Wait, did I just pee myself?

I'll get into the title of this post later...don't worry.

But let me begin by saying that today we spent most of the day in the car, again. We woke up around 8 am to have breakfast and to pack up. We got the van packed and we were on our way around 9. We drove to the other side of the island to see the bridge that they were building so that the people wouldn't have to rely so heavily on ferry transportation. Where they were creating a bridge, we found another ferry that was operated by man power. Right next to the site, we saw the straightest lines of rice I think I've ever seen. We were told that it was maintained and ran by the prisoners in the local prison on the island. We then jumped back into the van and headed back towards where we came from. We passed our hotel area and then stopped at a school. When we got out, it was not only a school, but also the first created Methodist church. A man came out and unlocked the church for us. It was so old and so beautiful! We wandered back outside and towards the road. We then saw the first wooden colonial house in the Gambia which was inhabited by some of the first freed slaves. We then walked past one of the few prisons located in the Gambia and saw the Senior Secondary School that we were supposed to tour, but we had far too much ahead of us. We walked back to the van and started to wait for the ferry. We waited for a while because the ferry wouldn't operate unless if it had 2-3 vehicles loaded. We crossed the small river and again, were on our way.

We stopped by an old port that used to play a huge role in the development of the country. There were (what seemed to be at least) miles and miles of rice fields. Where ever we drove, kids were screaming tubab and chasing our van. When we got out to see the old dock which is still in use, children surrounded us, asking us for books and pens for school. I had at least 5 of them holding my hands and walking me back towards the car.

I was honestly in and out of sleep the entire way. Several times I woke up and was sweating so bad I had to ask myself if I peed myself. If you crossed your legs even for a minute, sweat was dripping down your legs in quantities equivalent a small river. Megan found this awesome alarm clock flip thing that also told us the temperature. At the height of the day, it was 106. No big deal or anything. I woke up and shared my story with the girls, and Molly responded with "yeah, that's always a fun game to play." We all laughed.

A couple hours after we began our journey, we arrived at Wassu, where the stone circles were! We pulled up and walked into the museum. It was so fascinating! They were talking about stone circles that have been discovered all over the world and the discoveries that have been made in the Gambia.
They still don't know where the stone was found, although they know what type it was. All they really knew is that it was transported over long distances. They have also discovered that the stone circles represented burial sites. The larger stones represented royalty, who were buried with all of their belongings. In smaller stones, they found people placed in weird positions. They believe that these people were sacrificed and buried alive to be taken to the afterlife with the king. Pretty crazy stuff! We walked through all of the circles taking pictures. It was pretty cool that we were allowed to walk through these awesome pieces of history.

Then, guess what? Yep. We were back in a car. We stopped in the town of Wassu because we were having tire issues. We pulled over, got unloaded and watched our driver, another man and a child change the tire. Young children were walking around along with goats, chickens, and the occasional kitten. They were so cute! After the tire was replaced, Baboucarr and the driver drove off to make sure that everything was in working order. After 45 minutes, they returned. We then found out that we were missing a bolt on one of our brakes. Yeah, that was comforting. Needless to say, I was glad they caught it before anything horrible happened, and I have never been so happy that Africa is so flat. Once we were settled in the car again, I was in and out of sleep until we hit that unpaved road. The one that we drove on for nearly an hour in order to arrive in Juffre, the home of James Island. We pulled up to our hotel, which was also referred to as a camp, and someone came to unlock the gate. Children chased our van and stayed at the gate yelling at us to get our attention. We waved and followed the owner to our own little huts. Jevi and I got the one closest to the dining area. We decided to have dinner around 7 so that it gave people the opportunity to shower and relax for a bit. Our hut was glorious! Two beds equipped with mosquito nets, a lovely dresser with lock and key, a mini table, and a huge bathroom with a flushing toilet! We were happy that our shower head wasn't right over the toilet this time.

Jevi and I wandered outside and laid down in a hammock next to the pool (which was about half of the pool I used to have in my backyard). The men were finishing cleaning it, and I noticed a cute little door that led to the water. We decided to check it out. When we walked through the gate, we saw the Gambian river, palm trees, baobab trees, and around 20 wooden fishing boats - some that were definitely out of commission. We ran back to the room to grab our cameras and got the other girls to come out with us. I ran into a young boy who liked to follow me around and watch me take pictures. We were then joined by a bunch of other little ones that were having a good time with us. We walked around the beach and mud barefoot. Molly and Megan got into a mini mud fight, and the boys at one point started to chase Molly. I saw the biggest jellyfish of my life, and also took some pretty amazing pictures as the hazy sun was setting over the palms.

When we got back to the hotel, we washed off our feet and it was time for dinner. Dinner was so delicious! We had rice, with chicken and fish that also had some awesome sauce (I think it's called Yasa...it's made with onions and spices). They brought out a tv and began to watch the Hills Have Eyes. I told Julia that it was a scary movie that she may not want to see...I knew I wasn't going to watch it because I wanted to sleep that night. She suggested that they change it, and then did. We instead watched a Jackie Chan movie, where the characters were speaking French and the subtitles were in German. Perfect! After dinner, we wanted to make smores. The girls were apparently talking about them in language class one day when they discovered that Baboucarr had never had one before. In shock and in excitement, the girls decided that they wanted to make smores this weekend. We went out on Thursday and bought the closest thing we could find to graham crackers, a bar of chocolate, and two bags of marshmallows (surprisingly they had them!) We had a mini fire pit. Just enough to get us going. We walked around the premises looking for sticks. We ended up just pulling them from bushes since there were no legit tree branches laying around. We lit the fire, gathered around and started the feast. Baboucarr had a long and skinny stick. It looked like he was fishing when he put his marshmallow on the end. We laughed so hard. Pictures are on facebook in case you're curious. Oh and I forgot to mention that he loved them.

We cleaned up and called it a night pretty soon after. Jevi and I walked into our hut and laid down on our beds. It was so hard to motivate ourselves to get up to even brush our teeth. I decided to shower since I felt so gross from the sunscreen, bug spray, and sweat. Remember that nice shower I was talking about? Yeah, no water. I showered out of a bucket. That was pretty cool actually. Apart from the fact that it was pretty cold at times, it was absolutely wonderful. Since we didn't have any water pressure at our first camp, and since a bucket was our only option at our second, I haven't shampooed my hair since Thursday night. Yum.

I finished up and got into bed. We actually had comfortable pillows this time, and we both fell asleep like rocks. We got to sleep in a bit the next day since our tour didn't start until 10 am. For the win!