15 February 2018
14 February - Brikama & the South
Wandifa and Jereh arrived a little later than planned as Wandifa had forgotten the money he had changed for me the previous evening and they had to go back for it!
We decided to start in Brikama and do our southern round trip from there, leaving out Banyaka as Jerry's car is not good at coping with "too much of sand".
We visited twelve family compounds in all and in many of them we were given a bag of oranges. It is an amazingly good orange crop this year and we passed many orange orchards where the trees were almost completely golden with fruit, really beautiful. I think I must have had my vitamin C intake for the year! Wandifa and Jereh assured me that all would be eagerly consumed by the children in their compounds when they returned home, and the goats would eat the remains, so nothing would be wasted.
We arrived back at the hotel mid afternoon and Jereh agreed to come and collect me in the evening to take me to dinner with David and Jenny, two Pageant members who have just arrived out here and are staying at the Kairaba hotel. It was only when I sat down to dinner in the restaurant and looked at the beautifully decorated menu that I realised it was Valentine's Day!
Nick Taylor also joined us for dinner - you may remember that he has been fund raising for a Gambian project for some time and this was his last evening, following what had obviously been a very rewarding week. He will be sending us a report after he gets back to UK.
I hope that Abdoulie will be back with us today, but will not know until whichever car it is arrives....... to be continued tomorrow.
posted by Dave for Pippa
We decided to start in Brikama and do our southern round trip from there, leaving out Banyaka as Jerry's car is not good at coping with "too much of sand".
We visited twelve family compounds in all and in many of them we were given a bag of oranges. It is an amazingly good orange crop this year and we passed many orange orchards where the trees were almost completely golden with fruit, really beautiful. I think I must have had my vitamin C intake for the year! Wandifa and Jereh assured me that all would be eagerly consumed by the children in their compounds when they returned home, and the goats would eat the remains, so nothing would be wasted.
We arrived back at the hotel mid afternoon and Jereh agreed to come and collect me in the evening to take me to dinner with David and Jenny, two Pageant members who have just arrived out here and are staying at the Kairaba hotel. It was only when I sat down to dinner in the restaurant and looked at the beautifully decorated menu that I realised it was Valentine's Day!
Nick Taylor also joined us for dinner - you may remember that he has been fund raising for a Gambian project for some time and this was his last evening, following what had obviously been a very rewarding week. He will be sending us a report after he gets back to UK.
I hope that Abdoulie will be back with us today, but will not know until whichever car it is arrives....... to be continued tomorrow.
posted by Dave for Pippa
