Sanyang part II

Hello again!
I hope all is well back home. I just got back from a second go-round at Sanyang beach yesterday. This time, Moriba and I spent four nights, five days in a different place than the last time. This place was more like a house, but it had some of the features that you'd see in the compound back in Brikama- the enclosed back room with no roof in particular. This place has a main room that all four rooms are adjacent to. Moriba slept on a bed in one of the rooms, while I slept in a tent in the adjoining shower room (with no roof). During the daytime, we'd sit out under the covered porch playing kora, visiting with some of the people from the compound next door while facing the dirt road that ran in front of the house and on out to the beachside. We didn't have a view of the beach like we did the last time, but you could hear the water once things quieted down later in the evening. Why were things so noisy during the day? Sand trucks! Taking sand from the beach to be used for concrete via huge dump trucks- is a major industry here. They start before the sun is up- probably about 6-7am, and go until dusk (about 7pm. It doesn't get completely dark here until about 8) . With as many sand trucks as I observed go by throughout the five days, you'd wonder if there was any sand left on the beach!
To prepare for a trip, we gather all of our food in the Brikama market. We were driven out by a friend of Moriba's in the little family Volkswagon (probably the equivalent of a VW rabbit) . This time, in addition to all of our things (kora, food, bags), we had three more people! Two women and a young child whom had attended the naming ceremony last weekend and were going back home to the Sanyang area. If you can picture six people plus two koras and bags in a little VW rabbit, you could imagine a fairly tight fit! We ran out of food by day three, so we took a walk down a dirt road, through the bush to the nearby village which consisted of a few shops carrying various odds and ends. This place wreaked of fish, as many of the wooden fishing boats are based here. You should see how they get these things out of the water. Imagine a traditional Native American fishing boat, without the design, but a fair amound larger. You could probably fit up to six people on one of these things. Once in shallow water, the boat is placed on a couple of wooden logs, and rolled in to shore with the help of many people. It was very interesting to watch.
Back to the place we were staying...This place was owned by the brother of a friend of Moriba's named Mr. Karamba. Mr. Karamba and his family live in a compound just across the road from where we were. The compound has a couple of decently sized baobab trees, which were the first that I had seen on the trip. These trees have very large trunks, and the branches pretty much go in every possible direction. They don't really get any taller then a typical fir tree back home though. Given that the only compounds nearby were Karamba's and one other, we had quite a few visitors that were very interested to see a toubab playing the kora. Very friendly people! A few were native of Senegal, one from Sierra Leone who is one of the nicest men I have met here, and have come to Gambia to find work at some of the resorts down at the beachside. Tea would be brewed throughout the day, and passed around communally as usual. During the evenings, Moriba and I would have a campfire, play kora, visit, look at the stars, and listen to the waves of the ocean. I hope to come back here again soon. It gets too noisy a lot of the time back in Brikama to really concentrate on anything.
The car ride home....what an adventure! First off, Morro the driver passed us up in the family VW. Luckily, Moriba saw him go by and ran towards him, yelling to get his attention. While trying to turn around, Morro got stuck in a patch of sand, so while he accelerated, about four people pushed the rear of the vehicle. After he was freed, the engine was running very hot, and he had to stop the vehicle and let it cool. We all went inside and sat in the house for a little while, then packed the car and headed back to Brikama. Some of the sand patches on the way back were much larger this time around due to the heavy traffic from the trucks, so we fishtailed a lot, but hit a paved road with some ease...for a while...until the car ran out of gas! Morro caught one of the Bush taxis coming from Sanyang to Brikama. He returned about an hour later with a gallon of gas, and we arrived home right before it got dark.
Quite the adventure, indeed. Overall, things are going pretty well. I am feeling a little worn out- the naming ceremony experience, being hassled for money, being in a foreign country by myself...I just keep trying to tell myself that I am here to learn and I need to have a positive attitude and not let the small things get to me...

Until next time!