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Published: March 25th 2012
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The ferry
I didn't have my camera on my yesterday but this is a picture from the first time I experienced the ferry traveling down from Basse. This is everyone getting off in a very orderly fashion. There's a system to this: everyone push! The day got off to a surreal start when I walked out of the compound to see a one legged man riding a bike. How does that even work? I’m still baffled.
Lamin has to take some people to Dakar today so, as taking a car on the Banjul ferry is a bit of a nightmare, he takes it over the day before so he and his customers can get the first ferry in the morning and just hop on as foot passengers. Stupidly, I agreed to do this little job with him. Definitely stupid as I have to get this ferry every time I want to come down to Kombo,(unless I manage to hitch a lift with someone important enough to have a car, in which case we go on the south road) so I knew exactly what I was getting myself in for. The Banjul ferry is a bit of an experience. I don’t think the people who run it have ever heard of the words health or safety before. On a good day there are three ferries working which look like they’re ready to conk out at any moment. They take you from Banjul on
the south bank to Barra on the north across the mouth of the river. I don’t know what the distance is but it’s so wide you can hardly see across to the other side even on a clear day.
We got there at 12 o’clock and joined the queue with the car. I say queue in the loosest sense of the word. At a guess there seemed to be about 30 cars in front of us. The ferries can carry about 25-30 vehicles but Lamin still refused to guess how many ferries we would have to wait for before we managed to get on one. So we settled down, prepared for a good old wait.
1 broken down ferry and 5 HOURS later(!!!) we finally we got to the point of boarding one. However we still had to do a lot of pushing (not easy in a car, particularly against huge lorries), a bit of tactical negotiation and a cheeky 25 dalsis slipped to the right police officer and we still had to wait while all the policemen, ferry authorities, and random people from the general public argued over who was getting on and
who wasn’t, probably based on how many dalsis each of them had managed to wangle out of each car. Nevertheless by 5 o’clock we were on.
Thankfully it was a smooth sail over. It’s always easier getting from Banjul to Barra because of the way the river flows. 40 minutes later we reached the other side. Getting back to Banjul is another matter though. The ancient ferries crawl across the water battling against the river flow so it takes more like 1 and a half to 2 hours, sometimes longer, to make the crossing. Not wanting to waste more time Lamin persuaded me to take the other option, the small boats.
These are small wooden boats that look like Viking boats without the dragon's head. They only carry people and have a motor so are considerably faster than the ferry if not slightly lest sturdy looking. Lamin assured me it would only take half an hour to cross. Ok I said, I’d give it a whirl, on the understanding that he was to sacrifice himself in order to safe me should our little vestal sink, Titanic style. The boats land just on the shore line and there’s no jetty to get to them; the only way to board the boat it to be carried on. Seeing this done from the safety of the ferry is what has put me off using them before. I walked down to the shore getting slightly nervous at the thought.
I got quite a bit of attention once we got down there, as one of the few toubab’s daft enough to attempt this. A crowd of around 6 men all gathered round me, talking to Lamin in the local language so I didn’t really have a clue what was going on. Before I knew it though a huge man, I swear he must have been about 6’5”, whipped his trousers down, turned me around, stuck his head between my legs and hoisted me up onto his shoulders. I gave an exclamation of ‘oh no!’, clasped my hands over my mouth to stifle a small squeal and tried to maintain as much dignity as I possibly could. Not much I imagine! Man it was scary. The man’s reassurances of ‘take it easy, take it easy’ didn’t really work particularly when he had to keep stepping over the ropes of the other boats. The boats are moored only about 20 meters from the shore but that was long enough thanks very much. I was just thankful I’d decided to wear my one pair of trousers rather than my usual floaty skirts and for once I wasn’t regretting not having the time to eat lunch. The rest of the people on the boat found my discomfort most amusing. These men carry everyone onto the boat, men and all. They must be ridiculously strong. They get 5 dalsis (about 10p) for each person they carry. The only perk being that they must save money on their gym membership, particularly after seeing some of the, let’s say, hefty, women they had to carry on board.
The boats look quite small from a distance but there must have been at least 50 people crammed on by the time it was full. Setting off was hairy. We had to fight our way past the other boats. At one point everyone had to duck as the bow of another boat reared right over the top of us which caused a load of shouting at the captain with advice of how to steer the boat properly. One man sitting next to me laughed and said ‘these men are very stubborn (the Gambian word for naughty) but they know the water. They are fiss (I presume he meant fish). They really know the water. Really there are just like fiss’. That’s alright for them I thought, but what about us when we end up in the water!
I don’t know if the water is always that rough and I just haven’t been near enough to worry about it, but it really was bloody rough. Dear me, it’s a good job I don’t get sea sick. We were rocked all over the place prompting much shouting and not very assuring nervous laughter from everyone. Lamin and I cleverly managed to sit on the right side of the boat though as the others on the other side got totally drenched at the waves lapped over the side. Talk about feeling vulnerable. Life jackets were provided but I’d question how effective they would have been should things have taken a turn for the worse.
I reckon a half hour crossing was optimistic but we did manage to beat the old ferry. Unfortunately we had the same issues with getting out of the boat as we did getting on. How is one supposed to climb onto someone’s shoulders from a boat exactly? Turns out I couldn’t do it but it did mean that I got a much more elegant ride being carried in the arms of another ridiculously strong man. I’m glad he didn’t resort to a fireman’s lift!
The temperature is significantly lower down here at the coast from Basse. I don’t know if it was my slightly soggy clothes that did it but I was frozen until we managed to make it home. I was glad to get back to a warm shower (yes this flat has hot water thanks to a lovely solar panel), a cup of tea and my cardigan. I think I could have done with a shot of whisky after that experience. The term ‘never again’ definitely springs to mind.
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Maureen Lennox
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Crazy Girl
How are you ever going to come down to earth when you come home. What a fantastic adventure. xx