Tag Archives: The Gambia

WEST AFRICA JOURNAL: 1 + Gambia = 3

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Some folks bring home T-shirts from their travels. I came home from West Africa with a new identity and two new names.

Of all the unexpected things that happened to me on my West Africa trip, this was perhaps the most remarkable.

I was part of a group from the United States attending the International Roots Festival in the Gambia. We expected to see and experience a lot, and we did:

  • A symposium on pan-Africanism, which is actually more of the driving force behind the Roots festival than the legacy of African slavery.
  • A parade — literally a parade — of West African cultures, which marked the festival’s opening.
  • A reception where we were treated to traditional Gambian dishes.
  • A bangin’ nightspot in the beachside tourist zone known as Senegambia.
  • The Tanjie Village Museum, a re-creation of traditional Gambian life and culture — and the only museum I’ve ever seen that included its own hostel.
  • A commercial fishing village, where men in long wooden boats called pirogues go out into the Atlantic to harvest multiple species of fish.

What we didn’t know was that our Gambian hosts had committed us to the futampaf, a rite of passage in the village of Kanilai, some 80 miles from the capital city of Banjul, which would culminate with each of us being adopted by a Gambian family.

You can read all about that experience in a three-part series entitled WEST AFRICA JOURNAL, My name is Yaya Colley. You’ll find it listed under “Africa” on the DESTINATIONS page of this blog.

That was a long, hard, bittersweet day for me in Kanilai. I wish I could’ve spent more time with my adoptive family, gotten to know them all a little better. We’d only just met, and yet it was truly hard for me to leave them.

It’s not just about what they gave me, but also what they took from me.

All the pessimism, all the self-doubt, all the second-guessing and negativity that goes with living all your life as a black man in America, never knowing or truly believing that it was possible to feel, to live, any other way. Gone.

I don’t know when or even if I’ll ever see them again, but I know I’ll be grateful to them for the rest of my life.

I did manage at least to shake the hand of the family patriarch whose name I was given, to let him know how proud I was to carry it.

I’d arrived in Kanilai as Greg Gross. I returned to Banjul two days later as Yaya Colley.

And it seemed as if all of the Gambia knew it.

The futampaf — indeed, all of the formal events of the Roots festival — had been shown across the country on the nation’s only television channel. The futampaf, presided over by President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh himself, had been broadcast live across the Gambia.

Now that we were back in Banjul, we could hardly go anywhere on the street without people waving to us and calling to us by our new Gambian names. Especially mine. Shouts of “Yaya Colley!” dogged us almost wherever we went.

This whole celebrity thing was going to take some getting used to, but I was already comfortable enough with my new identity to introduce myself to the folks in our hotel as “Yaya Colley.”

Not that it was really necessary. They already seemed to know.

So I was getting comfortable in my new African skin when I went to the Africell office to get a cell phone. At the urging of the festival aide who’d brought me there, I gave the young clerk my new Gambian name.

The clerk looked as if me might barely have been out of high school. Tall and lean, flawless skin the color of one of those very expensive dark chocolate bars they sell in those expensive specialty grocery stores (chocolate which most likely comes from another West African country, the Ivory Coast).

He hears the name. He doesn’t look as if he approves. Have i just unknowingly stepped on my first cultural landmine in Africa?

“I’m going to give you a name,” he says. “When someone in the Gambia asks you your name, you give them this name.”

The name he gives me is Bubacarr Jallow. His name.

The name Bubacarr, I learn later, is an Africanized spelling of the Arabic name Abu Bakr, the first caliph of Islam and the prophet Mohammad’s closest friend. He knows I’m not a Muslim. It doesn’t matter.

I am flattered beyond belief.

Then, my companion from the festival throws in the kicker: His name is Bubacarr, too.

“So instead of the Three Musketeers,” I tell them, “we’re now the Three Bubacarrs!”

Whenever you go in the world, there are people who want to sell you something. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, someone wants to give you something.

But when was the last time you met folks who wanted to give you their names?

I leave feeling extremely grateful and humble, but also a little nervous. I mean, what do I say if someone else here wants to give me their name?

“Thanks, but I already have three and I’m trying to cut down?”

“Sorry, but my doctor has me on a low-identity diet?”

Eventually, we left the Gambia and caught our return flight from Dakar in Senegal to Washington DC. According to my passport, I am still the man who had left from Washington Dulles International eight days earlier.

But my soul knows better. Way down in there, I am now equal parts of Greg Gross, Yaya Colley and Bubacarr jallow.

How do you explain to Customs and Immigration that you left home as one person, and returned as three? And filling out job applications could be a lot more time-consuming in the future.

