Nic’s visit!
I am the luckiest girl in the world to have a boyfriend who is brave enough to spend his first trip overseas – about as far away from Australia as you can get, in a place with; hot, sticky weather, dusty roads, cramped sweaty and smelly gellis, mosquitos and cold showers. But my man is amazing so he still braved all that to come and see me (and I have to add didn’t complain once, even when things were really crappy!!!!)
Anyway we packed a fair bit into two and a half weeks so I will try to be brief.
The first few days Nic got here I came down with cold and other unmentionables so I wasn’t much fun. We did a lot of low key things and watched movies (I pretended it was to help him with the jet lag but it was really because slowing down made me come crashing).
His first day was a visit to my workplace, the bank (only to discover not only had my work not been paying my allowance but VSO had forgotten to as well – an unlucky start to the visit!) and the market.
The next day I thought we would start Nic’s visit in style by going to Cocoa Ocean. Cocoa Ocean is a resort that is the type of resort that takes your breath away with the luxury. It has to be seen for the sheer contrast the place has to all its surroundings. It is extremely expensive by Gambian standards but one the most affordable luxury hotel you could find on world standards. Needless to say on my budget all we could afford was two soft drinks and to share an appetizer, whilst lying on sun lounges on the beach. A lovely start to the visit! We were joined by Paul and Courtney, a married volunteer VSO couple who are fantastic to spend time with.
On the Sunday we visited Tamani Tenda with Emma, Amy and Emily. This is a community run camp, about 40 minutes drive out of Brikama. It was a brilliant education on transport in the Gambia for Nic. We first tried to catch a Gelli from the road near my house, but after walking in the hot sun for about a kilometer we realized we were so close to the Gelli park that all the Gellis were full so we looked for a taxi. The difference between a Gelli and a taxi is that in a Gelli you are crammed in a minivan with 14 other people and pay D10 for the joy of stopping every time anyone needs to get on or get off.
In a taxi you pay D400 but get a ride directly to your location – the car is not always nice, or smells nice, but it isn’t cramped. Anyway we found a taxi, but he saw we were white and decided we should pay D600 (that is what an unqualified teacher would earn in a month). We finally negotiated to D400 for a trip there and back, through broken English. When we got to the camp, the driver decided to use broken English as an excuse to say he thought we were paying only for a one-way trip (which is double the normal ‘white person’ price). Anyway the guys at the camp negotiated and the taxi driver agreed to pick us back up again.
At Tamani Tenda the girls, who had arrived earlier with our usual taxi driver, were in the middle of a cooking lesson with some local women. Nic and I joined in, although the smoke from the fire meant I was useless but Nic was very enthusiastic ( I later found out that he was mostly excited that because he was cooking with four girls – this would qualify as Dave’s challenge for getting four wives in the Gambia!).
After the cooking lesson we ate the meal which was dried fish, cooked fish, ground up beans and ground nuts (peanuts) with jumbo (stock cubes) mixed into steamed rice. It is a very dry dish but quite nice.
I am the luckiest girl in the world to have a boyfriend who is brave enough to spend his first trip overseas – about as far away from Australia as you can get, in a place with; hot, sticky weather, dusty roads, cramped sweaty and smelly gellis, mosquitos and cold showers. But my man is amazing so he still braved all that to come and see me (and I have to add didn’t complain once, even when things were really crappy!!!!)
Anyway we packed a fair bit into two and a half weeks so I will try to be brief.
The first few days Nic got here I came down with cold and other unmentionables so I wasn’t much fun. We did a lot of low key things and watched movies (I pretended it was to help him with the jet lag but it was really because slowing down made me come crashing).
His first day was a visit to my workplace, the bank (only to discover not only had my work not been paying my allowance but VSO had forgotten to as well – an unlucky start to the visit!) and the market.
The next day I thought we would start Nic’s visit in style by going to Cocoa Ocean. Cocoa Ocean is a resort that is the type of resort that takes your breath away with the luxury. It has to be seen for the sheer contrast the place has to all its surroundings. It is extremely expensive by Gambian standards but one the most affordable luxury hotel you could find on world standards. Needless to say on my budget all we could afford was two soft drinks and to share an appetizer, whilst lying on sun lounges on the beach. A lovely start to the visit! We were joined by Paul and Courtney, a married volunteer VSO couple who are fantastic to spend time with.
On the Sunday we visited Tamani Tenda with Emma, Amy and Emily. This is a community run camp, about 40 minutes drive out of Brikama. It was a brilliant education on transport in the Gambia for Nic. We first tried to catch a Gelli from the road near my house, but after walking in the hot sun for about a kilometer we realized we were so close to the Gelli park that all the Gellis were full so we looked for a taxi. The difference between a Gelli and a taxi is that in a Gelli you are crammed in a minivan with 14 other people and pay D10 for the joy of stopping every time anyone needs to get on or get off.
In a taxi you pay D400 but get a ride directly to your location – the car is not always nice, or smells nice, but it isn’t cramped. Anyway we found a taxi, but he saw we were white and decided we should pay D600 (that is what an unqualified teacher would earn in a month). We finally negotiated to D400 for a trip there and back, through broken English. When we got to the camp, the driver decided to use broken English as an excuse to say he thought we were paying only for a one-way trip (which is double the normal ‘white person’ price). Anyway the guys at the camp negotiated and the taxi driver agreed to pick us back up again.
At Tamani Tenda the girls, who had arrived earlier with our usual taxi driver, were in the middle of a cooking lesson with some local women. Nic and I joined in, although the smoke from the fire meant I was useless but Nic was very enthusiastic ( I later found out that he was mostly excited that because he was cooking with four girls – this would qualify as Dave’s challenge for getting four wives in the Gambia!).
After the cooking lesson we ate the meal which was dried fish, cooked fish, ground up beans and ground nuts (peanuts) with jumbo (stock cubes) mixed into steamed rice. It is a very dry dish but quite nice.
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