-Living Colour

Now that I’m back from Gambia, I’ll finish posting my last pictures, talk a bit more about the prez and then move on from the topic for good. You think I was kidding about not wanting to talk too much about “The Big Man” while in country?  Check out this link.

First off, when you drive around Banjul, you see the following Wolof phrases plastered  across advertisements and billboards: “Yaay Borom”. 

As best as I can understand it, this phrase translates as “You’re in charge!” or “It’s for you!”.  I think that this must be an attempt to communicate some kind of self-determination to the Gambian people, creating the appearance that the country is run by the people, a flourishing democracy. Maybe I’m wrong. I was only there for a few days, and I really only stuck to the clean-scrubbed environs of toubab land, where resort staffers kept almost every bumster from harassing me (well the Gambian ones at least). 

Banjul is slightly reminiscent of Thailand in that there are ubiquitous billboards bearing the leader’s likeness (a huge distinction, however, is that in Thailand’s case the King is legitimately beloved by his people). Here, there are signs that say “Thank you, Mr President for doing XXX thing”, or you simply see “reminder” signs that the country is doing so well since the 1994 coup:

 Photos and recognition around town of Yahya Jammeh

or

“The President, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh”

if you want to be more formal

So you see this stuff everywhere. It definitely makes you want to do a little more digging around to learn about the President. A cursory internet scan reveals the following nuggets of information about this former Lieutenant:

The day we headed back to Dakar, a Gambian working with us pointed out a new hospital in the city. “That’s where the president treated the AIDS patients.” Sounds nice, doesn’t it? The reality of course, isn’t that vanilla. In fact, I think these are the very patients that Jammeh “cured” by waving the Koran around in front of them. Or so I have heard. Whatever the case, I’m fairly confident that these people still have AIDS or have since died from such superior hospital care.

Don’t we have this stuff on TV in the States too? “Heal!”

The Gambia was a neat experience, but I was pretty happy to get back to Senegal and the land of French speakers. In the order of random places, The Gambia ranks up there with Brunei for countries that I have been fortunate enough to have visited. It’s a big and fascinating world for sure.

We didn’t make this ferry and were stuck waiting for the next one. It took a loooong time to get across the river and get on the road to Dakar (another 6 hours at least). Call me an entitled westerner, but it’s kind of inconvenient when a big ole river bisects your country….

….luckily for me I had mango-flavored cookies that encouraged people to put litter in its proper place (actually, I realized later on that this was a basketball player).

At long last! The border between The Gambia and Senegal. I know what you’re thinking: you could almost drive right through and not realize that you had passed anything significant. 

Okay so that’s it for now. No more Gambia posts. I hope that I was able to provide you with a little window on a place that really should get more press in the States. Sure, it’s a tiny country- but like many banana republics out there, you can’t make up the stuff that goes on relatively unnoticed.