Seriously Mum, Where’s The Gambia? (With apologies to Alan Parks :-)) Nothing to do with ebooks. Just sharing some teasers from what will eventually be a book about my life here in West Africa. For those wanting the latest ebook news, pop back later in the day. For those seeking a brief escape from the realities of western life, read on. *** There was an attempted coup d’etat here yesterday. As I write this it’s still not entirely clear what the outcome was, or if the President, out of the country at the time, is back in charge. As news broke yesterday morning the western embassies here were busy emailing ex-pats advising them to stay indoors. The capital, Banjul, was locked down, and larger businesses stayed closed. The rest of us carried on as normal, and the event was largely ignored by the world’s media, bar a few frenzied third-hand reports that knew nothing as fact but stated it anyway. The only real interest came from the media in countries like Britain, for which The Gambia is a popular winter sun tourist resort. But those reporters and tourists alike would be hard-pressed to find The Gambia on a world map. It is the smallest country on mainland Africa, a tiny finger of land on the West African coast, surrounded, bar a sliver of coastline, by neighbouring Senegal. At its simplest, The Gambia is a river (the River Gambia) and the land either side of that river. Popular legend has it the boundaries were defined by how far a cannonball could be fired either side from a ship midway on the river. Not true, of course, but a nice story. So where exactly is The Gambia? The standard flight-path from London to Banjul best explains it. Taking off from London Gatwick you fly out across the English Channel, clipping the north-eastern coast of France, out across the Bay of Biscay and then south over Spain. Rumour has it if you look closely you can see Alan and Lorna’s alpacas down below, and on a good day if you wave they wave back. The alpacas, that is, not Alan and Lorna. Depending on the day’s air traffic you’ll then clip Portugal and head south towards Casablanca in Morocco. From then the flights follow very closely the African coastline, such that if you are on the port side of the plane you can see the waves crashing on the African coast down below, and get a peek into the interior of North Africa that is the Sahara Desert. As an intrepid explorer I fly as a last resort, partly because I’m allergic to plane crashes, partly because being stuck in an aluminium tube with a bunch of tourists for hours one end is my idea of hell, but mainly because I want to experience every country I pass through/over. Knowing that Casablanca is 35,000 feet below and to the left a bit is no substitute for haggling in the souks and drinking mint tea with the local people. Which is why, on my first Africa walkabout, way back last century, I crossed the Sahara by camel. Three months of exhilarating discomfort and a very sore butt (both from sitting on a camel all day and from having to use hot sand as toilet paper), drinking tea made from camel urine, being sand-blasted by desert storms, and, oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. The guide was blind. But as he explained, there are no sign-posts in the desert and when you’ve seen one oasis you’ve seen them all. Who needs eyes? Nowadays I’m less intrepid at this exploring lark than I used to be, and will happily settle for six hours of discomfort on a plane over three months by camel to make the trip to and from my adopted home. But back to the view from the window seat. Not that there’s anything to tell you so, but at some point the Sahara Desert that is Morocco’s southern border becomes the Sahara Desert that is Western Sahara (real French Foreign Legion territory), and then the Sahara Desert that is Mauritania. Around this time, if you peer out of the starboard window you can just get a glimpse of Tenerife, the most westerly of the Canary Islands. Few realise just how close the Canary Islands are to West Africa, and even fewer would attempt the crossing by sea from the Canaries to Mauritania. Not that Mauritania has much to offer western tourist seeking sea and sun. That’s not to say Mauritania is not a wondrous country, with much to explore, but a seaside paradise it is not, despite its splendid coastline. In fact Mauritania’s coastline is some 750km (470 miles). One day it may become a summer sun alternative to the Canaries, and welcome beach tourists, but as yet the geography is too hostile (unlike the people, who are wonderful). So far all the African countries flown by have been former French colonies. Arab-speaking and Arabic in culture, but with French as the official language. That changes in part as we fly past Mauritania and get a glimpse of Senegal. With Senegal we cross from the Sahara Desert proper to the Sahel, that intermediate region that is the West African sub-tropics and the barrier that keeps the northern desert and the northern equatorial tropics apart. Senegal is a different planet. Arabic culture gives way to African culture, but in a very European