A sunset ascent into the canopy

After regularly being told that SRT (the single rope technique for climbing trees) was as easy as climbing a ladder, Jaillan from Savoir There, happily accepted an invitation to make a sunset ascent into the tree tops by a friendly group of tree surgeons also staying at the beautiful Mandina Lodges in Makasutu Forest. The professional tree climbers were there to check out the forest as a potential zip line location.

Despite regularly work outs at the gym, Jaillan soon found that “muscle groups I never knew I had” would be called upon if she was to stand any chance of success.

“My arms are shaking like I’ve gone into epileptic shock from the sheer effort of hauling myself to an upright position and I’m employing the breathing techniques normally used by women in labour. As with my drumming, I’m totally lacking rhythm – but this time the embarrassment factor is multiplied as my hopeless flailing is witnessed from a variety of angles and viewpoints, and I can hear laughter emanating from the branches; it’s like some kind of bizarre nightmare where the trees are actually tittering at me.”

Visit Savoir There to read more of Jaillan’s extremely assuming account of her tree climbing experience and to find out if she achieved her goal of reaching the tree tops of Makasutu Forest.

Sunset at Makasutu Forest

Close encounters of the crocodile kind

When Jayne Gorman, from 40 before 30, set off for The Gambia I’m sure she may have known that she was likely to see a crocodile or two but I don’t think she ever expected that she, Iain and Jaillan would to get this close!

To see if Iain, Jaillan and Jayne left the sacred pool at Kachikally with the same number of fingers and toes that they arrived with, check out Jayne’s post Close encounters of the crocodile kind.

Brikama Market

When Tom Warburton brought his mini-printer to the market at Birkama, little did he realise that once word got around, everyone in the market would be asking for their photographs to be taken so that he could print a copy off for them to keep. Tom told me that he thinks this really helped him get such lovely images of local people but I know that many of the beautiful photographs were thanks to his wonderful rapport with the people of The Gambia.

Brikama market by Tom Warburton

Check out more of his wonderful images of The Gambia on the Bald Hiker.

Brikama market by Simon Falvo

Simon from Wild About Travel, also took some stunning images at this market taking a more clandestine approach to great effect.

A Passion for Pirogues; Wolves of the Waves

Iain paints a colourful picture of another Gambian market in his post A passion for pirogues; Wolves of the waves.

“Stepping onto the sand and amongst the pirogues at Tanji Market in The Gambia can be a mesmerising experience that is difficult to absorb. There is so much activity, people are buying and selling a bewildering variety of fish and crustaceans, in an array of shapes, sizes and colours. Women wearing rainbows of vibrant shades barter on both sides of tables attempting to secure the best possible price, men and women carry large bowls laden with today’s catch balanced on their heads from the vessels anchored just offshore and wheelbarrow boys cart heavy loads of fish between vendors.”

Iain helps push a pirogue out to sea

“There is something which draws me to small fishing boats, they have the power to mentally whisk me away to an exotic destination. It is a romanticised and wholly inaccurate perception but it is difficult to resist the notion that they are vessels of adventure. The colourful fishing craft of The Gambia known as pirogues seem to exemplify this adventurous spirit.” Iain Mallory

To see all the posts  from #BlogGambia check out the complete collection on Storify.

We are very pleased to announce that we’ve recently joined forces with the award-winning volunteer organisation people and places to enable those who wish to give their time, expertise and enthusiasm to travel to The Gambia as a volunteer. Sallie Grayson, the programme director at people and places, has written a guest post for the Gambia explaining how the company was born and their ongoing work in The Gambia. Over to you Sallie…

people and places was conceived in a garden in The Gambia – so The Gambia, and the work we do there, has a special place in our hearts. We couldn’t ask for better partners than The Gambia Experience to work with us on our volunteer programme; we know all at the Gambia Experience share our commitment to the warm and welcoming people of The Gambia.

Let me tell you how it all began for people and places… In a previous life I sold clothes for tall women through a chain of retail stores in the UK. I loved it – nothing better than identifying a need and satisfying it, especially when others are patently failing. That was certainly the case for tall women in the ’80s and ’90s in the UK. I learnt a lot: about marketing on a shoe string; bookkeeping and accounting; customer service and quality control; people management; building trust with partners and suppliers (we were so small when we started we certainly weren’t going to make anyone rich!); even a little about fashion and predicting trends; but most of all responsibility. And though I didn’t realise at the time, my time selling frocks was preparing me for the important work we at people and places do now – matching skilled and experienced volunteers to vulnerable communities’ needs. All the business skills I learnt in 25 years of retail management – every one of them – I apply and use every day to help economically poor communities build the future they want for themselves..

