Days Out With Visitors

A lovely Dutch family visited our meetings so we took them preaching and out in the afternoon.

A cool python round your neck on a hot day.  What's not to love!

 When we'd had our fill of snakes we went for a walk on Boboi Beach and dinner at the Lodge. Somehow the best times with friends always involve food.

Another day we preached in the morning then went on studies.  I took the girls on a couple of mine and we finished with Ndateh so we invited her along with us.

We were told of a place called Lamin Fish Farm which is in the town where we live.  I'm amazed I never heard of it before.  It was small and cheap but very pretty.

I couldn't get a good picture but they kept Indian peafowl and some were leucistic (similar to albino but they don't have pink eyes).  I don't know if this one was semi-leucistic or was the result of cross breeding between the two.  I've never seen one before.

Ndateh was fascinated by the ostrich.  She'd never seen one before.

The guide told us they did have four but three died.  What happened?  The got their heads stuck in the gate.  You would think that after the first one died they would do something about the dangerous gate but no.  "This is Gambia."

In the next cage were two ducks.  The guide told us they had lots more but they died.  What happened?  Ants.  The ducks were in a large run but were put in smaller cages at night and the ants came and ate them alive.

Moving swiftly on . . . .

There are fish tanks in the middle with lots of different fish.  All managing to survive.

But the very best part was this beautiful lake.  I don't know how long we stayed there but I could have moved in.  It was so pretty and green.  Gambia is very brown in the dry season so to find this oasis was wonderful.

They keep fish in here too, catfish and tilapia

The owner had joined us by now and produced a fishing rod for anyone who wanted to catch a fish and throw it back.

Maresa caught a big one . . .

Terry was hoping to catch some supper,

 but only caught a tiddler.

We finished the day with a meal at Blue Kitchen

Their holiday ended with a meeting.  We'll miss you guys. Xxx

Birds and some random Gambian scenes

Watermelon season is a great time to see birds.  I spike pieces on the fence near my back door and sit and wait to see what happens.

African Thrush

Western Grey Plantain Eaters

They're such happy looking birds, always look like they're smiling.

This is Black Necked Weaver

And her mate

Our fence is a bit ugly so I put these bright cups with seeds in and suddenly the brown fence is full of colour.

Grey Headed Sparrow

I'm not sure if this is Mum or Dad feeding the chick but it was lovely to watch.


Beautiful Sunbird

The male is far more striking but I can't help falling in love with the female.  She's very pretty and dainty.  Sunbirds are the African version of hummingbirds but as far as I know they don't hover.

We sometimes meet monkeys when we preach near the nature reserves.

This baobab tree is huge, it must be hundreds of years old.

Typical preaching scenes

This isn't very typical.  A sister and I go out to territory that is assigned to our congregation but has NEVER BEEN WORKED.  Its so far out in the bush it can't be done on foot and many of the brothers don't want to work far from the highway even when I offer to take them in the car.  There are many Catholics in this area so it makes a change from the mainly Muslim territory where we usually work.

The little bumps on this termite mound mean it's full of termites.  They're constantly repairing and extending them.  During the rains they get washed smooth again and if there are no repairs by now it means the colony has died.  Some mounds only have small areas of these bumps but this was covered, there must be millions and millions of termites inside.

Terry going out to Bible studies on his bike.

We went to visit with some friends who have a vegetable garden so they trap animals who are eating their crops.  While we were they caught a Gambian Pouched Rat which isn't really a rat.  This one was so cute they decided to keep it.  They named it Mango.  This picture was taken in the trap but don't worry, he won't stay in there.

We're in the dry dusty season now.  The Harmattan winds blow down from the Sahara Desert.  It's hard work trying to keep the house clean and it plays havoc with your skin but it's great for drying the laundry.

This was a recent sunset at the beach.

Gambian fishing boats

The fishermen aren't allowed to sell juvenile fish so they catch them, bring them in and leave them to die on the beach.  Even the animals need the Kingdom.

