Blogs from Gambia, Africa - page 2

Lately, all the local occurrences have made me feel more at home and excited for the future. There is a great level of comfort within finding that the steps towards achieving an ambition you initially thought would need patience to be seen. Of course, my primary dream is to practice physiotherapy in a place without the benefit of such services, while appealing to my ex-patriotism wanderlust that I cannot seem to shake. Of course, that is not enough for me. Understanding the needs of people are so great and diverse, I am thirsty to learn how to satisfy the needs for things such as clean water, business development, beneficial policy, and malnutrition. Even if I was to learn enough about one of these issues to find that it something I can only advocate rather than solve, ... read more

It is worth mentioning repeatedly that we are creatures of our environment, and that the situation on Agua Campus is no exception. For a few months, I spent time interviewing over 70 applicants for the International Sustainable Development Internship, and approximately 14 are coming over the course of this summer. Although we currently have three international interns, I can see the potential of structuring such environments with decorated, passionate, and intelligent individuals with the intent of producing some of the most productive behaviors towards innovation. Franco, the first to come and is now leaving today after 1 month, has shown me a lot about what it means to be on the receiving side of valued experience. As a finance and anthropology major, Franco has proven to be a fun-loving, driven, and globally-infatuated individual with changing the ... read more

Janjanbureh... read more

Banjul Area... read more

In southern Gambia we stayed in Sanyang, a small fishing village. Its three mile sandy beach has attracted a few passing tourists over the years and now there are a couple of beach bars with half a dozen rooms out the back. The fishing village is impressive. There are, we are told, over 300 fishing pirogues.- long brightly painted mahogany boats that go out to sea before we are up in the morning. All afternoon they return in ones and twos, full of fish. Ugly sea snails; shiny black snapper, bongo, butterfish and ladyfish; small sting rays. As the boats return, their crew beach the boat and await help. Slowly, other fishermen wander down the beach to the water's edge, pushing a few old logs which will act as rollers under the boat. Once there are ... read more