Everton Blender on a jet ski

On Saturday I went on a boat trip. We had to get up and out pretty early, as Saturday was  Set Settal, or 'operation clean the nation' which happens on the last Saturday of every month. On these days you can't travel (other than by foot) between the hours of 9am to 1pm, all the shops stay shut, and the place feels like a ghost town. In theory it is a time for cleaning, be it your compound, or your neighbourhood. In reality, I think most people have an extra long lie in, and people definitely seem to stay out later on the Friday night before, knowing that they can have a good sleep in the morning! 

So, to get to Denton Bridge, where our boat was to depart from, before the cut off point of 9am, Helen, Joe, Jaap, Janneke and I left Bakau at 8.30am. While waiting for the others (a group of Rune's friends from Denmark and a couple of other friends of Rune and Helen's) Jaap spotted a dolphin (or two?), in the dock, just by the bridge. We were all pretty surprised, it wasn't the most likely place to see a dolphin, but sure enough one was swimming around while we waited for our boat. 

An unlikely location for a dolphin

The day was pretty chilled, and we mostly relaxed with a couple of glasses of wine - it felt like being on holiday. We had a delicious bbq on board, chilled out and swam in the river. Rune trailed his jet ski behind the boat which not only did I get to go on, but he let me drive! It was such good fun! Although I did feel like a massive rich toubab, especially when you saw local men in little fishing boats gliding by the jet ski that was trailing behind our booze cruise boat! But it was a lot of fun, and it's not every day that I get the chance to go on a jet ski. 

Jaap and Janneke

Joe

Amazing prawns from the BBQ

My James Bond moment!

After we got back I headed to Nicola's and we had dinner with John, Lamin, Abdou and Aloysious - I took the left over prawns from the boat which we all ate with salad and bread. We chilled out at Nicola's for a while before heading to the big Independence Stadium that is just behind my house in Bakau. We were going to a concert - a reggae concert with the amazingly titled Everton Blender! We didn't arrive until after midnight, and the place was pretty empty, with just a DJ on stage. About an hour or more later some Gambian artists came on stage, but still no sign of Everton himself. By this point it was getting late, and not only was I feeling tired from getting up at 7.30am, I also felt like I was still on a boat, and the whole stadium seemed to be rocking and swaying! So at 2:15am I headed home - sad to miss Everton, but apparently he didn't get on stage until after 3am!