EID AL ADHA OR TOBASKI 2014 (PART ONE: 'IT'S A LOSING PROPOSITION BUT ONE YOU CAN'T REFUSE...')

It feels odd flying into Banjul that bit later than usual.

Instead of the middle of the afternoon plus an hour-ish if there wasn’t a wind, that being the case we’d usually be there bang on time.

Now we’re heading in very late afternoon into that early evening bit which never seems to last that long in The Gambia ?

But that’s what being closer to the equator does for you.

Grab the bags when they come off the belt and promptly get a ‘pull’ for bringing in food.

There’s a bloody great ‘F’ chalk-mark on my suitcase now.

This is true.

I’ve brought along some of Haddy’s chillies to prove to the kids that we can grow hot ones in Britain too…

Which, strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have done without filling in a bloody great form that I’d probably have had to pick up from the High Commission in London, so I’d thought…

Yeah… You know what I thought, don’t you ?

And here comes another miscreant…

Apparently my wife has been ‘pulled’ for drugs…

And there’s a bloody great chalk marked ‘D’ on her suitcase !!!

‘Yes Officer… Yes, it is my wife… Honestly mate, I’m not making this up, this lady is definitely my wife…’

You couldn’t make this shit up, could you ?

The one bloody time that she didn’t bring a prescription for her diabetes pills.

I’ve got mine for my heart pills, ok it’s not been changed since last year but the pills are the same, and all my wife has is her name printed on the box label without the covering script.

The word ‘BOLLOX’ springs to mind…

Ten minutes with the ‘Official’ who gives us both a reprimand for ‘smuggling’, and we’re outside getting in the taxi and only one hundred dalasi and a couple of British chillies lighter…
So please, if you have to take any form of prescription medicine and you are traveling to The Gambia, remember to take a copy of your prescription about your person and honestly you can avoid all this.

See…

It’s not always WHO you know, is it ?

Sometimes it’s what you know…

I really do dislike that way of doing things because you never know what you could possibly be getting into, but it seems to be a fact of life here throughout most of society.

And I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it ?

We ask our driver to stop at the local supermarket at the top of the road where I can load up with a few drinks for me and the kids, cheese triangles and some biscuits and whatever Haddy wants, and then it’s a quarter of a mile down the road…

So we got there a day earlier than they were expecting us.

Hahahaha…

The look on their faces was priceless.

And then we’re covered in hugs…

Hi kids, we’re home…  

Everybody is there, even Sainabou and Adama are there, but Sibo is still at, or on her way back from school.

Apparently her new school has a system where all the Christian children get the first shift (there are two) and only the top twenty five of each year if you’re a Muslim ?

I’m not sure she’s going to like that system because she’ll never see Ida or Jalika until late and she's stuck in the house doing jobs until lunchtime when she goes to school.

Oh well, she knows what she has to do to change it, and by the end of the first term too…

That is going to be a bit of a bummer to say the least.

As is the fact that the children’s schools will not be closing for a Tobaski holiday as the President has decided to take that week of celebrations and move it to the week that he and his celebrate their coup-de-tat anniversary…

Which is definitely going to be an even bigger bummer !

Six fucking days with the little ones ?

Is that it ?

Six fucking days out of three weeks ???

Well I guess we’d better suck on it because there sure ain’t anything else on offer ?

I was right…

You couldn’t make this shit up.

Of course by the time Mariama finally gets home the word had got round and we’ve got a compound full…

It’s going to be a late night, I can feel it.

I think I’d better have a beer…