One random crazy weekend

From 21/9/08

Okay, so I just realized that I was in Farjara for two weeks and did not update my blog once. I'm really not sure why. Maybe I spent too much time on Facebook. I did manage to get some new pictures loaded on Facebook so that's good. Let me tell you a little bit about the past month...
On August 26th I road up to Shayla's house. I got to the Brikama car park right before 7am when the cars officially start running. I ended up on a gele that I guess was trying to cheat the car park because we road around looking for passengers. Normally the gele parks in a spot and waits. Passengers pay the attendant and get a ticket. The attendant gives the driver the money and keeps some for himself. I guess these guys want to cut out the middle man. After 45 minutes of looking for passengers we finally got to leave. These guys wanted to make as much money as possible, so they just kept cramming people in that were looking for short rides. I got to know everyone around me very well! For most of the ride I had either Isatou or Mohammed sitting on my lap. These were some random little kids that I met on the gele. Their mom was tired of holding them, and at one point she really wanted to eat, so she just handed me Isatou. That's how things work in the Gambia. Then after Isatou had gone to sleep on her mom's lap, Mohammed lost his seat to an older man. I didn't want him to have to stand, so on my lap he went as well. Could you imagine actually doing something like that in America? I'd probably would have been sent to death row, Throughout the ride their mom and I took turns buying little treats along the way, and the four of us had a good time.
Cramming 30 people (yes at one point I counted) into a gele at some points wasn't even the craziest things that happened on that trip! At one point we had a pregnant lady vomiting into a bag on her way to an antenatal clinic. We also had a flat tire problem. A little over 2/3 of the way there, we got a flat. This was my first experience with a gele flat, but I heard it can take a REALLY LONG time! All the men got off the gele to "assist" and the women got off to search for the sticks that they all use to clean their teeth. I really had to pee, so I got off the gele and searched for a nice, private place to use the bathroom. No rest stops or gas stations here! After about 20 minutes everyone got the new tire on, and it was time to go. The driver made the apprentice basically hang off the back of the gele to watch the left rear tire. The poor guy almost got pelted in the face by the lug nut when it shot off the tire. He never missed a beat. He jumped right off the gele, and ran after it. The driver stopped, and we waited for the apprentice to run and catch up with the gele. They sort of fixed the tire again (with the "help" of every man on the gele). We were able to make it the 10 minutes to a tire repair place. (no lie!) There the driver and the owners fought a lot about prices. There were a lot of "F-U's" going around. I wanted to scream "F all of you!" Everyone got off the gele, but I was tired so I just stayed on it. Mohammed stayed on too. Again, red flag in America! I think he was 7, so he could actually speak English relatively well for someone his age. We talked and ate pankatoes while they fixed the tire. 20 minutes later we were off again.
When I finally made it to Soma it was 2p. My cell phone had been dead for over a day, so I could actually call Shayla to see where she was. I ended up walking to her village hoping that she would be there. Isatou and Mohammed's mom wanted to make sure that I got there safely, so she forced some teenage girl to walk with me. Once we were out of the site of "mom," I told her that I knew where I was going. I walked what normally takes 30-40 minutes in probably 20 minutes top. I was so hot, thirsty, and tired that I just wanted to get there. I got to her house and she wasn't there, but I was pretty sure that she wouldn't be because she goes on trek a lot with the area clinic. I found a charged cell phone, put my sim card in, and received a text from Shayla that she had so brilliantly sent with her lock combo. I went inside and fell asleep on the couch til she got home from work.
Jenni and Amanda came the next day. I saw Shayla off as she went to work, swept her house like a good little wife, and waited patiently for Jenni and Amanda to arrive. I read Harry Potter while it stormed outside. They finally arrived around noon. The three of us hung around until Shayla got home from work. The next day Jenni and I walked Shayla to her clinic, and got a short tour of the place. She was going on trek that day, so the clinic vehicle dropped Jenni and I off in Soma. We had to buy some veggies and other things for the dinner that we were going to cook for the trainees the next night. After we got all that we needed we headed home. We realized that we didn't buy vinegar, so we had to stop at a bitik on the way home. The bitik owner really couldn't speak the local language (really we can't either), and instead of English he spoke French. He kept trying to give us white vinegar, and neither Jenni nor I knew how to say that we needed dark vinegar. Finally Jenni pointed to the vinegar and herself and said that we didn't need that kind. She then pointed to the guy and the dark vinegar, and said that we needed one like that. The three of us laughed, and he told us that he didn't have any. We ended up buying the vinegar in Shayla's village.
On Friday we traveled to Fula Kunda to cook dinner for the trainees. Before we left we stopped at a stand to get mashed up bean sandwiches. When Jenni and I were walking back to meet Shayla and Amanda, who got eggs instead, a group of kids started toubabing us and asking for money. Out of no where Jenni just started babbling and gesturing for the kids to come over. I just started laughing! Some kids got scared and ran away. Others figured out what she was doing and started to laugh too.
We got on a gele and traveled to Fula Kunda which is about a 45 minute ride. We decided earlier that cooking them dinner would be nice, so we arranged for all of the trainees to meet there. We cooked pasta and sauce, and made an amazing salad to go along with it. Jenni even made popcorn. The whole thing was fun til it was time to go to bed. At this point we still had that cat Toby. He still wasn't house trained, so he had to sleep outside. He kept climbing the screen and getting stuck at the top of the door. It was pretty annoying and it went on most of the night. We spent the night in one of the trainees' family's guest house. We had our own private little house complete with a pit latrine. That was really nice! We slept on the floor on mats, and things started out okay once we turned off the flashlights. Soon the floor was covered with bugs, and there were mosquitoes everywhere! At one point I got up and took a shower in bug spray. All of that plus stupid Toby kept all of us from sleeping much that night.
We got up around 5:30, and went out to the road to catch a gele. We boarded one around 6:30, and off we went. We had to stop at a mosque so people could pray, then off we went. It was still really early, so we didn't have to stop at too many police checkpoints. The driver drove like we were on a video game simulator. He didn't even slow down for the giant potholes in the road, and he did not take his foot off the gas once. He just kept jerking the gele back and forth. I wasn't complaining though because we were making great time!
Normally the car goes all the way to Serekunda, but on that day we got dropped on the side of the road in Brikama. (Right down the road from my house) We walked all the way to the carpark, and that is when we realized that there were no geles there. That's when we learned that it was a "country clean-up day" or something along those lines. We all got really annoyed, okay mostly me, and we, mostly me again, set out on a mission to find a way to get us to Farjara. We ended up walking back to the road to try to find a car. It was 9:30, (we had set a land speed gele record making it to Brikama by 9am), and cars wouldn't' start running again until after 1p. I was annoyed, so I walked ahead to cool down. I found a police checkpoint and sat down there. When the others arrived a few minutes later, Toby was gone. I guess that he broke free of the box and he ran away. Jenni was tired of chasing after him, so our journey together was complete. I can't say that I missed him for even one second. After multiple horrible gele rides, washing his poop out of my clothes when I got home from Jenni's house, and just dealing with him, he will not be missed. I'm sure that he hated us as much as we all hated him. I'm almost positive that he just ran away on purpose.
It started to rain so we had to hang out under some shop pavilions. When the rain finished, we set out to find a ride. We finally got a ride with one of the country's bank cars. We were so happy. Because we were in an official car we didn't have to stop at any police checkpoints. We also got to go really fast because there were no other cars on the road. Even with the two stops we had to make to drop money off at banks, we still made it to the PC office in 20 minutes! That normally takes 1 hour. We hung out all weekend and my finger got worse and worse...
Next entry, the saga of my infected finger...