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Currently Reading Lord of the Flies By William Gerald Golding see related |
Hey all…if anyone’s reading this…oh I’m sure they will after I advertise a bit. Anyways, Entry numero un:
The Gambia…harsh wilderness and land of punk monkies.
So we decide to go down to visit some friends in this little country stuck right in the middle of Senegal. It’s completely surrounded by Senegal, and everyone there speaks Proper British English. I shared our back seat (very roomy of course in our stretch limo) with my brother and sister:
and we proceeded to drive, drive and drive some more, for about 7 hours I believe, before we arrive in the the ferry-town. We tried to leave early enough (5am!) that we wouldn’t have to wait to long, but we didn’t make it on the first ferry so we were sitting in our car on the pier for 3 hours with no air-conditioning on (yes the car we took did have air-conditioning, which is pretty unmissionary-like) and nothing to do. Well when the ferry didn’t come we comsidered hopping into our amphibious limo and making our own way across
But then the ferry came into view and we decided to take the boring route.
I’m 100% positive that they had way more than enough life rafts for everything, I mean come on! It’s an African ferry for goodness sakes. Once we were back on dry land again we drove through the city of Banjul, and out to the village where our friends live. We had a lot of fun with them, they have kids who are 8, 7, 5, and 2 years old. Here are three of them, on the left
And here is their sooo cute (look at the huge brown eyes) 2-year old
That afternoon we got to visit Lauran and her brother Alex, they go to Dakar Academy, but they were back with their parents in the Gambia for part of the summer. We made cookies 
And then…we went to one of the coolest places of the trip. The Monkey Park.
Yeah, so the name doesn’t incite visions of grandeur or amazement, but it was a really neat place. Look at this cute mom and her baby.
And then of course Punk Monkey
nice mohawk eh? And then I caught one soaring through the air
sorry, it’s a bit hard to see against the tree. The next day, Saturday, their oldest son, Daniel and I made a fire to cook lunch sausages on. In the process we got a bit, um, distracted and ended up roasting cashews instead of watching the fire. That was pretty awesome though, you toss the cashews in the fire, when they’re in their shells, and the fire ignites the poisonous gas in a big whoosh of flame *cough* no I’m really not that much of a pyromaniac….ok so I am 
Then we ate
That afternoon we went on a trip around the villages, and we actually crossed over the Southern border into the bottom half of Senegal, called the Casamance. But don’t tell anyone, because we weren’t really supposed to be there 
, there’s a bit of rebel activity…but we only crossed the border a bit and came right back, honest!
the intimidating border guard:
The next day we went to a Gambian church in the morning, it was neat, but the singing was really hard to understand. African people are so cool in church though, they just dance clap, do whatever they want, and don’t care what anyone else is doing Then after church we went to a place haunted by the so-called “Snakeman” He owns a bunch of snakes, and has sort of a little zoo.
My brave sister:
My bro:
And moi:
Then, the trip was over 
and we left for an even longer trip back. another 3-hour wait for the ferry, and then our truck broke down about 4 hours later 
We exausted ourselves trying to push it and get it started, and eventually had to flag down some very helpful Senegalese guys who spent at least 1 1/2 hours helping us, and drove my dad back into town to get a mechanic. He got the truck working temporarily and brought it back to the town, where he took our car battery, and literally cut it open and fixed something inside
We didn’t get to close, definately not safe working conditions. We did finally make it home, very tired, but happy to be there and all still smiling 13 hours in totaly, which calculates out to -5751 bottles of coke left on the wall.
My crazy siblings 
Out the back of our truck, I mean stretch limo
Looks a bit topheavy:
And then, for anyone reading this who’s with my online school, I saw this old billboard on the way home, and made my dad stop.
That’s it for my first entry, I think it was long enough 