A very muddy visit to the rice fields and a broken bed (written Dec 13)

One of our assignments from Peace Corps was to visit our families' fields, so yesterday afternoon, the four trainees in our village set off for the rice fields with our host brother and a small herd of his friends. After a brisk 20-30 minute walk through tall grasses, we arrived at the marshy rice fields. After getting a good look at the rice and soaking up the surprising beauty and serenity of the place, we were getting ready to head back home when the boys got it in their heads that they wanted to go to the river. Casey and I were not dressed appropriately for a trek through the mud, we stayed behind while Jacob and Lindsay pushed on towards the river with the boys.


Road to the rice fields



Close to an hour later, the exploration team returned in this state (after an half-hearted rinse off, mind you):







They never made it to the big river (Gambia river), but they found a tributary and had a lot of fun.

On another note, last night I got up to go to the bathroom around 3am and when I got back in bed, somehow I sat down the wrong way on our termite-weakened bed and several of the boards supporting the mattress broke (see below)! Quite a rude awakening for Jacob! Luckily we have camping air mattresses and a bug hut (2-man tent made mostly of mosquito netting), so we pitched our tent in our from room and spent the remainder of the night there. Huge kudos to Peace Corps for reacting quickly to the problem - they had the bed repaired by this afternoon, so hopefully there will not be any more indoor camping in the near future!