way. Because Senegal was the crown in the French West African empire, spared no expense to make it so. And when Senegal became independent in inherited the wealth France left behind. By wealth I mean infrastructure, both physical and social. Compare The Gambia, a British colony treated as nothing more than a trading post, slavery post and stopping off point to more important places. The British invested the absolute bare minimum. It was colonial exploitation at its worst. About the only thing of value The Gambia inherited when it gained independence was the English language, and even that was done half-heartedly by the British. Although the official language of The Gambia, English is not so much the second as the fourth or fifth language for most Gambians, if they speak it at all. Local languages like Wolof, Mandinka, Jola and Fula (among many) are how the local people communicate with one another. Compare other former British colonies like Sierra Leone or Ghana, like Kenya or Uganda, where English co-exists on equal terms with native languages. Important because when it comes to doing business with the outside world English is expected. Senegal also has numerous native languages (many shared with The Gambia), but pretty much everywhere everyone speaks French, a tribute both to the infrastructure the French colonialists put in place and to the achievements of the independent Senegalese governments since. Back to the flight from London, and we are by now on our descent into Banjul’s Yundum airport. The reason being that, a little over halfway along the Senegalese coast we suddenly find we are alongside The Gambia. For those flying south to Sierra Leone they will fly right past the Gambian coastline, and then back along the rest of the Senegalese coastline south of The Gambia, because Senegal entirely surrounds The Gambia bar that short Atlantic coastal strip. Travelling by land you head south from Dakar along roads that could as easily be in Europe or the USA as in West Africa. Then suddenly you reach The Gambia and, even with recent improvements, it’s a step back in time. And once you leave the main trunk road south to the river or east inland, it quickly becomes clear you have just moved from one of the wealthiest countries in Africa to one of the poorest. For those coming in by air the contrast is even more stark, having just left London or whatever luxurious European city they flew from. One thing you won’t need to worry about on landing is running out of runway. The runway for The Gambia’s only airport is one of the longest in the world, having been reconstructed by the Americans as an emergency landing point for the space shuttle. That said, in the event of an emergency landing at Yundum, keep your head between your knees and carry on praying, because the emergency services available are not going to be much help. This is a poor country. So why do rich westerners (yes, I know many tourists will have saved for months for their only holiday – but even the cheapest package tour will cost more than most people will earn here in a year, and the luxury hotels will cost more than most people will see here in their lifetime) come here? Winter sun. Despite being twice as far as the European summer resorts a holiday here in The Gambia will cost around the same, but with the bonus you can escape the icy chill of a northern winter and enjoy wall-to-wall sunshine on exotic beaches, even in January and February, without having to travel to the southern hemisphere. This close to the Equator there are only two seasons. It’s either summer or winter here. Lovers of spring and autumn need go somewhere else. Winter means “cold” nights when temperatures can plunge below 20 Celsius (low sixties Fahrenheit) and in a few hours rise to about 35C (90F) during the day. Ideal for western tourists seeking the winter sun. Beach weather all day and pleasant evenings. But don’t be surprised if your taxi driver is huddled in a big coat, with scarf, hat and gloves. And that’s in the day time! But if being just a thousand miles from the Equator explains the absence of spring and autumn, it doesn’t explain the climate. A common misconception among the geographically-challenged (and let’s be honest, who isn’t? Geography teachers must take special courses in making fascinating subjects so mind-numbingly boring) is that the nearer you get to the Equator, the hotter it will be, and that this is because the Equator is closer to the Sun. Both false premises, I’m afraid. As many a tourist has found to their surprise, the temperatures on their summer holidays in Turkey or on the Adriatic or in the Caribbean were almost certainly hotter than here in The Gambia. It’s very rare for the mercury to hit 40C here (unless you travel way inland) but quite common on the Med resorts more than a thousand miles north. But as many a tourist has found to their cost, that doesn’t mean you can treat the African sun lightly. Just the opposite. If you plan on being a crocodile on your Gambia holiday (locals call hotel tourists crocodiles because they lay by the poolside or on the