Compare and Contrast
on Lynn Sellwood (The Gambia), 19/Nov/2011 17:00, 34 days ago
AnotherTobaskihas been and gone along with my friend Jay whom I first met in Barbados when she managed the rental of my house there. She was keen to come and see Africa and what I was doing so the date was booked and I had not realised that her week would coincide with the biggest celebration of the year. She got to see the country as it prepared for the religious and social side of the annual event known in Britain as Eid. She thought she was coming for a holiday......In Sandele bayI got to see the country afresh through her eyes. She asked questions, she talked to other volunteers and local people and like me could see the links between the African traditional ways of doing things and the ways of Barbados. We had long conversations about the different culture, the mind-set, the beliefs and the manners or etiquette which divides us as cultures.So, Tobaski is about being with your family and providing a live ram for slaughter in the morning in honour and memory of the Abraham and Isaac story which most of us know from the Old Testament. We had to travel up-country to my favourite Baboon Island on the last day that everyone crosses the river by the ferry to make their way to their home villages.Getting off The ferry port at Banjul is always busy with hawkers, lorries, cars, gelly-gelly’s loaded with luggage, women with babies and loads on their heads, music, shouting, gesticulating, pushing and shoving, queues that don’t move, surges which look like football terraces in motion and litter, loads of it, floating, sodden, fly-blown and smelly.Spot the ram But that day was worse. Lamin, our taxi driver, couldn’t suppress a laugh when we arrived at 6.30am. It was going to be impossible even as a foot passenger. Jay was mesmerised and horrified. I could see that she was having second thoughts.Gelly-gelly and ram!The contrast with Baboon Island was almost impossible to appreciate. We arrived on the calm river and it all seemed worthwhile. We saw the chimpanzees, watched shy hippos snorting and sinking by the riverside, meandered down side streams to look at the weaverbird nests and spot the flash of kingfishers.Jay, relaxing at Baboon Island We rested and looked and slept looking at the stars. We got a look at the rescuedGenetwhich was about to be eaten by a chimpanzee until its attention was diverted. The chimp discarded the half dead thing into the river where it was rescued by the rangers who have been feeding it by hand until it can return to the wild.Baby Genet The following day we were face to face with the reality of The Gambia; women washing their clothes in the river;Can you see the women washing the clothes? a small boy asking, oh so politely, for our plastic water bottles and our waiting taxi complete with a ram tied to the roof rack! Jay, an animal lover, was delighted when it pee’d through the open window all over the driver who was going to slaughter it for the family feast the following day.Only one day of life leftThe birds were a feature of her trip. Wherever you are at this time of year you see some amazing birds here are the few I managed to capture on film. My camera hasn’t the speed, zoom or quality needed for the real action shots.A heron of some sortPalm Nut VultureAnother type of vultureWe managed a trip to Serrekunda market to buy fabric and give her a taste of the daily activities of the majority of the local population.me! The overwhelming sense is of colour and then noise and then smell. The colour of the outfits worn by the women, the colour of the fruit and vegetables, imagine aubergine next to tomato next to cucumber and hot peppers; the shouts of vendors, the hiss, which is the standard way for a Gambian to catch your attention, the insinuating opening gambits like “nice lady”, “boss lady”, “remember me” and “come with me, I can do wholesale price”........the rumble of engines that make their way through the crowd, the horns, the brakes, the soft buzz of flies on the dead fish for sale.......the smells of engine oil and petrol, cooking vats of food full of palm oil, garlic and tomato paste, the smell of rotting food and vegetables and the undertow of sewerage.....Jay managed very well, mesmerized and amazed by degrees.So now she has gone we are looking forward to the election. It is ostensibly a democratic procedure but only the president’s party has any organisation or resources. The opposition is putting up two candidates which makes for a more confused debate. The president’s party, the ARPC has festooned the capital with posters exalting the virtues of the President. Some of the messages seem strange to us, but I’ve managed to capture three of them........This ensures the women's voteThis is in respect of the African UnionA sacred duty for all GambiansNow Lamin has his newly sprayed car and a bank account; he distributes his business cards and is much in demand. We even have a price list which saves us from haggling. He is a happy man and he told me he went home to his family in Farfenni as a man, he had his own car (it took him till midnight to cross on the ferry), money in his pocket, a new outfit and a ram!very proudoutside my compoundOther news; finished reading“Nomad” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali where she loses all my respect by suggesting that an effective antidote to fundamentalist Islam is a resurgence of the Catholic church in cities in Europe; been involved in developing the new VSO country strategy; had a rotten upset stomach which kept me close to homeand been struggling with the OU Creative Writing course.