Well, our trip to Dakar has finally ended I suppose the first thing I should say is HAPPY NEW YEARS! We had a really great time in Senegal and I’d like to return sometime if possible. If you haven't read my first report from Dakar click here to jump down to it. At the end of my last entry I mentioned that we we’re off to try and see Youssou N’Dour. Well, we did, and it was very cool. He is very very big here and we got to see him at a mid sized club. There were only like 100 or 150 people there. Very neat. His music isn’t what I’d normally listen too, but its got some great rhythm and he played the audience well. His backup was quite entertaining too. Cyndi was very impressed by the dancing. I thought it was pretty weird though.
It was cool to get to see him like that, even though he gave a free new years concert in the central square of town (Placé de Independence). The next day, I’m not sure which day it actually was. Cyndi and I were very disappointed to discover that somewhere along the way on our trip we lost a day. I think it might have something to do with my watch not being smart enough to know which months have 30 days and which have 31; it also might be because we spent like 30 hours traveling… Anyhow, the next day we went shopping around the markets of Dakar. It was pretty good. The hassling was about the same or worse than it is here in Gambia but there at least they get good quality clothing and the like. Really, Dakar is practically western. It was a nice change of pace. The only problem was just how expensive everything was. We kept converting the prices back to Gambian Dalasi and getting upset. But after a while we reaized that we just couldn’t do that. Regardless of the price difference, we we’re still able to get everything way cheaper than the western world.
The major disappointment of the trip? Well, this was around the time when I got my pocket picked in the market. Yup, that’s right, it was the classic bump and grab maneuver. The crowd was pretty thick and I realized it was gone a few seconds after the fact but it was just too late. Very very annoying. We lost around 25000 sefas (I think that’s like $20 US). We also more importantly lost Cyndi’s Visa debit card that we’d been using to withdraw cash for the whole trip. And finally we lost my Canadian bank card (not Visa), my BC drivers license, and a very nice wallet. So, what did we do? We went to the police first, just to report it, not really expecting to get it back. They weren’t very helpful. Then we borrowed money from the hotel and went to the cyber café to find the necessary phone numbers. We tried to change some Dalasi we had into Sefas, but guess what, the banks wont even change Dalasi!!? It’s crazy, if you want to get Dalasi you’ve got to change your cash on the black market; and Dakar isn’t swimming with black market money changers like Serekunda is. So basically we had no money. What are you supposed to do in a situation like that? I mean it was ridiculous, we couldn’t even make collect phone calls because of the way the public phone system is set up in Senegal. So we did what seemed the most logical course of action. We went to the US Embassy and begged to make some phone calls. After a few hassles we finally got to talk with an actual American and Cyndi was allowed in to make some phone calls, which the US government very kindly paid for. Helpfully my parents were able to send us some cash via Western Union and it arrived the next day. We also met a very nice man named Andy, he is a (or the) Vice Counsel at the Embassy and he lent us 10000 sefas for some dinner. We still need to pay him the money back, and will send it asap. Overall though, the Americans were very nice to us, and I’m pretty glad to be one (at least to some extent). So everything worked out alright, it was just a headache though.
The next day, which ended up being New Years eve although we thought it was the 30th, we went to a small island off the coast of Dakar called Goreé island. It’s a small arts community, selling pretty good quality crafts, paintings, woodwork, etc… Anyhow, we quite enjoyed ourselves wandering around for a few hours. We ended up buying a lot of art actually. We picked up a Wuré board, (the oldest, or so they say, game in existence), two nice paintings, a small carved gazelle, and a really neat carved cabinet door from Mali. I’ll put some photos up of the stuff in a few days. We returned to Dakar heavy with our loot, and went to the fancy hotel we’d checked into that morning. And let me tell you this hotel was great, we had electricity all night! We had hot water!!! I mean I haven’t had a hot shower since we left Brussels! We even had a TV! It was great! Very very exciting.
