Our trip to Banjul, Gambia

Well this was certainly an adventure - here are some pictures from our trip. The above tree was our rest stop where we ate, used the "facilities" and rested. When we stopped here there was only 1 African watching us, when we left there were 3. I am sure they haven't seen many toubabs peeing out in the bush before. The picture below is a where they do the salt mining - they pull it from the water.

This is what the road looked like much of the trip - and to top it off our air conditioner stopped working as we started the second half of the trip and we had to have our windows down! This is their attempt to help the dust - make it mud!
Here is a mosque we saw on the way. The picture below is while I was waiting at the border. Two men praying for the mid-day prayers. Crossing the border was interesting as well. We have never crossed a border in the car. We had to stop at 4 offices and get a multitude of stamps. It took forever!

Here are some of the "few" kids we had around our car while we waited to get on the ferry. We got to the ferry at 3:00 and finally got on the ferry at 11:15. We really haven't seen corruption while we have been in Africa, aside from one police officer wanting tea money. But this was terrible. Many people came up to our car and asked us if we were wanting to go to the front of the line for a fee for the captain. We politely said no. So what they were doing was, those that paid went to a special line and those that didn't waited in the regular line. So when each ferry came they let a few cars from the regular line and all of the bribe paying line. This went on all day, so that we got on the last ferry across to Banjul. So we sat and waited for 8+ hours. During that time we saw many sellers, kids, animals, beggars, etc. Here are a few pics.

We were stopped in front of a Koranic school and here is a boy with his tablet of arabic.

Here is Faith after we finally made it on to the ferry - she was riding in our friends car - this says it all! We finally made it to the hotel around 1:30 and we fell into bed (after washing away the grime from the trip that was literally caked on our necks).

The hotel we are staying at is gorgeous and I will post some pictures tomorrow - right now I am in the internet room and I am being bit up by mosquito's!

Pictures

We went to a wedding for a daughter of our supervisors - it was right on the beach!

This is a little girl that was watching the ceremony.

It was so funny - during the ceremony all these vendors walked down the beach!

Here are some pictures from Luke's birthday!


His class enjoying some cupcakes.

These are some pictures of the vendors on the road! I am sure that you thought I was exaggerating!

The kids finished up school last week and we now have an eighth grader, sixth grader and third grader. They all did very well in school - although Zach had the hardest transition. We have been told next year it will be easier as they won't be the new kids and they know what to expect.

Tuesday we leave for the Gambia. Pray for safe travels, as we are told that the roads are horrendous. Pray also for the ferry ride - we have been told that it could take up to 10 or more hours to get a ride on the ferry (unless you pay to get to the front of the line). We are hoping to get there early enough to beat the rush, but it is still a long day. In the training we will be learning how to share a story of Jesus' life - from creation to the cross. It is an English speaking country so that helps, we are also told there are a fare amount of Wolof speakers too. So we are hoping that we won't digress in our language. We not sure of our internet availability while we are there, but will post whenever possible.