Hello everybody !
So sorry for not posting for a few days !! I have been itching to tell you things but this is Africa and Internet is not great !
Saturday we went on the roots trip. It was a very early start and we left the hotel at 7am to drive to Banjul. This is about a half hour drive from where I am in Kotu. The traffic in Banjul is chaos - there seem to be no rules. So taxis are stopped and lorries trying to get past, people cut you up from every direction and pedestrians will put there arms through the windows to get money and steal things out the van. Crazy !! Our driver Lamin had a bit of an argument - of course they all speak in their languages (Wolof and mandinka) so we could understand nothing except the tone! Haha We then ran to get on the ferry - 'ferry'. A big piece of scrap metal floating on the river! We were with all the Gambian people, we sat by a young boy who was mending the captains shoes. Stitching the leather back together. He must have been 15/16 I guess. We drove over to an island called Barra, and then departed the boat like cattle. We met our taxi driver - mustafa or his nickname 'taf rasta' he wore big multicoloured trousers, had dreadlocks and had a stripey scarf. He was pretty cool ! The road we then drove down to get to the place where we had to get the boat from to James Island was bright red sand. It was an off-road lane, so bumpy, so sandy. We looked like we were covered in fake bake when we got out the van. We were supposed to be in a land rover jeep thing - can you imagine ?! Even the plants and trees had an orange tinge ! It was fun though - bit like a ride at a theme park ! Great experience. Then we got on a giant canoe to get to James Island. With a man playing an African drum all the way over ! James Island is a bit of an interesting place - it's beautiful views, idyllic are juxtaposed with the horrors of what happened there ! 'If trees could talk' was a phrase our tour guide repeated. The baobab trees there are the same ones that were there at the time kunta kinte would has been a slave on the island ! Insane ! We headed back then, it was so hot we all just needed shade and a shower ! But when we got to the ferry port it had left. So we waited 2 hours GMT (Gambian maybe time - literally) for the last boat to come across to take us back to Banjul. Here we were joined by 2 goats, 1 chicken with its legs tied and a pig tied up in a sack. Gives a whole new meaning to pigs in blankets ! We came home and as we were beginning to think we had finally made it back alive, we got stopped by a very angry police car ! Our taxi driver Lamin paid his way out of it but we all were a little scared I think. (They have death row over here and I think we all panicked ) We then arrived back at the hotel at 8pm very tired and very orange !!
(I'll continue in a new message)