My worst nightmare

Well maybe it is not my worst nightmare, but it is still pretty scary.  I have never been a big fan of ironing and try to avoid all fabrics that wrinkle.  I actually do some ironing in The Gambia so I don't walk around looking like I slept in my clothes.  But I do use an electric steam iron for my ironing. The Gambian women and men all look very well pressed and generally look much better than the average Peace Corps volunteer. However in most cases the iron they use looks like the one below.

I took the picture of the iron my landlord's family uses.  They were waiting for the charcoal to get to the right temperature to iron.  Now I know that my grandmother may have used such a thing in her day (I am old, remember) but am very thankful that I don't have to push an iron filled with charcoal over my clothing.

Human Powered Ferry

My Peace Corps service is drawing to a close but I have still another ferry trip to document. This is a human powered ferry over the River Gambia at the town of Bansang. The river separates the Central River Region into the North and South Banks.  We were doing monitoring on both banks and were going to stay on Janjanbureh, which is an island  in the middle of both banks so this ferry was thing we needed to get from point A to point B.  The ferry can take two cars and a bunch of passengers. Once everyone is on the ferry, the men passengers grab the cable that is strung through the boat and attached to  each bank.  When the ferry is not moving, the cable remains under water.

Here the men doing their manly duty. The  man with the red hat is Banno, our WFP driver for the trip.

Here is a picture of the smallest manly man doing his bit.  He actually was pulling the cable and carrying his share of the burden.  If you look to the right can see how the cable is strung through the ferry.

I, of course, had to take a turn on the cable.  It was not too much of a physical exertion.  I only did it for a short time and then retired to the sidelines with the rest of the ladies. Everyone except Banno and I used their bare hands to pull.

The last picture is the end of the line.  You can see the cable going to the shore and the people awaiting our arrival.