Then I sold out my share of the business, and spent two years of hedonism, determined to pursue interests for which there had previously been little time: sailing, studying Egyptology ,riding, and travel itself. After a couple of years it was not enough. I felt the need to do something worthwhile whilst travelling and I spent weeks surfing the web looking for organisations that could offer opportunities for me to share my skills. I was a green newcomer to the world of volunteer travel and tourism, but I eventually found an organisation that professed to need my business skills. I would be the first volunteer on this project, and I was excited by the challenge. I would use my business skills to work on a wealth-creation project in The Gambia – a country I knew little about. So I set about my research, much of which came from the Gambia Experience website – yes they were experts even back then! – and it was with TGE that I excitedly booked my flight. All that attracted me to The Gambia then still holds true today – an open and friendly multi cultural society in a tiny country, glorious weather, exotic landscapes, warm sea, friendly and welcoming people: in short “soft Africa”.

I paid a substantial project fee, and allowed for my living expenses that had been previously estimated by the placement organisation at around £10 per week while staying with a local family. This proved rather a long way from being accurate. I soon discovered that the accommodation was to be in a rural village – a very long way in terms of distance and accuracy, as my work was to be in the capital city of Banjul… Accommodation ended up costing me more than 5 times the quoted guideline; and only after much teddy throwing did any of the money I had paid find its way to the project I was working with. Discrepancies between the apparent offer and reality didn’t stop there. The local representative who was supposed to be my primary aide proved to be impossible to contact, lived more than four hours away, and spoke virtually no English. Only as I worked on the concept for people and places did I realise just how poorly prepared and supported I was.

I soon realised that the “international marketing” I had been asked to address for the organisation I had been placed with was completely inappropriate. This realisation came after Adama (a special man who now works with us as our local partner in The Gambia) and I had spent hours driving around the tiny country trying to find the “managers” of the project. I’m pretty resourceful and I set about finding people to work with at the UN and in the national government, and eventually achieved a degree of local success – but I firmly believe this was despite the sending organisation I had paid a lot of money to, not because of it.

Conversations with other volunteers from different sending organisations, the witnessing of the exploitation of local people and the opportunism of poorly vetted project leaders, plus the imminent arrival of two young volunteers from the same sending organization that had placed me, caused me to focus on just how poorly served volunteers and vulnerable communities were by so many of the traditional volunteer travel organisations. Then, by sheer coincidence, I met Dr (now Professor) Harold Goodwin and his partner Kate Stefanko in the garden of a local hotel we were all staying in. Harold was advising government departments on the development of a national tourism policy; Kate was working on a reader travel offer for a UK national newspaper. It didn’t take long for us to realise that we shared complementary skills and a firm belief in the value of “travelling to make a difference”. We were determined to do something, and we together decided to enter the marketplace with a responsible volunteer tourism product. (It all seemed so clear over a bottle of wine!)

Thus people and places a social enterprise, committed to responsible volunteering, was born. We have now been working in The Gambia for 5 years. We work with education wealth creation and tourism projects and we need a multitude of skills and experience. Take a look: as volunteer Rob says, “there is no better way to experience a country than through volunteering – working with and for local people and being part of their community is a privilege. I gave a little and gained so much.”

For more information about The Gambia Volunteer experience visit The Gambia Experience website.

The Kumpo is a character from the West African Jola tribe’s mythology. Despite having visited The Gambia many times before, I had never seen one. As my tongue-in cheek post on The mythical Kumpo of Kanuma explains, I was beginning to doubt their existence!

However, the real reason behind our visit was to see for ourselves how the solar-powered lights, donated by The Gambia Experience as part of their 25th anniversary celebration, were being used.

Being such a colourful and vibrant event, as well as a very worthwhile cause, it is not surprising that it has been a favourite subject with the bloggers. Here are some of the photos that have been published so far from this amazing day; a day that we shall never forget.

