Thursday May 21 2009 – Gambia Day One: Short tour of the city and the local hospital

On Tuesday morning we arrived at the Gatwick airport and met up with Jordan and Lindsay for our flight to The Gambia. Our flight ended up being delayed for about 9 hours so instead of landing mid afternoon it was around midnight when we finally touched down. Since it is the off season here they actually had to reopen the airport just so our flight could come in, but we were all happy to finally be here after spending an entire day in an airport. Alpha was waiting for us at the airport when we arrived which was absolutely amazing since everything was a little more overwhelming than I expected. He drove us to our accommodations at the YMCA where we would be staying until Sunday. Wednesday morning we all decided to venture out onto the streets to begin to get a feel for the area. Later that day, Alpha met up with us and showed us around a bit and suggested a nice place on the beach where we could go for dinner. As we were walking to the beach, I somehow managed to slip and fall when I was crossing the street and I ended up dislocating my knee. It was definitely one of the most painful things I have ever experienced but all of the local people were so helpful and one woman that came over to help even drove me to the hospital. We didn’t end up making it to the restaurant for dinner that night but the next morning we were picked up by Alpha and taken to that same place and that is where we had our language and culture classes. For the classes, Jordan, Lindsay, and Adam are learning Wolof while Justin and I are learning Mandinka as that is a common language for rural areas where we will be working most of the time.

Monday May 18 2009 – Arrived in London

On Sunday morning Justin, Adam and I met in Toronto for our first flight of the trip to England. We arrived at the Heathrow airport at about 9pm and eventually made our way to a hotel for the night after an exhausting day of travel. Today we decided to attempt to figure out the public transportation and see as much of London as we could in the one day we had in the city. We met a Canadian on the train and he, along with a few friendly locals, guided us on a few must see places and gave us a few tips on the various modes of transportation in the area. We spent the day visiting various tourist attractions throughout the city and returned back to our hotel to prepare for our flight the next morning to The Gambia.