New House

A couple of pictures of our house at the end of the dry season and the end of the rains.  The difference is incredible.

Finally got around to taking some pictures of the kitchen, our dinky little kitchen.

9 June 3013  Meet our new addition to our new house.  A lady I was calling on gave me a little chick, she's called Brigisa after the lady's baby.  She loves Ben and follows him around and eats out of his hand.

We finally moved into the new house on 17 May.  Here's the living room.  I looks a bit bare without pictures and we need new cushion covers.  Tie dye is a Gambian tradition so the covers are a local craft.  The big tree below is directly behind our back door and has fruit at the moment, not the kind that we can eat but the fruit bats love it and over 100 visit every evening.

11 April 2013. This house is a temporary stop until the tenants moved out of the third house in our row.  They had a court order to move at the end of February as they caused so much trouble.  Get this for logic . . .  they got a court order against the landlady to get the three huge trees in the compound cut down because they say burglars hide behind them.

 Even though they had to leave the house, the trees still had to be destroyed!!   Sadly two of the trees were chopped down but the third is still with us and we're hoping it can stay.  Gambia has lost 91% of its trees.  Deforestation ruins the soil and the general environment.  Importantly in our compound trees provide shade.  What is the reasoning of the court that allows more to be cut??

These horrible tenants finally left on 8 April and the landlady says she will begin decorating on 2 May so hopefully we will be able to move mid May.    Then I'll be able to get my washing machine plumbed and my poor fingers can recover. 



January 2013  We moved to a much smaller house this month.  It's nearer to the main road (only 2 minute walk instead of 40!) and in a quieter area so it's better for us.  There's also much less cleaning to do.  It's about half an hour away from the other one.  The removal van arrived at 12 and we were all unloaded by 3pm so it was very quick and easy.

  This is the outside, there are four identical houses in a row on one side of the compound and two other houses at the back so we're living with Finns, Nigerians and Gambians.  Sadly we couldn't bring the dogs.

After spending a year inside (because of the dogs) Kat enjoys going out and makes the most of the morning sun on the verandah.

Unfortunately there is no plumbing for a washing machine so for a while I'm handwashing.  I'm pretty bad at it so I get a little help.  I was smiling at first but I had the wrong technique and my hands were bleeding by the end.

These are pictures of inside the house.  In a few weeks we move to an unfurnished house in the same compound, we're just waiting for the tenants to move out.  Most of the furniture you can see is ours anyway, we were worried that it wouldn't all fit in but it's ok.

Living room, standing at the front door

Living room, Ben's room with the brown door and our room with the curtain.  

Dining room, kind of hallway really but it fits a small table

The kitchen is seriously tiny, you can just see the corner of the sink and the cooker.  I can wash the floor in 30 seconds!

This is the bathroom.  The shower room is on the left and the toilet is on the right.  This area has the sink, fridge from the other house and storage stuff under the pink curtain.  It's a great layout, it means all three of can use the bathroom at the same time, we just swap places like one of those puzzles with the tile missing.

Conversations

Wealth and beauty.
It's sometimes strange how people view these things.  A woman in her 20's told me that she has never seen an ugly white person.  We asked what was it that made a person ugly.  She pointed to the bridge of her nose and said that when this is flat the person is ugly.  If it's up they are beautiful.  Made me feel a lot better.

A girl in her late teens said that if she was very rich she would never eat bread again.  Bread is one of the cheapest meals a Gambian can eat and she eats bread every day so to eat something other than bread would be a luxury.  



A little boy was putting his shoes on but the tongue of the shoe was under his foot instead of on top.  A British mother might say 'Put your shoe on properly' but this mother said 'Enter your foot properly into your shoe'.  I love the way they speak English.

One of our neighbours has to fetch water from a communal tap so that gives a good indication of their poverty level . . or so I thought.  One day their little girl came into our house and pointed out that our TV is too small.  I asked does she have a bigger one.  She looked at me as though I was crazy and said "Yeees".  

Conversation with my neighbour's little daughter:
Do your hens lay eggs?
Yes.
Do you eat the eggs?
No, we leave them alone and then they turn into chicklets.
Awwww.

