Tamba again

So here I am in Tamba. So like i said i am stuck here till the 3rd. So new years eve will be spent away from site like planned, just not saraya with aaron. Sounds like we might go camp by the river for the night and have a good time there. But thats tomorrow and this is today. I guess my perpetual sitting around for the last 5 days was getting to me and i was going a little stir crazy. So even when I'm in kédougou i dont go for rides a whole lot but ill get biking in at least. Down to the boutique, the market, or the CTC. So this sitting around doing absolutely nothing was driving me crazy. So basically i got a good case of just being really really pent up. looking back on it i get this way when i dont have an outlet to go running or biking or something. Someway of blowing off stress. So i borrow a bike from the rack of bikes thats here in the regional house. Not the best bike in the world but the back brakes worked and the gears kinda worked after a min or two of peddling. The guard here is really nice and I've been drinking tea with him while I've been sitting around watching movies or fiddling with my GIS program. Incidentally thats not acutely going all that well as a few problems cropped up with the instructions. Thats a different story though. So im trying to get this 'loaner' bike travel worthy and the guard who ive kinda befriended just takes over and does it for me. I like messing around with bikes but he seemed perfectly willing to just go to town on it. So hes making tea as well as helping me and i get a little shot glass of tea before i head off.
yeah thats how tea is done here. So its not english tea or iced tea like they have in the states. Its chinese green tea i think the box said. Although it said this its really strong so im a little skeptical, ill have a look at the box next time. But the way drinking tea works here is that you are served the first glass of tea, there are three, in a little shot glass with a bunch of foam on top. Now the foam is very important and the maker goes to quite a bit of length to make sure there is a good head of foam in each shot glass for all three doses of tea. This is done by pouring about a shot glass worth of the tea back and forth between the two glasses from a decent height. Once that is done and a nice head of foam is on each glass the preparer tries it and then fills the cup up and you drink. Its a good time killer as they usually cook the tea over charcoal. But this is done three times with the same batch of tea with lots of sugar. So over the course of the three glasses you end up getting weaker and weaker tea. Its good though and everyone here loves it. yea so its also kinda impolite to drink one cup of tea and then leave. Generally if you start drinking tea you should stick around for all three, but two sometimes is ok. But yea i figured id explain that as i drink a lot of tea. Being the local celeb i pretty much get the first or second glass when theres a group every time. its neat.
But yea that was a tangent. So i kinda break the rules and leave after the first glass, but the guard understood as i wanted to get my ride in before dark. And so i take off on my ride. I heard from one of the volunteers here that if you just head north on the main road you leave tamba pretty quick and are out in the country side again. I figured that would be my best bet and head off that way. it takes me about 40 min to get out to a little town called Thiawor or something like that. THe road out there was interesting. IT started out quite big and well traveled but narrowed down adn became more like a big trail then a road. It was neat though and i was able to enjoy the countryside rather then the small confines of the tamba regional house as nice as that is. So from there i go 20min further north from there which has the road deteriorate even more but still very accessible. After another 20min i decide to stop and turn around as i dont really feel like getting stuck out in the bush in the dark like i have done in the past. Right before i head back i stop and have a drink of water and relax a little and just take in the surroundings. Dead quite minus a few birds calling. It was great it made a wonderful change from Tamba which is considerably bigger then kédougou and a lot louder. The quite was nice and well worth the ride. So the ride back was nice also very relaxing minus the wonderful senegalese driver who look at me like im crazy as theyre rolling up the wrong side of the road/trail(in donkey/horse charets of course, saw one car only, very nice.
But yea in tamba thats the highlight so far really, which is a little bit of a letdown but i am stuck here so not a lot of high expectations. And considering i had pretty much sat around the house minus going to the internet a few times i was very relieved to have an activity to occupy my time, especially something i like. Well hopefully my new years eve will be better and ill be able to report back on that in a day or so.