Weekending, 4th December 2010

On Tuesday Paul’s mum Jenny and sister Mandy arrived from the UK, they will be here for one week and are staying at Bakotu Hotel again. On the afternoon of their arrival Paul walked to the hotel with Abigail and Bradley and waited for them whilst I prepared dinner. Their flight had been slightly delayed so they arrived back home just after 7 o’clock in the evening. It was really good to see them and catch up on the latest news over dinner. We then looked through the bag of things which we had asked Jenny to bring out for us it was like Christmas come early bra’s, shoes, t-shirts and presents which we quickly hid to name just a few. On the Wednesday Jenny picked Bradley up from school and took him straight to the hotel to play in the pool. An hour later I picked Abigail up however as I neared the school I realised that I had forgotten her costume so had to make a return visit back home. Paul just missed us at home as we had just got into the pool when he suddenly jumped in surprising us all. On the evening we had a nice meal out at the Blue Kitchen. On Friday afternoon I took Jenny and Mandy to visit Serekunda market. I bought some material and a bracelet for three of our secret Santa presents as well as domada paste and wonja leaves to make some juice for Mandy and Jenny to try. Jenny bought some chicken material to make into a quilt, the same material I was trying to find for Paul and Dale’s trousers. When we arrived home we all jumped on a gelleh to Bakau. We sat in the Bakau Guest House which overlooks the fish market and watched as the boats landed their catch. They seemed to have caught quite a lot of fish as men and women waded out with buckets on their heads to then be filled up with fish and brought back to shore and tipped out onto the market floor. The pile of fish was quite large as they set about sorting it into what looked like varieties and sizes all ready to be sold on. On the Saturday we spent a lovely relaxing day at Sanyang, we had arranged with Kebateh to pick us up in his taxi at 11 o’clock. We arrived at Sanyang greeted the staff and found some sun beds. The afternoon was spent soaking up the rays and cooling off in the sea. It was so relaxing with no hustle from the locals although Jenny did get a little as she went for a walk along the beach we noticed a guy quickly trying to catch up to her. We then ate a fish and chip dinner on the beach before Kebateh arrived to take us back home just before the sun was setting. We can’t understand why we haven’t been back before today we will definitely be looking at making a return trip at the end of January with some of the volunteers.