the gambia, continued...

day 4:
went to the beach, to relax a bit. had fruit salad for lunch. went for a walk, and were accompanied by a boy who was named lamin but called del boy, and another boy who's name i can't remember. del boy is an official tourist guide, who is allowed to stand outside the hotel and wear a "uniform", and they are also supposed to prevent the "bumsters" from disturbing you. they don't get any money except for what the tourists pay them though, which might be why they "disturb" you as much as the bumsters do. anyway, del boy was nice and we asked him if he would accompany us for a walk tomorrow afternoon. decided to go to the hotel next door to have dinner, but met moses and somehow ended up at a restaurant in the mangrove marsh. there was no electricity, so after a while it was very dark. and we had read a bit too much about malaria before leaving to feel very comfortable with sitting in total darkness with mosquitoes eating our legs. moses noticed we weren't completely at ease, and was trying really hard to make us happy, apologising for the canabis smoke from his friends at the table next to ours and bringing a drum to entartain us. we also met moses friend lamin, who had tried to go to the canary islands in a small boat but was stopped. the evening turned out great, and the food was wonderful. when we had finished moses followed us almost all the way to the hotel (it was too dark for us to see anything). went to bed early. when we turned out the lights a drum-night started at the hotel restaurant. maja said that this can't be music, it sounds as if they are building a road :)

day 5:
i had little red itchy spots everywhere except in the face:(

took a green tourist taxi to albert market in banjul, the capital. the green taxis are for tourists only, and cost a bit more. they are the only ones allowed to park outside the hotels. the yellow ones are for everyone, and less expensive. don't really understand the difference except for the colours.

the taxi driver simon was also a plumber at our hotel, and followed us as a guide at the market. we told him we didn't need a guide, but he turned out to be right. people and cats and dogs and monkeys and things everywhere. it was almost impossible to walk through the market. people put necklaces around our necks that we couldn't get off and put things in our hands and wrapped us in million coloured cloths. bought: two enormous t-shirts in weird colours, little wooden things that none of us wanted, a necklace, a few bracelets and a small drum. i would probably have bought a lot more if i didn't get so stressed. i think i need a bit more time to be able to take things like that cool (but i guess that was only to be expected, as i nearly panick when i go grocery shopping at ica on fridays after work too :). when we saw a very small kitten with lame hind legs dragging itself trhough the streets, while at lest 4 people were trying to sell us different things we didn't want it was too much and i asked simon to take us out of there.

when we came back to the hotel we rested a bit by the pool, and went for a walk along the beach met someone who'se name i can't remember. he asked if we could send a letter to his brother in sweden for him, but he never showed up with the letter.

had lunch at the hotel.

met del boy for our guided walk. another boy also made us company, so the "no hassling" on the official tourist guide signs apparently didn't always work. walked to a fishing harbour that was smaller than the one we visited a few days ago, but still enormous. we also walked to the local market, which was extremely different from the albert market. this one mainly sold food, and we could walk through it without people trying to get us to buy things. we bought a lemon, to see if it could make us blonder in the sun. we also visited a school where the teachers worked without wages and the children didn't have to pay. apparently the schools run by the government all cost. we got to sit with the children for a while, and a dirty little girl next to me wanted to give me her dirty toy mouse. thought it was sweet of her, but i guess she needs it better than i do. hope it wasn't extremely impolite not to accept it.

after visiting the school we took a yellow taxi to serrekunda, the biggest town, to visit one of the gambia's four cash machines. had to wait for a while for guards from the hotel to leave, because del boy said that they didn't like it when tourists took yellow taxis. went to a little supermarket to buy juice. tommy asked if del boy wanted anything, and he said that if he could chose anything it would be rice for his family. they told us at the hotel not to trust people and that they just try to get your money, but it's difficult. and del boy seemed really nice, and we thought it's nicer to trust people than not to, so we said we'd give him money to buy the rice. 50 kg rice costs more than the cleaning people at the hotel earn in a month, but for us it's less than 150 sek. so i guess fooling tourists is a profitable job. went to a local shop to buy coca cola, as it's much more expensive in the supermaret. sat in the garden of some of del boy's friends and chatted and had coca cola.

back at the hotel we bought sanitary pads (as the anti-period-pills didn't work). the shop assistant came running after us and shouting, and we thought we had payed to little or too much, but she just wanted us to put the pads in a black plastic bag (secret, she whispered), even though it was only 50 m to our room :)  ¶ 3:52 PM