The apartment is nice, clean and comes with a view over the Atlantic (very inspirational indeed). The rest of the evening consisted of a shower, a walk around the house, and a meal at the closest restaurant. What happened to be an Indian restaurant, so 1000 miles from home I had my standard vegetable Biriyani, nice!

Saturday was all about acclimatising, the high temperatures and especially the high humidity need some adaptations. Nevertheless I met my direct neighbours, did some shopping and made a very nice audio-slide-show of my apartment and view. Although it did cost me around 6 hours to make this audio-slide-show, it looks like the final result is way to big to upload any time soon on this website, maybe one day. Somehow.

Sunday was again about exploring the neighbourhood and sorting out a phone. My new number is +220 7467279, so if you need me, use this number as I will not be using my UK one.

In the evening I played a game of touch Rugby on the beach (one of the neighbours invited me), I still don't fully understand the rules, but I do painfully understand that I am totally not fit. A lot of training is needed. After the game I went for a pizza with some people. My social life had started.

Today, it was the first day behind my desk, the MRC is even more bureaucratic compared to the HPA, especially the IT regime is more stringent, as I cannot even plug-in an USB stick. Therefore I have to send files from my laptop via a dongle to my office computer, not ideal but it works (at least for small files). But the canteen is Okish, the menu consist mostly out of pasta and pizza, but the portions are big and the pasta not over cooked. This is it for now – I am going for a 12k run in the bloody heat, lets see how that goes.....

Will try to write more soon, and I am planning to do it more topical, I don't like diaries.