Saturday started with a bang at the door. Mr Jalloh had sent Pa Jalloh to collect us for football practice. Yeah you read that right football practice. We jumped out of bed through on some sports clothing grabbed some bread and we were on our way. A feeling of excitement and nervousness was on both of our faces as we were getting close to Wellington, the village where Mr Jalloh lived. We had talked about playing for a while now but never really thought it would happen. We first went to Mr Jalloh’s house and were given football boots to wear. Mine a classic pair of bright orange J’s and Loz’s a pair of size 8 adidas, funny since he is a 10 and a half. We then proceeded to the pitch, I say pitch it was really just an open space that had goals at either end. It had cleared by the lads and community centre team but was still mostly dirt and rock.
As we got out of the car there was a huge buzz around the place mostly because two white weaklings had come to compete with these muscular black boys. They were all called together and told that they weren’t allowed to ‘drop us’ there words not ours. We tried to laugh it off but were quite relieved inside (The ground would have meant much pain). The game started and after watching the first half an hour we could see the skill these boys possessed was a good standard. I was called over first to go on the pitch. I replaced a boy called Goochie, he had missed a penalty so that gave me heart. I started ok and so Lozza was on, he was on the opposing side. I knew he was on because his first act was to come over and kick me. Thanks mate!!! The game continued at a quick pace with end to end attacks then in one glorious minute the first white man ever to score for FC Rald took place. A wonderful first touch out of the feet then a placed shot in the bottom right hand corner, what a goal! The crowd erupted in conversation; they couldn’t believe what they had just witnessed. The game finally finished with a 9-8 victory to my boys in blue. Get in there! We had a wonderful morning and finished with lunch at Mr Jalloh’s. His wife had made his favourite foofoo(yes Hen that is what I said) and CrinCrin.
After heading back to the ranch we wnet to watch the football I won’t go into details, good team won yadda yadda, and poor Boro where robbed of a sure victory.
We finished the day going to a local priest’s house, The Revd Canon J Coker. They have recently been to England and where very keen to talk through some of our cultural differences. We had a lovely night talking, eating and drinking. It was just as we were thinking of leaving that the heavens opened. They kindly walked us back with umbrellas and it was off to bed for us.
Sunday morning we were due to go to a church called St Matthais, Lakka. I had heard that the place had an unspoilt beach so asked if the Bishop would allow us to see it in case we wanted to come back at the end of our trip.
It was a confirmation service, with 11 candidates for confirmation. It was a lovely little church packed to the rafters. The sermon was even given in Creol(the local language) and we understood most of it, pretty good for just five weeks here! We then headed to the beach to a hotel that a parishioner owns. It was probably in the most glorious setting we have both ever seen. There is no question we will be back. We negotiated a good price and were promised a fishing trip out in the Atlantic, you will hear about this again. Dunc sorry you didn’t get to see it mate!!!! They also fed us with fish caught earlier that morning and Jallof rice. Good for me as Loz still doesn’t like fish so I got two. In the usual fashion we were given plenty of beer, I think 6 each when we left. Good times! As we headed back to Bishops court Lozza came up with one of those pearling comments. He asked the Bishop, if Phina, his daughter was ok after the death of her batt, as this is what he had read in a text from her. Sadly what he didn’t notice was batt was for battery not bat as he had assumed. He is too embarrassed to speak at the current moment. Classic! We are now at the house relaxing before heading to meet the group from Holy Trinity, Crawley. They are due at 9ish so we will look forward to that.
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