What the travelers saw - an artist's journey to the African bush

Part Two - You've got to be kidding me!

The rains went long this year and the opening of the road to Djati was delayed. When the rains finally subsided and the road was clear, Du made his way to Quebo.

He and his assistant, Nando, spent the night with Fredy and Raquel. The next day Du, Nando, Fredy, Lucas and a host of other workers began what should have been a 2 1/2 hour trip to Djati(about 35-40 miles away). The trip took 5 1/2 hours due to the amount of heavy supplies they carried and the ever present awful road.

Once there, Du pitched his tent in one of the classrooms and began to paint. The entire job took him a week to complete. I don't have too many details about how the week went but there are plenty of photos that indicate that it was quite an event for the village. At the same time Du was painting the mural, the well was being inspected and the floors in the school were being converted to concrete and class was being conducted in one room of the old school. (Please check back in posts last week for pictures and details)

So with the school painting complete, it was time for Du to return to Bissau. Since the road was so bad on the ride in, Du decided it might be faster to canoe out of Djati and take the bush taxi back to Bissau.

 Faster? Or so they thought....

(I think they may have more than one of these bridges that cross the water)

As it turns out, Du and Nando walked for nearly 4 hours before reaching the canoe. Once they reached the spot where they were to pick up the taxi, there was another long wait. Du is happy to have completed the project and says he will happily go back to Djati, but NEVER again by canoe.
Uh oh, Looks like my cost just went up for school #2. (smiling)

From Maritza: DU TELLS ME THE LONG WALK TOOK FOUR HOURS, OVER RICE FIELDS, SWAMPS, NICE RIVER WITH CROCODILES, AND ONCE THEY MANAGED TO CROSS OVER WHERE THE ROAD WAS, THEY WAITED A LONG TIME FOR A BUS...IN OTHER WORDS -- A ROAD HE WILL NOT WANT TO TAKE AGAIN.

Here are some of the pictures of his trip home. Sorry I had too many pictures to post here so I put them in a slideshow (excuse the quality of some of the pictures but you'll get the point)

Thanks again to my team in Guinea Bissau

and of course BIG thanks to Du and Nando

and a special thanks to Willie for helping me fund this "secret" project.