But that’s what happened.

These are the kinds of souvenirs that never end up collecting dust on a shelf or disappearing in a drawer. These, to the last day of your life, never leave you.

WEST AFRICA JOURNAL: There are no niggers here

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Nangadef!

That is the word in the Wolof language for greeting friends.

It’s a little after 7:40 a.m. in the capital of the Gambia, and the loveliest sunrise is pouring warm, gentle gray-orange light into my hotel room. It is easily the kindest the sun has been to us since we’ve been here.

We are now well into the International Roots Festival.

We’ve seen West African culture literally paraded before us in a procession of brilliant musicians and amazing dancers performing in heat so intense that it forced me to shut down my camera multiple times.

We’ve rubbed elbows with government ministers and shaken hands with a president.

We have met the descendants of Kunta Kinteh’s family. Stood inside the ruins of the James Island fort, where perhaps nearly a million African captives were crammed together like cattle before being loaded into the holds of slave ships.

We also were on hand when it was formally renamed in honor of its most famous captive, Kunta Kinteh.

We’ve been interviewed a lot, on national radio and television. After spending four decades and change as a journalist, to be the one being interviewed is very different and more than a little unsettling, but there’s no choice but to roll with it.

But of all the impressive things we’ve experienced so far, none has been more impressive or more moving than the Gambian people themselves. Their warmth, their loving and giving spirit, is total, enough to make a jaded, cynical Westerner to believe that it’s all an act, a set-up, that you’re in the process of being hustled.

It isn’t.

How many other places in the world will a hotel employee, on your second day there, invite you to the naming ceremony for his week-old child?

Wash out your shirts in the bathroom sink before you leave your room for the day and hang them on a hanger to dry, and you return to find them perfectly ironed, folded and waiting for you in the middle of your perfectly made bed.

You don’t fill out a form for this. You don’t even ask. It’s just done.

Tell people you’re from the United States and their response is uniformly the same: “Welcome home.”

It’s not polite, pleasant rhetoric. They mean it.

You also get a lot of rasta spirit, no surprise, since Caribbean reggae music is immensely popular throughout black Africa.

(I don’t really know reggae. For those of you who do, Luciano is here.)

But perhaps even more amazing than all the endearing smiles and embraces you get are the things you don’t get — the negativity. The mistreatment of one another in word or in fact.

The poorest person here — and there are a great many of them — still conducts him or herself with the dignity of people who have known all their lives exactly who they are and what they’re about.

They have no need to advertise it or wave it like a flag. They live it.

And that’s when it hits you: There are no niggers here. No niggas, no niggaz nor any other form of the N-word.

They have no need to defend it, modify it, justify it, rationalize or apologize for it. For them, the very concept, the state of being that the word defines, does not exist here.

I’ve seen a lot of things since I’ve been here, but I’ve yet to see a Gambian refer to his fellow countryman as a “nigga” even once, nor the behvior that goes along with it. No young men with their pants sagging below their butts like fools. No lacing their speech with profanities and obscenities every other word.

You can’t imagine how refreshing, how uplifting that is.

Or maybe you can.

Likewise, I’ve yet to see a hear a young Gambian man refer to any young woman as a “bitch” or a “ho” or anything else demeaning or degrading. What I have heard is that respect for women is a longstanding part of Gambian tradition.

I can believe it, because I’ve seen it.

If the only thing I did in the Gambia was witness the dignity with which people carry themselves, the respect with which they treat one another and grace with which they face the many struggles of their daily lives, it would’ve been worth every hour and every mile it took to get here.

There’s a lot more that’s happened and a lot more to come. I’ll get more into detail when our whirlwind schedule slows down a bit And I promise to post pics as soon as I can find a faster wi-fi connection somewhere.

But whatever is ahead of us for the rest of our time here, one thing is certain. By the time I leave the Gambia, the term “African-American” will have an entirely different meaning to me than it did when I arrived.

WEST AFRICA JOURNAL: Detouring ’round Dallas

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American Airlines Boeing 757 "on final" in San Diego

Okay, flights are rerouted. San Diego up to Los Angeles via American Eagle, then from LAX into Washington Dulles.

If all goes well, not only will I arrive in DC tomorrow, but a good four hours earlier than originally scheduled.

Props to the reservations folks at American Airlines for coming through in the face of a monstrous storm that’s destined to play havoc with tens of thousands of travelers tomorrow. Mine really worked hard to make it happen for me, and I got her supervisor on the phone and told her so.

My comments go into her permanent file. I hope it leads to some extra cash going into her pocket.

Meanwhile, I’m back on track to Senegal and the Gambia.

