Mega journey

Wednesday was the Muslim new year, and a public holiday in The Gambia - but not for all.... Abdoulie and I needed to get up country to continue with the APRs, and we had two of the new volunteers to drop off at their new homes, so Wednesday was agreed as a travelling day. 

Alieu and Abdoulie picked me up at around 8:45, uncharacteristically earlier than the planned 9am which almost caught me out - thinking they would arrive some time after 9am I was just about to make some porridge. So, abandoning breakfast plans I jumped into the pick-up and we drove round to the shared house to pick up Deborah (from Zimbabwe) and Maja (from Denmark). We hit the road around 9.30 but only got as far as Brikama before needing to stop and make a few repairs to the vehicle. While we were there we called in on Jocelyn, a volunteer from the Philippines who arrived in September, and who Laura (who just arrived from Ireland) has gone to share accommodation with. About an hour after arriving in Brikama we were off again, and after a quick pit stop in Soma we pushed on through to Kuntaur - Deborah's new home. 

We travelled on the South Bank road, so had to cross the river at Janjangbureh to get to Kuntaur. It was nice and cool by the river and Deborah commented that if her new house was close to the river she would be very happy. The smile on her face as we saw the location of her new home lit up the car - she was very close to the river indeed! This picture was taken standing at Deborah's gate - you can see the river in the background.

We were met by a crowd of people who wanted to welcome Deborah or just watch her move in, so Alieu unloaded the pick-up under watchful eyes. The house wasn't quite ready, but Deborah dealt with it very calmly. While they were unpacking I wandered down to the river and checked out the abandoned looking wharf. Apparently Kuntaur, like Kaur where our partner AVISU is, was a very vibrant town in the 1960s, with a roaring river trade. It was sad to see the area in quite a dilapidated state. 

Maja and Deborah

The outskirts of Kuntaur were surrounded by rice fields which was interesting to see. The rice grows well in the fresh water in the area, and when cut it re-grows. Theoretically The Gambia should be able to produce enough rice for the country, yet we have so much imported rice here from Thailand and the east, and cheap broken rice from America. 

An area that has been cut back and is re-growing. 

After unloading Deborah we moved on, heading to Kerewan with a quick stop at Kaur to drop some money to them to prepare food for our APR. By the time we arrived in Kerewan at Maja's place it was pretty dark, but we were greeted warmly by Maja's compound family and her neighbour Gareth (a former VSO who returned here to marry a girl he met on placement). 

By this time it was about 7/7:30 and we still weren't at our final destination, so we left Maja pretty quickly (as she was being given her new Gambian name) and headed off to Njawara, 11km away from Kerewan down a very bumpy off road track. 

We arrived at about 8pm, or maybe later, ate some food and flopped into bed - exhausted from our mega 11 hour journey.