Newsletter editor – Nigel sends news from his volunteer placement in The Gambia

Friday 5th August
I was supposed to go to the GIG farm this morning for three hours but there is no point as the gravel, sand and cement did not turn up yesterday but I am assured by Adama it will be there on Monday, I hope so!
I spent this morning on the beach but was interrupted by a bumster; they tout for trade and try to get you to give them money. He asked for some money so that he could break his fast tonight but got short shrift from me, I asked him to leave me alone and had to get quite insistent in the end.
The problem is it`s fairly easy to see what they are up to but when in Fajara I got caught for a few Delashi on the way to a restaurant in Fajara by a guy called Lamin who is very plausible, he knows you name where you work and the people you work with and you think he knows you, of course being in a strange country you are not sure if you have met him before.
The worst part is he is as described to me by Geri when he caught out other people near Sandele!! And I still fell for it! Unfortunately this has caused me to mistrust some Gambians when they say hello, the people I know and work with are OK.

Katie who works with Concern Universal (a charity that works with GIG) said don`t feel bad about it as she got caught by the same guy the first couple of weeks she was here.

Anyway the evening had a more cheerful end as I attended a birthday party for American anthropologist called Cecil who has lived in South Africa for 29 years.
He is researching the design of local stoves hoping to develop an improved model which doesn`t use as much fuel and when you consider that the average Gambian spends nearly two thirds of their food cost on fuel you can understand how important this is.
Cecil is staying at Safari Gardens tonight as I am and then tomorrow we go to Sandele visiting a few projects on the way.