I source some scraps of hardboard, cut them up and drill holes in them to make threading toys for the children's play room. Vanessa draws patterns on them and fixes the threads.
Sulayman visits and I have another fan to fix. This one is a bit more serious as the bearings have seized. I leave it soaking in WD40 and head off for a meal at Paradise with Yaya and Vanessa. Surprisingly we meet CEO Baba there and we also find a group of Dutch people who we first saw on Friday evening are involved with hospital, although mainly through the SEN school.

Monday 24th February
I finish off the threading toys and manage to salvage the fan. Opa arrives to plait Vanessa's hair Gambian style. I leave them to it and head off to the pharmacy. We lose power after a while so I go in search of the storeman so I can make sure the shelving units I renovated are stored in the container until needed. I obtain some of the rubber strip I need to fix the mosquito screen for the children's ward and patch a couple of holes as well before refitting it.
Vanessa's hair is finished but she say's it is rather painful as it is pulling quite a bit. The women tell her that will go away after a couple of days growth. Vanessa tells me privately it probably won't be staying this way for 2 days.
Abdoulie appears with the palm leaf fans Vanessa tasked him with sourcing. The price has risen from an estimated 15 dalasi to 25. Nothing Abdoulie gets involved in is straight forward.
Abdoulie and Sulayman stay for the dinner I cook. I think Sulayman is more impressed with the pasta than Abdoulie.
Abdoulie goes home and Sulayman goes to work on the nightshift. The next knock at the door is Yaya. He wants us to watch a film with him about the civil war in Darfur. It's quite upsetting and has a parallel with Schindler's List. The frightening thing is though that this took place much more recently.

Tuesday 25th February
Our last day here. Sulayman arrives fresh from the nightshift while we are still getting up. Abdoulie comes to start cleaning duties with Vanessa. I disappear off to the pharmacy to take Yaya his laptop back.
In the afternoon we walk round the hospital to say goodbye and take photos of many of the people we have worked or become friendly with.
We are invited to a final meal with all the administration team and a guest trainee medic from Germany. The meal was prepared by Isutoo and is excellent. It is a sea fish deep fried in oil with onions, chips and salad. After the meal Wandifa and the CEO embarress us both when they make long speeches of appreciation for what we have done for the hospital during our stay here. My spontaneous and off the cuff response is rather inadequate compared to the magnificent dialogues presented to us.
We are also given the news that our departure will be 6am as we will be accompanying the chief when he is driven to a meeting in Banjul.
Yaya makes one final visit to say good-bye, download my latest photos and let me take an uptodate copy of the stock database.
I help Vanessa remove the plaits from her hair before we go to sleep.

Wednesday 26th February
Sulayman arrives just before we are due to be collected to say his goodbyes. We are going to miss his, Yaya's and Abdoulie's company as well as all the other lovely people we have become to know during our stay here.
6am and we're off.
Less than 3 hours later we stop briefly at the Chief's home on the outskirts of the Kombos for him to change. We give the details of the hotel we are booked into to Sutay and we realise neither he nor the CEO know where it is. Sutay follows the rather inadequate map on the booking form but has to ring the hotel to ask for directions. The directions are not easy to understand but the words Quality Chicken keeps being repeated. After passing the same police checkpoint about 5 times, 3 more phone calls the receptionist arranges to meet us at a petrol station. He then takes us down a turning by Quality KITCHENS to a small but on first appearances an adequate hotel. Somewhere in the middle of all this a parked van drives off and into the side of us while being overtaken. Sutay stops to attend to the incident, The Chief continues with his business phone call, totally unphased by it. There is a long discussion between Sutay and the occupants of the other vehicle and the other driver appeals to the CEO when his phone call is finished. Even I could understand the gist of the reply in local language. “You drove into us, we are not responsible, deal with it”. The damage to the company Patrol is minimal, the van seems to have lost most of it's front end. We drive off.
At the hotel we say our goodbyes, feeling a bit subdued that Sutay has been involved in traffic incident whilst doing us a service and for being the cause of making the Chief late for his meeting.
First appearances can be deceptive. The hotel has no power and there is no water when there is no power. The apartment is supposed to be self catering. There is a fridge and an electric hob, both useless without power, but no crockery nor even a glass tumbler. The town power is eratic and the hotel is probably short of money to run the diesel generator. Needless to say the free wifi in all rooms is a bit of a joke. Vanessa goes to sleep and I go for a walk. A long walk, since I get lost and fall for the bag of rice story again, this time for an orphanage. Perhaps I shouldn't be allowed out on my own. When I get back the power is on and I manage a shower. Even the internet is working - just.
On my recce I'd found the nearest ATM and a place to eat, so early evening we replenished our depleting cash reserves and headed for the Chop'n'Chat restaurant run by an ex-pat and frequented by ex-pats. It was good food and reasonably priced, although some of the other clientele made me feel a little embarressed to be British. The UK comedy drama Benidorm definitely comes to mind. The owner is a pleasant old chap who has lived in Gambia for 20 years. I cheekily asked him if we could borrow a couple of glasses to take back to our hotel and he said yes with no hesitation. We finish the evening watching a documentary film about the tracking down and elimination of Bin Laden. As power is back on I'm able to link the hudl to the TV in the room. While the water is on we fill every container and bottle we can source.

