It appears that topics covered by five year olds have moved to a new level in the Gambia as Amelie spent her last trip to the swimming pool discussing experiences of rapid malaria blood tests with friends. She lasted about an hour at school last Friday before rapidly developed a temperature. Given the location and the appetite local mosquitoes seem to have for female Cunningtons we thought it wise to run a quick test – at last Aubrey’s contacts came good a hidden stash of kits became available and an expert slide reader offered his services to check that Amelie’s blood film wasn’t swimming with parasites. She was absolutely fine, if only all was cured so quickly by a spoonful of strawberry calpol.
This was Amelie’s second medical story in a week following on from her concussion. That episode has consigned me to the house FOREVER given what happened during a two hour absence. Some of the girls from Aubrey’s lab had taken pity on me and invited me out for dinner. During that dinner, Elise chose to have a complete meltdown about my leaving (that’s what two months out of nursery does for you!). She had shown her disdain for her dad by weeing all over him. Her aim wasn’t exactly perfect so a lot ended up on the floor. Amelie found this hysterically funny and decided to show her excitement by running round, but unfortunately slipped in the wee and hit her head on the hard tiled floor. Everything calmed down initially, but about an hour later she woke up complaining of a headache and started vomiting. In the UK this would be grounds for a CT scan, but given the lack of CT scanners in our local area we just had to hope for the best! Again she was absolutely fine, though the story aged my mother several decades!
Other than various medical traumas; our main news is that we finally moved into our permanent house on the compound. It was worth the wait as the house is great – very spacious especially as we have a minimum of belongings to clutter it up with, hot water on tap (as long as you remember to turn the water heater on), an oven that works though we have yet to master (the gas kind seem very tricky), garden with swings to fight over (and a trampoline once the rain stops). We are right on the edge of the compound and the garden on all sides of the house gives a nice feeling of seclusion, unusual for compound living. At the same time Amelie has several friends from school living on our road and the distance is such she can literally pop round on her own without any worries. We are on the side of the compound where all the houses are very long and thin – excellent for diffusing fights and sending children to opposite ends. It also means it seems very easy to lose a child as there is quite a distance to cover end to end.
The move came at a good time: For the past two weeks we have had a break of only a couple of days from continuous heavy rain. The combination of sandy ground and tarmacked roads around Fajara means that we haven’t had too many practical issues with the rain other than some associated cabin fever, though up country there has been some serious flooding and people cannot wait for the end of September when the rains should abate. We moved over the Koriteh (end of Ramadan) holiday weekend which combined almost four days of holiday closures with continuous rain and so proved a welcome activity for all.
The girls are both doing really well. Amelie seems really happy at school and her class and teacher are just wonderful. I am in heaven, as the neurotic parent, as with only five children in the class I can accost her teacher for a nice long progress report every single day! Elise is just finishing her second week at her new nursery and absolutely loving it, so much so that yesterday she told them that when she grew up she wanted to be Kris (the nursery’s owner). The funniest thing about Elise at the moment is her hair – it is completely crazy with the humidity and so, so curly (which she is very proud of especially as it is so different from Amelie’s which remains without a kink) – have no idea what to do with it, but an interesting experiment to watch.
We are feeling very unadventurous at the moment, having down very limited travelling at the weekends. However, given the rain we think any upcountry adventures will be better appreciated once the rainy season is over – hopefully in another month we will have some more interesting stories for you!
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