Our Arrival at Bansang

Arriving at Bansang is always a memorable experience, but in the dark of the early evening it is all the more so. There can be few places on earth darker than an African night, even when the electricity is working it is rare to see light peeping from the glassless windows and by 7pm when we arrived at Anita’s little house we were in danger of tripping over the myriad of people that had turned out to welcome us. Wandifa, Abdoul Karem, Dembo to name but a few, all turned out to meet and greet us and generally help us to settle into Anita’s house, our home for the next week or so.

We had travelled from Bansang in the Nissan Terrano that the Scoots team had brought out last year and whilst a 7 seater, with 5 of us, Suteh the driver plus Glenis, myself, Sulayman and his sister-in-law  together with our luggage, it was fairly crowded! Sulayman’s sister-in-law, whose name I can’t even begin to spell! had arrived from Scotland where she has lived for about 10 years. She had flown in to come up to Bansang hospital to comfort her orphaned 2 year old nephew who had been taken in very poorly but not yet diagnosed. A delightful 32 year old young lady who still obviously retained the immensely strong family bonds that one finds in this region of the world ,where family is still King and valued way above all things material. I always feel that Africa has much to teach the so called “Civilised” nations of the world in spite of their very obvious poverty, rather than the other way round.

Once in, we first set about sorting out the mundane things, like stowing the shopping, sorting our bedrooms and making sure my rather valuable rucksack was safe locked away as it contained rather more Dalasis than I had ever seen in my life. I thought I travelled with a lot of cash on a Scoots trip but this was Scoots cash on Steroids !!!! Fortunately most of the cupboards and rooms at Anita’s have locking doors for security as she has many different people staying here, sometime with her and sometimes without and being able to lock their kit away , I guess give some comfort in what some might perceive as rather alien surrounding. In fact nothing could be further from the truth and were it not for the fact that the cash that I was safeguarding was not mine, I would not be half as security conscious.

With the intensity of the trip and the stress of knowing that tomorrow we must start to try to implement Anita’s plans, we were both far too tired to eat more than the wonderful meat pies that had been Julie’s parting kindness from Luigi’s. Washed down with a couple of glasses of Merlot we sat and quietly chatted, firstly between ourselves, but later with Wandifa, who returned to check on our wellbeing before turning in. So before 10pm we toddled of to our beds, relatively contended and ready to see what the mornings brings….