Blogs from Kololi, Western Division, Gambia, Africa

Being in a meaningful place is not solely bound to one room, one home, one state, one country, one race, one gender or one economic class. It in turn, is a state of consciousness where you constantly feel like you serve a purpose in every space that you enter. So the question is how do we design space to help facilitate Place for those who may be lacking this feeling of belonging? A seemingly omniscient and influential power permeates organismic behavior at every given second of existence. It can never leave, but it can always assume dynamic nature. This power is Space; re-defined, it may be a parameter in which psychology can reflect its own design. Once behavior can reflect happiness, productivity, and healthy function, Space can then transform to meaningful Place. This Space is therefore ... read more

Dear Family and Friends Well in the spur of the moment I and my roommates, Dan and George, decided to go travelling for ten days down to the Gambia and Casamance by sept-place and then take a ferry back. When the big day of our departure arrived, we got up nice and god awfully early to get to our destination at a relatively decent hour. So I, being the only moderately responsible one and only one that could wake up on his own, woke the boys up. Upon last minute packing, George asks if we have you seen his camera, the virtually brand new SLR with massive, and the expensive lense on it?.... Sigh It turns out George (in his infinite forgetfulness) left his camera in its bag at the restaurant the night before after uploading ... read more

Winter sun these days tends to rank higher and higher on a tourist's wishlist, and the option of spending Christmas Day on a beach in the Gambia almost seemed like the greatest christmas present that was never intended for unwrapping. The long-established Senegambia Beach hotel, which lent its name to the Senegambia entertainment strip leading off from the hotel, is one of the country's prime properties, and its beachfront location suggests why its popularity in the context of the entire country will always have the stamp of permanence. This was the most authentically African country visited to date, and sufficient evidence to suggest that the country, in land mass terms 'a finger in the mouth of Senegal', literally thrives off its income generated from tourism. Excursions are adequate, at least for a week-long visit, and the ... read more

One day I was hanging out at my friend Iris’s compound and a pathetic looking little street cat wondered in, looking for food and love. He was tiny, probably not more than 3 weeks old, scruffy, and terribly bug infested. I wanted to take him home and rehabilitate him, give him a bath and some food, and so I did. He hid under my kitchen counter for quite a long time. After my friends and I pulled him out we gave him a bit of a bath, it needed to be done or he would be horribly ill from all of the bugs he had. What we found under his puff of orange hair was nothing more than a few bones held together by some skin. He collapsed after we washed him, but was then brought ... read more

I live in the Tower of Babble. With multiple different local languages, mixed with some form of English, and a bit of French, it is a sure fire way to get lost in a sea of translation confusion. As Bill Murray and Scarlet Johnason were, I too am lost in translation. Take last week for example. I went to Sukuta (a village about half on hour from where I live) to visit friends. Most of them speak Mandinka (which I know only greetings and basic phrases in), Wolof (which I am SEMI proficient in), and “Gambian English”. When white, non-local speakers come into the mix, it can get a little messy. While trying to speak Wolof to the Mandinkas, the Mandinka speakers are trying to make me speak their language, and firing off what I am ... read more