Barbeque at Greg and Sukey's

Paul was up early as wanted to download windows 2007 and try again with skype from the internet so he set off for La Parisiene. He returned at 10.30 feeling very good that it had all downloaded hopefully now we will be able to call family on a Saturday. We decided to have a walk along the beach at Fajara, set off with cloud overhead but soon changed to bright sunshine found some good size shells to add to our collection.

Two hours later arrived back very hot and thirsty, showered and changed as we had been invited to Greg and Sukey's compound for an afternoon barbeque. We went by car picking up Emma, Emily and Max on route, found the house after loads of detours around the back streets to miss the pot holes and pools of water. The house is a very good size with three bedrooms and two toilets, definitely the best volunteer house so far only a bit of a dodgy area. We ate a selection of sausages, chicken, burgers, bread, avocado dip, coleslaw, potato salad, tomato cucumber salad and yoghurt dips very tasty. Very enjoyable afternoon chatting and listening to music, we left at around 7.30 to get the children to bed.

Happy Birthday Mum & Mandy

A big Happy Birthday to Mum & Mandy for yesterday!!

We decided to do some quick updates at La Parisiene. Abigail and Bradley sat playing with their toys and eating ice-cream whilst I tried to download Skype it did eventually download however I managed to cancel out the microphone in the process. The internet was very slow so decided to give up, after having tried making a phone call via Skype to my mum. Did eventually get in touch with mum on the evening via my mobile it was a quick call before my credit ran out wished her a happy birthday and gave her a quick update.

Meet Charlie

Picked up the children from school at 12.00pm, don’t seem to have done much at school this week, on asking locals they said they will start learning next week. We ate lunch then decided to visit ‘Charlie’ at the sacred crocodile pool at Katchikali, Bakau. The pool is considered a magical place and bathing in the sacred pool can cure infertility and bestow good fortune, regular rituals are performed by locals for this purpose.

We set off in the car stopping to get some air for the tyres not from a garage but a guy at the side of the road, very strange. On reaching the street there was a throng of people exiting the mosque after their Friday prayers one such person asked if we needed help and told us to park up at the large tree as the road was too bad to continue any further. Lamin as he was named took us down some small side streets between compounds and smelly drainage ditches to the crocodile pool. We paid our entrance fee and applied some mosquito repellent no sooner had we set off we could see the head of a large female under a drainage water outlet. We were told that in the rainy season the crocodiles sometimes escape and are found in the Gambian compounds and have to be captured and returned to the pool.

We continued to a wire fence surrounding a murky green pool in which we could see a small crocodile on the surface, then suddenly there was a gap in the fence and Lamin said we could walk around the pool. Paul and Bradley walked along and I joined them only to get a picture of a baby crocodile sat on a rock. We came to some seats with one of the guides sat with a crocodile at his feet, this was the famous Charlie we were asked to sit down and pat his back, very strange. We managed to get a photo of us touching Charlie however it was a bit too scary. Behind us there was a large pregnant female with gapping mouth we were told not to go too close as when pregnant they can be very aggressive. We noticed bonga fish on the ground, the guide informed us he feeds them well so visitors are able to walk amongst them, I think they must have been drugged as very docile.

Charlie

Baby

Preganant Mum

Scary Spider's

We picked our way around the pool, checking behind ourselves every now and then just for safety, a very large moniter lizard sat sunning himself in a tree, unfortunately we didn’t see any monkey’s as they were too high up in the trees. We exited through a good but small cultural museum displaying traditional dance costumes, drums, Kora’s which are half gourds covered with cowhide and nylon strings, a type of harp instrument and lots of information on the history of the region. On existing Abigail pointed out some huge spider's easily with a leg span the size of your hand, we were told they make you very itchy if you are unlucky enough to be bitten by one.

Smaller Spider about the size of our Large Spider's back Home

Today will be the first day when all existing children will start school, Bradley understandably was not too happy about going, but when I picked him up after school he seemed a little better. Abigail’s day was spent being introduced to some of her teachers such as PE teacher and Art teacher; it seems as if they have specialist teachers for certain subjects. She gave us instructions that she will need her PE kit on a Thursday and some pencils, crayons, ruler, and sharpener for Art class which being very much into crafts she was very excited about.

