Bakau to Kuntaya - Day 189

Date: February 23rd, 2010
Distance: 74km
Country: The Gambia
Song of the Day: Bicycle Race - Queen

Woke up early and got on the road pretty quick. I wish I had said thank you to Mr. Barry, and his grandson for helping out the previous evening. I just didn't want to wake them. I also didn't feel like running into Bob or any of his cohorts. So I took off.

I just headed into Banjul to get the boat back to Barra. I did make one further stop. This was at the embassy for Sierra Leone to get another visa. It did take a little bit longer than I wanted (about an hour) but I got the visa. It wasn't too much trouble either, though it did cost me $100! At least now I have permission for the next three countries I want to visit.

Now I raced down to the ferry dock. I didn't really need to bother though. It was going to be a while. I thought there might be a couple of ferries working the river, but there is just one. Plus it takes about an hour for it to cross from one side to the other. So at least a two hour round trip, assume no other problems. I had a little time He had stopped in town to see if he could get his frame fixed. It broke right along one of the weld lines. to wait. The ferry didn't dock until a bit after noon. Then I didn't get off at Barra until about 1:30.

The previous evening I had gotten in touch with Marnie, another PCV, who I had met through couch surfing. I told her I was looking to head up river and she was a big help getting in touch with people along the way. I was hoping to make it to Farafenni. This is only about 100km up river. So it would have been a pretty good day. Well, I guess I didn't count on two things. The first was the ferry schedule. It was pretty late to start a long day. The other thing I didn't know about was the wind. Hot, dry, harmattan winds blowing in from Mail. This wind really wasn't as strong as the stuff from Western Sahara. The harmattan here more than made up from that by being hot and dry. It was like being in an oven. I was amazed how much it could sap your strength.

It became apparent I wasn't going to make it. So I called up to make new plans. I would stay with a guy named Wells outside of Kuntaya tonight, and go to Farafenni tomorrow. When I spoke to him, we agreed to meet up at another girl's site just off the road. Wells' bike was there anyway.

So I rode through most of the afternoon and met up with Lindsay. Her little village was just filled with little kids. They were all intrigued by the new toubab in town. At one point I turned around and went "Boo" to all the kids. It was cool to see about 30 of them hop up and run away laughing. (Sorry for scaring your kids, Lindsay.)

After a bit, Wells showed up. He even brought some slightly cool sodas for us. Awesome. After that we said goodbye to Lindsay and headed to his village. The village itself was about one km back down the main highway, then 13km north by bush path. This means more sand. It was a bit of a struggle in places, but I got there in the end.

Once there I met Wells' family, and even had time for a quick shower. His family also invited me to eat with them. This was also an opportunity for them to ask me questions (mostly in Wolof). When I mentioned that I was going to be leaving the next day to continue my journey, Wells' brother's wife asked to come along with me. I told her no problem, just hop on the back. She shot right back (in Wolof) that she would be ready right after breakfast tomorrow.

After dinner Wells and I spent a good couple of hours just chatting. Sometimes about village life. Sometimes about Africa and all its weirdness. It really was a lot of fun. Plus it put me a bit more at ease staying with Peace Corps people. I hate to feel like a mooch. For Wells, it seemed to come down to two things. First, he was supposed to be sharing his Gambian experience/culture with other Americans. My visit was helping to accomplish that. Second, this was one of the few real English conversations he was going to have in his village. Sure some of the people spoke a little bit of English, but not like a native speaker. Even if they did understand the structure correctly, there are still big differences in just plain culture between Gambians living in a tiny village and the average American. So having someone from a similar background was good.

All in all it ended up being a really fun night.

-Dravis