Later that night we went out to a very nice art store downtown and did some serious shopping. Both Cyndi’s grandfather and my parents had given us a bit of money for some art and we intended to make use of that money in Dakar. Theere’s a really noticeable difference in the overall quality of even the simplest wood carving between Gambia and Senegal. Maybe it’s better wood (they seemed to use more Ebony, while the Gambians use Teak and Mahogany) I’m not sure. Anyhow, we both picked out some fabulous paintings. And even though Cyndi’s tastes and mine differ pretty greatly I think we both got thing that the other likes a fair bit too. As I said above I’ll put some photos of them up soon.
Well, after all my rambling above I’d almost forgotten that it was New Years that night. And let me tell you it was crazy. We didn’t go out that late, but we went to the Placé de Independence for the big moment. There we’re so many people out and the most firecrackers and fireworks I’ve ever seen. Really, it was crazy, everyone had fireworks, and was letting them off all over the place. It looked a bit scary when people got the bright idea of firing off Roman Candles into the crowd, but we we’re ok. Even though we did see a building being hosed down by the fire department after a rogue firework hit the wrong place. Anyhow, it was very cool, a great atmosphere. After New Years we went out to a bar for a bit, and looked in at the clubs but everywhere had really big cover charges, and seeing as we’d just spent so much on artwork that day we didn’t feel the need to go out dancing all night.
So yesterday we spent traveling home from Dakar. I guess our trip up country really turned out to pretty much just be a trip to Dakar, but it was really fun. We both needed a break from here and it was great to be in a city again. I got to have a proper shower, eat a pizza, and we bought some very cool art. So I’d say the venture was a great success in the end. Even if I did loose my wallet, it was worth the trouble. Ok well, that’s it for the report of our trip. Check out the photos in a few days. I’ll also be archiving this page and starting a new log. Later everyone.
Well this won’t be an official update because I’m using a french keyboard here and will definately have a few spelling mistakes. Just bear with me. Cyndi and I are in Dakar !!! It’s crazy here, I’d forgotten about the whole big industrial city thing. We’ve only been here a few hours but it looks beautiful. We weren’t planning on getting here until tomorrow or even Monday but, I’m glad we did. On Thursday we headed out from Kanifing around 2 :30. Cyndi and I really aren’t very good at getting off at a reasonable hour under the best circumstances but this time I had some last minute work to finish which held us up. So anyways we spent a far far longer time travelling thqn we’d expected. Or maybe it was just me. There’s an expression here : that we run on GMT (Gambia Maybe Time). In other words, things here are very slow sometimes. Anyhow ; we finally got off after waiting for an hour or two for our bush taxi (actually an old minivan) to fill up. Then we we’re off. And what great adventure and excitement awaited us on our long trip to Basse. Well, actually just a very very very long ride on mostly horrible dirt roads. Actually it wasn’t so much the roads but the potholes in the paved parts. They added to the literally 8 to 10 police stops we recieved ended up providing a facinating 12 hour bus trip !!! Not very fun.< /p>
Anyhow, we did finally arrive in Basse. At 2 :00am . Thankfully after getting a local or two to help us pound on a few select doors we found a hotel that was open. Honestly, don’t critisize… even if we had been on the ball and tried to book ourselves somewhere, do you know how many hotels there actually have phones ? I’ll tell you, 1, and the number didn’t work. So anyhow it turned out ok ; we spent the night at the luxurious (I’m kidding here folks) Apollo Hotel. I was concerned about rats and cockroaches, but Cyndi see,ed ok with things. I’m really not the best person to deal with not having a plan of action. Ahhh well…. That’s one of the reasonbs why Cyndi’s so great, she gets (or at least tries to) me to relax a bit.
