22nd Wed.
Two vehicles arrive from the hospital to collect us. The Principle Nursing Officer for the hospital, Wandifa is in one of them. We are taken to meet the Minister for Health and his permanent secretary in the Government Administration buildings. Then shopping in a local, well stocked supermarket as we are told there is not much available once we leave the coast. Long journey to Bansang. Excellent and quiet road. Stopped halfway for break. Fantastic welcome when we arrived. Seems like the whole town turned out to welcome us.
We meet a couple of the patients Anita wanted to see. A girl of about 15 who has an infected leg. It will probably have to be amputated once the consent of the family can be gained. Another girl of similar age in the next bed has injuries from falling down a well. We then move to the childrens ward and Anita is delighted to find that a young heart attack patient seems to be on the way to recovery. Anita seems to be a very popular name here as we meet staff who have named their children after her.
Our accomodation is at Paradise by the river, run by a lovely Gambian couple who speak mainly French rather than the usual English.
Evening meal with the CEO Baba Jeng and Wandifa then coffee at Anita's before being taken back to Paradise.

23rd Thu
Breakfast by the river and then taken to hospital. Long meeting with CEO and other staff. Then tour of the facilities. Everyone seems so welcoming and Anita is obviously adored by everyone. Met Yaya who is using the stock control database I designed. He seems pleased with it and says it gives them the information they need and is easy to use, but there are some enhancements he would like me to make.
The children's ward is lovely and modern. It was built with funds from the charity. Other wards are in various states of disrepair or refurbishment. The staff accomodation is the same. Those that have been renovated provide very comfortable living for the staff, some are very basic but eventually they will all be modernized or replaced with the help of the charity.
We visit the kitchen and discuss the new ovens which are to be built using some of the funds our sponsorship has raised. A kitchen had been installed by the British Government many years ago but is totally unsuitable for local cooking methods so it has never been used. They use large pots which are currently heated over an open wood fire in a small hut. There is no proper ventilation and it is hard to breathe anywhere around it. The new oven will be built in the middle of the previously unused kitchen and will be a brick built structure with a firebox in the centre feeding heat to chambers for 4 pots. A central chimney will take the smoke away. It will also be more economical with the wood fuel.
We pick up our scooters and ride them back to Paradise after refuelling them. Anita joins us for our evening meal. The generator stays on just long enough for us to settle down for the night but its back to torchlight if we need to get up in the night. The water supply is somewhat eratic. There's usually enough of a trickle to be able to wash our hands but having a shower is pot luck.

24th Friday
Started with a meeting with the management team and I was asked to start putting up shower curtains between the beds in the labour ward. The ward was fairly quiet when I started but after lunch there were 2 women in labour. 1 was born successfully the other was taken off for a section. All day the roof was banging and clattering with vultures landing on it and taking off from it. Friday is the local religous day so most normal work stopped abour 2pm. We carried on until about 5:30. Vanessa had spent the morning in play therapy but found everything locked up after lunch so she helped Anita clean out some of the cupboards in the labour ward. We rode back to Paradise and spent some time talking to the stepson of the owner before coming in for a shower after the generator was started.

25th Saturday
I go back to the labour ward and carry on with the curtains for a couple of hours. They've moved the women around since last night so out of respect for their privacy I start work on the other side of the ward.
We stop at 11 and meet up at the main entrance to be taken to a village about 1/2 an hour away. Here is the blood harvesting. There are many speeches in different languages telling the villagers how important this is for the welfare of the community. The BPEC guys present a payment of £100 to the organization which organizes the harvesting. I take photos of the children and print them out on a small portable printer. The blood collectors also ask for their photo to be printed.
We come back for a late lunch and I carry on with curtains for a bit longer. At least 3 babies are born while I am there.
Anita then rounds us up again and takes us of to visit her adopted son Abdullah. He takes us for a fairly long walk into the bush to show us some land he is trying to purchase and farm crops on. We then walk back for him to show us his new house. He is recently married and has a young baby but culture dictates that his wife stays with her mother for the first 6 months to learn how to look after the baby before she can live with her husband. We also visit a blind woman who lives nearby and is looked after by one of her young daughters.
Stewart and Anita join us back at Paradise for dinner.

