Wednesday 10th December 2008- Day 3

We visited St Charles Lwanga Nursery School- run by a branch of the Marist Sisters with whom we have a contact. We delivered presents for the children and were given a tour around the school by the Irish sisters who run it.
Over lunch we visited the crocodile sanctuary at Kachikally- receiving a tour of the museum and then risked our lives by touching crocodiles which freely roam the sanctuary!
As it is day 2 of Tabasci we then went on to have another feast at Momodu's house. Once again we were overwhelmed with their generousity. We were fed to within an inch of our lives and then danced with the children- introducing them to the "Hokey Cokey", which proved very popular.

Thursday 11th December 2008- Day 4

Our first day at The Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital!
Most of our morning was spent making courtesy introductions to various key members of staff who had helped with the link including the Provost Dr Ousman Yan and Microbiology Professor Dr Patrick Addy.
We also visited all major wards, male, female, medicine, surgery, dialysis, TB and HIV. We were lucky to be escorted by a certain Cuban Dr Felix who kindly made a brief surgical ward round for us seeing interesting cases including a women who had swallowed caustic soda and was having oesophageal resection and a man who had been tranferrred from Guinea Bissou with a knife wound to the abdomen.

Friday 12th December 2008- Day 5

An early start saw us divided into groups- 4 for Medicine the other 4 for Surgery.
From the medical perspective, we had an exciting morning seeing 2 cases of Chronic Renal Failure, Diabetic Foot Ulcers, HIV, Broncho-pneumonia. The surgical students spent time being introduced to theatre and the conditions in which surgery takes place.
We then had a constructive meeting on the future of the Swansea-Gambia Link, followed once again by a delicious traditional lunch and fresh fruit shakes.
After lunch, we rushed off to see the end of a lecture on Neuroblastoma by a visiting Nigerian Paediatrician and then concluded the day in the lecture theatre by some of our students giving a presentation on a case of Head Injury in Swansea (Helena, Nathan, Sian and Cathy).
The lecture was well-received and stimulated some interesting discussion and we also presented our gifts of text books and medical supplies to the students.
We did some brief sightseeing around Banjul before heading back to the hotel this evening. Filming for our documentary is going well and we got some interesting footage today.
Hope to write another blog soon,

by Gemma Peachey and Helena Wilcox