25.1.14 Saturday. Clean up day

Set Settal, the local name for clean up day today, all traffic is suspended for the morning and everyone is supposed to be at home or work cleaning up the environment around their place.  Western rubbish is the biggest problem here, things introduced into the country that the local people do not know how to cope with.  There are no recycling plants here so all rubbish is left in the street, hoping that it will disappear like all natural waste.

The area in front of the storeroom had accumulated lots of rubbish, mainly plastic bags,  and we decided to set a good example to our neighbours and spend the morning clearing the area.  Mell, James, John, Steve and I; armed with rakes, shovels and a lighter, spent half the morning clearing all the rubbish and having several small fires.  Kebba and some friends joined in with their machetes and we cleared a large area of shrub where the rubbish had stuck on to the branches and so we managed to tidy up half the street.  Several passers by stopped to say what a good job we were doing, but no-one offered to help! Once the traffic curfew for clean up day was lifted, Steve and James went to do a delivery at Abuko and to collect Mr Jallow’s bike which had broken down there.  All the packing done for our travellers today we went to the beach for a last swim and to order dinner. Unfortunately the wind had really got up today and it was cold! on the beach, only John braved the sea.  The bar is part owned by a Swiss couple and we were pleased to get our dinner at 4.30pm which was the time we had booked it.  Steve and Jim were back in time to join us to eat, we left the beach and sat in the bar, huddled under our towels trying to get warm.  An excellent meal, we will be back!    Home for shower and change and then we went to the airport to drop Gill and John and collect Linda.  The 4 of us at in the Sky bar and watched the plane arrive, Gill stayed with us to greet Linda, Christine Schofield and the others, and then she and John made their way to the departure lounge.  Christine and 4 others went off in their transport whilst Linda joined us to return home and meet Mell and James.