Arriving in Kanuma by Ram Mohan from ComAfrique InteliZon

Kanuma village by Monica, The Travel Hack from her post on community projects in The Gambia

Children of Kanuma from Monica’s account of the Kumpo

“The kids gathered into small groups before I’d ever asked if I could take a photo and gave their best pose as they stared at the camera. I couldn’t help but laugh as this was a travel blogger’s dream come true; people that actually want to be photographed! I always hate that awkward moment when you ask a local person if you can take their picture and they either shoot you down with a stern ‘no’ or they pose awkwardly and ask for some money. But this wasn’t like this as about 20 kids surrounded me, all desperate to be the next to have their photo taken.” Monica, The Travel Hack

Tom (from the Bald Hiker) was also a hit with the local kids discussing football, a very popular topic with males of all ages in The Gambia

Kanuma dancers by Iain

“The colourful hues of the fabrics combined well with the highly energetic dance steps of the kumpo providing a spectacle which made travelling to The Gambia worthwhile on it’s own. The scene through the viewfinder of my camera often appeared like a kaleidoscope of rich shades in constantly changing shapes and patterns.” Iain, Mallory on Travel

Iain’s photo of the Kumpo, Mallory on Travel

The village head showing us a solar panel from my post, Light up a village

A quiet moment in Kanuma from my blog Travel With Kat

One of the solar powered torches being charged up. These can also be used to charge mobile phones.

Everyone had a really wonderful day and thought the ‘Light up a village’ project was a very worth while cause to support, replacing the need for expensive and dangerous candles.

“In The Gambia the electricity network does not, as yet, go very far inland. The sun rises at around 7am and sets about 7pm throughout the year, so people often have to work or study by candlelight. Not only is this a fire risk but it causes eye strain and can cause respiratory problems.” from Travel with Kat

While we were at Kanuma I could see that one of the bloggers in particular, namely Tom, was very impressed with this project. His excellent post on the Bald Hiker  is the place to go for a more in depth look on how this initiative came about and what it is achieving.

One of my images from the day of Mariama, the head of Kanuma’s ‘Light up a village’ committee

“The Gambia Experience took us from the darkness and brought us to the light.” Mariama Manga

The Jallow Foundation

The Jallow Foundation,  which although UK based, works solely in The Gambia, concentrating at present in the remote villages of the Jarra West District. The charity was set up in 2010, and, as such, we are still a young charity but with big ideas. Our aim is to relieve the poverty and suffering in The Gambia and we try and do this in several ways but ALWAYS in consultation with local people and village heads – together with the Jarra West District Chief.

Mini-bus enabling people to visit health clinic

So far we have purchased and adapted a mini-bus which is now in use in Jarra West providing free transport between the remote villages and the medical clinics, plus hospital and emergency transport when needed. The rest of the time it is used to provide cheap transport from the remote villages to Soma, the main town in the area; previously the only form of transport was walking or a donkey cart. On the very first trip to the natal clinic a massive 500 women and children took advantage of the service – so many, that in consultation with the local doctors at the medical centre, it has been necessary to revise the clinic dates and the mini-bus schedule. Previously, women had no way of getting to the clinics for checks, especially if they had other children, and therefore many were not going, which in turn was impacting on their health and the health of their children. The doctors at the medical centre believe that the service being provided by the mini-bus will dramatically improve the health of all local people.

First aid training for villagers

In addition to the mini-bus, villages were asked for volunteers to become first aiders for their village – one male and one female from each village. They were then provided with first aid training and each village now has not only fully trained first aiders, but also a full first aid kit, which we keep fully replenished. Living in remote villages people were not able to access medical facilities, and what may originally have been a minor problem such as a cut, often became serious, becoming infected. These types of problems are now being dealt with before they become serious situations, and the referrals to the medical centres and hospital have reduced as a result.

Village co-operatives

We have also been able to provide loans for women in the villages to set up co-operatives. One, a tie dye, and another a soap making co-operative, have done so well in such a short space of time that they intend to repay their loans early, since they are selling everything they can make. These co-operatives provide an income for local women and they can pass on the training that they have received to others.

Sponsor a child scheme

Regular shipments are sent out to The Gambia with items donated by people in the UK – items such as clothing, school supplies and much more. We also have a child sponsorship scheme. For the sum of just £12 per month a sponsored child can receive an education, their uniform, school supplies, a meal at school, an annual malaria injection and medication should they ever fall ill.

