15. The Gambia. Barra and Banjul

The Gambia was the first former British Colony we had ever been in, yet because of many movies and books consumed while we were growing up, it seemed somehow familiar.  I hate to admit it, but something that rang many bells were the old Tarzan books (not comics or movies) that we inherited as children, and that I have to this day gathering dust.  Though I don’t think that the author ever travelled to Africa they were to have taken place approximately in the Gambia.  The books were full of “Arab slave traders” preying on black Africans and dissolute drunk white traders also preying on Blacks inland as well as in river ports just like Banjul.[1]

The Gambia was where Kunta Kinte from Roots,by Alex Haley, was supposed to have lived and been enslaved.  Though the latter book and mini-series was more recent, Tarzan still rang more bells.

The Gambia seems to represent some of the more ludicrous aspects of colonialism.  For one thing it is a tiny country which is limited to the two banks of a navigable river.  It is a holdover from the time that the European countries were principally interested in controlling the entrance to the main rivers, presumably to get slaves out and to get trading goods in.  In the long view this was the situation for over three centuries, from the time the Portuguese started navigating around the continent, to the Berlin conference in 1885 when the Europeans countries got together and officially divided up the continent including the hinterlands. According to Wikipedia, at the time, the Berlin conference was organized officially to end slavery, but somehow the actual result was to divide up the entire continent officially amongst the European countries.

By contrast the colonial period between the Berlin Conference (1885) and the independence of many of the countries (1950s and 1960s) lasted less than a century, and over half a century has passed since then. At the time we travelled, however,  many countries were less than 20 years out of colonialism.

Another thing only occurs to me now. There appears to be a direct the correlation between Europe’s race to divide up Africa and Asia in the 1800s and the race in the US over the same period to occupy the land “in the West” that was still in the hands of Amerindians, and some pieces of Mexico while they were at it.

  

                                            Barra--Banjul, The Gambia, Wednesday, 23 Nov. 1982

(HELENA) Maureen had decided to sleep in her sleeping bag outside to try to take ad­vantage of the cool night air.  She eventually had to cover her face to fend off the mosquitoes, so spent a hot night. Dan and I poured sweat, also, although we slept over a sleeping bag and under a sheet.

We got up feeling as though the whole night would have been just another adventure ex­cept that we had lost the tent poles. (Yes, Mother, we now realize we should have counted the bags. Our excuse is that the poles are always attached to my pack, but I took them off so we wouldn’t worry about their working loose on top of the luggage rack).  We packed up and went to stand in front of the police station. While Dan went in to talk with an officer, I went and found our pick-up. Fortunately the “ayuco” (helper) was there washing the pickup, and when Dan approached, he went and got the poles without being asked[2]. Whew!

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We had to wait a bit before the ferry arrived  (it is subject to the tide since the cross­ing is right at the mouth of the river--really an estuary). Once again Dan had to do a little pushing and shoving to get our tickets, but there was plenty of room, anyway.  The ferry is a several story affair. One level is for cars, and along the sides are two narrow cabins for passengers. The second level has two more narrow compartments with seats, and the third level was for ferry person­nel only.  It’s a government run ferry, and there were armed guards on the top deck.

Passengers on the Gambia River ferry.  The three men on the lower left would be considered moors or Maures

I wish we weren’t so shy about getting pictures of people.  There is so much variety, and the change has been so gradual from Morocco down.  Here some women wear the over-robe that men in southern Morocco and Mauritania wear (Maures in the photograph); it's really a big piece of cloth with a place for the head to go through and not joined except at the very bottom.

Another view of the variety of passengers on the ferry.

One difference we noticed immediately was that there are a lot of tourists in Banjul.  We were surprised at how few obvious tourists we saw in Dakar, but here they seem to be quite common[3].  When you think about it, the Gambia may be the nearest English speaking African country to the United Kingdom.

Approaching Banjul (formerly Bathurst), The Gambia

According to a map (several years old) that Maureen has, Banjul and surroundings has some 80,000 inhabitants, but to me the place has a small town air to it.  I think this is the first “Third World” country I’ve been in where English is used. Rather strange to see names like Buckle Street, Wellington  St.  Our hotel is on Hill St.

After disembarking, Dan and I set out to look for the cheaper hotels that Geoff suggested. Naturally, a couple have been closed, so we finally settled on the Teranga.  That’s kind of a joke with the three of us because the Teranga was a fancy hotel in Dakar. Once we were settled we started looking forward to a nice restful night because we could even feel a nice breeze.

