Independance Day and Brikama

Me outside my house

Awa and the neighbours

Amy and her neighbours

Thursday was a public holiday to celebrate 45 years since the Gambia became independent. We had the day off, and so did the rest of the Gambia, except for the shop and market stall owners. I arranged with Amy and Paul who work at Gambia college to have a trip to Brikama to see the college and my house.
Paul lives in Fajara (near Safari gardens) and travels to Brikama each day. His wife and two children are here with him. They were spending the day having a picnic up country (his daughter loves nature) so he offered me a lift to Brikama (as they have their own car).

I got up early (considering the night before) and managed to taxi my way from Kanifeng to Fajara to meet Paul, Denise and their kids. We drove in the car to Brikama and Paul showed me some of the sights along the way and told me about working in the college (a great place to work as long as you can negate your way around the lack of resources and lack of commitment of some of the staff and students). They dropped me at Gambia College, where Amy was catching up on work, and showed me the office and told me about how things operate.

After Paul, Denise and the kids left on their picnic, my two neighbours (two 15 year old boys that live next to my compound) joined us. Amy and the neighbours showed me Gambia college (the part in the photo is the PTC or Primary Teaching students, teaching area). Then Amy asked the boys to give me a Gambian name and they chose Awa Colley (‘Awa’ is pronounced ‘our’ similar to ‘hour’ in English and means eve as in Adam and Eve, Colley sounds the same as the dog breed). Amy told them the name I was given the night before but they thought Awa was better (I will trust their judgement because it was less impaired than my ‘friend’ from the night before).

We then walked back with the boys, for a while, to our compound and bought bags of water on the way (in Gambia as well as bottled water they sell plastic bags of water which you can suck and which are cheaper to buy). Then Amy told the boys we would meet them at the compound and we dropped off at a local restaurant to tell them we would have lunch there in an hour (in Gambia you can wait over an hour for food so it is best to let them know early that you are coming). The local restaurants look more like small sheds or huts, if you didn’t know they were a restaurant you wouldn’t know they were there.

Then we walked to the compound past a timber mill, welding outlet (making metal gates to compounds) and all sorts of bitakos (small corner shops – again they resemble sheds more than shops). The compound was amazing! It is fenced in with a heavy locked gate (and a side gate), walking in is a heavily treed garden that makes it look more like a hotel. There is even a pergola (although that is not its Gambian name). On one side is an empty house (a very nice empty house) and on the other is Amy’s house, then mine, then Anne’s all joined into one building. At the end is my co-workers house, and in front of that a beautiful vegetable garden.
Inside Amy’s house is the same as mine (my house was locked up so I couldn’t look inside). You walk into a lovely tiled open plan living/ kitchen area (no kitchen sink and the stove is a benchtop gas burner). To the side is a hallway with a large bedroom coming off either side, one bedroom has an ensuite bathroom with a toilet and shower). Further down the hall there is a smaller single bedroom and a bathroom. There is a small backyard space. It is a really nice living space!!!
After a coffee we went to Brikama market (which is 5 minutes walk from my compound) to buy some material for our office, and then we walked to the restaurant to meet Anne. We sat and chatted for an hour and a half until our meal was finally ready (definitely Gambian time!). It was great to catch up but my tummy was very queasy so I was a bit uneasy (I think it was the heat and not enough to drink). We eventually had rice, tomatoes, coated fish and a peanut/onion sauce. It was really nice. Then Amy showed me how to get a Gelli Gelli back to Kanifeng.

The Gelli Gelli trip was hilarious!!! The Gelli Gelli drives along with the Aparante (the guy who collects the fare) yelling out to people on the side of the road our destination. So the whole way along we pull off and on the road picking up people and dropping them off (a gelli gelli is a minivan). Some young women got on and off, the fashion again unbelievable (the Gambian women have amazing figures and the dresses are cut really nicely to show these off). I wished them peace but they weren’t really bothered though an older lady was tickled pink by my greeting.
We trekked along for a while until the full force of Independence Day hit. The president was trekking around Gambia, so just in case he was travelling along one of the roads there were police directing traffic to one side of the road. This meant we were down from two lanes to one. The only problem with this is that there was a constant stream of traffic both ways and with the Gelli Gellis constantly stopping to pick people up or drop them off the traffic was stopping and starting, but still moving at a good pace. The part I find so funny is that even with two packed lanes of traffic people still overtake! This means we missed some cars by 5 centimetres and some by 1 centimetre. Amazingly all without an accident (although it does happen – though not as often as you’d think it would). I did make it safely home!