St. Patty's Day

For St. Patrick's day I decided to take a little trip up country to my friends place in YBK. Quite a few volunteers from my group were posted there and since I hadn't seen them in a while I had a good excuse to go. Alicia, who lives at YBK was hosting St. Patty's day for all of us. In total there was about 15 people from our group that came and I must say it was a blast.

Since I didn't want to leave my site for to long I only went up to YBK for 3 days. For those that are unsure, that really means I traveled two days and got to sit down and have some beer for only one. It was a short trip but definitely worth the time spent getting there.

The first evening everyone was dead tired from traveling but we hung out none the less. Later that night a dead half of a bush pig (the stomach, back and both hams) was brought to us from the Hunter Alicia had hired. The pig wasn't skinned, eviscerated, or butchered and being so tired with full darkness fast approaching we decided to wait and do the grisly job in the morning.

Sunrise came early the next morning and none of us were really in the mood to butcher a pig but it had to be done so we got started. Alicia had gone to school and taken classes on butchering animals so she was kind of our expert during the whole experience. Her, Bjorn and myself were the ones who partook in the slaughter. I was a little apprehensive at first just because I'd never done anything like it before but really I had a good time taking out the entrails, the skin and then finally the meat. For some reason I felt more manly afterwards, it was great.

Before Alicia, a volunteer named Frank lived in YBK and he had built a big stove/barbecue in the back yard so once we had that thing burning nice and hot we threw both hams on. They were huge so we couldn't fit the rest of the meat on at that time. Little did we know, the rest of the pork wasn't faring so well without ice or refrigeration to sit in while it waited to be cooked. After a few hours the hams were finished and I have to say they looked absolutely delicious but they weren't really anything to special, you could even say there was something a little fishy, if you will, tasting about them. We had paid for the pig though, so whether is tasted good or not I was going to eat it, and I did. Dad taught me well, clean your plate, even if it means the possibility of getting food poisoning. Grandma Ward would be proud I think.

Meanwhile, back at the barbecue we had the rest of the meat cooking, it was in smaller pieces than the hams so they cooked much faster. All our efforts at cooking some delicious pork went to waste though, apparently since it had sat out much longer unrefrigerated it all went bad. Just imagine eating pork that has the consistency of feta cheese with a really funky taste, it was a little disturbing. Besides just a little nibble to try out the meat none of us ate any of the remaining pork.

St. Patrick's day was a success though, everyone had a really good time and I even brought some wine that I brewed and was sipping on that. The recipe wasn't to complicated, 100% grape juice, two spoons of sugar and some yeast. After 12 days of fermenting I had my Gambian Merlot. The next day came too soon and after half a day of riding in the gelegele and an hour hike back to my village I was home again.

Where does the time go? Don't ask me, I've been in The Gambia for 6 months now and it feels like I just got here yesterday.