We changed money and after a long walk trying to find a cheap place to eat (we didn’t see ANY places to eat), found a place that served a big plate of rice with some sort of peanut sauce on it.

While we were in Barra (other side of the river) the place was crawling with money chan­gers, but on this side we’d finally had to resort to less favorable rates at the banks. Wouldn’t you know that afterwards, as Dan and I walked through the market in search of fruit, we found that there is a row of stalls just for the money changers.

After a busy siesta with the three of us doing all sorts of statistics on what we had spent in Las Palmas, Mauritania, and Senegal, Dan and I went for a long walk. First we inquired about rides to get out of here to Ziguinchor, Senegal, and from there we went toward the beach. We walked along it for a long way until we got to the ferry dock at the mouth of the river.  Some of it was near some very poor temporary shacks, and there were a lot of dead fish, both whole and pieces.  About a 30 m out we spotted what I at first thought was some sort of reed boat, but Dan’s sharper eyes de­tected that it was a pelican. Its body along the water was some 3 feet long.  Most impressive!  On the same walk Dan was approached a couple of times by youths offering him a “joint”.  One of them had obviously seen a lot of movies about Blacks in the U. S. A. because he swaggered up and said, “Hey man.”   He even shook hands: normal grip, thumb grip, and back to normal grip. Who knows?   Maybe that was originally an African custom.

Our Thanksgiving Eve meal was bread (always) with some canned meat Maureen had bought. Those combined with a grapefruit and some cookies she had splurged on AND a cup of hot tea with lemon, were quite a treat.   Maureen had asked the restaurant across the Street to heat water for us: “No Problem.” Their sign reads, “MOON RESTAURANT - 1 Hill Street - Steaks and dishes are available with also tea and coffee - TRY TO YOUR  SATISFACTION”.

Banjul street scene

After some pleasant reading, we began our “restful night”. To illustrate exactly how restful it was, let me tell you that Maureen compared it to our night on the iron ore train. It was BAD. Not only did we have the mosquitoes again and the heat from having to sleep covered, but we were right across the street from the “Senegambia Hall.” At about 21:00 hrs they started up some VERY LOUD live music that (as Maureen learned when she went downstairs to read between 1:00-2:30 a.m.) goes till 2:00 every morning.  Maureen was the worst off because she didn’t have her own sheet to cover herself with. The hotel is fairly clean, but the two beds have only the under sheet and a blanket. Maureen started out with the blanket over her, but got to itching so badly that she got up and dressed (complete with socks).  I slept in one of our sleeping bags on the floor and covered myself with one of Grandmother’s sheets.   Dan was on the other bed covered with the other sheet, AND he ended up putting a bandana (thanks, Henry) over his face to keep the mosquitoes away.   Any one of those factors alone would have been bearable, but mosquitoes, heat, and noise were a deadly combination.

Banjul, Gambia, Thursday, 25 November, 1982

(DAN) The night’s effects were almost completely offset by a knock on the door.  It turned out to be our breakfast, included unbeknownst to us, in the price we’d paid.  A pot of hot tea, milk, bread, and butter really hit the spot as we sat around Maureen’s bed. How civilized![4] 

Even so, it took us a while to recover.   We washed clothes and went out to shop for--you guessed it -- mosquito nets[5]. Maureen spent some time preparing and making her call to New Orleans. (“Happy Thanksgiving everyone.”)  She found out that her father will meet her in Kenya in January after all.  Our Thanksgiving dinner was rice with a delicious peanut and fish sauce, good and reasonable.

While making inquiries, Maureen ran into an Irishman who runs the “Methodist Book Shop” here in town.   He was interested in changing money for her, and we went along with her and also met him.  The book shop is fairly small and offers everything from religious books to Newsweek and Parker Bros. Games.  It is associated with the Methodist Church here which in turn belongs (?) to the Methodist Missionary Society in Britain.  We changed 10 pounds for Maureen, but his dollar rate was not favorable.  We went down to the market, went up to the money changing stalls, and almost immediately got a rate 12 % better than in the bank.

Tonight about 17:00 hrs, we decided to walk and see some more of Banjul before we leave in the morning. We saw a side of Banjul better left unseen.  We walked out a way on a highway and as we walked back about dusk, Maureen screamed, “Stop it!” I looked over, and a young man was pulling on Helena’s arm.  It was the shoulder where she had the camera bag, but he was going for her watch. He actually pulled Helena a few feet away from us before he let go. He had a screw driver in his mouth, and when we squared off and faced him, he took it in his hand as if to threaten. There was another man with him who either didn’t know what was going on or chickened out because he just stood by.  Helena had kept a solid hold on the bag and her watch did not give, so nothing was lost.  We all agreed it was the closest we’ve been to get­ting mugged.  We looked at him for a while, but there was nothing to do, so we turned around and kept walking. It really unnerved us and ruined our walk.  We returned to the hotel and spent the evening reading and writing.

