8th March, 2015. Sunday. Travel to Kumbija

Omar arrived early this morning and joined us for breakfast before we set off with him as the driver on the south bank highway to Soma.  Omar is a very good and safe driver and we arrived at the ferry crossing in 3 hours.  The queues of both trucks and private cars was extensive, but fortunately we had the priority crossing and were able to jump to the front of the queue, in fact we were the first car on the next available ferry.   The Senegalese and Gambian Governments have joined in beginning to build a bridge across this crossing point which is much narrower than the river mouth at Banjul.  The foundation stone was laid three weeks ago and there is evidence of work happening on both sides of the river.  We arrived in Farafenni and bought some food items for our hosts to cook for us.  I also had a special delivery for Alagie the man who sells cement here in Farafenni and often gives us credit when we are building in the area.  He had asked us for Jean Paul Gaultier after shave when we came this time, I delivered the precious item to him, he was delighted that we had remembered and said he would sleep with it under his pillow!!  We drove on to Kumbija and were met at the school by Baatchi the caretaker, who unlocked the gates and then when we had parked up gave us both big hugs as he had missed us.  It would seem that most of Gambia have been praying for Steve to recover, and many of the villagers came to inspect his foot, offering advice and directions to various medicine men or ‘maribous’ who would be able to speed his recovery.  Alieu, Mr Sowe and Deja all came to meet us and sit with us under the mango tree for a while.  Then Steve and I went in the truck to Farato to meet with Ousman’s family and take lots of photographs for George who had stayed with them 2/3 years ago and wanted to see how the children had grown.  We delivered the food items for cooking, were taken to inspect the new garden project that Alagie is over seeing, met the neighbours and then returned to the school to meet Omar who wanted to take us to a nearby wood for some bird watching.  We stayed watching the birds until nearly dark and then returned to the school for the evening, more people came to visit and eventually Alagie arrived with our dinner.  Omar shared our meal and then we retired for the night to sleep in the classroom under a mosquito net on an airbed, whilst Omar went to share the accommodation at Baatchis’ house and no doubt drink Atayer.