End of the rainy season

In some ways I love the rainy season.  Everywhere is green and the grass grows up to 5 feet tall.

This is the entrance to my garden.  There's a lawn on the other side but I let the grass grow around the edges cos it's so gorgeous.

 It made such a nice backdrop to lovely warm evenings and a glass of chilled wine.

The landlady has a gardener to look after the rest of the compound.  In the bottom right of the top picture you just about see the top of my compost heap.  I throw kitchen scraps and grass cuttings on there.  For some reason the gardener keeps taking it away so the other day when I was on my way out I asked him to leave the compost heap alone.  I know it's not in my own garden, its outside in the public area, but it's really not in anyone's way.  Somehow he managed to misunderstand and thought I wanted all the grass taking away from my garden.

This is what I came home to.

 

The rains have stopped now so it's going to be hard work to get it back to being a lawn again.

I hung some teacups on my ugly fence and put seeds and water for the birds.

 

It's very hot.  I'm sure we didn't get temperatures like this in previous years.  It's actually only mid 30's but feels much, much hotter.

Muppets With Machetes

The kankurang is a tradition intended to scare people.  It's to do with the initiation rites when boys (usually around 15 years old) get circumcised.  During the day he is just a man dressed up who goes around the neighbourhood scaring people.  He carries two machetes which he bangs together and shouts loudly and menacingly. 

They say that at night he can fly to the top of trees, duplicate himself and makes himself invisible.  The purpose of this is to attack witches and evil spirits. 

Needless to say I keep a distance when I hear them coming but sometimes I can't avoid them like when I ran into them a couple of weeks ago. 

As a white woman alone in the car I was a prime target!

There were around 150-200 boys following them.  I had to stop driving and eventually the car was surrounded by young men, posturing and shouting.

One man stuck his head in the window (it was WAY too hot to close the windows, I'd have died of suffocation) and asked if I was ok. This was my only opportunity to get them off my car.

"Tell them to get off my car or I'll take their machetes and circumcise them AGAIN!"

I used to be such a nice person.  Don't know what happened to me.

2016 Update

I had no idea how long it had been since I updated my blog.  A couple of people have mentioned it so I thought it's time to update you on what I've been up to lately.

I'm still loving my birds.

Okay, you get the idea.  My love of nature isn't restricted to birds.  I also love snakes and we are very fortunate to have a reptile farm about an hour's drive away where you get to cuddle (and be cuddled by) pythons!!

I took a huge bunch of kids to the snake farm and to the beach afterwards.  They never get to go to the beach so it's a real treat for them.  They don't have swimming costumes, they just run about in their underwear.  They don't have towels either.  Just stuff we take for granted.  I gave out some of my old ones.  But not having the 'proper' beach equipment doesn't stop them from having fun.

Our friends, Clare and Susan came for a month.  We love it when people visit.
Clare loved it so much she decided to move here and will rent a house in our compound.

Cute isn't it!

 We did the usual touristy stuff with them, snake farm, crocodile park etc.  Terry prefers not to get too close to the crocs, he prefers looking at weird fruit.

Oh! Nearly forgot my cats.  I seem to get through quite a few here.  Sadly.

This was my adorable cat, Smwt.  He was so affectionate and lovely.  He got in a fight and died of rabies.  He's not dead in this picture, he's just sleeping.

He was a funny cat, he loved me pouring water on him. I've never had a cat quite like him.

And poor little Minty.  I found him while we were out preaching.  He had a damaged back leg but it turned out to be tetanus and we couldn't save him.

So now we have Bryniog, remember that cute little kitten we adopted during construction?  He managed to survive all the nasty diseases and accidents that befall cats here and has grown into a lovely healthy cat.

And Hilja who belonged to our neighbours who moved back to Europe.  He's a bit of a grump but I love him anyway.

Next time I'll post a few pictures of our trip to UK.  It's hard work writing anything at the moment.  October is the hottest month.  As I'm writing it says 33 feels like 46.  It occasionally reaches 50.