Tuesday June 30 2009 – Move to North Bank

So on Sunday morning Alpha came by to pick Justin and I up at Sunbird lodge and we began to make our way to the North Bank. He dropped us off at the ferry terminal in Banjul with Kebba who was then going to take us across on the ferry and help us get to Njawara. Getting onto the ferry was a little different than what you would expect to see in Canada, basically everyone – people as well as vehicles – board the ferry at the same time and from the same place so everyone is just running to get on. Once we were on the ferry it was fine and the ride took about an hour since the boat didn’t really move too fast. Once we were on the other side we decided to hire a taxi to take us to the NATC since it would be much faster than a bush taxi and we were really tired. As it turns out our driver didn’t have a valid license or insurance and he ended up getting caught at one of the checkpoints so it ended up taking quite a while to deal with all of that.

Once we finally arrived at the centre and we were introduced to many of the people around the area we were shown to where we would be staying for the time we were there. Justin and I shared a small hut each with our own rooms. We were given a short tour of the centre and part of the community which consisted of many gardens. At the centre students come for agricultural training and then are given a plot in the garden to grow crops. Right now there aren’t any students at the centre since it is between classes but there were still a few people who were working in the garden. At the end of their project, the students are given a loan of D 23000 to start their own garden or farming business. The centre was set up as a way to keep residents of the community from leaving the area to look for jobs in the more urban cities. Since we have been here we have been working in the garden with one of the students, Mo who has quite a few vegetables in the garden including tomatoes and cucumbers.

We were given another tour through the community where we were able to see some more gardens that were being run by individuals. One garden that we saw that was really impressive was run by one man and he had very successful crops since he used drip irrigation which mean that very little work has to be done to water the plants which is very time consuming during the dry season. We were also introduced to the Alchalo of the community who was one of only five female Alchalos in the entire country.

Before coming to the North Bank we asked many of the local people who we had met what to expect once we got there and the only response we were getting is that it is very hot. As it turns out they were right. I thought it was difficult to sleep without a fan in Sanyang but being without a fan up here is pretty much unbearable!