Remember that Disney commercial of a few years back? The little brother and sister are sitting in bed, all wide-eyed and eager about their big trip to Disneyworld the next day. When the mother comes in and tells them to go to bed, the little boy replies:

“We’re too excited to sleep!”

That’s me, right now. I may not close my eyes again until somewhere over the Atlantic on Wednesday night. The pilot may be able to illuminate his flight path with the red glow from my eyes.

Do I care? Not a bit!

WEST AFRICA JOURNAL: Here I Come!

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In less than 24 hours, my body will begin its journey to the Mother Continent. My mind and soul are already there, impatiently waiting.

No more planning, no more packing. The only thing left now is the going. And for me, the going can’t come soon enough.

The façade of the cool, sophisticated, veteran traveler has already crumbled into dust. I knew it was over when I went to the store to pick up some Italian seasoning:

CASHIER: “How are you doing today?”

ME: “I’m G-R-R-R-R-REAT!”

So tell me, Greg, exactly how long HAVE you been a walking cereal commercial? I’m as giddy as a 5-year-old, traveling cross-country by train with his Mom.

Oh wait…that was me, too.

I’ve packed and repacked the rolling duffel about five times, each time determined to take something else out of it. For this trip especially, it’s been a challenge. The reason, the huge flux in temperatures over the course of the trip.

This journey means leaving leaving the coastal desert of San Diego. with its dry temps in the 70s Fahrenheit, to fly into Washington DC, where it will be damp and literally freezing, in the mid-30s. The following day, the ice is to be replaced by rain as we fly out of Washington Dulles, bound for Senegal.

When we step off the flight eight hours later, it will be Thursday, humid and approaching 80. A few hours by bus and we’ll in Banjul, capital of the Gambia, where we’ll be spending most of our week. There, the humidity will be just the same, but the temps will be a good ten degrees higher.

The challenge is to pack for this range of temperatures while still keeping your bag’s weight under that of a World War 2 battleship.

International airlines typically allow you two checked bags. If either of them weigh more than 50 pounds, you will be charged $150. three or more bags and you’ll be charged $150 per bag, regardless of what it weighs. If those extras bags also happen to weigh more than 50 pounds, you’ll be out another $200 per bag.

All of that, of course, is each way.

All of this is aggravated by the fact that airport baggage scales lie.

So I’m all but fanatical about lightening my load, to the point that I even sing an old Rolling Stones song while I’m packing:

“I’ll never be your BEAST of BURDEN! I walk for MILES…my feet HURT!”

I’m ready to go, with a light heart — and matching luggage.

Imaginary Journey, Part 2 — Banjul to Conakry

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Velaro D high-speed train | Siemens AG

The first actual leg of our West African rail fantasy will take us from French-speaking Senegal into English-speaking Gambia, Africa’s smallest country — and living proof that size isn’t everything. The end of this leg will put us in Guinea.

Second of three parts.

The last hues of sunset are burning brightly behind the Atlantic Ocean as our train pulls into Banjul, capital of The Gambia. Now, it feels as if our West African journey truly has begun.

This is but the first of the national borders we’ll be crossing on this trip, and in the relatively short time we have to make the journey — two weeks for 11 countries — it wouldn’t be practical, or even possible, without this high-speed train. We’d be forced instead to choose a single West African country to visit, and hope we could return someday to see another.

A FLEXIBLE JOURNEY
Now, we don’t have to make that choice. The train gives us great flexibility. We can make day trips at some destinations and overnight or even multiple-night stops in others. And the ease of changing reservations makes adjusting our plans “on the fly” no problem at all.

This evening, we arrive aboard a Velaro high-speed train, designed in Germany by Siemens. Some in our group have ridden Velaros before, in Germany or in Spain. It looks like the streak that a bullet makes as it travel through water.

For now, the streak has stopped in Banjul.

The Gambia is the smallest nation on the Mother Continent, with an area of barely 4,000 square miles and a population of about 1.7 million people. That makes it roughly the same size in both categories as the city of San Diego. The country takes its name from the river that defines it, and its territory is basically two narrow strips along its banks.

Theoretically, we could cover this country from end to end in a day, but we won’t test that theory on this trip.

Our hotel in Banjul is so close to the station that we decide to walk — some of us rolling our bags along, others of us slinging our cases on our backs with backpack straps, the better to keep our hands free for our digital and video cameras to capture that glorious sunset.

But we can’t spend too much time shooting. We’ve been told that Banjul shuts off its street lights after 8 p.m.

