(People seem to be endlessly fascinated with the length of my toes.)
(The good life! Drinking beer in the Kombos.)
(The lone figure sat by our broken down gele is me! This is when the driver was on his petrol hunt.)
(The girls doing yoga on our verranda.)
The travel chaos continues… I have to tell you about the gele journey from hell. Never I hope to be repeated. We decided that we had to return to Soma having spend a highly indulgent week in the Kombos. It wasn’t a great start to the journey when we got to Brikama and ended up paying over the odds for our bags as we came up against some tough gele operators. The journey went decidedly down hill from there though…About half an hour into the journey the gele came to a grinding halt when the gears got stuck and the driver spent 10 minutes trying to yank the thing into gear. This may have been our sign to leave the gele behind us and go back to Brikama but we chose to keep an optimistic outlook. About an hour into the journey we had just left the tarmac road and hit the bumpety bumpety road when the back window fell out of the gele and we had to turn around and rattle back to fetch it. So we proceeded windowless. So two hours into our journey the gele suddenly grinds to a halt again. It soon became clear that the driver in his wisdom had decided that 10 litres of petrol was sufficient to get us to Soma and had, of course, run out of petrol. So we sat on the side of the road for 4 hours while the driver hitched a lift first one way and came back empty handed, then he hitched a lift in the opposite direction and was gone hours. It did crack us up that the apparantee guy, after asking us for our “”nice names”, ( the usual spiel) turned around to look at the gele and announced proudly. “This is my car!” At which point we looked at each other. I wouldn’t be using that as a chat up line if I were you mate!
A headteacher from one of the schools in Soma happened to be traveling on the same gele so thankfully he was able to tell us something about what was happening. Somebody had a big bag of mangoes so we were handed several of these which was good because we didn’t have any food with us and not much water either. It’s a very nice thing about the Gambian people. They will always share with you what they have. I think sometimes the sense of humour diverges. As we were standing out on the road, one of the guys said to me “ Give me your phone!” I looked at him slightly baffled and asked the head teacher. “Why is he saying that?” and he just laughed. “He wants you to give him your phone.” So I gave him my best frown “ I’m not giving you my phone. If I gave it to you I wouldn’t have a phone anymore”. I’m sure he meant it as a kind of joke but I was failing to see the funny side at this point.
After four long hours the driver returned, thankfully with a can of petrol, and put it in. So we all climbed back into the gele and held our breath as the ignition coughed and coughed. Nothing! So then all the guys get out and start pushing the gele. It started reluctantly and then they all ran and one by one jumped into the gele. It reminded me of the film Little Miss Sunshine. We were on our way.
Of course the story doesn’t end there. Oh no. By this time it is getting dark. Every police check point we have to stop at, the gele stalls, won’t start again and the driver removes the bulky cover and starts pumping the gears. If that doesn’t work, again the men have to get out and push. Practically every time we stop at a police check the driver gets into trouble because his back lights don’t work and he spends 10 minutes fiddling with them to get them to come on. Every time we hit a hill the gears give up and as the gele chugs to the top I am silently praying its not going to give up and starting rolling back down the hill.
As you can imagine this is the longest journey ever and Kate and I have no idea how close we are to Soma. I am beginning to imagine all sorts of scenarios and wish that I had watched more Ray Mears to enable me to survive a night in the African Bush. To top it all, the driver is hurtling down these potholed roads which he can’t really see properly, at a tremendous speed when he loses control of the gele and almost turns us over. Kate is swearing loudly and the other people shouting at the driver in various languages. I’m just gritting my teeth in silent terror. When this happened thankfully we were only about 15 minutes from Soma (although we didn’t know that at the time.) Finally I spotted the painted wall of the Kaira Konko scout lodge and knew that we were home. At least if the gele broke down now we would be able to walk the last kilometre. 10 hours from the time we left Brikama the gele chugs into the gele park and we stumble out of it, grab our bags and dazed and traumatized, stumble up our long road in the darkness not really having the energy to speak. Of course I like the adventure of traveling and the odd quirky event that adds colour. But give me national express anyday!
(oh and I discovered later my ipod had been stolen. Really great day!)
Anyway we're over it now. Have been going out this week to some schools, on my own on the motorbike! (That's a bit brave of me) to do some jolly phonics training, team teaching and model lessons. So I'm glad to be doing something constructive. The rains haven't started yet so the humidity is horrible. We found a new way to entertain ourselves, doing yoga on our verranda and the kids came and joined in which was nice.
A headteacher from one of the schools in Soma happened to be traveling on the same gele so thankfully he was able to tell us something about what was happening. Somebody had a big bag of mangoes so we were handed several of these which was good because we didn’t have any food with us and not much water either. It’s a very nice thing about the Gambian people. They will always share with you what they have. I think sometimes the sense of humour diverges. As we were standing out on the road, one of the guys said to me “ Give me your phone!” I looked at him slightly baffled and asked the head teacher. “Why is he saying that?” and he just laughed. “He wants you to give him your phone.” So I gave him my best frown “ I’m not giving you my phone. If I gave it to you I wouldn’t have a phone anymore”. I’m sure he meant it as a kind of joke but I was failing to see the funny side at this point.
After four long hours the driver returned, thankfully with a can of petrol, and put it in. So we all climbed back into the gele and held our breath as the ignition coughed and coughed. Nothing! So then all the guys get out and start pushing the gele. It started reluctantly and then they all ran and one by one jumped into the gele. It reminded me of the film Little Miss Sunshine. We were on our way.
Of course the story doesn’t end there. Oh no. By this time it is getting dark. Every police check point we have to stop at, the gele stalls, won’t start again and the driver removes the bulky cover and starts pumping the gears. If that doesn’t work, again the men have to get out and push. Practically every time we stop at a police check the driver gets into trouble because his back lights don’t work and he spends 10 minutes fiddling with them to get them to come on. Every time we hit a hill the gears give up and as the gele chugs to the top I am silently praying its not going to give up and starting rolling back down the hill.
As you can imagine this is the longest journey ever and Kate and I have no idea how close we are to Soma. I am beginning to imagine all sorts of scenarios and wish that I had watched more Ray Mears to enable me to survive a night in the African Bush. To top it all, the driver is hurtling down these potholed roads which he can’t really see properly, at a tremendous speed when he loses control of the gele and almost turns us over. Kate is swearing loudly and the other people shouting at the driver in various languages. I’m just gritting my teeth in silent terror. When this happened thankfully we were only about 15 minutes from Soma (although we didn’t know that at the time.) Finally I spotted the painted wall of the Kaira Konko scout lodge and knew that we were home. At least if the gele broke down now we would be able to walk the last kilometre. 10 hours from the time we left Brikama the gele chugs into the gele park and we stumble out of it, grab our bags and dazed and traumatized, stumble up our long road in the darkness not really having the energy to speak. Of course I like the adventure of traveling and the odd quirky event that adds colour. But give me national express anyday!
(oh and I discovered later my ipod had been stolen. Really great day!)
Anyway we're over it now. Have been going out this week to some schools, on my own on the motorbike! (That's a bit brave of me) to do some jolly phonics training, team teaching and model lessons. So I'm glad to be doing something constructive. The rains haven't started yet so the humidity is horrible. We found a new way to entertain ourselves, doing yoga on our verranda and the kids came and joined in which was nice.
