Blogs from Banjul, District of Banjul , Gambia, Africa - page 3

This week has been all about the language lessons. I’m learning Mandinka and it’s really hard! The structure of the language seems simple enough but all the words sound the same. They only have one way of pronouncing each letter which means there’s not many sounds to choose from. I have a feeling this is going to lead to some embarrassing mistakes. Here’s a possible one. We were flicking through our sheets of vocabulary and noticed that among the names of parts of the body they’d decided to give us the Mandinka word for vagina. This is ‘bee’, pronounced ‘beh’. The trouble is the word for ‘am’ is ‘be’, also pronounced ‘beh’ but with an ever so slightly shorter sound. Now what are the chances that at some point I’m going to unknowingly slightly over state ... read more

Today we visited the village of Ndemban to get a taste of village life in The Gambia. We set off early in a little minibus and drove for about an hour out into the countryside. When we arrived at the village we were told not to drive down the small road leading to the village because the women had prepared a welcome celebration for us. We piled out of the bus to be met by about 30 women and goodness knows how many children all dressed in the colours of The Gambia and chanting traditional songs. They were really into it, blowing on their whistles, stamping their feet and dancing around the instrument that one of them was playing. We slowly made our way up to the village school where the rest of the village had ... read more

Reverse Sex Tourism It may be low key, but for West Africa this place is a tourist haven - The Sharm el Sheik, the Zanzibar you could say. But it’s also a venue for sex tourism of another kind. It maybe in its infancy but its there - and it gives a chance for the male gender to inform women that, ‘Hey, you do it too!” There were two reasons for me to travel here. One was because the VISA is free for Australians. And after forking out extortionate visa fees of $93 for Bissau and $107 for Guinea I thought I have to take this opportunity. The other reason was to see middle-aged British women reverse the sex tourism scene. I wasn’t sure how I was going to travel this country. Should I venture inland ... read more

THE GAMBIA When someone suggested spending the weekend in The Gambia, I was all for it. We left Friday afternoon, with a taxi to the "garage" where buses & station wagons leave. It was a 2 hour trip to the border. One hour was on a good road, the other very pot-holed, so drivers were often on the unpaved area that would be the shoulder, left or right side, veering around trees and signs. Passengers cross the border on foot, stopping at immigration desks. The red tape was quick. Another van ride to get to the ferry to cross the river to Banjul, the capital. The Gambia is strangely located inside of Senegal, with one edge on the Atlantic Ocean. Senegalese describe it as the tongue on the mouth (see map). It is essentially a river ... read more

Well a rather long day of travel from Cap Skiring to The Gambia. Early rise thanks to Simon (5:30) and on the bus at 6:30. I hope he didn’t expect any cash? At the Gambian border I got pulled in to the border guards office for my “address”. It soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be allowed to go anytime soon. However, I wasn’t in a rush. Neither of us were willing to bring up the idea of a bribe (for different reasons). We casually chatted about sports, Canada and the weather. All the while the border guard was getting more and more antsy. He kept asking me: “You want to leave?” “Well eventually” I’d reply. Then I started to read his newspaper as his work started to pile up. Finally he asked: “you ... read more