beach all day in the sun, occasionally entering the water to cool off) make sure you have the extra-strong sun lotions. You’ll need them. To understand why, you need to understand why it’s a fallacy that it’s hotter nearer the Equator because we are closer to the Sun. Here’s the thing: the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun is 150 million kilometres. That’s about 93 million miles in real money. In numbers, 93,000,000 miles. The distance from the UK to the Gambia is about 3,000 miles. The sun’s light takes just eight minutes to hit the Earth at the Equator and will cover that extra three thousand miles to the UK literally in the blink of an eye. It won’t be losing any heat energy in that fraction of a second. And the same goes at the north and south poles. But as any polar bear will tell you, if you can pluck up the courage to ask, it’s a tad chilly up north. And the penguins down south will confirm it’s even chillier where they are. So what does cause the very obvious difference between equatorial and polar climates? To understand that, grab a large ball - a football or basket ball, that sort of thing – and shine a torchlight on it. Near the ball’s “equator” you’ll see a concentrated circle of light. Pull the light-source back and the circle of light expands but also weakens. It’s the same thing with the Sun and the Earth. The Sun’s rays are concentrated at the Equator where they hit the planet head on, so to speak, but are weaker towards the poles, where they hit (and glance off) the atmosphere at an angle. At the poles the temperatures become extreme because the snow and ice reflect what little heat does get through. Here in The Gambia we are about a thousand miles north of the Equator (okay, 931 miles if you really want to know), which means that, while temperatures a thousand miles further north still, on the Med, may get a little higher, the sun’s rays are much more powerful here. Throw in the sea breeze from the Atlantic (for quite separate reasons to do with ocean currents the sea here is much cooler than you might expect) and unsuspecting tourists can and do find themselves severely sun-burned. The tourist season runs roughly from November through April, and while the 2104/15 season is a disaster for locals reliant on the trade, thanks to the Ebola scare, in most years there are plentiful flights landing at Yundum (BJL) airport, with the British and Germans leading the way, followed closely by the Dutch, the Spanish and the Scandinavians. The French are noticeably absent, and with good reason, as above, in that Senegal has even longer coastlines, far better infrastructure, and they speak French there. Senegal also has many more attractions, from Dakar (think Paris with a sub-tropical climate) to safari parks to such quirky but breathtakingly beautiful natural phenomena as Lac Rosa (see images). No, that’s not pollution. The colour is entirely natural. It’s worth a trip to Senegal just to experience Lac Rosa. The Gambia has no comparable attractions. Great beaches, a nice bird park, a restaurant zone known as the Senegambia strip, and a handful of minor attractions ranging from the crocodile pool, where you can take a chance and stroke a very elderly croc, to laid-on tours up-river to see hippos and river dolphins, a visit to the remains of the slave-post at Jamestown, and perhaps most intriguing, the village of Juffure where, if Alex Hayley is to be believed, Kunte Kinte of Roots fame was snatched and taken to America. Yes, the Roots saga begins right here in The Gambia, the ancestral home of most “African Americans.” For such are the country’s origins. As mentioned above, The Gambia was little more than slave-trading post for the British and later a stop-off point for seafarers on more important missions to the Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast, a little further down and round the coast. Just how Britain came to control a tiny finger of land in West Africa totally surrounded by its historical enemy France, build an empire based on kidnapping Africans and selling them as slaves in the Americas, and how it used that wealth to trigger the Industrial Revolution that would result in the colonization by Europe of almost the entire African continent, is a story for another time. As is what happens to the unsuspecting tourists disembarking from the plane, as they head through customs and board the tourist coaches laid on to escort them to their hotels, a few miles distant. Suffice here to say the view from the coach window as they head for their hotels is the nearest most of the tourists will come to seeing the real Gambia and its wonderful people. And that’s a tragedy. Not just because it means all that wealth they bring with them stays in the tourist strip, where a cheap bottle of beer costs more than a day’s wages for a police officer or a teacher. But because, speaking as someone who’s travelled most of the world, the Gambia is the safest, most friendly country on the planet. And there’s no place I’d rather be.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:21:40 +0000