The Gambia

We arrived in Banjul on the 4th November, after 3 days at sea. Africa came in sight at about 4pm, but we did not get into the river till it was dark. So I drove, while Sophie was on the radar, Dad navigating on the GPS and Mum was looking out. The channel is marked by unlit buoys, which in the dark were really not a lot of use. We completely failed to see the first two the nearly ran over the third! But we arrived safely at 9.00. Even before the anchor had taken there was a small work boat was along side, and three young blokes were asking us where we were from and weather we had checked in yet.

 My first day ashore was a Friday. Fridays are a religious day, everything shuts at 12.30 for prayers. Also everyone dresses up in there best dresses, it was like a carnival with all the women in big colourful dresses with head scarves and the men in long robes. We were picked up from the dock by Cham, he is a driver for Sight Savers International. He took us to the ministry of Health, which is a dusty court yard with small buildings on all sides, and with people selling peanuts by the gates! At the Ministry we met Mr Bah, Eye Care Program Manager for the Gambia; Dr Malaki, Senior eye surgeon, Dr Danboy and Mr Sillah, Senior health planner. We also met Dr Sanyang who is in charge of the Sight Savers program in the Gambia. After the introductions we decided that Sophie would go with Dad to meet the Director of Health while Mum and I would go with Cham to the market.

The streets were a mass of people, all colourfully dresses. There were many street stalls. Cham took us to the market square - it is quite pushy here, because you are white you are a tourist and have money to spend. But Cham would explain in Mandinka, the native African language that all the locals speak, that we were not tourists but that we had brought medicine, this made the prices drop and people even gave us gifts. Once you had bought something they would say, "now chose a gift" and would get you to choose a necklace or bracelet that was hanging from the veranda. One smart stall holder who didn’t speak English gave us his card and a doll from his stall, we didn’t know why but he insisted we took it anyways. Cham seemed to know who everyone in the market and was and we ended shaking hands with them all which is the way they greet everyone. I even had a few offers of marriage! We got back to the Ministry of Health, to meet Sophie and Dad, laden with clothes, jewellery and the doll! We found that we had been invited to lunch with the Vice President of The Gambia after she has announced the start of National Blindness Awareness Week on television!

Cham then drove us over to Cape Point, on the outskirts of Banjul, where the Sight Savers offices are. Here we met with Dr. Sanyang and Marring his assistant, and went over our itinerary for the next few days. After that we went on to see the more touristy area of the Gambia; a hotel complex called Senegambia.

From what I have seen of Banjul so far, it is a friendly, colourful, busy place. All the people we have met have been helpful and not at all threatening - especially the lads at the dock who are there to help us up and greet us whenever we go ashore.

After talking to Dr. Sanyang and reading and visiting the Gambia we have learned quite a lot about the area.

The River Gambia has a battle between salt and fresh water in it. The salt water from the sea usually reaches up as far as Ka-ur which 100 miles up the river, but during the rainy season in Guinea the fresh water pushes the salt water further down to the sea. Because half of the river is fresh and half is salt, it means that there is a variety of crops that the river helps to produce. While the water is salty there are good fish, while the water is fresh then rice can be grown in the banks. So the country very much depends on the river.

Rice is the staple food in the Gambia. Even though rice is grown here, they import it from China. Some of it is imported to the neighbouring countries. They do not use the river to transport it though, they use the road. The river is used to transport people, but mainly people use the road.

The Gambia gets about 40" of rain a year, so it is good farming land, they produce most of the food that they eat. The farming up river is mainly subsistence, some is produced to sell as well though. In fact they produce more food than they can eat. They do not export they excess though, partly because it does not occur to them that they can, but also there is not the structure here to do it easily. Because of this each year lots of food is left to go rotten.

There is surprisingly high infant mortality in the Gambia. This is mainly because of Malaria. If detected early enough, malaria can be treated by a simple injection, but the problem is that the parents do not realise that the child has malaria is to late. A consultation in the main hospital costs 5 Dalasis, which is about 2 pence.

The main source of blindness in the Gambia is Cataract. This is where the lens in the eye becomes "steamed up". It is caused by disease that in developed countries are usually controlled before they get to that stage like Diabetes. It is cured by a simple operation where the lens is removed and replaced by an artificial one. The operation takes 20 minuets and the patient can be released from the hospital the next day.