The next day we we’re planning on wandering around Basse and probably buying some art at a really renowned arts market. But it turns out the market isn’t running until mid January. Very depressing… So we wandered around town and saw the sights. Yup that took us all of around two hours. There’s really not much there. At least nothing much that our MTV addled minds can appriciate. Needless to say, We wern’t all that impressed. Cyndi and I decide that we’d really had enough of Basse after only a few hours and after our trip the day before we though it might be a goof plan to head out that night and get a bit closer to Dakar so the trek wouldn’t overwhelm us today. So that’s exactly whatr we did. We got back into a bush taxi and spent like seven hours driving to get us up to Farafenni back towards the coast and on the north side of the river Gambia . It was good to get there, but our vacation had suspiciously ended up involving a very bad ratio of time relaxing versus time travelling.
Well, we found a decent place to stay last night even if they did gouge a bit being the only place in a very small town.So this morning we got up a walked the final three kilometres to the border. It was lovely. Really, it’s just gorgeous out here, and you can see for so far on the horizon, very cool. Customs was, as were all of the ploice stops, very plesent. They don’t want to hassle Americans here, and if you throw a smattering of Wolof into the conversation, there more likely to invite you home for tea than give you any trouble. So we walked across the border and found ourselves another bush taxi (this one was actually a station wagon), and began our one final big ride up to Dakar. The ride was fairly uneventful ; Cyndi and I finished our books, and I noticed a few interesting things on our way . Primarily that everything is somehow better here, in a way. There’s obviously a bunch more money floating around this country than Ganbia. The houses are built better, there also more often taller. And for some reason more people seem to have horses here than back in Gambia (most people there have donkeys)
Anyways ; we arrived here, and you’ll have to wait to hear how our travels continue here. It’s sunset and I gotta run. We’re going hopefully, to see Youssou N’Dour tonight. He’s like U2 here. Very big. Ok that(s all for now. Later kids, happy new years !
Well, another week or two has gone by and there’s not too much to report. School has ended officially now. So Cyndi and I have a bit more free time on our hands for a bit. Our plans for going up country have changed a bit. Poncelet, our boss has assured us that we’re being sent up country for some training at the end of Febuary. We’ll be stationed for a while up at one of the places we we’re planning on going this break, but now we figure that we might as well wait o go there until we’ve got to. So, we’re altering things a bit. Cyndi and I are still going o travel, but now we’ll be haeding up country for only a few days. Probably up to Basse at the end of the country. Then from there we’ll take a bus to Dakar for New Years. Cyndi is very excited about spending New Years in Dakar. I think she just wants any excuse to speak French. We don’t have any of the particulars really planned yet, but it’ll come together soon.
Next week we’ll be taking over in the Cnber Café here.They’ve only got two employees now and it doesn’t really seem fair that they don’t get a break. So we’re stepping in for four or five days. It’s a fair bit of work actually; even tough they’ve only got four computers here. There’s also a telecenter (basically a couple of phone booths), and big issues with photocopying and scanning. I think it’ll be good though.
Other than that not too much is happening, we’ ve received a Christmas package from Cyndi’s parents, very exciting. And we went into Banjul yesterday and checked out the National Library. It’s actually pretty nice. I suspect they get a fair number of donated books from America and England because they had the strangest mish-mash of titles there. It was pretty good though and I found two very cool looking sci-fis there. We’re slowly moving forward with our English class, well, sort of… There’s just a lot of other things happening. I still haven’t gotten my commercial proposal finished yet for these guys. And Cyndi’s been relly busy finishing grading her classes for the Christmas report cards. This past week I also helped design the floor plan for the Digital Studio being built here next year. I’m not sure I mentioned it earlier, but it should be very cool. Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of January, and theoretically by the end of next Summer there’ll be a full fledged digital editing and sound recording sudio here at the Y. It’s pretty cool, even though I won’t be here to see it in action. Seeing as it’s actually something I’m sort of qualified to assist with I’m going to try and wrangle together some sort of program to help get them ready for everything. Not too much else to tell really we’ve been hanging out with our gambian friend Jimit a lot lately, but he’s off to University in Bangladesh in a few weeks. It’s too bad, but I think if you can, it’s really better to study abroad. Jimit is rediculously smart and it’d be a shame if he didn’t get some more education overseas or in Europe. Cyndi’s off with him today at the University watching some debates or something. Alright, enough of my ramblings. Later kids.
