Sights and Sounds

Three weeks in The Gambia. What have I seen? What have I heard?

There is red dust everywhere. All the roads and cars and shop-fronts, the dogs that find shade at midday, the litter that lies in every alley, all these things are covered in dust. And there are yellow cars everywhere. Have you ever wondered why there are so few yellow cars in the UK? It is because they are all here. Taxis (unless they are minibus bush-taxis, which can be any colour) are generally hand-me-down cars from Europe, and have all been painted yellow (with green stripes). They operate in a different way to taxis I am used to; these taxis run to set routes only, for a fixed fee of 5 Dalasi. If you want to make a more complicated journey you will need to change at a certain junction into another taxi (rather like changing tube lines in London) or pay a lot more for a ‘town trip’.

What else can I see? The stars shine more clearly than I can remember. Those constellations that I recognise (not many) have shifted to a different part of the sky; I have acquired a book to help me become familiar with others. And I can see…not very far away; this is a very flat place, with no tall buildings and no hills, so there are no particular landmarks on the horizon, except the occasional tall Baobab tree, and the antennae at the Gambia Television and Radio station at the end of our road.

And what does it sound like here? There are always sounds from outside when I wake. First is the call to prayer from mosques from several directions, starting well before dawn. I am beginning to recognise the repeating refrains. These are often punctuated with cockerels, and then by wild birds roosting in the orange tree at the front of the house in Kanifing where we are staying temporarily, and a dove that has a nest in the rafters. The dove has heavy feet on the ceiling above; perhaps it is a monkey. This is a noisy city. Every driver sounds the horn of their vehicle with enthusiastic regularity, especially bush-taxis seeking to fill up with yet more passengers, crammed in like sardines. And as I walk children yell, “Toubab, Toubab!” just to remind me that I am white, and then smile disarmingly to point out that they do not mean to offend.

I have had a big welcome from everyone I have met here. The programme office staff at VSO have been fantastic. The longer-established volunteers working in programmes across the country have helped me find my way around and learn to cope with living in this completely different place. And a long list of others; my boss at DoSE, my Wolof teacher, the guy in the shop next-door, the woman who serves bean paste on tapalapa bread at the corner, the friendly faces who I pass on the street wishing me “Salaam Malekam”; all these have welcomed me.

I knew that some adaptation would be required to live here, but one unexpected cultural surprise has been to share a house for a fortnight with two Filipino volunteers. All four new volunteers have shared a house in Kanifing; Vicente and Rolando from the Philippines, and two British, Jacqui and me. Together, we cooked, ate, coped with power cuts and ‘water-cuts’ and braved the market at Serrekunda. Communication has not always been simple, however. For a number of days I was intrigued at Vicente’s interest in Newquay.

‘What is the weather like in Newquay?’ he asked. ‘It is winter in Newquay right now?’ Perhaps he’s interested in surfing, I thought.

‘You are missing Newquay?’ Vicente wanted to know the next evening. Not really, I told him, I don’t go there much. ‘Of course you do’ he insisted, becoming aggravated with my repeated denials.

‘You have good schools in Newquay?’ he asked me one dinner time. I have no idea, I told him, bemused. ‘You have been working in schools in Newquay’ he told me, increasingly cross. It was at this point I realised that all these conversations had not been about Newquay, but about the UK. Was it winter in UK? Was I missing UK? I had been working in schools in UK.

Using money is a bit different here. No-one has a credit card. Very few have a bank account, and as far as I am aware there are only four cashpoints in the country. Most people subsist at a day to day level. And those that do have money carry cash. Notes in common circulation are of a relatively small denomination (5, 10, and 25 Dalasi, approximately 10, 20 and 50 pence) so buying something relatively expensive like a book or a torch involves handing over a whole wad of cash. Many of these banknotes are thin and old. They have a peculiar smell reminiscent of something from way back in the past. Eventually I worked out what it is; these notes smell like Tetrafin, the tins of fish food with which I used to feed to my koi.

It is odd how quickly you adjust to things that are different. For example, it has been common to prepare an evening meal with both the water and electricity supplies off. Power cuts are common, often more than once per day. And the water pressure drops away for several hours per day too. Therefore I have been cooking (using bottled gas) by the light of two candles, and using stored water from containers. Imagine how much people would complain if these were the circumstances in the UK, but here it is just the way that things are. Much of the country has no electricity at all, and other places no piped water -  I am lucky that I live in the Kombos near the capital, and therefore I do have these services; I can even drink the water from the tap.

I am beginning to adapt. Some of these strange things already feel normal after just three weeks. Next I have a trip upcountry, where everything will change again. I will write about that when I return.