Adult literacy in The Gambia

The need for education is not just a problem for the young but for all ages. When there is no money for food, there is no chance of any money being available to educate a child. That child therefore grows up into an illiterate adult, whose chance to work in anything other than subsistence farming is practically nil. A survey undertaken by the Jallow Foundation recently found that in the Jarra West District alone, there were over 800 adults who were illiterate, but who were desperate to learn to read and write. As a result of this, we were able to find enough funding to set up a trial adult literacy course in Seno Bajonki for just 15 men and 15 women. Since we did not have enough funding to enable everyone in the village who was illiterate to attend the course, the villagers did a lottery to pick who should attend. Initially, the course was for 6 months but has been so successful that it has been extended now to a full year.

Gambia Experience Donate to Adult Literacy Project

We applied for a grant to enable us to put on another adult literacy course and we were extremely pleased to find out that we had been successful. Thanks to the grant from the Gambia Experience, 14 men and 14 women are now taking part in a second adult literacy course, and although the course has only just started, the first monthly assessment of their progress shows that they are doing very well.

The lack of the ability to read and write impacts massively on a person’s life and basically means that without an education, obtaining a decent job is impossible and therefore being able to afford to educate children is out of the question. The circle of poverty then continues from one generation to another.

As a result of the grant from the Gambia Experience, 28 people will now learn to read and write and learn the basics of arithmetic. This means that not only will their daily life become easier, but that they will have the chance to obtain employment other than subsistence farming. They may even be able to set up their own business. This in turn means that not just 28 people have their lives enhanced but so do their families: they can afford to send their children to school and so the circle of poverty is broken.

Without the grant from the Gambia Experience 28 people or more would not have had the opportunity to improve their lives and the lives of their families. The Jallow Foundation are most grateful to the Gambia Experience for choosing us and this project to help. The people that are attending the course are very thankful, enthusiastic and happy to be given the opportunity of changing their lives.

Thank you Gambia Experience for your support!

Naomi Jallow

The Gambia Experience would like to congratulate everyone involved in The Jallow Foundation. You have achieved so much already and we are delighted to support your adult literacy project.

So without further ado, may I introduce to you our bloggers…

Iain Mallory Mallory On Travel

Iain is an ex-military man, and served as a Warrant Officer in the Army Physical Training Corps. This enabled him to become highly qualified in a large number of adventurous activities. Participating in many expeditions to many parts of the World which satisfied his wanderlust.

He now works freelance as a writer and photographer and enjoys finding adventure wherever he travels. He publishes the popular website Mallory On Travel, an adventure travel guide for the everyday adventurer by a former adrenalin junkie.

“I’m always excited about visiting an exotic new destination but I cannot wait to explore The Gambia, the continent’s smallest mainland country, it promises epic adventures” Iain

Follow Iain: Mallory On Travel     Twitter     Facebook   G+

Jaillan Yehia Savoir There

“When it comes to stylish travel, I know just the place.”

This site is about travel from the point of view of stylish, discerning and cultured urban folk who work hard and are short of time, so need to get the most out of their trips. Jaillan’s aim is to help them cut to the travel chase by giving them some great edited ideas for interesting, cool and unique places to go.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be heading off to The Gambia with The Gambia Experience. I feel as though Gambia is my ‘one that got away’ as I’ve come so close to booking holidays to the country in the past and just not quite managed it. I’m most looking forward to doing some wildlife spotting. Last year I caught the Africa bug in a big way – and I have a feeling it will stay with me for life, so I wonder if Gambia will be my latest addiction?” Jaillan

Follow Jaillan: SavoirThere   Twitter   Facebook   Pinterest   LinkedIn

Jayne Gorman 40before30

Jayne is a travel blogger on a mission to visit and blog about her experiences in 40 different countries before her 30th birthday.

“This trip to The Gambia will be my first visit to this part of Africa, I am most looking forward to meeting the people, sharing their smiles and discovering the beauty of The Gambia’s coastline.” Jayne

Follow Jayne: 40before30.com    Twitter   Facebook   Instagram

Kathryn Burrington Travel With Kat

This is my blog, where I share my joy of discovering new countries, cultures and cuisines. I’ve been to The Gambia many times and I’m really looking forward to introducing everyone to this very special country.

