Welcome to The Gambia

Statue at the airport

In Belgium I had to go through border police, since my flight was going to The Gambia. As I approached my terminal, I didn’t see Keyachtta and I figured we must have been on different flights. My smile had turned into a frown, until I saw a hand wave at me and it was Keyachtta, I was no longer alone. On the plane to Gambia, Keyachtta had an empty seat beside of her, so I was able to sit with her on the plane. The plane ride was a total of 6 hours and we were served a beef goulash dinner. I was actually able to sleep on the plane since I had been up most of the night before. We got to Gambia at about 3:15pm (local time) and it just looked hot outside. Although the plane was huge, because the airport didn’t have gates, we had to walk off of the plane and ride a bus to front door. Upon arriving in the airport the first thing you had to do was make it past border police, we had a little trouble since we didn’t know our local address. After

Welcome to The Gambia

calling up Seety, we got the address and were able to claim our luggage.  I had a few problems with one of my bags, so I had to go into the customs office to talk to them about the contents of my bag. I told them it was only snacks and showed them the snacks and I was free to go. Although, as it turns out, I had a bottle of wine that was given to me on my birthday that I completely forgot about. Luckily, I was able to get through customs though. As we were waiting for Seety people kept asking to help us push our carts of luggage, I knew they only wanted money so I kept refusing. Finally an older man took it from me and once we were at the car he asked me to give $5 from the heart. I’m not sure what Seety gave him, but he left us alone. Riding through Gambia was completely different from the U.S. There aren’t any speed limits or stop lights, so people were just driving crazy. We went to view Seety’s apartment and it was quite funny, because he had Americanized the place. He had a flat screen TV, a leather chair, a nice flat type stove, and a high-top marble kitchen table. We thought we would be staying with Seety, but he didn’t have electricity so we had to take cold showers to freshen up and then we headed out to look for a hotel. His friend Jerreh, found us a nice resort called “Lemon Creek” right near the beach. Upon our arrival the man asked for $1,700 for us to stay 30 days, with some tough negotiations, Jerrah got him to agree to $1000 for our entire stay, including breakfast! Personally, I thought he would have come down more, but they settled for that deal.

Our Hotel Resort

After getting our bags into the room, we ate dinner at the hotel. I had grilled chicken topped with pineapple and cheese; it was quite delicious. After dinner, I headed back up to the room and fell asleep shortly; I was quite tired from 28 hours of traveling to Africa. The next morning we woke up and went down to breakfast. Breakfast consisted of baguette, egg cooked to order, sausage, potatoes, yogurt, and

Our room with Mosquito nets

fresh mango. The mango was so fresh I couldn’t stop eating it. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sausage, or the juice that was from a native fruit of Africa. Instead I stuck with milk, even though I believe it was goat milk. After breakfast, we came back to the room for a nap before Seety was expected to get us. After our nap was over Seety had not arrived so we began to get dressed for the day. We met a maid of the hotel who said her sister could braid hair, so hopefully she will be able to braid my hair within the next few days. When Seety showed up, it was to tell us that he was going to see his mother and that he would be back in a 2 hours to pick us up. So we left out and a young man named Keemba asked to walk with us. He took us to a

Inside of the compound

compound, or a residential living space to see how the Gambians live and it was quite a humbling experience. There were children without shoes covered in dirt, but they still smiled and played. Each compound consisted of a man’s wives and their families. Keemba told us that each man is allowed to haveup to four wives in Gambia and all of the wives live within the same compound with a wall that separates them. The doors to each person’s home were open and it looked very dark inside. Most of the people keep their lights off to conserve energy, because electric bills are really expensive in the Gambia. We saw a lot of stray dogs and beauty salons through the compound. We even saw an internet café inside. Keemba took us to the center where there was an open outside market to buy different food items, clothing, and hair products. The flies and nets out there were overwhelming; at this point I was ready to go back to the hotel. The sun was really hot on my skin and I was feeling a little dehydrated. I also didn’t like being inside of the compound because the women were not

Little Gambians

welcoming, they wouldn’t smile at us they just stared. One set of women referred to us as “touba” or white people. The natives have a habit of speaking about you in their language after they are introduced to you, it can become quite annoying. After leaving the compound we came back to the hotel to take a nap and wait for Seety. After waiting for about 3 hours we decided to get up and go get some food, because we could wait no longer. Keemba walked with us to a restaurant not too far from the hotel where we ordered “Chicken Afra.” I thought it was going to be barbeque but it was chopped up chicken

Interesting sign

cooked in onions and a garlic sauce. It was the most disgusting meal that I’ve ever had, but the fried potatoes were pretty good. At dinner, Keemba bought us a Youki, a Gambian soda, and it was pretty good. After dinner we walked to convenient store and bought some Pringles to snack on for the night. We came back to the room and found “Bad Boys” on TV. It was nice to watch an American movie in an foreign country. After the movie I fell asleep shortly. As for today, we I think I have written enough already, so I will update you all later.