Well it’s been a pretty interesting past few days. We’re just finishing up a long weekend here. Well, actually it feels a bit like the weekend has been going on all week. This weekend is Koreteh, the end of Ramadan, and it’s probably for the best that it’s over finally. Over the past few weeks it’s been a slow process of things happening every so languidly, more and more the shops have been closing early and students have been skipping classes. This has only been heightened by the petrol shortage in the country right now. So it’s finally here, Koreteh. From what I’ve learnt from Gambian friends, it’s a pretty big party time. Actually I didn’t need to hear that from anyone, I just had to look outside, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Koreteh ends the 40 day fasting kick. So people naturally have quite a bit of ceremony attached. Our friend Jimit told us how his family does it. Firstly, it’s tradition for everyone to get new clothes. Mostly I think, they have the made by the tailors as opposed to buying pre-made stuff. I don’t want to get things wrong here and I’m not overly sure of the order of events but I do know that Muslims spent pretty much all day Friday praying and then on Friday night once they saw the moon most (some waited for Mecca time) broke their fast a began partying it up. People then eat a lot. A number of families will slaughter a goat or a sheep and then people just eat and eat and eat. All day and night. It was pretty exciting. Jakob got a chance to go out to someones compound and spend Koreteh with a local family. But Cyndi and I have been spending far more time hanging around a group of visitors come to the Y.
Before I go on with anything else I should just mention that on Tuesday I had a brief visit with Uncle Dan’s German friend that he worked with in Sweden, Hans Bistram. He has been in town for a few days doing some work upgrading some of the facilities at the port in Banjul. And very kindly forgave me for being so slack on calling him and came over to the YMCA with some of his colleges for a drink. He is planning on coming back to The Gambia in August or September, and I told him that if he did Cyndi and I would definitely make a larger effort to get out to dinner with him. Anyhow, it was very nice to meet him.
The YMCA has a fairly interesting group of people on an official visit right now. It’s a group of around twenty teenagers from Hove, England. That’s near or in Brighton. Anyhow, they’re on a 10 day Y sponsored trip here. Some of them come from broken homes or other such troubled pasts but they all seem very cool. We’ve spent some time hanging out with them and have gotten along very well with one of their group leaders named Luke. Anyhow, thankfully in a way, they aren’t actually staying at the Y, I mean they’re nice and all; but come on… twenty teens on a trip. It gets a bit rambunctious. They’ve come here and donated some really great things for the Y; athletic equipment, compuer stuff, money, etc…and it is pretty cool to see the whole structure of the YMCA cross cultural brotherhood thing at work.
Well, I suppose I could go on for a long while, but I really want to get out to the beach. Last night we went out to a really cool nightclub called Jokos. It’s the biggest club around, and far enough away from the tourist areas that the few white people there were either locals (Ex-pats), or very determined tourists. It was very, very fun. Cyndi and I needed to get out dancing a bit I think. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time lately working on a pitch for these commercials the Y has asked me to make. It’s commin along well, I’ll finish it up later this week and post my proposal online. Anyhow that’s really all, I’ve got to get to the beach. On a final note, one of our good friends from Vancouver has just moved down to LA to work on the post-production on the new X-Men film. Which just goes to show you how PAs actually can move up the ladder. Good work Julia. Ok, bye bye.
Well ,things have been pretty good this past week and a half or so. Last weekend Cyndi, Jakob and I went for a 6 km walk down the beach from near where we live down to by the big hotels in the Sene-Gambia region. It was really nice. A crazy wave day. It funny, most of the time the waves are pretty tame, but every once and a while, they get just huge. That’s the best time to go body surfing. Actually Jakob and I have been renting boogie boards every now and again, when the waves are really good. The only problem is it can get a little bit too big sometimes. They’re also a pretty wickid undertow at times. Anyhow, last Saturday saw the biggest waves I’ve experienced here. Just way too much. Actually you wern’t allowed to swim most of the way down the beach. We stopped for lunch at a nice resturant in Sene-Gambia, and took a few tours of the hotels there. We’re trying to find a place for Cyndi’s parents to stay when they come to visit us in August. Well, at least they’ll hopefully come. That’s the plan so far.