Follow Kathryn: Travel With Kat   Twitter   Facebook   Pinterest   Instagram   G+

Monica Stott TheTravelHack

The Travel Hack is a travel blog about adventurous and stylish travels all around the world. I love a bit of luxury but also love to get my feet dirty, meet the locals and explore a new destination away from the main tourist track.
The Travel Hack began as a way to document my two year backpacking trip around Asia and Australia and continued as I returned to London to study multimedia journalism. I have a huge passion for photography and iphoneography and I aim to show that you can travel the world, even with a full time job.

“I love everything about discovering a new country but I’m most looking forward to meeting the local families and finding out more about life in Gambia. We’ll be presenting the families with new stoves for their homes so hopefully they’ll be able to share some local cooking tips with me too!”  Monica

Follow Monica: TheTravelHack    Twitter   Facebook    Instagram

Simon Falvo Wild About Travel

“I look forward to discovering an area of Africa that I’ve never visited before, to see the smiling kids, learn about the local culture and admire the scenery. It will surely be a wonderful experience, and I can’t wait to explore a little bit of The Gambia”

Follow Simon: Wild About Travel    Twitter    Facebook   G+   Pinterest   Instagram

Tom Warburton on behalf of BaldHiker.com

Tom Warburton is part of the baldhiker.com team.  Long, long ago (back in analogue days) he travelled the world extensively including a two year around the world trip.  He is now rediscovering the world with a digital camera.  He originally trained as an ecologist and is particularly interested in environmental and wildlife issues.  Tom’s blogs can be seen on the baldhiker.com website.  The Bald Hiker himself can be followed on twitter at https://twitter.com/paul_steele”

Tom says “I’m really looking forward to the trip to The Gambia.  I’m particularly interested in the wildlife and the bird diversity in The Gambia is astounding.  The Mandina Lodges in the Makasutu Forest look perfect for exploring both the wildlife and culture of The Gambia.  I can’t wait!”

Follow the Baldhiker:  Bald Hiker    Twitter    Facebook   G+

Two more great bloggers will also be visiting The Gambia with us in May.

Terry and Sarah Lee Live Share Travel

LiveShareTravel is a luxury travel and lifestyle online magazine, exploring everything from how to get value for money from your luxury stays to the latest spa treatments. Sarah and Terry are also authors of The Luxury Travellers Handbook which takes LiveShareTravel’s philosophy, liberating luxury for the smart traveller, onto the next level.

Follow Sarah and Terry:  Live Share Travel    Twitter     Facebook    Instagram

Here, Alan Hutchinson, from Winchester University, tells us about his visit to The Gambia with Tony Rea, an independent education consultant. Their flights were provided by The Gambia Experience as part of our 25 year celebration give-away.

We visited The Gambia between January 18th and February 12th. The main aim of the visit was to do some volunteer teaching at the Faculty of Education, The University of The Gambia.

The education faculty is based in Brikama, in what was previously Gambia College – a teacher education institute. We undertook five sessions (lectures and seminars) with first and second year students at the University. Tony did a lecture based on his doctoral research which was appreciated by c. 150 students. Alan led a number of seminars on Happiness and wellbeing in education, and Reflective Practice. We also held a number of staff development sessions on the role of The Higher Education Academy in staff development, reflective practice and academic publishing. These sessions were attended by around 30 lecturers and other staff. We also delivered some English language books to the University, kindly donated by Carolyn and Paul Tattam. In April – when we visit again – we will collect feedback of the suitability of these books for Gambian schools. All was well received, and we would like to thank Madam Isatou Ndow, the Head of Teacher Education, and her department for welcoming us.

Whilst teaching in Brikama we stayed with a family in Mandinari village, entertaining them with our broken and heavily accented Mandinka, playing cards, eating Benachin and Mono (millet porridge often enjoyed at breakfast time) and generally learning much about Gambian village community.

In the free days between the teaching we managed to travel ‘up river’ to Bintang, Farafenni, Wassau and Janjanbureh – often receiving hospitality from Gambian families.
 

We also took the opportunity of supporting some school links. First, we visited Saint Vincent de Paul Lower Basic School in the village of Amdallai in the North Bank Region. We are trying to help the school form a link with Stokenham Primary School, South Devon. Second, we delivered a set of football kit donated by Manamead Primary School, Plymouth to Kafuta Lower Basic School.

We wish to thank Gambia Experience for their support with the flights and Gambia-Extra Limited who supported us with other costs.

