To the Ladj and Back

Thursday Jackie, Alyssa, and I left the desert-y Thies region to visit Tamar on her island in the Sine-Saloum Delta. I took a bus to meet the other two in Thies then we got into a 7-place to Joal. In Joal we ate a delicious lunch while watching a fish farm pond. After lunch we arranged our transport to Tamar's mainland town. It was going to be $2 a person in a 14 seat mini-bus... we were seats 2,3, and 4 - the bus wouldn't leave until all 14 people were there. We asked, just to know, how much renting a car would be... total it was going to be $10... so we took that option. The driver cut across salt flats and drove, occasionally, at what seemed like a 45 degree angle. We got to the dock and found the boat to Tamar's island - Mar Ladj - which we shorten to "the Ladj" (pronounced like "lodge").

We spent two days in the Ladj cooking delicious food and enjoying the island life. Tamar's island in the river which is a tidal river and VERY salty (even though I'm 30km from the river my water is salty because of the river). We swam, hung out around a beach, and enjoyed our mini-vacation.

This morning Alyssa, Jackie, and I started the trek back to site. We ran for the boat and caught it in time. After about 30 minutes we got to the mainland and piled into a bus. We were then moved to another bus. That bus left and about two and a half hours later we were piling into a 7-place. The three of us were the last three in the car so we paid, then got into a fight about the money/change, then left the garage. Once we got to Thies we met up with Kerry to talk about some of the training for the new volunteers.

After lunch I got in another 7-place to finally get back to site. I was the second to last person in the car so I was in the last row. The last guy loaded a rice sack and got into the middle seat in the last row, next to me. I turned around the glance at my backpack and a bird head popped out of the rice sack! It turns out he was traveling with 4 pigeons in a rice sack that had some air holes. Throughout the ride one pigeon kept really working on sticking his entire body out of a hole. I honestly was sure it was going to escape and fly around the car. Luckily it did not and I got back to Bambey without a pigeon attack.

Tomorrow I have some more scholarship meetings and then I need to really start tackling my to-do list for my last few weeks!

KO