We were delighted to have our friend Maria to come and visit us last week.  The full on Gambian experience in 6 days, but this is her story.

Maria's blog

Well, I have no idea where to begin and don't think I will be able to express the over whelming journey and emotional roller coaster ride I've just experienced, all be it crushed into 6 days. It seemed so much longer and now such a long time ago.


I will start near the end when I began to write about my experience........



As my journey came to an end I sat on the bus ready for the 8 hour trip back to the city of Banjul, from the town of JJB the home of Bakary and Hawa, (Pete and Liz), B&H. Hawa sees me onto the bus, tells the driver where I am going and to make sure I'm safe. As I turn to walk down the aisle I have a feeling of unease, that feeling I felt that when I first arrived, the overwhelming culture shock and instant feeling of being different. I was the only Toubab (white person) on the bus, noticing as I walked through an array of bright colour clothing, head scarves and hats….the bold patterns of a mix of blue, orange, green, purple and gold. I tried to look casual and inconspicuous. I found a seat next to a woman and her daughter who looked around 5 years old. As quickly as the unsettled feeling came over me it was gone. Only the children stared at me. I found it quite funny for a moment, but then, as if being white wasn't enough for me to standout; I forgot myself completely and stood waving vigorously with both hands, blowing kisses out of the window as I let out my farewell to B&H. They were on the opposite side of where I was sitting so I had to stand up and lean over people; displaying a right emotional affair........I was completely engulfed in leaving the Walfords behind and for myself having to leave West Africa so soon.

On the journey, at the bus stops people trade through the narrow oblong window that sit on top of larger windows that do not open. Women walk around the bus with ‘ice’, plastic bags of flavoured slush, just like a slush puppy, bananas and various other things. Children are passed to strangers for the mother to have a break especially if the mother was standing up. (Attachments with children are very different there). They shared their food and chattered, and chattered. It seemed like they were talking to themselves when someone a few seats down would talk back. At one of the stops there was much excitement about plastic bucket containers filled with curdled milk which was being bought through the window. At one point a man passed through the isle holding a crying LIVE chicken from its feet. The biggest surprise is that the children were silent, for 8 hours on a busy bus. They didn't fuss or say a word. What would they ask for I guess?? So unlike the indulgent western way of entertaining and pacifying your children, the unsettled I'm bored, I'm hungry, how long, cries we are so used to hearing.


I realise that I don't think I can't tell this in a nut shell, there was so much to take in. I will attempt to be consistent but, for those of you that know me, I will undoubtedly flit from encounter to encounter.

I didn't think my adoration for the Walfords could get much bigger until I had a flavour of their life over the past 10 months. Reading their blog is one thing being here is quite another.

On arrival, back on the 22nd I could hardly contain myself jumping up and down to hurry the bus up, so I could get off and meet the Walfords. I ran to find them; it was very exciting and a wonderful reunion. We caught up on tales over food and drink and I laughed at the glee from them both in having basic things, a clean bedroom, a sink, in door tap, hot water and a sit down loo. Hawa was in love with her cheese, o cheese!!! and Baks for his Jack Daniels. It was funny. I could only appreciate the impact of this joy on my return.


Anyway, the next day was running around doing basic errands, bank, shops, pizza, and next hotel. Bakary and Hawa have only had three trips up to the city and although it is a bit of a treat they also have practical things to do when they are there.

As we left our first hotel, I was amused by the state of the transport and surprised that the cars could possibly manage to work.


Bakary seemed in his element of the greeting and bartering way of the Gambians, he relished in their friendliness and genuine desire to help. We hopped onto a jeep like car and as the driver struggled to start the car I noticed the ignition looked like it had been hotwired, hanging out of the socket by the coloured wires. Three other taxi drivers came along to push, but to no avail. We had to take another cab. This one was running yes but had its own unique interior design with no inside door panel and foam and frame haphazardly on display.


By the evening we were off to a little hotel off the beaten track. The taxi driver took us down some narrow sandy roads and we were dropped off at a junction of wider sandy desolate roads. We took as short walk straight ahead passed trees and compounds that are surrounded by crimped metal sheeting that make up most of the fencing, roofing and make shift gate ways. It was like walking through the ghetto. We turned into one of the compounds through the gates, wow there was a tiny little haven,, after a couple of minutes I had to walk back out into the street as everything had become so surreal. Being in Africa with the Walfords was one thing but didn't we just walk down a sandy road that felt like we were in the ghetto? As I walked outside to check myself and that it wasn't a dream Bakary followed. We walked a short distance to the corner where we were greeted by a boy around 10 years old standing with his bicycle upside down playing with his wheel and broken tyre. He explained how his bike was broken and used it for school and began the banter of which Baks was again in his element. Suddenly a few more locals migrated towards us and one guy called out, greeted Bakary by name and as a friend. They had met the last time they had come to the city.


