Back at the Ranch
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 14/Jul/2010 09:49, 34 days ago
(Written 12/07/2010 16:15, RED5, Janjanbureh)Break’s over and it’s back to work today. It’s been a gentle day though; there’s a big course going on this week, so many of the staff have been involved in running that rather than doing anything which might require my assistance. I’ve spent most of the day alternately cleaning a virus-riddenlaptop and helping our Records Officer to set up a shared printer on the network.Last week was a pretty good week, all told, once the Conference was out of the way. As always, VSO did a very good job of making the whole affair a comfortable one for the attendees, but unfortunately any crumb of interest which might have been derived from Tuesday’s fairly torpid subject matter was entirely wiped out by its poor delivery. I’ve yet to come across a Gambian with any significant presenting skills (if I had any myself, I’d make it a personal mission to pass them on to at least one person). Wednesday was an improvement, with only volunteersand VSO staff present, but I can’t pretend it was thrill-a-minute, by any stretch. A nice touch was the finger food by the pool atthe end, where volunteers and staff got to relax together for a while.But the best part of the week started on Friday when Kate, Lucy and myself headed down to Boboi’s, a beachfront lodge further south down the Atlantic coast. The plan? Beach, swim, and chill, and I can certainly tick all three boxes. I can also tick the “get horrendously sunburnt” box as well; my shoulders are roughly the colour of raw pork, which isnotfun when you’ve got a heavy rucksack to carry.Boboi’s isn’t luxurious, but it is one of the cheaper places to stay in the area, which makes it just about affordable on a volunteer allowance. And like everywhere on that stretch of coast, it’s pretty spectacular. On the day we arrived, I walked the few metres down onto the beach, and in one direction I saw this:And in the other direction I saw this:Needless to say, smugness ensued. Another bonus (which I should have anticipated, but hadn’t) was that because it’s the off season at the moment, everywhere was near-deserted. I saw many times more cows on the beach than I did people:(I've christened this photoReservoir Cows)And so commenced a day and a half of relaxing, spending far too much time in the sea (hence the sunburn), and chatting over a couple of bottles of wine in the evenings. Unfortunately, every break has to come to an end and mine did so on Sunday morning, as I had to be back in work on Monday. I’d aimed to leave early enough to reach JJB before the World Cup Final started, but... well, the journey’s going to have to go in another post. This one’s long enough already!