Janjangburreh

To see more of the country, we took a field trip to a town called janjangburreh. It’s a fairly big town/island in the middle of the Gambian River, close to the center of the country. The goal while there was to see some more of the country, to relax on a boat trip, and to attend an hour of a summer teacher training seminar for local Gambian teachers.

We stayed in a “resort”. This resort made Yuna Resort (the first one we stayed in) actually seem like a resort. Although the rooms looked more unique, the water didn’t work, there was no electricity, only a tank could navigate the road to get to the resort, and it was infested with monkeys and bats.

When I say infested, I mean it. The first day when we ate breakfast at the resort, a girl went and got her food, put it down on the table, bent her head to the side slightly so that she could find her chair and sit in it, and while her head was turned ten degrees for about a tenth of a second, 4 monkeys made their move. Apparently they just sit in the shrubbery near the eating area, waiting for people who let their eyes wander. Four monkeys leapt over chairs, onto the table, grabbed as many panquetos as their four fingers and opposable thumbs could carry, and then fled back into the trees. It was UNBELIEVABLE. Every meal, some dude had to carry a large stick, and continuously throw it like a spear into the bamboo where they all sat, planning their next attack; deciding which monkey would be on the front line and which would take the flank. I can just imagine the staff meeting of the resort staff. Every night I bet they play rock, paper, scissors, and the loser has to be on monkey patrol.

To eat without getting your food snatched, you literally had to sit in tight little squares, four people hunched in near their food. In your left hand you held a knife or stick of some kind, to ward off brave monkeys, in your right hand you shoveled your food into your mouth, and your eyes are always darting from side to side, sweeping the area for suspicious and ambitious looking monkeys. Occasionally, you would yell to your friends, “WATCH YOUR BACK!” or “HE’S COMING IN FROM THE LEFT!” or “AERIAL ATTACK!”

Besides the thieving monkeys, we saw some cool animals on our boat trip. There were a bunch of pockets of baboons chilling all along the banks of the gambia river. I also saw a staple of African animal sightings – a hippo! I was SOOO excited. Once I figure out how to zoom in on the picture, I will post it here.