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.