Alan Hutchison, University of Winchester

To keep things fair, we used a panel of judges to select the eventual winners (including Chris Packham and sustainable tourism advisor Dick Sisman), and to say we were dazzled by the response and interest is putting it mildly. We were inundated, and from such a variety of projects – from those dealing with water-borne diseases, to those working on adult literacy, bee-keeping programmes, solar lighting projects and beyond.

The response was heartening on so many levels, not least because most of these projects were run on shoestring budgets, and set up by people who had fallen for the country on previous trips and now ran charities in their spare time. You can see a full list of the winners on the Gambia website and we will be featuring blog posts from some of these over the coming months. We’ve also decided to set up a permanent Gambia charity directory to provide a hub for like-minded people to communicate and spread word of their projects and ongoing aims. Please do get in touch with our charity team if you’d like to be involved, or if you have any ideas to share.

This will be The Gambia Experience’s (and indeed Serenity Holidays’) first ever bloggers’ press trip.

Now one or two people I’ve spoken to recently have been a little perplexed by this so I have explained that bloggers are much like other travel writers but their articles are published on the internet, usually for their own travel blog, rather than in print. Also their articles are generally written from a more personal perspective. Nearly all bloggers are addicted to social media and are usually constantly tweeting, posting to Facebook, sending Instagrams, pinning to Pinterest and checking in on Foursquare. It does, of course, vary from blogger to blogger which is their favourite method of shouting to the world about what they are up to!

For well over a year now, independently of my job here at Serenity Holidays, I’ve been busy writing my own travel blog, TravelWithKat.com, which makes this trip particularly interesting for me as I will be going, not only as host to the bloggers, but as a blogger in my own right.

Some of us will be staying at Mandina Lodges in the Makasutu Forest…

…and the rest will be at the beautiful, boutique hotel Ngala Lodge, which is on the coast.

I’ve lots of exciting things planned for the bloggers, including cookery lessons, visiting a village school, wildlife spotting, luxurious massages and so much more!

In my next post I’ll be telling you all about the bloggers and how to follow our adventures. In the meantime, if you are on Twitter, check out our tweets with the hashtag #BlogGambia.

As a companion piece to this from Becky Petrie, Annabel Oman visits The Gambia for the first time…

Having recently started working for the Gambia Experience I was lucky enough to be given the chance to head out to The Gambia and discover a country that was completely new to me. It was a fantastic and humbling experience and somewhere that I would definitely recommend visiting.

After a comfortable 6 hour flight, we had arrived! The Gambia is on GMT so we arrived with much of the afternoon ahead of us. We were met by our resort manager Joyce, reclaimed our luggage and headed towards our coach transfer. Before setting off we were greeted by our friendly reps who offered us a refreshing drink and a traditional woven fan, a nice touch especially when the temperatures reached highs of 35ºC. We spent our first 3 nights at the Kombo Beach hotel, a welcoming and friendly hotel ideally placed on a lovely sandy beach and only a 5-minute taxi ride away from the lively resort of Kololi.

Going back to school!

On our second day we headed out to see the real Gambia on a 4 wheel drive excursion. That morning an enormous open-top truck picked us up from our hotel and we were introduced to our guide for the day, whose name was Taba. To begin with we drove through the heart of Serrekunda, a crowded, bustling working African town and one of the most populated in The Gambia. Our next stop was a local school. A truly memorable experience! The head teacher welcomed us and talked about the country’s education system and shortly afterwards a group of children entered the room to perform their traditional welcome song and dance. We sat amongst the children during their lessons and received the biggest welcome from them. The children in The Gambia live so simply and appreciate the most basic donation. I must admit I left without a single pen left in my bag! We got back into our truck and made our way to a family compound. It’s at this point that we’d realised a troop of kids from the school ran along side our truck and followed all the way. Our guide Taba took us on a tour of the family home and explained in detail about the Gambian lifestyle. He told us that each Muslim man may marry up to 4 wives and how this tradition is an advantage in the Gambian household as it creates a larger family unit. After hearing more of what Taba said, it became obvious how important family life was to the Gambians. During our excursion we also visited a palm wine compound and sampled the infamous ‘fire water’, this was followed by a relaxing couple of hours spent on Sanyang beach. A beautiful natural beach set in a typical Gambian village not far from the fish market. We were treated to a simple fresh buffet style lunch and later took refuge in one of the many hammocks, definitely an idyllic location after our busy morning.