Other than thatbit of fun last weekend, at least for me, things have been fairly quiet. We went and saw Lord of the Rings in French at the Franco-Gambian Alliance last Thursday. I’ve got to admit, I enjoy that movie more and more every time I see it. It’s really excellent. One of our olleges here, Finley, is returning ot Liberia this weekend. He’s been here for a year I think. Anyhow, he’s returning home to his YMCA with plans to set up a computer training center there. It’s too ba he’s leaving we’ll miss him. We were going to take him out for Thanksgiving dinner at one of the hotels here, but the price is just waaaaay to high. That’s ok, we’re going out for Chinese instead tonight. I was so looking forward to pumpkin pie though. Oh well…
The really big news is that yesterday we had the annual YMCA computer center action plan meeting. It may sound weird but it was actually really good. We got a really good overview of what we’re trying to accomplish, and a lot of things were set out for the new year. Two of the really big projects coming up are one for Cyndi and one for me. Cyndi is going to chair a committee organizing a televised IT knowledge bowl. That’s right, just like you see every now and then on Public Access. Local high schools competing in a matching of intellect. (or at least semi-trivial facts). Anyhow, it’s pretty exciting, although it won’t be happening until May, there’s a lot of work to do planning it. I on the other hand have been tacked to try and get together a commercial. Well, actually a few commercials. It’s pretty exciting. I don’t actually have that much experience with this sort of thing, but, I’m sure I won’t do any worse than most of the nonsense on tv here. Yeah, I guess that’s about it for now, we’ve got a lot of work to do. And I’m glad at least now we know what to expect a bit better. But, that’s all I’m going to write for today. If anyone has any brilliant ideas how to make dirt cheap commercials, don’t hesitate to contact me. You can do so by clicking here. Ok, so long for now.
Well, we’ve been pretty busy this week, and it seems to have been flying by. I didn’t want to get too far behind in the log, but I almost lost it this past week. Thanks to my dad it’s back up safe and sound. I’m still working on a way to archive the photo pages. And once again my father looks to be coming to the rescue with some technical suggestions that I really would never have thought of. Remember kids, I’m still new at this whole HTML game. Bear with me.
That said, we had a couple small adventures this past weekend. On Saturday Cyndi and I went out to the town of Brikama. We didn’t spend too long looking around the town, but what we saw didn’t overly impress me. Brikama is the third biggest town in The Gambia, after Serekunda and Banjul. It’s known for a decent wood carving market and being the last proper town before you start getting ‘up-country’. We spent our time shopping here and there. Picking up a few Christmas presents for the folks back home. But I should maybe say now, not to expect anything too grand. We couldn’t get very many presents, or any large objects due to shipping and monetary constraints. Of course we tried, and I got everything off in the post this Tuesday. We spent the afternoon down at the beach where we met a very nice Canadian couple who through a bizzare stroke of fate have the same hairstylist as Cynthia did in Vancouver. One of them, Dawn is working for the Special Olympics, which is apparently coming here. She was a former player on the Canadian Olympic women’s rugby team. The other one, Gail, came here with no job, visa, or practical experience walked into one of the local newspapers and landed herself a job as assistant editor. I’m always impressed with people who have the guts to just live like that. Not that what Cyndi and I are doing isn’t great; but to be the kind of person that can travel anywhere and just know that they’ll be ok. That’s impressive.
