Warning: This could be lengthy

Well, I'm back! After a week in the sun of Gambia I am now incredibly tanned (read: as pale as ever, though perhaps less unhealthy looking). It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that people actually read my Blog, not just the friends I have badgered to do it!

On December 1st I dragged myself out of bed at 4am, after just 3 hours sleep, to drive with some friends to East Midlands airport for our 9am flight. Our tickets said to be there at least 3 hours before check in. We arrived at 5.50am to discover that check in doesn't even open until 06.15, on the brightside early is better than late. The flight to The Gambia is 6 hours long, unless of course you go via Bristol... Yes, via Bristol, this added another hour and a half to our flight time. The plane was incredibly and uncomfortably cold, there was actually ice on the inside of the cabin and despite numerous requests to turn the heating up nothing changed. We eventually got some thin blankets, but they only had 5 or 6 (better then their original claim of none) which left many passengers without.

We arrived around 17:00, Gambia is on the same time zone as the UK. We stepped out of the plane into bright sunshine and began to sweat almost immediately. The hassle began as soon as we went to claim our baggage with us having to fight off porters to carry our own bags. That was one of the difficult things to adjust to, the hassle we got pretty much wherever we went, my stark whiteness screamed out new tourist. The drive to our hotel took about half an hour and revealed some of the extremes of Gambia. Large, beautiful, gated houses and small, dusty huts. New, shiny cars and beat up old ones that would not be roadworthy in the UK.

Our hotel was in the capital Banjul, 4* by Gambian standards it was nice. The service we received was amazing, the staff at the hotel was so helpful. Our rooms were serviced daily, incredibly thoroughly. Whenever we passed a member of staff they would greet us and ask how we were, so very different from the UK.

Some things we did:

We went on a fishing trip on the creeks and River Gambia, ate dodgy sandwiches and I ended up with diarrhoea and another member of the group diarrhoea and vomiting. That wasn't so much fun. Lost one whole day of the holiday and felt quite delicate for the next couple.

We went to a couple of nature reserves and we saw monkeys! We fed the monkeys peanuts, they took them from our open palm and sat on our shoulders eating them. So much fun, I could have done that all day.

We visited a Crocodile Pool, the local people believe them to be sacred creatures and the women bathe in the pool for fertility. We stroked crocodiles, shook thier paws and met Charlie, Gambia's star croc.

We visited a place called Tanji to have a lazy afternoon on the beach. We got out at the fishing village intending to walk along the beach but were swamped by aout 25 local children clamouring to hold our hands and for sweets or money to buy a football, so we ended up having to turn around and find somewhere else.

We were offered several cute babies. I'm not sure how serious the offers were! We waved at many a gorgeous child and threw sweets out of the car window as they chased along after us.

We drove around in a taxi that definitely would not have been roadworthy in the UK. At least 12 years old, the window screen was cracked into 4 held together by glue and some big stickers in the centre of the crack, the hand brake didn't work (as we discovered when we rolled back into a post!), the brakes were a little didgy as was the clutch. We had to push start the car one day in the town!

The holiday was more expensive that we expected. Despite the poverty, eating out was actually on par with England and we hadn't anticipated that. We could have gone for the really budget local food, but the quality was dubious, in the local market the fresh fish and meat was crawling with flies (literally) and retrospectively I'm glad we didn't; one stomach upset was enough!

Some aspects of our trip I found difficult to get used to:

Bumsters: These are people on the street/beach outside the hotels and in the town who target tourists and offer their guide services for a price. Often they will approach you being friendly, perhaps help you with something and then try to get money out of you. Sometimes they were aggressive and rude, other were just very persistent. Walking the beach outside our hotel you would be stopped frequently by people wanting to take you to their juice bar, or their shop and it was very difficult to deflect at times. Our hotel had a guard for this reason who would move the poeple on, and also reccomend trustworthy people on the beach to act as a guide, like Omar the postcard seller who took us into the market one day. He didn't ask for payment but was of course tipped, he seemed more itnerested in making friends. Nat stopped in the street to look at a shop and found someone shining his shoes without him asking, the person then pressured Nat to pay him for the service. It is far easier to pay them than argue it out.

The difficulty is that tourism created these people. They exist because we do. Gambia is a very poor country and a for a lot of these people tourism is their primary income. It puts you in a difficult position knowing that you are far wealthier than they are, but you are often faced with deviousness and are hassled into giving money for things you don't want.

Haggling. You are expected to haggle for everything in Gambia. It isn't a culture we're very used ot in Britain, and particularly they way I have been brought up. Some things were overpriced, but I find it embarassing asking someone to sell something cheaper, especially knowing I have more money in my pocket than their monthly income. I don't know if anyone reading this has seen any Monty Python but in one of the films, The Life of Brian, Brian is trying to hide from the Centurions and wants to purchase a beard in the market. It's a very funny scene, (read it here) Brian is willing to pay the full amount but the seller wishes for him to haggle. Well it was a bit like that. I tried to purchase a piece of artwork in the market, the starting price was 600D which I would have paid, but instead the seller was trying to teach me to haggle ("Now it's your turn, choose a starting price").

Poverty. There are about 50 Gambian Dalasis to the £pound. We were surrounded by poverty, and that in itself wasn't too difficult, you were immersed in it, you could see it in the streets, in the housing, in the clothing. It was the individual cases I struggled with, the ones that made it real and personal. Lamin White Cap was our taxi driver most days. We would pay 600d (£12) between 7 of us to drive half an hour to Serekunda to eat out there. He would wait around for 2 hours, then charge 50d (£1) for every hour after that, then drive us back. Sitting there eating in a really nice restraunt I realised that I was spending more on this one meal than Lamin was charging for the whole trip for the 7 of us. Lamin was a private taxi driver working for a company employed by the hotel, what we paid him he probably took very little home of.

One night driving back from dinner we were chatting to Lamin about his family, he has 5 children. To go to primary school it costs about 400d (£8) a term, Lamin struggles to pay this for all his children. His oldest son would like to learn Arabic, but that isnt' taught in primary or middle school, he would have to go to high school but that costs 1,500d (£24) a term (5,000d (£100) for private) and his father cannot afford those fees. Lamin does not drive his own car, he cannot afford it, yet he is not even one of the poorest in Gambia.

I think a lot about that conversation. The cost of schooling, he can just about afford primary and middle school, some can't even afford that. Yet it is so little money to us in the UK, but it is a very difficult situation to change. Who do you help? You can't help everyone. How do you help? You can't just give them money, which charity do you choose to support? It weighs heavily on my conscience.

I cannot do the country justice and this post has barely touched on the things I did and the things I thought whilst I was there. I have an album uploaded that I can email to people if they are interested, it's a bit odd and I can't link it only mail it. Drop me a comment if you're interested. But for now, here are three of my favourite.



I apologise for any typing errors!