This was a lovely thing to see though. I'd been out and came home on the bus and was walking towards the house which also meant walking towards the setting sun. It didn't look anything at all until I entered the compound and stopped at my front door. Beautiful!! I was glad I had my phone with me because by the time I'd gone in and got my camera it would have been all over.
I thought the vulture flying over was a nice touch.
I was travelling in a car with a sister and 5 children in the back. In front of us they noticed two goats on the roof of the bus.
This bus goes from Banjul to Basse so it's a long distance one and the kids wanted to know what the goats were doing on the roof. They have a funny way of speaking. They wanted to know what the goats were discussing. Discussing seems a big word for children to use, British children would ask what they were talking about, not discussing. There were various ideas thrown around but in the end they decided the goats were going on holiday and were discussing what they would do on their holiday. It was a very Gambian moment, couldn't happen in UK for example as you couldn't get that many kids in a car and goats don't travel on the roofs of buses.
This rainy season has been much drier than last year. We don't live on that awful road anymore which makes things a lot easier but I've had to go on studies in that area and haven't been stuck in a puddle once! That's not to say other people haven't got stuck. This road was dry when the sister arrived for the ministry and an hour and an half later had turned into a river. Fortunately there are always plenty of helping hands.
The family moved out of this house earlier this year. They must have known it wouldn't survive another rainy season.
The worst thing I've seen was this tree falling onto our neighbour's house. If it had fallen in the other direction it would have landed on our compound.
The blue cover is over the part of the house that was damaged. The family still live in this house but no one was hurt.
Shame also because it was a lovely tree with flowers that were visited by sunbirds. Haha, I had to get onto birds eventually. There are birds here that we didn't see in the other house. This one is a Little Weaver.
And this is a Yellow Billed Shrike. I love his markings.
But there are also some old friends like this Lavender Waxbill (above) and the African Grey Hornbill (I think this one is a baby) and the lovely Laughing Doves who wake me up every morning with their cooing.
I thought these were fascinating. Termite mounds are HUGE here, much much taller than me, yet they start off like this, these are just 2 cms high. Unfortunately they didn't last long as they were built on the side of the road and got trodden on.
I was very sick for a while, I think it was July. I had been out on a long day and came home feeling tired, not sick, just tired. I ate and went for a lie down. About an hour later I started to feel ill. During the night I started vomiting and the next day I passed out on my way back from the bathroom. Terry isn't one for making quick decisions but before I came round he had arranged to get me to hospital. They took me into the consultation room and all I can remember is sitting in a wheelchair, sprawled out on the table, vomiting all over the table and floor and the doctor asking Terry what my symptoms were. Terry told him I was vomiting. Mmmmm. They couldn't test me for anything because it was Sunday and the lab didn't open until Monday. they put me in a room and put me on a drip. The room was nice, clean but very basic. There was only one electric socket in the whole room and the only thing that was ever plugged into it was my phone charger. I was on a drip for three days. I was sick for about 10 days after coming home and not entirely well for about a month. They said it was probably malaria with gastroenteritis. By the time the lab opened I had been on malaria medication for too long for it to show up anymore.
This is a fish smoker. They burn cardboard boxes because they give off a lot of smoke but don't burn hot. The fish is really nice flaked with lemon juice, diced cucumber and mixed with a stock cube.
Just a few hours after saying I don't see weird things anymore I saw this hanging on my next door neighbour's wall proving me wrong and proving there's more than one way to dry your hair.
