After two wonderful weeks of relaxing during the Christmas holiday, it is time to continue with the project again. The end is approaching rapidly and there still are some crucial steps to be taken to conclude the project successfully. We choose to travel back inland on Friday, because the students were very enthusiastic about the (Saturday) market in Brikama Ba. We accept the fact that we have to sacrifice our last vacation weekend for this, because the project is always on top of our priority list.
Although we leave very early, we arrive late at our destination. Partly due to a waiting time of more than 3 hours on the ferry at Banjul our journey takes the whole day. Once we arrive at our regular lodge, the next disappointment awaits us. Our great friend the artist turns out to be absent the next few days due to work. All three of us were very much looking forward to meeting him again and to amaze him with the progress we have made in our own works of art. Unfortunately, we will have to wait a little longer for this.
The next morning we leave early to go the market. The three students we selected based on behavior to go with us are right on time and visibly looking forward to it. We travel by gelly-gelly and arrive at our destination half an hour later. The students know where they have to go, so in the first store we enter we can immediately buy more than half of our shopping list. We agree with the shopkeeper that we'll pick it up later, so we don't have to carry it around in the heat, when we’re looking for the other products. We notice that we are starting to get a little hungry and decide to have lunch first. So far, everything is going very well, but when we return to the first store after lunch and some extra shopping, it almost goes wrong. The shopkeeper thought it was a few minutes instead of a few hours and is not happy with how long we stayed away. The students, fot their part, think they have been given a smaller bag of sugar and do not believe it contains the promised 25kg. After some doubt and a brief consultation, we decide to agree with the shopkeeper because we all start to get tired. We bring all the purchases to a gelly-gelly, tie it on the roof and drive back to the Armitage school. When we arrive there, we store our purchases in the back of the school shop.
The next Sunday we have not so much to do. We write something for our report and then gladly accept the offer of the lodge's manager to cook domoda together. He says he knows exactly how to do this and divides the tasks. Renske cuts the vegetables, Lotte makes the sauce and Barend spends an hour and a half picking seeds from a bowl of rice. We are not sure if this is really part of the job or if the tasks had run out. In any case, the domoda is well received by everyone present and we even get some compliments on our cooking skills. One of the attendees exposes himself as an award-winning cook and even he finds it delicious. 'Sulayman abanju fasata' he said, or 'It was delicious'. We agree to have dinner with him soon as well, to try his award-winning food for ourselves.
The following days we work together with the students, who want to, on the marketing boards. It turns out to be very interesting and a we have a lot of spectators watching. After a while, the spectators also get involved in the design. We only know of less than half of our helpers who they actually are. Despite the large number of painters, it takes a lot of time. We are not progreeing as fast as we hoped for and are forced to abandon some of our ideas if we want to be ready in time for the opening. Also, Lotte is laying sick on bed these days. She is suffering from an yet unknown illness and is unable to work on the project. We are very busy this week so the timing is poor, but she can't do much about it. Every now and then we check if she is still breathing and let her recover in peace.
In the evening, when we visit the small restaurant mentioned earlier, we make a surprising discovery. The words of praise during our self-made lunch turn out to have been harsh criticism. Sulayman abanju fasata', or 'Even the rice was sticky'. The chef offers us to teach how to cook it better and we gladly take up this invitation. It turns out that sorting the rice is really part of the recipe, but apart from that a lot needs to be done differently. The manager himself apparently had no idea how to make a good domoda.
When we make the final preparations on Thursday morning, everything is ready for the festive reopening of the school shop. The signs are in place, the store has been redecorated and the walls are decorated with balloons. Although Mr. Puye thought it would be better to slaughter a cow in the schoolyard, we decided to keep the catering simple and went for juices and cookies. Fortunately, Lotte also felt fit enough to stumble towards the school so there is nothing standing in the way of a good reopening of the school shop. After a speech by the three most prominent figures in the area, the principal cuts the ribbon and the store is officially reopened. We chat with the students and then it was time to say goodbye to everyone who has been part of our project. We are done at the school and will probably never return here which is a weird idea.
Back at the lodge, the artist has also shown up. For a moment we were afraid that we would not meet him again, but fortunately this is not the case. We talk some more about art and tell each other how much we will miss each other. After this we have to say goodbye for the second time today to people we have become very attached to. The lodge has been our home for a long time and it feels strange that we will never see these people again. Then we really have to go because we have called someone to pick us up and are afraid that otherwise he will have to wait a very long time.
Before we travel back to work on our report in Tanjeh for the last week, we enjoy a last weekend at the riverside in Kuntaur. We sleep in, sit in the sun and enjoy the beautiful sunset. Sunday we get into a 7-seater and say goodbye to the inland for good. Except for a flat tire, the trip goes very well and this time we only have to wait a few minutes for the ferry.
When we arrive in Tanjeh we make a terrible discovery. After we did a covid self-test just to be sure, we conclude that all three of us are infected with the corona virus. This explains why we haven't been feeling very fit lately, but it also puts a serious damper on the activities that we had planned for our last days. We decide to make the most of our quarantine period and work hard on our final report.
As this report is finished four days later and we still test positive for corona, the stress increases even more. We have to fly in a few days and it is still unclear who can and cannot travel. Fortunately, at the very last moment we all test negative and we can travel back to the Netherlands with the three of us. When we get on the plane, reality hits us. Our project, and with it our time in The Gambia, is definitely over. Our trip is only a memory now, but a beautiful one. One that we will never forget.
