Leaving Macumbaya

Happy New Year everyone. We hear that we've missed some lovely snow - thanks for all the photos. We've been suffering a bit of a heatwave, even for the Gambia, but we're definitely acclimatised now and there is even the odd evening when the sea breeze is chilly enough for a jumper. We haven't got to the extreme of many Gambia who wear thick pad coats, woolly hats and gloves, even in the middle of the day when the temp. 3o degrees plus - well, it's winter you know!!!

We moved house now to the little town of Bakau. We are still in a compound with loads of children, its just that some of the mums are prostitutes!! We've got a much bigger house now with two bedrooms and even a bathroom - its not the same 'real Africa' but we were finding it so hard to achieve anything from where we were because it took so long to get anywhere.

The day we left Macumbaya was awful though, Safi couldn't stop crying. Just as we were about to drive off, she throw a chicken in the back of the car, a lovely gesture of friendship - but it did shit all over the rucksack. We couldn't bare to kill it when we arrived at our new home so we set it free - we see her every now and then - she's called Safi of course.

The children are going to a new school, they took the whole thing in their stride and they are really enjoying it. It's run by a gangland rap star, or he thinks he is, but luckily their teacher Anna is lovely. Its completely different from the last school - they've got their own 'slates' and loads of resources, even a TV, much to Teo's delight.

They finish school at 1pm and then most days we walk to the nearest beach which is behind the botanical gardens and the french embassy. We didn't know it was there for the first week of living here, even though we had explored the area with Aunty Carol previously. Its a hidden bay of beautiful clean white sand backed by a few large colonial houses and always completely deserted. We've found the problem with the other beaches in the Gambia is all the 'bumsters', young blokes, often rastas, who hassle you the whole time you're there, 'happy family -we're all the same underneath, it's nice to be nice' really gets on your nerves after a while.