Tuesday, July 20, 2004

the gambia

the seven other CRESP interns and i (along with a senegalese co-worker) went on a trip down to the gambia this past weekend. it was a full day affair going down. we left thursday morning and 9 hours later, after a taxi, a bus, an hour of haggling at the gambian border, another bus, a ferry, and a taxi, we made it to safari garden hotel in fajara (outside of banjul). we'd met gerri and maurice (the owners of the hotel) a few weeks earlier when we were in louly. they had come up to see the village and meet marian because they are setting up an eco-village down in the gambia and were interested to see how things were done in senegal. their hotel was great, a nice restaurant, a pool, close to the beach, and most importantly, free breakfast.

francis and i attempted to work on the design for the solar oven the first day (since we were supposed to present a detailed design to transtech- the plastic company, on monday), while john and nicole played golf (on a course that had 'browns' instead of 'greens') and the others went off to see crocodiles and monkeys. we wandered around banjul in the afternoon, mainly visiting albert market and being harrassed and followed by many people trying to sell us things.

saturday was the best day. gerri and maurice arranged to take us down to kartong, the eco-village they're helping set up. the women and children of the village gave us a great welcome with drumming and dancing, then we were taken to see the sacred crocodile pool. then it was on to another part of the village that maurice had never been to (even though he and gerri go down there every weekend), where they make palm oil, palm wine, and distilled cashew alcohol (which we got to try). then we visited the river port, the border between the gambia and casamance (senegal) and saw the oyster drying and shell industry there. for lunch we went to a UNDP sponsored site, where the youths of kartong are working to build an eco-area with trails and a restaurant. the highlight of the day was at the end, when we ended up at the site of gerri and maurice's future eco-camp on the beach. the nicest beach i've ever been to, totally secluded, warm water, beautiful sand. their plan is to build the eco-lodge in a sustainable manner (ie using bamboo for furniture), train the villagers to run it, and after 25 years, the ownership will be transfered to the villagers.

the trip back to yoff was another long adventure. everything was okay going back to the border, the bus we had arranged for was there to pick us up. nikki, bob, and linda were dropped off halfway at louly, where they're doing a nutritional survey. shortly after dropping them off, a little past the town of mbour, the bus started making a funny noise. the driver stopped, tried to fix it, drove about 30 feet, and stopped again. he realized that it was broken, and since we'd paid him, it was his responsibility to get us back to yoff. luckily alioun (the senegalese partner) was there to negotiate and translate from wolof. we ended up on the last 6 seats of a bang-bang bus (car rapide) packed full of senegalese. that was quite an adventure. but it was a great trip and we eventually made it back here to yoff.

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