A Visitor

I just had my dad in to visit. It was really fun having him here and doing all the Gambian stuff (the great and the less than great) with him. We did a lot, ate a lot, walked a lot, saw a lot of animals, rode in a lot of vehicles, and survived a lot of nights without air conditioning.  And I know I had a lot of fun.
We did a bit of traveling around the country. We spent a few days in the city going to the monkey park, the beach and the nature reserve. During this time, Dad and I saw tons of monkeys both wild and too tame, found out how big hayenas really are and Dad got to encounter his first bumsters (boys whose "job" is to hang out on the beach and try to make any unwitting tourist, especially older white women, their ticket to a new life in Europe. Next we traveled to my village. We were welcomed by all the children, who still managed to really like Dad even though none of them could understand anything he ever said.  Dad picked up a few words of Jola in our time in Saliyaa, so he could at least greet people and by the end he even got some "na jamjam"s meaning "he can hear the language."  We went to see the river and all the cool trees of the area. I took him to the school, so he got to see what a day of school-based confusion/work looks like.  He even got to help in the garden a little.  Mostly though, we just hung around the village so he could get to know the people I'm with all the time.  We took a break from village to go to Janjangburreh (JJB), where we took a boat trip to spot hippos and got to spend some time with the monkeys at our hotel. We even got part of our breakfast stolen by one highly skilled monkey.  On the JJB trip, Dad got a good taste of gelly riding.  Its a rough and dusty off-roading with sheep on top of your car experience and we made it through.  We even made it home on time.  The last leg of our trip was Kartong. We hung out on the beach a lot. We happened to be there for Tobaski, the biggest Muslim holiday of the year, so we spent the day with the family of a friend in the village.  It was a nice experience, and the food was great.  We had so much beef: chunks of beef and onions, beef and rice, and beef sandwiches. It was unbelievable. Then the next day we went on a long walk on the beach to walk off some of the excess food from the previous day of gluttony.  Then, all too soon, it was time to go to the airport again.