Gav the Rav

I haven’t written for ages and as I look at the last thing I posted I realise that recently, time has gotten away from me. Despite appearances, I haven’t forgotten about my blog and I intend to continue writing about our experiences in Gambia whether anybody is reading it or not - well at least I know my mum and dad are. The past two weeks have been consumed by uni work as I have been desperatly trying to finish my end of semester essays. I know it is my own fault, I have had weeks to work on the assignments and I left it to the last minute… it’s not like moving to Africa has been much of a distraction! Anyway, they're in, my marks are surprisingly good and now lets move on to more exciting activities…

Our beloved car - Gav the Rav - has finally arrived and we are excited to explore the country (we just have to dodge the roads that turn to rivers with all the rain). A couple of weeks ago we went for a drive. As most roads don't seem to have names and those that do lack signs, I'm not quite sure where exactly it is that we drove... so lets just say we went exploring. Following our noses - and the lonely planet guide - we went to visit some villages south east of the Kombos (where we live). There were many amazing vege gardens, lots of baby goats (which I would like to adopt) and lots of mud. Despite being poor, people keep their living compounds exceptionally neat. Grass is scarce but the packed dirt is swept clean and everything is tidy. This made us feel a bi3t guilty because our yard is the opposite. We have different guards at our house every night who insist on sweeping and tidying for us - we have given up telling them they don't have to. One guard explained that if the yard is dirty he also feels dirty - we think this is a muslim belief. So we are hiring a gardener this week and hopefully the guards and whoever else comes to our house, will feel more comfortable.

To celebrate my recent birthday, distract Zack from work and celebrate surviving our first month in deepest darkest Africa, we have just spent a very relaxing weekend at an eco-retreat on the Senegalese boarder (courtesy of my parents). We stayed in these funny looking eco-cabins complete with solar energy, turbine pumped water, composting toilets and NO air conditioning!! We spent 2 days lying on the beach, reading, walking (zack had a bit of trouble with the fences), drinking beer, eating too much food and playing with snakes - yes that is a photo of Zack cuddling up to a rather large python! We visited a reptile park next door where we saw many large dangerous snakes in not so large and flimsy looking enclosures. In fact our hosts informed us that the giant python of 4 meters had recently escaped (I made sure to check under the bed before going to sleep). Despite growing up with very poisonous snakes right in my backyard I am slightly uncomfortable around them… OK I am very uncomfortable around them and I choose to take the photos. I did however love the terrapins, I wanted to take the baby home - well that was before I heard about the salmonella… yuck!

In other news, the rainy season is really starting to set in and there have been a couple of great storms. The best part is the lead up... this shot was taken just as last nights thunder was rolling in and the camera isn't exagerating, the light really was as orange as it looks! The last photos were taken the other morning, it looks so dark that it is hard to believe it was only 8:30am. The wind was huge and the photo doesn't do it justice. Slobs, terrified of the wind, tried to escape inside but got stuck in the door as it blew closed... in his distressed state I tried not to laugh at him too much!