Monday 24th November

Monday was all about travelling. A huge part of the journey was on particularly poor roads so we intended to set off at 7am so we didn’t have to do any movement in the dark. Well three letters describe what happened next TIA (This is Africa), for those who have never been it simply means that anything can happen and don’t count your chickens that things will run smoothly. By the time Jalloh turned up it was 8am, then he went to collect Canon and come back to us this took us to 9am, finally we needed to collect some things before setting off, mostly things that cost money and we finally set off at 10am. Not too bad really just three hours late. Within the first hour of the journey the car seemed to be playing up but Jalloh insisted that it would make the journey there and back with no problem, since neither of us have any mechanical knowledge we trusted him. The journey took 8 and a half hours which included an hour stop at the school at Bauya, so our arrival in Yago was at 6.30pm, we then had a two hour boat trip into Bonthe. The boat trip was wonderful, the sea was calm and it was nice to be able to spread out and watch the stars. Finally on arrival in Bonthe we were escorted to a wooden shack where we believed we might be staying, we could feel the panic on each other’s faces. Fortunately we were just here for a meal before being escorted to our accommodation. The accommodation was with a family of parishioners (more will be said about them), they made us welcome then it was off to bed.