It is always advisable to start early.  So we rose before dawn picked up our rucksacks and set off in high spirits, great expectations and excited about our journey ahead.  The night watchman bade us bon voyage as we slipped out of the gate on starry night with large fruit bats gliding across the sky past the palm trees heading for the mangos.  As we waited on the dark road for a passing taxi to take us to the Banjul Ferry terminal a pick up truck stopped and the driver very generously offered to take us to Westfield junction.  These gestures of friendly support always impressed us and helped to make us feel at home in Gambia and West Africa.  Then a taxi appeared and the driver was very enthusiastic about our trip and keen to get us to the ferry terminal in time to catch the first ferry at 7.30 am

The Banjul ferry terminal was bustling with life when we pulled our rucksacks out of the boot and thanked our taxi driver for getting us there so promptly.  Shuffling forward in a single file queue we bought our five dalasi foot passengers tickets and joined our fellow travellers in the large waiting shed. Even at this time in the grey morning the waiting shed was full of mothers with babies on their backs and large colourful bundles on their heads, men with a sheep in tow, families with large suitcases and people in colourful clothes with big bundles by their sides.  There was always the brightly dressed young man with a gold necklace and really cool wrap around sunglasses, striking a pose but not really making much of an impression with the seasoned travellers. Everyone was quiet and patient.  Threading through the throng were vendors of freshly baked bread, biscuits, plastic bags of water, mangos and genuine Rollex watches selling at the knock down price of just under a pound.  There was an air of resigned calm.  From a corner of the gate a section of the superstructure of the ferry appeared, then disappeared, without the passenger gates being opened.  Had the ferry come and gone without passengers? The sun rose steadily in the sky and the number of passengers increased.  The departure time of the first ferry had come and gone, but still there was no impatience.

There were two ferries.  Both were venerable Dutch built roll on roll off vessels. The vehicle deck was a large steel plated area with enough room for ten cars end to end and three abreast.  The white painted superstructure had two levels and spanned the open vehicle deck.  The vehicles were loaded first.  A loading marshal inched each vehicle forward lorry by lorry, car by car until he had as many vehicles on as possible. Foot passengers were held back until all the vehicles were loaded.  Finally the tall steel gates of the passenger waiting area were opened and we joined the hundreds of foot passengers who surged forward.  Many had bundles on their heads or carried back packs.  Mothers had babies wrapped on their backs and usually carried their luggage on their heads. Goats and sheep were pulled along with string around their necks.  We often wondered why these heavily laden and encumbered people always ran to the ferry.  Gambian people seldom hurried anywhere and the ferry would not leave until they were all boarded. 

They swarmed over the ship filling every conceivable space.  They even filled the spaces between the vehicles. There was always a slight air of celebration, perhaps expectation as so many people travelled to see family and friends, see school mates again or conclude some profitable business.  The passengers also brought with them a huge range and variety of vibrant colours in their clothes and packages. Chatting to the crew we discovered that as the first ferry was manoeuvring the propeller had been fouled by a rope and a frogman had been called it to free it.  Sure enough there on the bank were two wet frogmen taking off their masks and tanks.  We were actually quite impressed that the underwater team were available at that time of the morning to rescue the ferry.
The day was warming nicely and the crossing to Barra on the north bank was smooth and pleasant. We watched from the top deck of the ferry, leaning on the bright orange floatation rafts strapped to the side of the ship.  The small port of Barra grew as the ferry approached.  We could now make out the groundnut loading gantries and conveyor belts rising above the concrete breakwaters.  As the ferry slowed and manoeuvred into its berth we watched the dock workers begin to lower the steel ramps for the vehicles to unload.  Crumpled and distressed heavily laden lorries were lined up within the walls of the port ready to cross to Banjul on the return trip. Drivers were lying sleeping on mats under their lorries to protect themselves from the warming morning sun.  The drivers of articulated lorries had slung makeshift hammocks under their trucks and dozed in rather more comfort.  In front of the line of lorries were handcarts loaded high with three piece suites or boxes or a hundred bright-yellow square empty 25 litre plastic containers.  There was the usual collection of goats and sheep.  There was even one man, a dark skinned local farmer, with a large brown, long-horned cow with red plastic string round its neck.  We climbed down the companionways with the other passengers.  As the ramps dropped into place with a loud clang the foot passengers surged off.  We streamed off with everyone else past the waiting vehicles and flooded up the port road, a long colourful stream, ten or twelve abreast toward the main gates. Lorry engines started, engulfing the vehicle deck with eye stinging blue exhaust blasts from poorly tuned diesel engines. 

