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The highlight of February 2011 was the trip I made with 7 colleagues and 17 students of my school to The Gambia.
The place where I work, CSG De Heemgaard in Apeldoorn (NL) is sponsoring a school in the tiny village of Sittanunku, Gambia.
This month we went to visit our project for the second time, after a supertrip in October 2009. Also this time it was a fantastic experience for everybody. Of course the main focus during the trip was on the project and I had to accompany the students etc., so I didn't bring many lenses, in fact just the 18-70 mm and the 70-200 mm.
Women going to the village after fishing.
During our stay on the Northbank of the Gambiariver we visited the Nursery School in Aljamdu. We were welcomed by a great number of singing kids (see picture below)
We stayed most of the nights camping at Jimbana, an old little harbour at a mangrovecreek, not far from Aljamdu. The surrounding area is quite beautiful. During a walk I pictured this man walking to his village in late afternoon (see picture below).
The main reason for visiting the Gambia is our sponsorproject: The Basic Cycle School in Sittanunku. We've been there twice during this trip and the second time was a day full of all sorts of activities, like football, doing games we prepared at home in Holland with the children there and a whole lot more. Of course, this is Africa, so at almost every occasion there will be dances. We were welcomed in a very special way, with a traditional Masquerade. These masquerades are used at several occasions, one of them is during circumcision of boys before they reach puberty. In this case, about the whole school was sitting in a large circle, with us toubabs in between. Local women were making music and were dancing when suddenly this masquerade man was playing his role in the centre of the circle.
a masquerade on the schoolyard of the Sittanunku Basic Cycle School
After some very pleasant but als impressive days we went back to the Southbank and drove to the south of the country, where we stayed a night in one of the best birdparadises of The Gambia: Marakissa River Camp. We had a complete chill-out here. One of the most relaxing things to do was taking a kayak and slowly work our way on the meandering little stream nearby. A beautiful jungle -atmosphere, with lots of birds, like Spurwinged Plovers, Senegal Thicknees, all sorts of Kingfishers and many more. Despite the fact that my largest lens was a 70-200 mm, I managed to take some birds from a pretty close range. This all had to do with their lack of shyness when you are approaching them in a canoe.
Spurwinged Plover during a canoetrip....
Reflections in the river.....
Pied Kingfisher, just 3 meters away.....
Our last day in the country we went to the beach at Gunjur, where we helped the local people a bit when they were pulling a fishingboat up the beach.
Everybody was feeling sorry to go back to the cold country again after a splendid visit in this friendly part of the world.
Fish, ready to be smoked in the village of Gunjur....
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