Just a quick blurb about my day yesterday/today. Yesterday was just wonderful. We all awoke at the Basse house at 6:30 and traveled 2km through town [again] with all our bags [again] and grabbed a Gele to Soma on the Southbank road. That equals pure torture.
I’m beginning to think that taking Seasonique was a bad idea, as my period decided to come while I was on the gele and it was not pleasant. We were smooshed among several Gambians and I am pretty sure our driver was 15. We ended up in the African Bush and we pulled over several times so the cops could inspect our luggage [apparently there is a lot of drug smuggling over here]. After about 9 hours of driving, our gele broke down. Let me please include a picture of this scene.
If you will look to the right of the vehicle, you will see Babucar, one of our LCF’s, praying. In the middle of the street. To the left of the vehicle is our driver with our other LCF’s and a random man attempting to fix the tire. To the complete left of the picture, you see a bunch of Fula children staring at the toubabs. This was surreal. I took this picture directly after having a gardia attack behind a large baobob tree [thank you again Liz for guarding].
We climbed back onto the gele and finally made it into Soma. Let me rewind a little bit and give a little story. Approximately one week ago, a small red ant viciously attacked my second toe [yes, Marsey, the hideous ET toe that’s longer than the big toe]. It was no big deal until the past few days. By the time we got to Soma, my entire foot was swollen to twice its’ size and was red. My ankle looked like it was pregnant and my toe was throbbing. My foot was FILTHY. We hopped on a gele and rode into Kwinella… on the way there, we passed by Bambako and Bumari. I saw Mustafa! He is such a sweetie. I hung out the window to yell to him and he was like, “SAAATUUUU!!!!” and waved, despite carrying a bucket of water on his head.
I tapped Babucar on the shoulder and said, “Babucar, Ismila le?” And he was like, “A be je” [Where is Ismile? He is there only]. I was like, man. Then Babucar goes, “Ismila a fele!” and points to the road. Sure enough, he is walking in all his African glory with a few of his buddies, sees me, and does a double hand-wave. When we got back to Kwinella, Babucar called my host father and told him to send Ismila to Kwinella after 9o’clock prayer. HE CAME. He brought attaya, we all drank it, and I didn’t get to bed until 11:30. It’s rather interesting and awkward and I don’t really know what to do about it. So that is all I will say about that.
Next. Liz and I sleep on the floor that is crawling with ants. I have a bizarre dream that she’s under the bed and wake up all messed up. 5:30am comes and we leave to go to Kombo. The gele is fairly uneventful. The only thing that really happened was an insane dust storm evaded the ‘bus’ and I inhaled it all. Lungs didn’t feel so great but that’s not a big deal.
And now, here I am. Off to study for my Mandinka test! I am very tired after 3 days of insane traveling, and I am broke, so I need to find a bank as well so I can cash the 20 my gramps sent me for Christmas :o] Love you all!
a picture of Lizzy and my delicious egg sandwich! HEAVENLY.
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