Anyhow, on Sunday Cyndi, Jakob, and I, went to Abuko Nature Reserve. It’s out, sort of nearby Brikama on the River Gambia. The reserve is a big hotspot for birders, and was a little crowded even though we went at midday (not the best birding time). The paths were well groomed and it was pretty obvious that this reserve, makes a pretty tidy profit, considering the 35 dalasi entry fee. We wlaked the around the circuit path taking a total of two hours or so, and sawa a few animals. We saw a clan of red colobus monkeys hanging out in the trees. But the best was the first one we saw. A big rusty coloured monkey all alone in a tree. As we got close he jumped away. And I don’t just mean a normal jump. I mean he flew!!! Right by our heads, he must have jumped like 15 feet away from the tree! With his arms and legs all splayed out like a flying squirrel or something. It was very cool. Definitely the highlight.
At the far end of the reserve is a small zoo area. It’s the only zoo in The Gambia and quite controversial. They have four caged off areas. Containing hyenas, antelope, monkeys, and a lion. It was a little dissapointing in my mind. The conditions didn’t look very good for the animals. But the hyenas were impressive. I never realized how big they can be. But really they were huge. Bigger than any dog, that’s for sure. Now I’m not so sure the thing I saw at Tanji was really a hyena. Maybe it was just a dog. I think I would’ve noticed if it’d been that big. The lion was also pretty far away a sleeping, so we really couldn’t get a good view of it. In terms of animals overall I’d really have to say that the Abuko Reserve didn’t really do it for me, Tanji was much better. But the Abuko Reserve was really really beautiful. The trees were amazing, and it was great to go for a walk through the woods on a nice path. I’m not so sure it’s worth 35 dalasi, but I suppose I’d go there again. Although I think my first choice will still be Tanji.
This week we had a big meeting about a class we’re going to be running in January. We’ll be teaching MS Exchange, Outlook, and Windows Professional 2000, to the Peace Corps as they transition their offices from Macs to PCs. It looks most likely that Cyndi, Cecelia, and I will be teaching these classes. So we’ve got to start learning something about networking and how these programs operate. We’re also starting to plan a trip up-country for Christmas. We’re thinking of spending a week travelling. In lieu of this and other time consuming projects. Cyndi, Jakob, and I have decided to put our twice-weekly Wolof classes on hold for the time being. Maybe we’ll have enough time to invest properly in it after Christmas. We’ll see, anyhow, that’s about all for this week. So long folks.
Well, it looks like the log is back up and running thanks to some quick thinking from my father. Good job. I'll put a new update in sometime soon.
Last weekend Cyndi, Jakob, and I went on an outing with Samba across the river up to Barra. Barra is the fishing town on just on the North side of the River Gambia. It seems like a pretty small place, not somewhere I’d like to have to spend too long at but it was ok for a day trip visit.
We started out heading up, first to Banjul around ten in the morning. I think the main reason Samba wanted us to go was to see some weird old guy who lives in a tree. Samba is a little strange, but he’s nice. Anyhow, we got to Banjul and walked the few blocks to the ferry. One of the nice things about having a Gambian guide is that Samba has saved us a lot of hassles. Like when we got to the ferry he talked with the security and got us on the boat even though it was full. The thing is that since that big ferry accident last month they’ve gone crazy with restrictions on ferry limits. But really the accident has no relevance on a slightly overcrowded ferry running from Banjul to Barra. The reason that ferry capsized last month was because it was built for cruising along the Rhine, and it was overcrowded by 400 people, in a storm at sea!!! So anyway, we got on the ferry and had a nice 40min ride across the river to Barra. It was a bit overcrowded and way to hot, but we made it ok. We were sort of hoping that this would only be a half day trip, but everything in The Gambia seems to take longer than it should.