This article is part of a series describing our tour of West Africa
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Gambia was great, we had adapted well and lived and worked there for over a year.  Apart from our excursion to Benin we really hadn’t seen much of West Africa.  It was a bit like the incredible situation in 1788 when Sir Joseph Banks was instrumental in forming the African Society to explore the interior of Africa.  Despite having engaged in trade with the African Kings on the West Coast of Africa to buy timber, ivory and slaves for more than 200 years there was still not a viable map of the interior. The Europeans really didn’t know what lay just beyond the coast.  True, travellers like Richard Jobson had sailed 300 miles up the river Gambia in 1620, but his accounts contained no solid geographical information like distances to specific features.  Indeed when we asked our Gambian friends and colleagues about the surrounding countries they advised caution and great care. Their responses were almost like;

‘There be dragons’

Korante, our watchman, of course came from Mali and he was delighted to show us his home village on our modern map.  Awa hailed from the Cassamance in southern Senegal and said that was lovely and welcoming, apart from the separatist guerrillas and the occasional bandits who should be avoided.  There were stories of bush van passengers being held at gunpoint the previous month and robbed of everything they owned. 

Since everyone apart from ECOWAS citizens needed a visa to travel to most countries we decided to go to Dakar the capital of Senegal where there were the embassies of Mali, and Burkina Faso. We didn’t need a visa for Senegal.  There was a Ghanaian consulate not far from our home in Fajara.   The woman official there was polite and the model of friendly efficiency.  Having proffered our completed application forms, along with the fees and appropriate number of passport photographs she took our passports and asked us to return in two hours.  Sure enough two hours later we had multiple entry visas for Ghana, valid for six months.

We had thoroughly mastered the art of travelling around Gambia by public transport and pretty well knew the ropes.  The essential qualities are to have a good sense of humour, take nothing for granted and have infinite patience; everyone else has.  Things take time and often go wrong, that’s normal, so it is best not to plan too minutely.  We knew we could plan roughly where we would be within a few days but could certainly not assume what time of day we would arrive.  So we didn’t book hotels or lodging along our route, although we did research some likely places from the excellent ‘Rough Guide to West Africa.’  Everything was carried in our rucksacks.  Allan carried the large one containing clothes, candles, insecticide, spare water.  This would travel on the top of bush vans and buses and contain nothing valuable.  Margaret carried the smaller rucksack with the valuable stuff like the camera and medicines.  Mindful of pickpockets and potential robberies our cash was split between us.  Only small amounts of money were carried in our pockets with larger amounts in Allan’s money belt.  Our female friends advised Margaret to carry some cash in her bra as robbers of a Muslin persuasion would be deterred from looking there.  We had our doubts about that, since a good Muslim would not rob anyone in the first place; still we took the advice.  Large denomination Euro notes were also secreted under the insoles of our shoes.  We tried to foresee all possibilities and reduce the risk of being stranded thousands of miles from home with no resources! 

This article is the first part of a series describing our tour of West Africa
Next page:  Photographs