First day at School

Up at 6.30am to get the children ready for their first day at school, Bradley was exited to be wearing his new uniform looked very smart although the shirt is a little bit too big; unfortunately Abigail’s uniform has still not arrived. Their official day starts at 8.30am and finishes at 2.45pm Monday to Thursday (Bradley finishes at 1.35pm) with an early finish of 12.00pm on a Friday for both as this is the locals day for pray. Dropped them off at 8.10am and saw them to their classrooms gave them quick hugs and kisses and left them for the day. I went straight to La Parisiene to update my blog site, found the internet very quick probably due to the time of day so managed to post a good bit of my blog. Actioned a few emails then set off to pick up Bradley, he was quite upset as a little boy had punched him in the face, gave him a big cuddle whilst trying to hold back the tears myself so as not to upset him further. He settled down saying he had missed me we had a slow walk back home a quick change of clothes and a snack. Bradley had a little play before we set off to pick up Abi, she seems to have had a much better day. Awo was busy cleaning and Louise had a bit of a cold so not her usual happy self, the children played drawing pictures, Bradley’s mishap forgotten.

Bradley's Uniform

Bradley's Classroom

Abigail's Classroom

Paul starts Work

Paul was picked up at 10.00am by Nuha and taken to Brikama College for his first day of meeting some of the staff and for a workshop. Myself and the children decided to take a picnic to the beach, met Lamin for a quick chat and then one of the lifeguards called Midnight tried to teach me some Olof. I was glad when it started to rain so I could make a quick getaway; we took shelter in what is used as a fruit market during the tourist season. We ended up staying there for an hour chatting to the women from the craft market having already recognised Abigail and Bradley. The rain finally was much lighter so set off home only to find Paul already back. On asking him how his day went he announced that the college closes on Friday until 28th September, however he will use this time to get some lesson planning actioned.

Stuck in the Mud

The next morning we set off for home in the pouring rain in a convoy of four vehicles ourselves being driven by Nuha, who decided to take a detour to his mother’s house to pick up some fire wood so we left the other vehicles to go on, big mistake. On arriving at his mother’s compound, Paul helped load up the wood with Nuha and his sister, we started to reverse and with wheels spinning the front tyre ended up getting stuck. After a lot of spinning wheels both myself and a philipino volunteer called Venus decided to brave the weather and help by placing wooden chocks under the wheels as by now the rear passenger wheel was also stuck. Two hours later, very wet, muddy and with the help of some locals we finally got back on the road and set off for the ferry terminal at Barra. Luckily for us a ferry was just pulling in so we didn’t have a long wait and arrived back home at about 2.30pm, changed out of our wet clothes, showered and settled down for the afternoon.

National Museum of the North Bank

We ate a breakfast of onion pancakes, bread, jam, banana and mango then set off at 8.30am to the villages of Jufferuh and Albreda, arrived at the hotel unpacked and we set of walking on the Roots Pilgrimage. No sooner had we left the hotel we were surrounded by children all of which wanted to hold our hands and they were fascinated with Abigail and Bradley. A young girl called Maria who was 10 years old took hold of my hand, as we walked even more children appeared running up to us and hugging our legs very sweet. Amy one of the volunteer’s started singing ‘If you’re Happy and you know it Clap your Hands’ and had all the children joining in clapping and singing, she has a good rapour with the children.

The walk to the Museum was only short as both villages have now merged into one, we passed a very smelly fish market and a large baobab tree full of chirping weaver birds, which are a very pretty bright yellow but very noisy. First we were taken by our guide to a baobab tree within the museum grounds which was said to be the very tree where ‘Kunta Kinte’ was circumcised and became a Mandinka Warrior, in those days this area would have been covered by forest. The tree had the outline of an elephant on one side and a monkey on the other so amused Abi and Bradley.

We entered the small National Museum of the North Bank which depicted the horrors of slavery between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. We tried to lift one of the neck shackles on display and found it to be unbelievably heavy. On display were artefacts of, pistols, whips, shackles, cowrie shells, cowbars and kiss pennies which were iron bars used as money to buy slaves, as well as literature on the history of the slave trade, very thought provoking.

Slave Trade

Triangular Trade

Pistols

Whips and Shackles

Cowrie Shells and Kiss Pennies

Notice, Gambia Slaves to be Sold 1786

Notice, Just Imported Slaves 1767