the journey to the Binnenland

Hello again!

On the 25th of November, our journey to the binnenland had begun. We were traveling with 11 people in a van that was made for only 9, the weather was very hot and we had to drive for 6 hours that day, but despite all that it was a very nice day.

Before we left, Achu said his prayers for a safe trip and he blessed the car with water. I was sitting in the front of the car next to one of the two open windows and almost for the complete 6 hours, my right arm was resting on the door or hanging outside the car. This seemed like a very good idea, because it was really comfortable and the wind blowing on my arm felt cooling. BUT the hot sun made sure my right arm became sunburnt, while the other was still as white as snow :). I do not remember all of the names of the villages that we visited during our trip, but I do know that after 2 hours we made a stop at a lodge to eat lunch. The lodge was located next to mangrove and which gave us a beautiful view while we were eating. The only downside to the place was that it was crowded with all sorts of insects, and those of you who know me would know that I was not happy with that. After lunch we drove to Georgetown, where we had to take the boat to cross the Gambian river, and again, most of you would know that this did not make me very happy either. At 19;00 we arrived at the lodge where we would spent 2 nights. We had to share rooms and I was paired up with Fleur, who is a girl my age. She is a really nice girl, but up until now I did not really have a click with her. When we were settled, we went to the dining table and had dinner. The dinner was very nice, I had spaghetti with tomato sauce and watermelon for desert. However the evening was not very nice. The lodge where we were staying did not have any electricity, so we had to put candles on the tables. This would not have been any problem, however the candles on the table were attracting literally every insect in the area, so within no time, our whole table was filled with flying little monsters. I was so scared at that moment that I had to cry and I went to my bed as soon as dinner was over and I did not come out of my mosquito net until the next morning.

Anouk, are you sure this is a nice trip?

YES! Beside all of the little downsides, this trip has got to be one of the most impressive things I ever got to experience. And to make it not too long for you to read I decided to only tell the highlights.

First of all, I want to denote the fact I have overcome so much of my fears on this trip! I am not afraid of chicken anymore, not afraid on boats anymore (I even ENJOYED the beautiful boat trip on the last day) and my fear of insects has decreased  so much as well! I am so happy about it and I am kind of proud of myself too :).

Second of all, during our trip we visited many family members from the staff working at Alhagie’s compound. For example we visited Alhagie’s family (which is also the family of Yakuba, JJ, Mohammed and Franco), Alhagie Ba’s family, Haouwa’s family (including her  100+ years old grandma), Mohammed’s family and some other families who I do not remember where we know them from. ANAYWAYS, the families were all living in the binnenland, most of the villages did not have electricity and the families are also very poor. The houses are very small and made from clay and sand with leaves on top and the toilets are nothing more than a hole in the ground. Every family consisted of so many children! It looked like a whole classroom was living there and I am seriously surprised by how they keep themselves alive. BUT the most impressive thing of all was that those families where SO VERY HAPPY! Everybody was constantly smiling and were proudly showing us all the stuff they had, which I thought was very beautiful to see!

Third of all, while we were having breakfast at the lodge we were staying, some monkey stole my bread…. He was lucky to be cute, otherwise I would have been very angry at him :).

Fourth of all, while we were in Yakaba, a group of kids (I think almost all of the kids in the village) took us by our hands and gave us a tour through the village. They showed us their special tree, which had a big and very deep hole underneath it. There was a legend saying that there was once a cow that got lost and fell into the hole underneath the tree and got killed by the snaked that lived there. It was kind of cool to see the tree, even though I do not really like nature.

Fifth of all, we went to visit a school somewhere, which was very interesting. All the staff and children from the school were waiting for us at the gate and when we finally arrived they started to make music and dance for us. They dragged us along and we were forced to dance with them, which was nice, because seeing everybody so happy made me happy :). We got a tour through the school area and the classrooms and at the end we were obligated to attend their meeting. They were telling us how happy they were with our visit and our sponsoring and how much they appreciated us. That’s all I still remember from it, because the meeting lasted for almost an hour and was held in Mandinka, the local language of the Gambia and so I did not understand what they were saying,

Pre-last of all, our trip was supposed to last one day longer, however when we arrived on Tuesday evening at the lodge where we were planning on staying was full and so we had to drive all the way back to Tanji. We arrived at our compound at 23:30 and everybody was very tired from the long day. Because of this, we were not able to do the boat trip through the mangrove the next morning…

BUT, last but not least, the next morning we drove to the Gambian river and had our boat trip over there :). I thought it was pretty scary at first because the boat was very small, but I ended up enjoying it very  much. We rowed over the river next to the different typed of mangrove and we got to pay a visit to pelican island, and somehow the pelicans did not scare me anymore.

AAND that ends my short summary of the 4-days binnenland journey!

I am so sad about the fact that I cannot upload any pictures due to poor quality of the internet, so you will have to wait for pictures until I am back in Holland OR you can check out my Facebook or Instagram page :).