I was on a Bible study when the lady told her 5 year old son that after the study he had to have a shower because he was dirty and Aunty Janet was clean.  He immediately came over to me to look for dirt and found a small mole on my arm which he tried to scratch off.  I explained that it wasn't dirt it was a freckle and asked did he not have any freckles?
"Yes, I've got one on my bombom (bum), do you want to see it?"


I arrived a few minutes early for another study so as I waited for the lady a man arrived and sat next to me on the bench.  An older woman appeared and gave him a jar of a strong smelling clear liquid.  The man lit a cigarette and took out a packet of mango flavoured powder that the kids add to water to make a mango drink.  He told me that he didn't like the local gin on its own so had to add this sachet so that he could drink it.  But he had a problem.  He pointed out that the mango powder was artificial so wasn't good for the body.  He seemed oblivious of the harm the cigarette and local gin was doing.  He assured me that he knew what he was talking about because he is a nurse working at RVTH Banjul, Gambia's top hospital.  The really scary part was that this conversation happened at 8.30 in the morning.

December

This is my last monthly blog.  In future I'll just add special occasions/events/holidays/visitors etc. 

There are still lots of birds and animals around but nothing different to what I've already shown you apart from this little chap who I found crawling around the patio.  It's funny but the dogs kill most animals that come into the garden but they ignore toads and frogs.

December was quiet with the exception of the District Convention.  It was a wonderful experience but what a journey!!  Around 300 kilometres took twenty two hours each way.  All three English congregations were to travel together on three coaches and were supposed to be at the meeting point at 7am and were going to leave at 10am.  Yeah . . . right.  We left the house at 7.30 and arrived at 8.  No coaches and only one sister with her two boys. 


The coaches arrived at 9 at left around 11.30.  We drove around the block and stopped for diesel.  The frist two coaches filled fairly quickly but the third had some problem or other and we had to wait ages for them.  We then drove 15-20 minutes to Banjul to catch the ferry. 

Stopping off for spare parts didn't inspire confidence.

Only one of the four engines worked on the ferry.

We boarded the ferry at 3pm (after waiting for the people and sheep to disembark) and caught sight of our first toilet since leaving home.  UGH!!  The only good thing about it was it was just a hole in the floor of the boat so I didn't have to actually touch anything  apart from the door as there was nothing to hold it closed with so everything had to be done one handed.  Enough of that.  You don't want to know.

5.30am, Dakar

Only two coaches could fit on the ferry so when we got to the other side we had to wait for the third coach to catch the next ferry.  We left there at 6pm and the rest of the journey went smoothly apart from a long section of road (about an hour long) that felt like we were driving over a giant cheese grater.  I was given the job of taking everyone's passport details, names and numbers and writing them on a form.  It SOUNDS easy enough but African names can be complicated.  One brother has a surname with 25 letters!!  Anyway, they were happy enough with it at the border and let us through.  One of the coaches has a problem and we had to stop briefly for a quick repair and somehow we got stopped for speeding!  How??  We arrived in Dakar at 5.30 am.  There were still no toilets so I had to go in a little bushy area in the public car park.  Fortunately it was still dark, the bushes wouldn't have provided any cover during daylight.






The Assembly Hall opened at 8am and we were given a wonderful warm welcome by the brothers.  They had arranged breakfast of hot coffee or chocolate and fresh bread with butter and chocolate spread.

Later brothers and sisters came to take us all to our accommodations in their cars and we were given a packed lunch to take with us of meat and rice.  Terry and I celebrated 10 years of very happy marriage on Friday so we decided to go for the slightly up market accommodation.  Ben was in a room with three other brothers and got to see far more of the city than we did.

Lunch on the terrace

Sunrise over Dakar

 This is my study Neka who came with her son David.  She had booked the time off work (Wednesday to Monday) but at the last minute they told her she could only have Friday to Monday.  We left Wednesday morning and arrived Thursday morning so how could she possibly get there in time?  She left work on Thursday afternoon, went home to collect her bags (David was travelling with us) and headed for the ferry.  As she was waiting a man was shouting that he was going straight to Dakar with his car if anyone wanted a ride.  It would be cheaper for her to travel that way and quicker than by public transport so she came with him.  He dropped her off at her accommodation and she was in bed by midnight and was at the assembly before us next morning.  

The Assembly Hall is next door to Bethel.  It's an open sided Hall so we were lovely and cool.  Terry had two talks and Ben and I were both on demonstrations.