The President, New Computers (soon), The "Free Sauna", Cockroaches, Orange juice, pop, and Spaghetti!

So... its been an interesting week.
Things started off with a bang, I was coming home from the computer classes, and when I got to the Traffic Lights (for those who are google-earthing, coordinates 13°27'51.12"N 16°41'18.66"W) I suddenly noticed that all of the cars were pulled off to the side of the road, and that it was really quiet. Then I noticed that there were a lot of soldiers around and that they had stopped all the traffic. I came to a stop. I was looking around trying to figure out what was going on, when the girl I buy my vegetables wandered over - her stand (13°27'49.86"N 16°41'17.44"W) is just around the corner from where I was. I asked her, in a whisped, 'what is going on'? She got an excited look in her eyes and said 'the President is coming!' Suddenly it all made sense. Sure enough a couple of minutes later we could hear sirens, and then a motorcade went by. I saw President Bush's motorcade when he came to Halifax, and except for the fact that this was the President of The Gambia, it was far more impressive. There were a few vehicles with machine guns mounted on the back (manned by soldiers) and the president's vehicles were H2 Hummers. In fact, the president himself was driving one of them. It was cool to see.
We (The Baha'is) will be recieving 15 second-hand Cisco Systems computers. They will be shipped on the third, and are supposed to arrive here on the 19th (of July). We have been speculating a lot about what their capabilities will be - will they have Windows XP, USB ports and Network Cards? We hope!
Because this is the rainy, and the hot, season, the days have been getting hotter, and humider (I don't think its a word, but I like it!). Unfortunately my apartment has also been getting hotter, and stays hot all night. I feel, when I'm in bed, like I just took a shower and didn't bother to towel off. It is unreal. Monday night I finally decided at around midnight that I had had enough. I got out of bed, turned on the light, and there, sitting on the inside of the bed's mosquito net, was another very large cockroach. I felt sick. I literally threw up my hands and said out loud "I Give Up!" I spent the next hour hunting the bloody thing from corner to corner, until I caught it in an open space, and landed a fatal blow. I quickly disposed of the body. Between the heat, and the cockroach, I decided to not go back to bed. I spent the rest of the night/early morning trying to think of ways to cool the place off and of ways to keep cockroaches out of my bed. At around 6:15 am I went outside to get some pictures of the sun rising, I took one picture every 5 minutes in exactly the same place (unfortunately there were actually some clouds, so they're not as nice as they should be). I also recorded (with my MP3 player) some of the birds singing. You can download the mp3 here. The bird you hear is one of the more common ones (to hear), and I think has the nicest sound of all the ones I've heard. There is also a really cool one that 'beeps' once a second, and they are timed exactly. At first I thought it must have been some sort of machine, or electronic device because it is so exact.
The rest of the day (s) continued to be interesting. About 5 minutes after I left to go to the National Centre, my rear tyre went completely flat. I spent the next 15 minutes, or so, limping around looking for a place to fix it. I had left early, so places were still just starting to open, and even the places that were didn't have the people there who actually fix the bikes! Anyway, I finally found a place, and we went and bought a new inner tube (D35, $1.40CAD), and I gave the guy D100 ($4.00CAD) for installing it. He didn't say anything, I think it was far more than he would have asked for, but I was really happy to have it fixed! From there I went to Construct (Mr. Shams Company - 13°26'51.33N 16°40'18.69"W) to talk to him about the 2 problems from the night before. When I walked in he looked at me and said 'How did you know you were supposed to come here?' I sort of looked at him. He then explained that he had been trying to call me to see if I could look at one of the keyboards that had stopped working! Anyway, I fixed the keyboard in about 5 minutes, and he suggested that I talk to Bozorg Tavangar who is the chair of the 'Properties Committee', and would therefore be the correct channel to work through.
I ended up having lunch with Bozorg at l'Alliance Franco-Gambienne (13°26'52.94"N 16°40'41.86"W), they have a restaurant that serves two meals a day; one is 'European', and the other is 'Gambian' (which means rice). We had a wonderful three course meal, and talked about the 2 problems. He said he would send a carpenter to fix one of the windows so I can open it, and to replace the screens. He suggested as well that I tuck the mosquito net under the matress (which I've done) and that I buy some insecticide spray (common stuff here!) to spray under doorways, and anywhere else the behemoths are coming in.
Power just went off - I'll continue later once the generator is on...
Mr. Alsalahi gave me a ton of fruit and honey from his yard, and in an effort to use it all before it goes bad, I juiced the oranges! It took about 45 minutes, and I only got 2 glasses full, but WOW! It was by far the sweetest, and best tasting orange juice I have ever had!
I also tried a "Fanta" for the first time today, its the Coke equivilant of Orange Crush. I really like it; unlike a lot of other pop it is really smooth!
Finally, I made spaghetti for dinner last night. I bought some canned peeled tomatoes, some ground meat and some spaghetti (duh). I used the entire 50g package of noodles, next time I will use about a quarter... it made WAY to much!
So, that pretty much sums up what has been happening here... One last thing: I recorded the children singing at the school (13°27'58.07"N 16°40'45.96"W) next door to the National Centre. You can download the mp3 here.