Day 8

Day 8 1/10 Monkey Farm
Today we woke up and they served breakfast on time, well before many people were there. We were supposed to go to the University of The Gambia, but apparently the month of January a lot of people take the month off or part of the month because of the tourists season. We then went to the monkey farm where we saw Green and Red monkeys. The Red monkeys were only in the trees and were not able to take pictures of them, but we were able to take many pictures of the Green monkeys. We then went to lunch where we had half a chicken and some rice. At this place I forgot that we were not supposed to accept ice in the drinks, and proceeded to drink from a glass full of ice (hopefully I do not get sick from this forgetfulness). Going to the markets in the afternoon was very exciting. We first went to the batik fabric shop where they were able to use up to 5 colors to either make pictures on cloth or dye the cloth in a tie-dye pattern. I picked up Reline a piece of fabric as a welcome home gift from Ireland. I also did some window shopping and decided to make a list of what I wanted to get other people. I wasn’t planning on buying anything and stuck to that although many people wanted me to check out their shop. After all of the market shopping we went to a place where they served some homemade ice cream. I of course got the raspberry flavored ice cream which was amazingly fruity, creamy, and delicious. Coming back to the house I talked to a few of the guys and I asked them if they wanted to go play some soccer a.k.a. Futbol with some locals. After changing our clothes we walked down the street to a place where many of the locals congregate and hold large soccer matches. We met 2 men there who could have got us into the match but we insisted that we just wanted to watch which turned out to be a really good idea. The pitch was sand and the type of shoe was also personal preference, shoes ranged from sandals to top of the line spikes. On the way back we were almost involved in a dog fight but it was just 2 bully dogs showing their power. Walking through the alley we were approached by a couple kids wanting sweets but we didn’t have anything on us so the just followed us all the way back to our house. If the owner was not behind gate when we walked through the children would have followed us all the way inside the house. We again are supposed to go out tonight although we lost power earlier in the night while sitting around talking with each other. As a group we are starting to bond with each other and realize that these are our new friends for our African adventure. Club time tonight, hopefully I can show some mad dance moves to impress these Gambians who are always so happy.