Thursday 27th February
We are just about to leave the hotel for the day about 10am when there is a knock on the door by one of the staff asking if we want breakfast. Previously I'd been downstairs to find the only staff member fast asleep in his sleeping bag on the floor. We take up the offer so Chop'n'Chat loses a bit of custom. Our plan today is to take a taxi to Luigi's where we stayed on arrival and are booked in for Friday night. If they have any cancellations we will try and move hotels a day earlier than planned, otherwise we hope they won't mind us spending the day there and making use of the pool. We walk towards where many taxis were gathered last night and where we'd turned down several offers of a ride to the restaurant some 400 yards away. As to be expected no-one appeared to be working this morning. We walk a bit further and are accosted by a chap on a scooter who asks if we are looking for a taxi. I ask how much to Luigi's and I'm given a price which seems reasonable. I try to negotiate but he won't budge. He then offers to rent us his scooter for about £23 for the day. Briefly I'm tempted as I do prefer my own independant transport but I think better of it and decide not to risk an unplanned incident spoiling the trip so near the end. He goes to fetch his taxi. He seems quite a genuine guy although we are sure by now that he is not a taxi driver. Just someone with a fairly nice car trying to earn a few bob on the side. He takes us to Luigi's and we take his number so we can use him for the return trip.
Luigi's is full and busy as there is a wedding on, but they don't mind us lounging round the pool area. We take a walk along the beach, which is quite difficult as we are constantly hounded by stall holders, juicemakers and fruit sellers to patronize their businesses. There just aren't enough tourists on the beach for them all to make a living. On the way out we say we may call on the way back. We choose one juicemaker on the way back who tells us we are his first customer for over a day. We turn down the offer of plates of fruit from one girl who says she hasn't had a sale for 5 days. There are 16 licensed fruit sellers on this 800 metre stretch of beach and looking around I doubt if I can see even a hundred tourists. We run the gauntlet of remaining juicesellers on our way back to Luigi's. I can see why many tourists stay completely within the confines of their hotel complex. Personally I think the best way to enjoy a holiday in the tourist areas would be to adopt the services of a local lad and pay him to be your guide whenever you leave the hotel. You gain the benefit of local knowledge at a cost you are in control of and if you are with a local you tend to be left alone by the others.
We spend a couple of hours by the pool and ring for our friend with the car to collect us. We have one entertaining moment on the journey when he takes both hands off the wheel to remove his jumper and I end up steering for him.
The power is on when we get back but no internet. We go out to eat early and watch a film on the hudl when we get back.

Friday 28th February
We move to Luigi’s with the help of our driver from yesterday and adopt holiday mode for our last day and evening in The Gambia.

Saturday 1st March
We are almost packed and ready to leave when we receive a panic phone call from Sulayman. He’s on his way to Banjul with a referral to the hospital here and the Kindle I left him has stopped working (after it was dropped by someone he was showing it to). Can he meet us so I can fix it? I tell him there is probably little I can do with it but he wants to come and see us anyway. As expected I can’t fix the Kindle and we have another drawn out good-bye. A short while after they’ve left I receive a text from him to say it started working again. We turn our local phones off and return them. It’s time to leave.