Washing dishes on the street in Banjul

The “Senegambia Hall” started cranking out music at 20:00 hrs, but to­night it was not live, just scratchy records at full volume. It took us over an hour to rig our three new mosquito nets by trial and error_.  We finally settled on a sys­tem that employed four tent poles, the curtain, Maureen’s pack, two safety pins, our clothes­line, and a foot of scotch tape. There has to be a better way!

Banjul, Friday, 26 November, 1982

(HELENA)  We had set our alarm for 5:45 so we could get a nice, early start for Ziguinchor, Senegal, BUT it wasn’t long before Dan made the most unfortunate discovery: that his glasses were missing. Yup, afraid that our misfortunes are returning to us in a full cycle: left tent poles, glasses forgotten in the shower... Except that this time the person in charge did not discover the glasses before someone else did. We got all packed up, just in case, and Dan went to see if the night watchman had found them.  Nothing!  However  Dan did find out some rather interest­ing things about the good Hotel Terango. We had noticed that we never ran into other guests, and now we learned why.  It turns out that the top floor of this place is exactly what its red light proclaims it to be. The hotel clerk didn’t know English, but he managed to convey to Dan that a lot of men had been upstairs, had most likely come down to the second floor to use the bathroom, were no longer around and had not left forwarding addresses. Now we know why our Irish Methodist friend kind of laughed when we said where we were staying. (Ed.: This tale of losing his glasses in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Banjul” certainly tops all previous accounts in a long line of lost spectacle reports![6])

Oh, I must report that the mosquito nets helped some, but by morning we could hear the dear little things buzzing around inside. The mesh is big enough to have allowed 11 mosquitoes into Maureen’s net and the same into our two nets[7],[8].

Once again our hotel breakfast (we now realize that we’re the only ones to get served) was a nice touch that helped to cheer us up before Dan and I set off in search of glasses.  We kind of suspected that we’d find nothing, but we were directed to a hospital where the Swedish and Danish governments are cooperating in a glasses center.  The woman checked Dan’s prescription, found they had lenses of his prescription in stock and had him choose from some used frames. They had to be small frames, so Dan is going to take on a new look.  The glasses will cost him 37 Dalasis or $13.70   It is the only glasses place in town.

So, here we were with an extra day in Banjul.  It was spent mostly eating, reading, and writing. I’m glad to report that the Senegambia Hall seems to be respecting the Muslim day of rest; just wish the mosquitoes would, too! Right outside our window we can hear a group of children playing a game that involves clapping and stamping in rhythm, but we haven’t figured out exactly what they do.

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[1] The internet is a wonderful thing, after admitting a guilty pleasure in the Tarzan books; I find that Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan and … Ronald Reagan were supposed to have mentioned the influence of the books on their lives. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-tracy-griffin/tarzan-centennial-photos_b_2170667.html

[2] These tent poles (and the tent) lasted for another 20 years, but were eventually dropped irretrievably into the Tuichi River by an employee of the French Embassy in Bolivia.)

[3] These were probably the beginning of package tours to the Gambia from Europe, which are common 25 years later. We have no idea where they were staying.

[4] I have forgotten many things, but I can still picture that cheap tray with the lovely tea and breakfast on it.

[5] We had not been able to find mosquito nets in the US or anywhere on our trip up to here.  In retrospect we were very lucky, as malaria is endemic in much of area that we traveled through.

[6] “Ed” is our mother typing up our diary which was written longhand on airmail paper and mailed snail mail to the US.

[7] Having had a similar experience in Kenya in 2012, I am convinced that African mosquitoes are evolving into smaller units that can fit through nets.  It makes sense.  If everybody uses nets, then the only ones that are going to pass on their genes either go out earlier in the day (also happening) or are small enough to fit through net mesh.

[8] Another unintended consequence of the push to get every sub-saharan African into a net, is that we were shown very long (hundreds of meters) fishing nets this year on Lake Victoria… made from donated mosquito nets.  Where by and large the wider your mesh, the more sustainable your fishing (large gaps allow juveniles and fingerlings through) mosquito mesh at less than 1 mm is a death knell to fish populations.