The next morning, we’re up with the sun and hit the streets. First stop, the Albert Market. Your prototypical ramshackle collection of vendors’ stalls found across most of the world. From fruit to fish to fabrics, if they don’t have it, you may want it.

GETTING IN RHYTHM
We have this thing about markets. We like to hit them early, when you’re likely to be their first customers of the day, or late, when they’re trying to make their last sales before going home. We learned that in Thailand.

We make a brief photo and video stop at the ferry terminal, then it’s off to the National Museum to learn a bit about The Gambia and its history. Later, we check out the Tanbi Wetland Preserve.

In between, we check out shops, sample local street food and drinks, chat with locals we meet along the way. We stop to admire the poetic performances of griots and the music of the kora.

It may not seem like it, but we’re taking our time today. We want to get into the rhythm of life here. When you fight the pace of a place, you feel as if you’re constantly swimming upstream. We will not be salmon on this trip.

As if to remind us of our resolve, periodic bursts of heavy tropical rain force us to take shelter in the nearest cafe, shop or covered stall, waiting out downpours with cold drinks and conversation.

The next day, we rent a couple of SUVs and take the ferry across the river to Barra on the north side, but we’re not staying here. We want to pay homage to Alex Haley’s groundbreaking book “Roots.” The village to which he traced his ancestry is Jufureh, about 20 miles away. This, along with the nearby village of Albreda, were a part of the West African slave trade.

Our stay here is brief, but long enough to make me wonder if my own ancestral home, wherever it is in Africa, looks anything like this.

It’s been a full, busy and utterly enjoyable two days. We sit down to a leisurely dinner to review the words we’ve learned in Wolof and plot travel strategy. If I have any energy left, I may spend a little time in a club, listening to some mbalax music — and possibly make a total fool of myself trying to dance to it.

On second thought, I’ll just listen!

HEADING SOUTH
The sun has barely risen when we check out of our hotel and head for the train station, with a quick side strip to the Albert Market to buy some food and bottled water for the day’s travel. Our first destination today is Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau.

Even more quickly than the train entered Gambian territory two days earlier, it heads back into Senegal, making a very quick stop in Ziguinchor in the region known as the Casamance.

We leave the train at Bissau. This is basically a day trip for us. We will explore a bit, check out the ruins of the Guinea-Bissau presidential palace and find some lunch.

After that, it’s back to the train to continue on to Conakry, capital of Guinea. It should take us about 2.5 hours, passing through Boke along the way.

We cross many bridges along the way, over the streams, rivers and inlets that flow east to west to the Atlantic. Others are single-track, barely wide enough to hold the rails we’re riding on. At times, when you look down, the train seems to be gliding on air, or water.

One last bridge and we are in Conakry. Three cities and three countries in three days.

And we’re just getting warmed up.

NEXT: Conakry to Monrovia

High-speed rail for West Africa? Why not!

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A network of good trains could unite the region, make travel much more safe and efficient, and be a giant magnet for tourism.

So I’m talking with my friend, Walt, about travel when the subject of Africa comes up:

ME: I’d like to do Ghana, Senegal, the Gambia, Nigeria maybe.

WALT: Hard to travel between West African countries — lousy or no air service. The local airlines are dreadful.

It shouldn’t be like this.

The 13 West African nations that comprise the cooperative body known as ECOWAS cover an area less than half the size of continental Europe. It should be a snap for a traveler or a businessman to travel between countries in that part of the Mother Continent.

The reality is exactly the opposite. When you travel to West Africa, you pretty much need to limit yourself to a single destination. Why? Because the regional airlines in this part of the world are infamous for being unreliable and not entirely safe.

A 5,500-MILE DETOUR?
African travel vets will tell you they routinely have to fly from, say, Dakar to Abidjan — by way of Paris. Which means that, to cover the 1,100 miles between Dakar and Abidjan, you first need 5.5 hours to fly the 2,500 miles from Dakar to Paris, then another 6.5 hours for the 3,000-mile flight from Paris to Abidjan.

This is insane. What vacation traveler do you know who’d be willing to subject themselves to this?

If I’m that traveler, I’m a lot more likely to visit a single West African destination, then spend the rest of my time in Paris and forget the rest of West Africa. This is one of the situations holding back the entire region.

Actually, I’m just as likely to just forget West Africa altogether and spend my vacation in Europe, where it’s so much easier to move around by train.

And that’s when it hit me: Why couldn’t West Africa link their nations with a good high-speed rail network?

A MOVABLE CHALLENGE
Physically, the challenges should not be insurmountable. Look at a map of West Africa. The distances aren’t enormous. From Dakar in the north to Lagos in the south, a single rail line could easily and efficiently link 11 different West African cities and capitals.

