Champions on the Street
Some Gambian men will pretty much tell you anything to get your money. Today on our way to the beach, some guy was following Vanessa and I down the road trying to talk to us. It's hard to be rude but you have to be or else they will bother you forever. Anyway, in a last ditch attempt to make us stop and talk to him he says "You look like....champions on the street!". Hahaha.
Yesterday we had our first day without a meeting and Burris (our NSGA boss from Halifax) had business to do down near the Senegal border (south of Fajara). So 18 of us set off on a little road trip to Kartung. First stop, Tanje Village Museum where a guy has set up a traditional Gambian village and has a bunch of info on the flora and fauna of The Gambia. It was pretty cool. Next stop was at the sacred Crocodile Pit. Gambians go there to pray for something they really want - pretty much anything from passing an exam to curing an illness. There was one croc that kept popping his head up out of the pond but that's the only one we spotted.
The last stop was probably the craziest experience I've had to date. It was a privately owned reptile farm run by a French Polygamist. We think he may have been taking advantage of the Muslim belief that you can have up to 4 wives :) Anyway, he had a pet baboon tied up in front of his house that was too dangerous for us to go near but apparently not too dangerous for his kids to play with. He had all kinds of snakes mostly. A HUGE rock python (not a bad band name) in his front yard - caged of course - and a bunch of other snakes (both poisonous & non). He told us his 2 year old son wasn't very afraid of snakes so he let a non-poisonous snake bite him to teach him a lesson. Uh huh. Gambians are really afraid of snakes and it was pretty funny watching all the men running away everytime he took one out.
It was a great day! Today we had a meeting in the morning and then we just spent 4 hours at the beach. No complaints here.
l8r sk8rs,
b
Yesterday we had our first day without a meeting and Burris (our NSGA boss from Halifax) had business to do down near the Senegal border (south of Fajara). So 18 of us set off on a little road trip to Kartung. First stop, Tanje Village Museum where a guy has set up a traditional Gambian village and has a bunch of info on the flora and fauna of The Gambia. It was pretty cool. Next stop was at the sacred Crocodile Pit. Gambians go there to pray for something they really want - pretty much anything from passing an exam to curing an illness. There was one croc that kept popping his head up out of the pond but that's the only one we spotted.
The last stop was probably the craziest experience I've had to date. It was a privately owned reptile farm run by a French Polygamist. We think he may have been taking advantage of the Muslim belief that you can have up to 4 wives :) Anyway, he had a pet baboon tied up in front of his house that was too dangerous for us to go near but apparently not too dangerous for his kids to play with. He had all kinds of snakes mostly. A HUGE rock python (not a bad band name) in his front yard - caged of course - and a bunch of other snakes (both poisonous & non). He told us his 2 year old son wasn't very afraid of snakes so he let a non-poisonous snake bite him to teach him a lesson. Uh huh. Gambians are really afraid of snakes and it was pretty funny watching all the men running away everytime he took one out.
It was a great day! Today we had a meeting in the morning and then we just spent 4 hours at the beach. No complaints here.
l8r sk8rs,
b
posted by brandy at 2:38 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home