Tony's adventures in The Gambia

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Shaken and stirred

It's had been a fairly quiet week thankfully here in Madina. The students all went off home on Wednesday in a shower of tears and emotional goodbyes.
It's at times like these when I feel for the kids at the school. They have had 6 weeks of forming new friendships and bonding with their strange pink friends. Kids at such a young age think that they will be around forever and have no idea why they appear then disappear again so suddenly. It is left to the teachers to dry their tears and try to explain that they have returned to their families back in the UK. This is a neverending cycle which happens when all volunteers here return home. It's unfortunate, but it's what makes coming back so special.
Still, they've gone and although at times it was fun, things move on and they'll be another lot jetting in before you know it.

The girls and I took the opportunity to have a bit of a break and finally decided on going 'up country' , which basically means following the river up into the main body of the country. We had a few days to kill until our next load of volunteers come out on Tuesday, and we were all pretty exhausted after the constant attention required by the hormone fuelled twentysomethings.
On Thursday morning we got up early and got a lift into Brikama where a man called Osman had agreed to take us up the rather treacherous roads in his 4x4. After we got in his car, got out his car, returned after a couple of miles to get his driving licience and stopped to get petrol, we were finally underway. The journey progressed quite well until the tarmac ended. Unfortunatly this was after about 20 minutes of a hour 4 hour journey. Now I've been on these roads once or twice before and didn't actually think that they could get any worse but I was wrong. Imagine being on a ride in a theme park with someone throwing buckets of red sand in your face. It's a bit like that but without the fun element.
Unsurprisingly the cars brakes failed and we pulled into a small village where for the next half an hour several local 'mechanics' spent adding pint after pint of brake fluid and bleeding and pumping the brakes until they got the desired effect.
Whenever something like this happens I always have the joke in my head 'How many Gambians does it take to change a light bulb?" - I don't know but I'm still counting….
Anyway I digress. After my body temperature had reached critcal mass in the car I decided to get out. That lasted approximately 5 minutes as I was immediately mobbed by kids asking for : pens, money, bottles, minties, footballs, my sun glasses and my watch. Sometimes this does get a little tiresome, especially when your shorts and shirt are drenched with sweat and you feel like you've been in a cement mixer for a couple of hours. Cute they may be, but cute doesn't fix brakes. I decided to get back in the car and use my jumper as a sun acreen / child deflector.
We were on our merry way again and the landscape began to change. The countryside opened up and we passed through small village after small village. The buildings became more African with every mile we travelled. Beautifully constructed small mud huts with straw thatched roofs took the place of cement and concrete. The landcape became a vast open space, interspersed with dense bush land and large patches of burnt out scrub which are commonplace in the dry season. Every once in a while we reached a police checkpoint, and although sometimes these can be slightly tricky, we were greeted with smiles and not asked for anything to 'ease our journey'.
Although beautiful and picturesque, you could tell that poverty was more prolific here than in our area of Kombo. The people were dressed in ripped and dirty clothes and looked less well fed than I have previously seen on my travels. Their access to clean water was also more sporadic, with local wells as opposed to boreholes being spread much further apart. You could tell this from the amount of women and children carrying huge amounts of water back to their compounds (which is something that still amazes me.)
Finally we arrived at our desitnation Camp Tendaba. Tendeba is a small fishing village set on the river, with the focal point being the camp, which started life in the 1980's a hunting lodge. It is now primarily used for bird watching and a training facitilty for the American Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps was set up in the 60's by Kennedy who wanted to help developing countries by educating on health, sanitation etc. Unfortunatly we walked straight into one of their training weekends. Nothing better than wanting a nice relaxing break on the river to be confronted by a load of gap year twenty something smug american brats speaking fluent Mandinka. God that's like soooo neat.
Thanks to the buckets of orange dust that had been thrown over us, we looked like sweaty fake tanned satsuma's as we walked up to the reception. Obviously there was a mix up with our room.
Our VIP river view room was replaced by a large biscuit tin which doubled as a brothel for fornicating squirrels by night. You've gotta love those corrugated iron roofs.
We made the most of it though, and after the Peace Corps had b*****ed off (probably to verbalize their emotions and release their bad chi) we had a pleasant evening sitting out on our own private little jetty.
