Banjul, The Gambia

The Gambia is the smallest country on the continent of Africa. Just a small sliver of a country surrounded by Senegal on three sides and the Atlantic Ocean on one side The population is 1.6 million and is only11,300 sq miles large. It is crowded, poor and dirty. The people suffer in poverty, their literacy rates for males is 40% and for females is 20% Education is offered at early ages but most do not attend secondary school. Especially the girls, most of the girls never take their primary exams. Although their outlook is quite bleak in The Gambia, they were happy we made the effort to come see what was there. They said that they found oil off shore in 2003. Nothing has been done to try to drill for that oil. Not having anything there but a peanut factory and a few small exports, they might want to look into that oil!

A few pictures of the museum we visited that was all pretty much open air, a man there weaving cloth, the countryside and Kathleen with a lady that was happy that Kathleen bought some of her bracelets!






The mom on the porch putting some greens together to go sell from their garden. The bathroom they all share, the kitchen they share...it is a Campfire on the floor with some pots.






Some pictures of the school we toured. Our means of transportation all over The Gambia, one of the boys that tried to keep up with our truck. A picture of Kathleen and a little boy that showed us his house that he shares with two other families. His little sister that was not happy, she was hungry when she woke up. Really sad.

















People live wherever they can find a place. These were boats that had families living in them and you can see that their "out house" went straight into the bay water. This exists many places in Africa.





Banjul is located where the Gambia River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first place we have ever been that we had to arrive at a certain time because the tides are SO flucuating. We arrived, the tide went down and then we had to wait until late in the day when the tide came back up in order to leave. VERY few cruise ships come here. VERY few people come here. Knowing this, you may understand that there is really nothing here to make a person put this place high on their places to travel. There are no magnificent museums, the one we wnt to barely had anything in it and what was there was just a few pieces of weved cloth, a few local paintings, some rocks (of course) and some huts where they had real photos on the wall of what life in those village huts was/is like. There are no beautiful buildings. Most of the buildings are in a state of ill repair. No famous mountains, no scenic beauty, although they say they have it, we did not see it. They showed us what they could. That was, their countryside, which was all dirt roads (including the city roads), dirt and dust was on everything, cars, bikes, dogs, kids, even the leaves on the trees had dirt/dust all over them. They have a REAL problem with trash. There were piles of garbage all over the place and unfortunately people going through the trash looking for food. Their dirt roads felt like "off road" even in town. There were more holes in their roads than road! We were in the back of a truck that held about 24 people. We bounced all over the countryside trying to get to a school. On the way, we passed hundreds of children smiling and waving, although, I think Ghana has all countries beat on the waving! The kids would try to keep up with our truck and run as fast as they could in their "not running shoes". Some had sandals, most were barefooted. Three little boys ran and jumped on the back of the truck and hung on for dear life hoping that someone would have a piece of gum, candy, bottle of water...sad. Some of them have learned that visitors have cameras and totes that they can pluck out of the trucks. One boy alsmost got one man's camera but he was not successful and ran off into the bush...
The school we visited had just gotten outfor the day but there were about 25 kids there. They sang and danced for us in their school uniforms and showed us their "campus". That consisted of 3 buildings, no a/c, no electricity, no computers for sure. Chalkboards here are all the rage. They don't even have wipe boards. Chalk. We did not see any books but they may have some for the teachers. The kids love going to school and many of them wanted to talk after their performance about the United States. One girl asked if we dance. So we danced for them. They liked that. Too many of them were in clothes that had not been washed in weeks/months and no shoes. That did not stop them from coming to school. They are eager to learn. It is a shame that most of them will never be able to get out of the horrible poverty they are drownding in.
Suprisingly, they had a beautiful beach. It was not relly big but it was lovely. There was one Sheraton Hotel there and it looked quite nice.
There were street vendors set up on the pier when we got back from our tour. MANY of them. hey all knew that the tide was rising and we would be leaving in a few hours so they were very aggressive in trying to sell their goods. e managed to work our way through the people and found lots of intersting African "souvenirs". Bracelets...good night nurse, who knew a person would need do many. The cow bone bracelets go with everything...we bought a bunch. When there was only about an hour before we sailed, the prices got even lower. T-shirts from The Gambia, Soccer shirst from the National Gambia team....all real treasures! We had a great day here even though there is not a lot here, they were very happy we came to see their country. We were all gald we did as well.