Celebrating The Queen's Birthday

The highlight of this week was our invitation to celebrate the queen’s birthday at the commissioner’s house. We arrived at 6.30pm and signed into the visitor’s book and then made our way to the rear of the house. There were already a lot of guests there we shook hands with the commissioner and his wife and had our picture taken, we were then offered a drink. The other volunteers arrived followed by the VSO staff from the office. The local TV station was filming the event as it was to be shown on TV tomorrow evening. There were some important people there Gambian hierarchy all dressed up in their national costume. As before the food and drink was served by waiters who were constantly refreshing there platters with more canapés. The commissioner did his speech and then around 9 o’clock we left for home.

Farefeni Lumo

We were up bright and early unable to sleep as the room was too hot. We dressed and went out for an early morning walk making our way to the river passing some British colonial buildings and seeing some bird life on route. As we were walking back we met up with Marielle and her sister so walked back to Liz and Peter’s compound with them. We ate a breakfast off omelette and tapalapa cooked by Peter which was very good, it made a change from tapalapa and jam. With the accommodation and evening meal finally much more agreeable we settled up and were back in the jeep at 10 o’clock to cross the river and head back to Farafeni.

The journey took about two hours arriving just before midday. Asking directions to the lumo market we were directed to the outskirts of Farafeni close to the Senegalese border. We followed donkey carts either taking the locals to the lumo or piled high with merchandise. The lumo was very busy with people buying or selling their wares and was much bigger than I expected. A lot of the merchants are a mixture of Gambian, Senegalese, Guineans or Mauritanians. The stalls are laid out in the sandy ground under tarpaulins to give shade from the sun. There were household goods, fabric, jewellery, shoes, clothing, live chickens, vegetables and sacks of food sold by the canful. There were also women sat over pans frying sweet dumplings which are very similar to doughnuts. We spent an hour looking around before heading back to the ferry port. On arrival at the port we had just missed a ferry so had a short wait of thirty minutes which was just enough time to drink a much needed cool lager. Once off the ferry we were picked up by a taxi driver who plays rugby with Paul and were home just before 5 o’clock very dusty and very, very tired. Not having much food in the house or much money Paul called at Omar’s for a takeout meal of chicken stew.

Back To Gambia

We were woken in the early hours of the morning by an animal cry we later discovered it to be a hyena. I felt much better and managed to eat a breakfast of tapalapa and jam and plenty of tea. We left the hotel at 8.30am and headed back towards the reserve gates. On route we kept looking for the evasive lion, unfortunately we didn’t spot any only the usual baboon or warthog crossing the road. On dropping off our guide we headed towards Tambacounda. After an hours drive there was a problem with the jeep, lights on the dashboard for the battery were lighting up, we had to pull over. We all got out of the jeep to stretch our legs and find some shade under some trees. This could be quite bad as we were in the middle of no where with no villages close by and few vehicles on the road. Luckily for us the driver was also a mechanic so after a fifteen minute wait the jeep was restarted and we were back on track.

We made good time arriving at Tambacounda just before midday, this was the route we should have taken on Thursday. Crossing the city we picked up the main road and headed towards the village of Koungheul where we would cross the border back into Gambia. The road proved to be very good and we covered the distance in half the time if only we had known this on Thursday. We arrived at Koungheul and asked directions to which we were sent across country to the border post at Maka-Gouye on route passing little villages and children running out to greet us. With our passports stamped we left Senegal entering Gambia and headed for the village of Wassau.

Wassau Stone Circles

We had decided to stop at Wassau to see what are called the stone circles which is a bit like stone henge. The stone circles are laterite pillars which encircle ancient graves from around 750 AD. Locals come to the site to pray depositing a small rock on top of a circle stone for good luck. I was surprised at how large the area covered and how many erected stones there were, they are also found in other sites throughout the Gambia. Before leaving we looked around the small museum and then got back in the jeep for our short drive to Janjanbureh which is where we will be staying this evening.