Arrival in Banjul – Kids’ View

The first thing the kids noticed as we began to descend was the bright shining sun and how suddenly hot it got – even in the plane. We arrived in late afternoon wearing several layers of shirts, jackets, and sweaters. The British charter flight was very strict about excess baggage, so we re-packed our bags, left some things behind at our wonderful cousins’ home in England, and wore our heaviest sneakers and multiple layers of clothing on the plane, with a light extra bag on board to discard them into.

Drummers, dancers, and colorful men on stilts were greeting the tourists before they boarded the hotel busses, but the girls were content to hear them over the fence by the car pick-up for the locals. Anyway, Sophia was a little afraid of the idea of masked men in stilts, but excited about the prospect of sitting in her uncles’ pick-up (inside the cab) without a car seat (it had been thrown in the back of the truck – it almost seemed silly to have brought it along).

The girls commented on the vegetation, but the two things that grabbed their attention most were the ubiquitous cell phone billboards lining the road from the airport, and the many people gathered in groups along the side of the road, conducting their business, but stopping to wave hello at our pick-up truck. “I’m so excited; everyone is waving and smiling to us…” This was a very good beginning.