Another month come and gone

Looks like January is on the way out the door and with it another month of life in The Gambia flys by. Things seem to be moving along at a reasonably good pace as far as work goes. Quick update on that:

At the Bee Keepers we finally just about have our contract for the rural processing centers and the improvements at our headquarters site so we should begin construction in the next month or so on that which should be exciting. We also may actually get that water/irrigation system that I was working on some time in the near future. The honey continues to flow in from various sources and we are expanding our sales to various locations around the area. I have also taken on another subproject which is trying to refine the efficiency of our honey processing and bottling procedures. Right now it takes a lot of man hours to do these things and I think with some simple improvements we can make it quite a bit more efficient. Were not talking rocket science but some simple changes might make a significant difference and free up some people to do other things. Maybe I’ll post some pictures of that stuff when I get a little further along.

The college continues to forge into the information age. We have our new internet connection up and running at both campuses. We have a blazing 768Mbps connection here in Brikama and 256 in Banjul. It may sound small but relatively speaking that’s like a T3 in The Gambia. So were trying to utilize those connections to link both campuses and get some other fun stuff going.

Life in general is going well although the heat continues to return slowly. Lydia and I traveled up country this past weekend to visit some friends in various places. We both left Brikama on Friday afternoon and ended up in Ferafennie on the north bank for the night. We met up with quite a few friends there and enjoyed some good food and hanging out. Saturday morning Lydia continued on solo to JanJanbury to see another one of her friend. I stayed in Ferafennie for the rest of the weekend and had a great time. It’s an interesting town right near the border with Senegal (where in the Gambia is not near the border with Senegal?). It’s a transit town for truckers and traders coming over the boarder so it has a lively feel to it and there’s always a lot of activity and the street food is delicious and abundant.

My mom asked how I got to Ferafennie this weekend when I talked to her. I though some of you might be interested in the details and it might give you an idea about travel in W. Africa. When we left our house on Friday we walked to the highway and caught a Gelly-Gelly. A gelly-gelly can be any type of van or bus or truck but is generally either an old beat up mini-van with 11-12 people or a large old beat up Mercedes van/truck thing with 20-35 people. The first type generally run on more urban stretches and the second type are more common on rural/bad road stretches but these generalizations are made to be broken. So the first gelly takes us to a place called West field which is near the PC office. There we switch to another gelly which takes us to the capitol, Banjul. Once there we take a taxi from the car park to the ferry terminal. This is the main and largest ferry terminal in the Gambia and is also there port for the country. So you go in and buy your ticket to get on the boat. Once you have your ticket you run to get on the ferry before it leaves you and try not to get run over by any vehicles also trying to get on the boat. Since there is little in the way of safety regulation its pretty much every man for himself. Now we sat on the boat for about an hour and a half while we cross the river to the north bank. Once we got to the north bank we again have to fight to be the first ones off the boat ahead of the other foot passengers (I’ll explain this in a moment). So we get off the boat and run to the exit of the ferry terminal and dash through the market to the car park. There we try to find a set plas (French for “7 place”) that is almost full to take us to Ferafennie. A set plas is a (old beat up) station wagon that holds 7 people and is much more comfortable than a gelly. The reason we have to be among the first to the car park is that cars only leave when they are full so if you lollygag around and you get to the car park late then there might not be enough people going to your particular destination to fill up the car. Then you have to wait an hour or two for the next ferry to arrive and fill up the car so you can go. Anyway we found a car and it filled quickly so we were on our way. From here its pretty easy barring any major break downs. That said breakdowns are common especially blown/flat tires and broken leaf springs from the bad roads. In fact Lydia had a flat on her way back the other day but she said they guys should join NASCAR due to their speed at changing tires. We made it without any problems and dropped at the junction in Ferafennie where our friend met us. That’s how you get form here to there. All in all it took about 5 hours to go about 150k (93 miles). Not a world speed record but a lot more interesting/fun then cruising down I-10.

That’s it for now. Hope your all well. Thanks to everybody who send packages for the holidays. We have received many and some are still out there somewhere. But don't worry yet there are many stories of packages arriving 5+ months after they were shipped. Give me a shout if you have any questions or just want to say what up. Later.