Politically, the vehicle to push this forward already exists: ECOWAS — the Economic Community of West African States. And wouldn’t you know it? ECOWAS is already talking about creating an integrated rail network linking West African cities and ports, as are others in the region.

Most such projects, however, are focused on moving freight to and from West African ports. The movement of people needs to be a priority, as well.

Expertise to build such a system? No problem there at all. Most nations in this part of Africa already have strong business ties with both Western Europe and China, the world’s two reigning experts on high-speed rail.

The Chinese in particular are pushing hard to become the world’s leading exporter of high-speed rail. They’re already talking about linking 17 countries across the Euro-Asian landmass via HSR. Building a regional system for West Africa shouldn’t present a challenge greater than that. What’s more, Beijing is so flush with cash these days that financing its construction should be easy.

MEDIUM FAST
Indeed, the Chinese are already talking to South Africa about building a true high-speed rail line for that country.

It might not even need to be a truly high-speed train, which is currently defined as a passenger train capable of 186 miles per hour or better. Given the relatively short distances between most major West African cities, a reliable, comfortable passenger train doing 90-150 mph should do just fine.

And I think Paris could survive the loss in air traffic.

Is this a gigantic dream, full of difficulties, challenges, obstacles in the “real world?” Absolutely. But no more so than the dreams of a united, cooperative Europe. And it’s one that, if pursued and fulfilled, could lift up all of West Africa.

Small dreams are a waste of sleep.

The ultimate travel document

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The diaspora visa, an idea whose time is coming — gradually

African tourism, despite the lingering recession, continues to rise — but the Mother Continent wants more. In particular, African countries are targeting diaspora travelers — black Americans, black Caribbeans and African emigres who haven’t been home for awhile — and they’ve come up with an intriguing idea to help lure them.

The diaspora visa.

It’s an idea that was discussed at the recently concluded congress of the Africa Travel Association, held this year in The Gambia. And if it ever comes to pass, it could revolutionize travel and tourism in Africa. Basically, it’s a visa that would allow Africans in the diaspora — the descendants of African slaves in the United States, the Caribbean and elsewhere — to visit needing only their passport.

Ghana began five years ago offering a diaspora visa for black Americans wanting to visit that West African country, waiving the regular requirements (they also offer dual citizenship to black Americans who commit to long-term investment in Ghana).

But as African emigre, broadcaster and ATA director Ogo Sow explained to me, the idea discussed at this year’s congress goes much, much further.

“We talked about creating a diaspora visa that would allow you to travel all over the continent without a (regular) visa,” he said.

Currently, for every country you wish to visit in Africa, you need a separate visa from that country — and have to pay their separate fee each time. Depending on how many nations you want to visit on a single trip, it’s a huge headache, and expense, for the traveler.

With a diaspora passport, your black face and your U.S. passport would give you diplomatic entree to visit any or all of Africa’s 53 nations.

The impact of this for African tourism, were it actually to take hold, would be immense.

The concept itself is not new. One of the most popular things the European Union did when it came into being was to eliminate national visas among its member nations — and dump those same visa requirements for visitors from friendly lands. Which is why today, any American visiting Europe gets one visa stamp in his passport when he first enters the continent — and that stamp is good to enter any other EU country.

“In Europe, you can got anywhere you want to on one visa,” Sow noted.

I saw this in action for myself the day we crossed the Rhine from Strasbourg, France for a brief day-trip to the small German town of Kehl. No one was stopping vehicles to check anyone for papers. The checkpoints on either side of the bridge were long gone.

We crossed from France to Germany and back again on a Strasbourg city bus — and no one on either side thought twice about it. Commerce between the city of Strasbourg and the town of Kehl moved back and forth just as easily. It was a beautiful thing.

If it can work in Western Europe, the thinking goes — and clearly, it does — why not Africa?

It’s all part of a larger push to get the rest of the world, especially Europe and the United States, to see Africa and her 53 nations more favorably as a collective travel destination.

“After 50 years of independence,” said Sow, “we should now really start being part of the world in terms of tourism.”

Don’t look for this to happen in the next few months. The EU had its share of technical and political difficulties, not to mention centuries of conflict and mutual distrust, to overcome before streamlining Europe’s visa process. There’s little reason to expect Africa to have it any easier. And cutting bureaucratic red tape is but one of the challenges to boosting African tourism.

But if Africa’s governments can come together and make this work, it could go a long way toward encouraging black Americans to cross the Atlantic Ocean and connect with their African heritage first-hand, something that would greatly benefit African-Americans and Africans alike.

It’s an idea that deserved to be studied — and encouraged.