We got off the ferry and headed over to the point. Right at he mouth of the river to see the remains of Fort Bullen. It was a pretty good looking fort, a bit small but I think it served it’s purpose. We were given a short tour by the caretaker. In brief the story of the fort goes like this. Once the British abandoned the idea of catching slaves and had taken what they wanted from up river they pulled out of their major fort here up river Fort James. That fort was at one time the major stopping off point for all slavers travelling to America. The remains of it are also a tourist spot, especially ever since Alex Haley traced his heritage to Gambia and wrote Roots. Gambia has become a sort of Mecca apparently for African Americans, in fact every July they hold a week long Roots festival. Ok, I’m off topic. Back to the history lesson. Basically, once the Brits decided they were against slaving, they decided to stop any slavers that tried to use the river Gambia, notably the Portuguese. The British already had a port at the mouth of the river Gambia on the South side, Fort Bathurst, now Banjul. And Fort Bathurst had a six gun battalion stationed there, but sailing ships could still enter the river from the North. The river is really quite wide at its mouth. So, in 1826, the Brits set up another fort on the North side of the river at Barra, called Fort Bullen. And in fact, although it was abandoned at the turn of the century, the British army reclaimed it, and rearmed it briefly during WWII. So the fort has a weird mix of rusted cannons and anti aircraft guns.
We wandered around the fort for a bit. I got some Photos that I’ll put up soon. Unfortunately the guy who lives in a tree died a few months ago. He was in his 80s, and had lived inside a Baobab tree for 25 years. Very weird. So, anyhow, we had a fairly informative little history outing. I don’t think Fort Bullen is really somewhere I would recommend as a tourist stop though. If you really want to see the colonial history from what I hear it’s really best to head out to James Island and see the fort there. Ah well, next time.
Other than that things are good here. We’ve officially signed up for an online TESL certification. I know online really isn’t that glamorous, but considering our budget, I think it’ll serve us well. Cyndi and my plan is to hopefully get work teaching English in or around Prague next year. But failing that Poland, Hungary, or really anywhere in Eastern Europe. It’s a month long program, but you do the work at your own pace. Cyndi and I are also planning a trip up country at Christmas. We’re thinking of a week long venture. And next weekend we’re planning on heading out to Abuko Nature Reserve. It’s the really big reservation. Hopefully it’ll all come together soon. Well, that’s about all for now. So long.
Well, the really big updating of the page is finally done. I’ve been making a lot of changes here lately, and at least for now I’m pretty happy with the results. It’s pretty good, I sort of feel bad, like I’m neglecting other studying I should be doing and instead updating the web page. But then I really think about it and, honestly, if there is any one thing I really should be learning here, its basics, tech skills that have practical applications. Web Design will in all probability serve me better in the long run than being an advanced MS PowerPoint user. So I’m not going to feel guilty. Anyhow, as my Uncle Dan says in his weekly life chronicle, onto the week that was…
Last weekend we went on an outing to Tanji, a small fishing village fairly close by. They’ve got a large bird reserve there. Actually Gambia is pretty famous in it’s own right for it’s birds. Many of the European migratory birds come, or at least pass through this area. Most likely due to the river Gambia, the area has become the highway rest stop for all kinds of birds. They’re have been some 300 different species of birds sighted at the Tanji reserve, and more than that up country. Anyhow, if you don’t care about birds, that’s ok; ‘cause it was a really nice national park too. We took a bush taxi up to Tanji, and walked down to the reserve a few km along the highway. When we arrived the manager or warden (or whatever it is you call the guy up front of a bird reserve) told us that there were two paths to choose from, the beach and the bush. We took the beach and walked along a fair ways, but eventually couldn’t go any further because the tide had come in. So we had a really good picnic lunch, and watched some storks, and wading birds. There was also a guy fishing, in a very surreal right out of a novel sort of way, wading in waist deep water at the mouth of the Tanji River casting his net into the sun. I saw a hyenia twice. I think it was following us looking for food. I got a really quick photo of him. So anyhow, we walked back to the enterence determined to take the bush trail, assuming we could refill our water. It was really really really hot that day. On the way back we ran across some monkeys near the beach. The Lonely Planet for Senegal and Gambia, says that the only monkeys in the area are Red Colobus, so I assume that’s what they were. They were very cute though and somewhat made up for the fact that we were getting burrs everywhere from small beach shrubs.
