Day 16

Day 16 1/18
This morning’s breakfast was the porridge flavored with bananas. It was very tasty and was accompanied with bread and eggs. We then went to see Charlie the crocodile at Kachikalli that was known as a sacred pool. In this pool there are approx 50 crocodiles and Charlie is the only one with a name who is about 40 years old and is very large. Some of these crocodiles I did not especially like because I thought that they could attack at any moment. We were told that they would not attack us because they are well fed. Also this area is used as a fertility area for women; they go into an area where they are bathed with the pond water which is supposed to promote fertility. For the men, this area is where they were circumcised. This procedure was done under an elephant tree. The tree was very strangely shaped, it had fingerlike roots that were about 5 feet apart. After seeing Charlie we went to Sultan & Sweets where I had the chicken and rice for I think at third or forth time. This time was definitely better than the last time because the chicken was quite moist. If I were to get this type of chicken in the US I would expect to pay somewhere about 15 dollars for this meal, but for the whole group of 22 people to eat was about 75 US dollars. The half of a chicken, rice, and coleslaw costs about 4 dollars, now I see why Buba likes to go to Sultan & Sweets. After lunch we went to the Brikama craft market where they made all of the trinkets in their stores. I bought almost all of my gifts here and had the guy make me a pair of spoons that were to match another piece I bought. I traded 3 shirts today for a couple of the items and then the people wanted my sandals. I tried to explain to the guy that the sandals I had on were the only sandals I had left, but he begged that he would give me his sandals in trade for my sandals. Even though my sandals are a little old I was not about to trade my sandals for some random guys shoes. On the way home we stopped at a jewelry store again hoping to get better deals, the lady working there was not having any of that. At this time we were all pretty tired and headed back to the house for dinner and to study for our test tomorrow. For dinner Muhammad made us squid that we bought yesterday and it was amazing. Muhammad is a very good cook who tries to give us Americanized foods yet still makes some African cuisine for us so we are not too comfortable.
Some of the lectures Buba gives us I don’t agree with, such as the colonialization of Africa by European nations.