Easter
on Paul Sills (The Gambia), 28/Apr/2011 11:39, 34 days ago
On Easter Sunday we spent the morning painting eggs and also making Max an Easter card as he had invited a few of us over for lunch at 1 o’clock. The food as usual was very tasty and was a traditional Philipino Easter fare which included pork. After eating Max handed me some eggs to paint with the children, there was to be a cash prize incentive for the best painted egg. Once painted the children lined up and had to name their egg and go around the group showing them to us. Everyone except parents had to judge them, in the end they all ended up winning a 100 dalasi each as it was too hard to have an outright winner. The rest of the afternoon was spent drinking not julbrew but orange juice for me and Paul as we were not in themood having drank enough this week. Some of Max’s friends who were Cuban’s entertained us by salsa dancing and Lynn was dragged up by Max to have a go which was very funny. We decided to leave just before 5 o’clock however Abigail and Bradley wanted to stay and play so Jenny agreed to drop them off later, this turned out to be very late with them not arriving home until gone 9 o’clock.On Monday we were off to Lamin yet again unfortunately Paul is working all through the Easter Holidays on a training manuel and doing workshops so he was unable to accompany us. A friend of Jenny’s was holding a day for the children which involved an egg hunt and meal. We were the first to arrive just after 10 o’clock followed by some others thirty minutes later. The children did their first activity which was moulding dough into shapes, Bradley wanted a chicken, Abigail and Teo decidedon a plait and Mia wanted a snake complete with a carrot tongue. These were then baked in a solar oven which took about two hours in total. As more children arrived they quickly ran out of dough. The next hour was spent being driven down the lane by horse and cart and I was quite concerned as it was a very hot day so applied more sun cream. When the easter egg hunt was announced the children ran off in all directions looking for them, fifty in total. Once all collected in they were hidden again for another hunt, Abigail didn’t find any of these so was a bit upset. They then grouped around atable were they set about colouring them with felt tip pens the broken ones were given out to eat. By now we were very hungry, Mick had gone off to collect the food which was being cooked by girls from the village. The buffet consisted of rice, cous, salad, roast potatoes, vegetables, fish, chicken, and domada sauce. At 6 o’clock I was given a lift by a couple to the junction where we managed to pick up a gelleh straight away for home.