Brikama Life

I am settling into Brikama life very easily. It has been very helpful to have Amy and Anne either side of me as they have been the best neighbours ever.
Anne has lived here for five years and is very familiar with the culture, having a Gambian husband, family and friends within the community. She answers my million and one questions about the simplest things such as how to pay the bills, to showing me around the market and the stalls she uses, to giving me advice on the best way to approach teaching my students.
Amy has got just about every aspect of life covered. She has taken me material shopping and to the tailors, shown me all the best restaurants in the area and introduced me to a variety of people from peace corp volunteers to the neighbours.
One of the first people Amy introduced me to is Katie, a peace corp volunteer who lives near us. Katie works in the Regional Education Office opposite the college. She like Amy is beautiful both on the inside and outside (Katie is the one in the picture with the young dressed up Gambian boy).
Katie and Amy regularly run and now with me, have formed the Brikama running club. We go for a run to the power station (about 3 to 4 km round trip), each morning at seven, and do a twenty minute yoga session at night around 6pm. Some nights we also have a movie night, go out for tea or have a ‘stitch and bitch’ sowing night (I am completing my piece of Sr Bern’s quilt at the moment and making teaching aids).
So life in Brikama is quite lovely. Often Lucia will join us (another peace corp vol) and Whitney is another volunteer in the area.