26th Sunday
We are picked up from Paradise and stop at a local shop to buy rice and a few other supplies for a family who live some distance away. We take a short tour of the market before boarding the ferry across to the north bank. The ferry is a floating steel platform with ramps at either end. A steel cable runs across the river and passes through one side of the platform around waist height. There is room for 3 vehicles and several foot passengers. Power is provided by the passengers pulling on the cable. The journey is about an hour and half on unmade roads and tracks almost to the border with Senegal. We arrive at the village where we meet the family with a young disabled boy. We donate the food we have brought and discuss the family plans to extend their hut to provide more comfortable accommodation.
We travel back and stop at another village where we collect an electric bicycle for me to check over and repair. The owner is a boy with a false leg and has reverted to a normal bike because of problems with his electric one. He cycles in to the hospital every day.
We have a bite to eat back at the house and then I carry on with the curtains in the labour ward.
I visit the Mytie house to give a photo print to a young girl and get told off by Yaya for not coming to see him about the stock system. I explain I've been given lots of jobs to do and I can't do them all at once. I also have to apologize to a nurse because I haven't had time to make a shelf for her yet.
I visit the children's ward. One of the children Vanessa had spent time with yesterday had died overniight.
Dinner back at Paradise with Anita.

27th Monday
I met up with Yaya and we spent about 3 hours on the stock system. I added a separate transaction date to the transaction file. Later I moved the electric bike to Anita's house and did some repairs. I found a new inner tube in the town for the back wheel. Should be finished tomorrow. We rode back to Paradise for a shower and to get changed. Then back to Anita's for a meal with Baba and Stewart. The town power went off early tonight and it was a very dark ride back.

28th Tuesday
Started on curtains for the women's ward, but got taken away by Anita to walk round the site to see work in progress. I return to the ward and do a bit more with the curtains. Vanessa and I buy a crate of fanta for the whole ward. We then visit a boy who was dumped at the hospital last night by his community. His mother had disappeared some years ago and his father had just died. He is parilysed from the waist down and has been living in his own filth for the last week. We buy some food for him and donate some clothes. Anita makes sure he will be getting a proper bed bath. It is pity full to see him. I don't know what the future will hold for him.
There's not much more we can do this afternoon. The women's ward is full of visitors and I can't get to any of the materials I need to do other jobs.
Back to Paradise and an early night.

29th Wednesday
A call from Anita changes our plans and we head to the kitchen to see work starting on the new ovens. Then it's a visit to a primary school who invited us in the hope we can find some way of supporting them. Many of the children have to sit on the mud floor of the classrooms and there is a shortage of chairs and desks. It is amazing how some of them manage to become so well educated with minimal facilities they have. We visit all the classrooms and each class proudly sings a welcome song to us.
Back to the hospital and I have time to fit another curtain wire in the women's ward before it gets busy with the afternoon visitors. After that I find Yaya and do a bit more work on the stock system. I end up carrying on with that until early evening.
Anita and Stewart join us for an evening meal at Paradise.

30th Thursday
We start by checking progress on the ovens and looking at where I can fit the remaining curtain wire I still have left. The end beds of the maternity ward are occupied again.
I finally manage to get access to the stock of contiboard in a container and I'm able to measure what we have and decide how to use it for shelving in the staff accommodation. Fortunately there is a man with a bench saw on site, so a deal is struck for cutting tomorrow morning.
Back to stock control in the afternoon. I'm trying to make it replicate the reports which the Gambian Government require.
I take a quick look at the new oven. It is nearly finished. Vanessa hasn't been too well today, but has still been to visit the children on the ward.
Showered and changed we're back to Anita's for dinner and then a wobbly ride back in the dark.