A hammock on Sanyang beach…

We were extremely fortunate to spend our last night at Mandina Lodges. The lodge is nestled in the Makasutu forest by the riverbank, an absolutely stunning setting and somewhere you will feel relaxed almost instantly. The lodge offers a unique experience and is a complete contrast to coastal Gambia. The next morning after a hearty breakfast (the food here is excellent) the lodge guide offered to take us on a trip along the river through the mangroves in one of the dugout canoes, the perfect occasion to spot all the birds and wildlife in their natural environment. Before leaving Makasutu Lawrence invited us to visit the Wide Open Walls. An extraordinary project and well worth a visit when you’re there.

Wide Open Walls

My stay in The Gambia was a real eye opener. It’s a country that does suffer from poverty; however it’s a nation of very welcoming people. They certainly do live up to their name of being the smiling coast of Africa. This trip has been an unforgettable experience and an opportunity to get out and about to see the real life of people in their country – something that the Gambia Experience does so well!

Here Rhiannon talks about the initiation ceremony that boys in The Gambia take part in. Each tribe may have its own nuances to the ceremony but there are many common aspects. I had a wonderful day a number of years ago attending a Jola Initiation Festival which made Rhiannon post even more interesting for me to read.

Gambian Initiation Ceremonies

The Gambia is home to a variety of traditions and cultures. A major part of a boy’s life in Gambia is the initiation ceremony, also be known as the circumcision ceremony. Traditionally boys aged 8-12 would spend several months out in the bush, although the ritual is slowly becoming less frequent in urban areas of Gambia it still occurs there and is common in the rural towns and villages. However, these days it is more usual for the boys to only spend a few weeks to a month in the bush, rather than the traditional several months.

In the Jola tribe the young initiates family and neighbours will give him money by pinning it on his clothes. After which he is lifted up onto someone’s shoulders to celebrate.

The ritual is based around boys being lead into the bush and initiated into manhood with special guardians who teach them about adult society and responsibility, the traditional medical uses of plants and trees, as well as the rules of behaviour such as respect. The boys would also learn about their culture and its heritage in groups specific to each tribe. For example Mandinka and Wolof boys will be separate from each other. At the end of their time in the bush there will be a ceremonial ritual of dancing, music and traditional clothing in which the boys will be circumcised by a sharp blade.

There are a number of ways in which the boys are taught to show respect for others. Unlike in the UK when Gambians speak to an elder they are taught to not look directly into their eyes, it is seen as disrespectful for somebody to look into the eyes of an elder. Boys are also taught to address their elders as ‘father’, ‘brother’, ‘mother’ or ‘sister’ instead of using their name. So when people introduce others as a brother or sister sometimes they may not actually be related but it is respectful and the favored way to address them. It is also believed that while shaking hands with an elder it should be done with two hands instead of one, this is done by shaking hands like usual but putting your spare hand on the other side of the elders hand so it is enclosed in both of your hands.

The uses of plants and trees which boys will be taught include things such as, the various uses of the mahogany tree which is a tree that locals believe can bring good luck and fortune. Thus when a couple get married it is seen a blessing if they sleep in a mahogany bed on the first night of their marriage. Another use of mahogany is to soak the bark in water then use the water to wash a new-born babies head, the use of this is to purify the child and warn off any bad spirits.

A famous part of the initiation ceremonial ritual is the Kankurang. This is the person who leads the boys into the bush and is believed to protect them from evil spirits while they are in the bush, although the Kankurang is related to the Mandinka tribe each tribe has someone with similar protection powers. The Kankurang is a fairly scary character, dressed in leaves, bark and tree fibers which are dyed a deep orange colour. He has a machete in one hand and a stick in the other. An authentic costume can be seen in the Kachikally Museum in Bakau. The Kankurang’s role in the bush is to round-up the boys who are due for circumcision, then guard them against the evil spirits which may get them during the ceremony. He guards the boys by waving his machete in a menacing way while they are being initiated into adulthood in the bush. During the circumcision the boys have to keep a straight face and must not squirm during the process, while at the same time the Kankurang will be dancing around to protect them which must be fairly intimidating and scary. Due to advances in medical care and to prevent infections from occurring, boys are usually now circumcised in a medical center rather than in the bush.

This is just one of many tribal traditions which occur in The Gambia creating its vast history and cultural mix, as well as shaping the lives of its friendly and respectful people, which give the country its name as ‘the smiling coast of Africa’.