Gambia has lots of interesting aspects to cover that I am completely neglecting, but there is one lowlight that I shall highlight because I am of the target gender. The subject is so well-known that the Gambian Tourist website even put up a bizarre webpage about it: bumsters.

Nice word, huh? Must be something that the Brits came up with.  Essentially, these are unemployed Gambian men who latch onto usually older and sagging European women who travel down here in search of boy toys. That’s my understanding of the situation in a nutshell. Unfortunately, these women have become sufficiently plentiful that now ANY white woman walking around automatically is assumed to be out “shopping”.  This extends to any white woman who decides to run on the beach:

 So peaceful, so seemingly serene….until Megan steps out on to the sand!

I decided to do a nice four mile run along the Atlantic Ocean, in order to fulfill a generous contribution to my Brain Tumor Society cause that I talked about a few posts ago (thank you Brian!). To be frank, I went on this run knowing full well that I would be accosted by these man whores. I also knew that The Gambia has a very low violent crime rate, and that my chances of getting murdered or physically agressé while out in the peaceful morning were very slim.  I wanted to run. So I weighed my chances and figured that the beach was safer than the busy street and headed in that direction. Hey, when it’s your time to go, it’s your time.

The morning started off with me bounding down the palatial marble hotel stairs at 7:20 in my intentionally non-form fitting running gear (as if that would make a difference). Guess what? That pretty lobby you saw in yesterday’s post? It was all dark! No one at the desk, and EVERY DOOR was locked. I was locking inside of the hotel.  What about fire safety codes? This place is a tragedy waiting to happen! But I digress…

Sooner or later the place decided to be open for business and I was emancipated. I trekked down to the beach, all geared up for my next physical challenge.  Never mind that I don’t think that I have EVER done a run on the beach, but I went out and attempted this one in Super Mario Brothers fashion. I could see far down the shoreline, and as such I could anticipate my plan of attack for each impending Gambian obstacles that I would invariably encounter. Check out the use of my snazzy Power Point skills that I neglected since leaving my usual occupation:

One of these tools actually ran with me for a half mile before he got bored with my silence

So I got my four miles accomplished by implementing the “Deaf Mute Strategy”. I think that each dude started to feel stupid as he trotted alongside me and had a conversation with himself. I’m a Masshole, so I was trained well to run in this country, but I must say that this is the last run that I’ll be doing in The Gambia.  I’ll settle for the winding streets of Dakar and the supportive camaraderie that is offered without strings attached by each person I pass along the corniche (cliff side road).