The next morning we walked into the village. It was a tiny little village, incredibly poor which I found incredible considering the amount of money that the camp must take over the course of the year. I think that's the one thing that troubles me about places such as this. It appears that no money ever really goes back to the local community. The same can be said for all the majority of these foreign owned lodges, camps and hotels. I am thankful that at least here in Madina that is not the case.
We were met by about twenty of the local kids off to school so we decided to join them up the dusty road. (We didn't really have a choice with them hanging off every arm, leg and shoulder). Once we'd arrived at the school we were greeted by the head teacher who gave us a little tour of his school. It certainly put everything in context once we'd had a look around. It made me appreciate how good the kids have it here and how lucky they have been to have the influence of WYCE on their lives. The classroom was dark, dirty and lacking enough chairs and basic equipment for their education. Don't get me wrong, ours is by no means anything compared to UK standards, but this was in a different league. I feel for the teachers who are trying their best in these hardest of conditions to try to give these kids an education. They are, and should be proud of themselves for the what they have achieved.
We found a local shop and bought some tapalapa (bread) and sat by the quay eating. I'm guessing that we are one of the few who actually venture outside the camp judging by the big smiles from the locals.
On our way back to the camp we were approached by a man who asked us if we'd be interested in eating at his 'restaurant'. Of course we would. We ordered our food in advance which was Benachin (a local spicy rice dish with fish) and headed off.
As soon as we arrived back we were told our VIP room was ready so we threw our stuff in bags and legged it out of the biscuit tin. Our new room was a vast improvement on the last and was right on the riverfront. Ok it wasn't the Hilton but whaddya expect for £10 a night (for 3)? We had our own little terrace and a TV.
So the TV didn't work but who cared it's the thought right?
That night we walked over to the end of the jetty in the camp and sat in a little bantaba (straw hut) and watched the sunset over the water whilst enjoying a cold beer. From where we sat we watched the man we'd met earlier laying up a little plastic table and lighting a candle in readiness for our arrival on the
adjacent jetty.
We strolled over to the restaurant which in actual fact was a concrete based open construction, which I'm sure once it's had a lick of paint will be lovely. The food however was fantastic. We then joined him in a few glasses of attaya (green tea) and had a chat about the camp and it's place in the local community. As I suspected they didn't employ many people from the village and although polite, I got the distinct impression there was a touch of animosity. I explained to him the ethos behind our project in Madina Salaam which he though was great, especially as our long term goal is to completely hand everything back to the locals when it has reached a point of self sustainability.
The rest of the break was great and really relaxing.
We still hadn't worked out how we were getting back and it was looking like local taxis, or gele-geles as they're known here. Thankfully after a chat with Lamin the manager, he pointed us in the direction of one of his friends who was driving back to Brikama on the Sunday.
We spoke to him and he agreed to take us back. It transpired he owned the huge black Toyota pick-up with blacked out windows, no number plates and a host of assorted spotlights that I'd said looked dodgy when we'd arrived. He was a soldier.
Once we'd got over the shock of sitting next to loaded firearms, it turns out he was actually quite a nice chap. It was also handy as it meant that we wouldn't have to stop at any checkpoints or border patrols.
We set off at 8.30 this morning and he absolutely hammered it. At one point I swear I was weightless as we hit pothole after pothole. It was really bizarre as people stopped in their tracks to either salute or clap. At least that's what I think they were doing it was a bit difficult to see in the cloud of dust and mild concussion from my head hitting the roof. A four hour journey was reduced to two and a half, and this would have been shorter if we hadn't stopped to get firewood, pick up a couple of soldiers and change the Bob Marley CD.
Once back in Brikama we said our goodbyes and thanks and went to the bus garage to board a gele-gele to take us back to Gunjur where we needed to change again. The normal chaos and confusion of local transport ensued. The goat I was sat next to didn't appear to be in a chatty mood so I tried my luck with a chicken - no luck their either.
Anyway to cut long stories short, I'm back and alive. Been bitten god knows how many times by god knows what but no malaria yet. (I've actually changed my malaria pills as I didn't want to get Gulf War Syndrome which apparently the other ones are alleged to cause.)
If you're still awake, thanks for listening…
Love and tapalapa…

Txx

P.S There's more pics and not sure if you would have seen the drumming vid...

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