As Margaret reflects on her first year working as a volunteer with GOVI, the new school term is starting. The teachers are planning their lessons, the grass which has sprung up during the rains is being cleared and new play equipment is being installed. With support from generous funders, Friends of GOVI UK, some local benefactors and other sources from UK, the hall has been repainted, the toilets fixed and the vehicles maintained. Uniforms have been purchased and made for all the children. The government had allocated insufficient teachers for the year and the headteacher and director have challenged the decisions. Now the school has a full complement of staff. This year each class will be staffed by one trained teacher and one student teacher. All the trained teachers this year can read and write Braille, which means that the school will get off to an unusually good start. The headteacher and deputy will spend time teaching the student teachers Braille; so by the end of the year they too will be fluent in Braille. The student teachers may then be moved to some other school which may or may not have visually impaired children, more than likely they won’t. However even if there blind children in the schools there will be no Braille machines for them as these are not available in the Gambia outside GOVI. GOVI has the few available machines and these are maintained by a local blind Braille technician. He is a wonderful man who will take money from his own pocket to pay a local welder for improvised repairs to the aging machines. There was a ceremony recently for a local charity to present a brand new motor bike. This will enable the resource centre teachers to visit and support the children who are integrated into main stream high schools. Some students are also at the local technical college and one is due to start a university course. The motor bike is making a huge difference to these students as the teachers will be able to visit more regularly. The major task facing the school now is to find a sustainable source of funding as the existence at the moment is from hand to mouth. The organisation eagerly awaits the tourist season when the children sing beautifully for visiting tourists and the collection box gathers enough dalasis for the next week’s transport. The question is “Should children have to sing for their education?” The country doesn’t have the money to give; so aid agencies and other sources are being tapped for a longer term commitment. Part of Margaret’s work is to help in identifying these and train staff to improve their proposal writing. One major achievement is that Margaret has introduced a proper accounting system and can show that funds are being used properly. This will be an enormous benefit in approaching some of the big international funders. The biggest pleasure of all, however, is the relationships built up with the children and the staff. One young girl today was very happy that she has had her hair straightened. She still regrets that it won’t be as soft as Margaret’s but at least it is straight. As Margaret says, “If she could only see how often my hair resembles a hedge she may think twice about her desire for toubab hair!”

Allan and Margaret travelled with the Mobile Dental Clinic and the hospital team over on the big vehicle ferry to the north bank last week. The clinic was being commissioned in a small village called Essau. As we approached the village chief, the imam and the village elders were there to greet us. The village women, many with babies and young children on their backs, sang a traditional song of welcome. Under a big baobab tree there were hundreds of onlookers. Many speeches were read out an every one clapped enthusiastically. The chief made a particularly good speech about people not looking after their teeth properly, and saying they should drink less sweet green tea and avoid sweets. One man kept following us around and showing us that all his teeth were loose and we had difficulty explaining that he should see the dentist. The huge crowd of onlookers turned out to be patients who had travelled from all the surrounding villages to see the dentist. So the dentist and the two dental nurses cleared the decks, cut away the bunting and rolled up their sleeves. As we were chatting with local dignitaries, the dental team were pulling out teeth. One of our hospital dentists told us that the local women believed that they should not have a bad tooth taken out if they were pregnant. This belief he told us had resulted in two of his patients and their babies dying of septicaemia. Two women had spontaneous abortions and one women had a huge abscess from her ear to her chest by the time the baby was delivered. She survived, as did the baby. We saw such suffering from disease and poverty that day that we were glad that the mobile dental clinic will help so many people.

Allan was very impressed by the leadership shown by the Chief Medical Director of the hospital. We are in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Over 170 cases have been treated. The temporary cholera ward has 42 people in a ward equipped for 20. Eight patients have died so far. It is also the malaria season so there are malnourished children dying in the paediatrics department. Too many really. This is also Ramadan so people, including doctors and nurses, are working in temperatures of 35oC without food and water from sunrise to sunset. Naturally people are tired and at the end of their tether, especially in the cholera ward. Things had not been going smoothly. Medicines had not been delivered, floors had not been washed often enough, soiled bed linen had not been collected. At the management meeting the Chief said it was no good the senior management sitting in their clean offices just talking about problems. They had to get together and Act. So she led the entire management team out of the board room and said we were going to conduct the management meeting in the cholera ward. It’s amazing how quickly senior managers can resolve issues when they are standing next to emaciated unconscious patients on a drip in a dirty ward reeking of diarrhoea!

So we are both making progress and still enjoying The Gambia. Our landlady has had the roof repaired and we’ve even had the living room wall painted to cover the cracks left by the coconut tree hitting the roof. The rains have gone. There are still too many big black and yellow spiders for Allan’s liking but the weather is definitely improving.

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