WAIST (pt 4) - The Gambia

While at WAIST I stayed in one of the PC Senegal houses with about 30 other Volunteers, some of which were from The Gambia. When I mentioned that I was thinking about going to The Gambia after WAIST for a few days they mentioned that they had some extra seats open on the bus they had chartered back to Banjul. One thing led to another and a whole bunch of Mali Volunteers ended up in The Gambia for a few days, myself included.

Most Mali Volunteers ended up staying at a PC transit house in Banjul, but I was in a group of four that stayed at a Gambia Volunteer's house. It was great. She took us all over the Banjul area. We went to the beach, fish market, and an old growth forest that has wild monkeys that will come right up to you. We also went to a toga party, ate at a nice restaurant, and cooked for ourselves a few nights.

Some things to note about the Banjul area are as follows. There is one kind of beer in The Gambia: Julbrew. The supermarkets are better than those in Mali, but not as nice as Dakar. One supermarket is actually called "Safeway", but I don't think there is a connection with the US chain. Since it was colonized by the British, everything in The Gambia is in English! I had the best burger yet in West Africa in Banjul. There is a mini-mart in Banjul that the Gambian Volunteers call "Wal-Mart" because it sells all American goods. Ironically they use Wal-Mart bags, but most of the stuff they sell is actually from Aldi. Most of the touristy stuff and everything I have just mentioned are not found in Banjul, but in the area immediately to the west, called Kombo.

One of my favorite things to see was a restaurant we went to that had a balcony overlooking the fish market. It was the definition of kitsch. Not a single inch of wall space was left un-occupied. Fountains. Giant wooden sculptures. Christmas lights. Large mirrors. You could even buy a lot of what was on the walls. It put places like Applebee's to shame. None of it followed any particular theme.

The beaches were fantastic. Lots of clean sand. Warm water. Only problem was the presence of several dozen "bumpsters". These are young men in their late teens, early twenties that are essentially gigolos. They run up and down the beach and solicit the tourist women. Usually they come up and try talking to women, but sometimes they'll just stop near you and start doing push-ups or something masculine...

Our PC Gambia host liked to joke that the Volunteers unofficial motto is "PC Gambia, where change is a problem". This is meant to play off the fact that no one is ever able to make change for purchases. It's also an interesting parody off of Obama's campaign slogan... "Change we can believe in".