We got back, refilled our water, thankfully from the clean Kombo, waterway system, and not a well as most of the villages use. We decided to brave the brush, even though we’d heard from a Peace Corps guy that it was a bit overgrown. And man, was he right. We ended up stuck in the middle of a totally overgrown area. I mean, maybe it was once a path but now it was just a crazy tangle of brambles and thorns. Needless to say it wasn’t all that fun. We forged through for an hour or so, very slow going, but we’d gone too far to turn back. We didn’t see too many birds, the brush was just too thick, and also Cyndi and I were far to loud with our bumbling through the underbrush. Anyhow, eventually out of desperation we cut through some very unpleasant brambles and cut our way out to a power line, and hiked out to the road. Not fun. But once we got onto the road things were ok again. We walked back to Tanji and stopped briefly near the mangrove swamp area of the reserve, but didn’t feel like staying too long. And then we sat and had a beer at the local camel farm, where we caught glimpses of Pepe the Camel over the fence. It was a good day, and sitting at the camel farm watching mourning doves drink from a beautiful fountain, we discussed how next time we went to Tanji we’d at least know better where and where not to go.
Jakob says that you can go out with the fishermen from some of these local fishing towns. I think I’d really like that. The whole deep sea fishing industry here is so different from back home. Not that I’m all that well versed, but somehow here, with their old world skills it just seems more romantic or something. Like out of “Old man and the Sea”. Ahh, anyhow, I realize that I’m rambling and I’m in a pretty weird mood today.
There really hasn’t been too much going on this week. A delegation from a Swedish YMCA is visiting so Jakob has been showing them all around town. Poncelet has agreed with the Peace Corps that we’ll run a training session in January and possibly help with installation of some new computers and train people on “Windows 2000 Professional”, “MS Outlook”, and something else… not “MailTrack” but something like it. Anyhow, seeing as Cyndi and I know virtually nothing about any of these aps we’ll probably be stuck studying until January. Oh well, at least we’re learning something somewhat useful. That’s all for now. Check out our two new Photo Pages: Page 4, and Page 5. have fun, bye.
Well it's the first of November and the Log page was getting pretty long so I thought it'd be a good time to start a new log off and begin achiving the old one. I think I’ll archive every two months so as to keep the page short enough to open. Not that I’m deluding myself that too many people are actually reading all of the ramblings I post here. Ah well, at least I have myself to talk to. Last week was pretty good overall, I spent a lot of time updating this site. Well, a lot of time trying to update this site. I’m still not too great with JavaScript, but I’ve found a book about it and will dedicate myself to learning it.
Last weekend we went on a fantastic trip with Samba, the caretakers son, out to the crocodile pool in Bakau. Now I’ve gotta say, I’ve seen crocs before in Australia, I’ve even seen a few fairly close up, but this was a whole new experience. The crocs weren’t big by any means but there was absolutely no protection from them!!! Cyndi and I both had our first experience of petting a crocodile. It was very exciting, but a little disconcerting. Thankfully we returned with all of our limbs intact. I’ll post the photos really soon.
Last Wednesday, Cecelia, another computer center staff member came back from a month and a half trip to South Africa. She’s been there helping a YMCA there set up a digital production facility. Very cool. Anyhow, now that she’s back she’ll be teaching some of the classes, taking both some of Cyndi’s and mine. But things are still a little bit up in the air about who’ll be doing what around here. Cecelia is from Liberia, although I don’t think she’s lived there in a long time, and she seems like a really nice woman. It’s good to have so many people here to do the work. I get the impression that oftentimes it’s just 2 or 3 people to run everything.
Anyways, we’ve officially joined the Franco-Gambian Alliance so we can see films twice a week. I’ve been really missing some for of cinema. We’re also starting to think about what we’ll be doing next year when we’re done here. As of now, we’d like to go to Prague and teach English. I’m not sure, we’ll see… Anyhow, it’ll be a while before we need to decide what we’re doing for sure. Ok well, that’s about all I’ve got to say for now. I hope you all enjoy the new layout, I’ll finish up the final tweaks next week. Later.