(I tell you Baks wasn't wrong about these people and their genuine desire to help and become your friend).


We then proceeded to follow the man and the boy followed us down the road, in the opposite direction to the hotel, around the corner and into a compound where there was a celebration or as the Gambians call it a 'programme'. It was a naming ceremony where swarms of natives in their finest vibrate clothes come to pay their respects to a new born, women in one compound and men across the road in another, children hanging giggling around us ..''Toubab, toubab''.....and touching us. Baks, as casual as you like, greeting the father and then over to see the mother and baby of course. We then swiftly strolled back down the road and were sat back in our hotel before we knew it. I hardly had the chance to catch my breath it was all so surreal.


The next day we were already for our trip back to up to JJB where Hawa and Baks call home. Our taxi dropped us off in the ferry port market area, bustling to say the least. I must have looked as bemused as a bewildered child. Hawa kept a check on me as she did throughout my stay. We rushed through the market area and the ferry terminal to get a ticket and then waited…….and waited and waited... in the sweltering heat behind iron gates that separated the foot passengers from the transport. It still felt strange being the only white people but no one took much notice. Hawa laid back and practical as always was already trying to negotiate her way through the gates to sort out our ride once we were over the other side of the water.


Once our ferry finally came everybody ran, huddled together in a herd, we just had to stay close and run. Running for seats in the shade and just getting a seat is something; people are hanging and standing anywhere.


A 40 min crossing and a 4hr ride squashed in the back of an 8 seated car, another small water crossing (which is a regular route for them both) and we arrive at their island of JJB a short walk and we are home. We enter their compound which the Walfords share with a local family, Baks and Hawa are happy to be back. Hot, tired and dirty which is the way I will remain for the rest of my stay and the way the Walfords have become accustom to. I look around their two basic rooms turn to Hawa and say, DID YOU CRY WHEN YOU FIRST ARRIVED?!!! I was astonished by how basic it was, I felt for them, no wonder they were like little kids it the city. Wow!!!! Wow!!! Wow!!!


After a rest Hawa took me across to my room, luckily a small hotel/ shale type place directly across the sandy road. ...brown stained ceiling, a working wobbling fan that seemed as though it would fly off the ceiling at any moment, fitted directly next to the bare light bulb so gave a flashing light show, door handles fitted upside down, a trickling shower head that I had to hold, a sink where the water trickle out through the bottom onto the floor. I wanted to cry, this time for myself.... but at least I had an indoor tap and a sit down loo. What was I moaning for....?


It’s amazing how quickly things become normal and we can adjust and accept them. Baks and Hawa's home very quickly became cosy and relaxing. Honest!!!!.... and for me it was just for a few days for these two it is their way of life.


The next day we went on the motor bikes to the market and to see the island and meet the local people that had become friends or colleges of the B&. I hadn't been on a bike since I was in my teens. I was riding with Hawa and Baks had Mulai, his landlord, with him. We crossed the river on a small ferry and onto the empty dirt top road, long and deserted, some parts of the road had a new surface, but mainly dust and sand topped and bumpy. I soon relaxed. It was fun. I could see over Hawa’s shoulder, just fields and road. Occasionally I could see a cluster of thatched roofed round hut houses way out in the fields. How scary it must be to ride these roads alone every day? People would suddenly appear out from the fields where they'd come from surrounding villages, children coming home from or going to school carrying books, a boy with a donkey and cart, women coming from their day farming carrying the crops in baskets on their heads and then nothing. The roads were dead again. Some people hitched lifts from the odd car or van some disappeared into fields, or wondered off the main road onto the narrow slippery sandy tracks that lead to the villages and schools that H&B ride down every day and I was to ride down with Baks the next day.


The markets were a surprise, stalls crammed together selling fabric, fruit, veg, fish, old bicycle parts and tyres and all the tat 'made in china' that you can find all over the world. Broken watches, metal door hinges, in separate piles for people to rummage through. I tell you, it made me feel annoyed at our wasteful world of consumerism, if it’s broken just throw it away and buy a new one. Things and parts for things in the Gambia and, I’m sure, in so much of the world are used to the death. I can only liken the scene to my idea of a mix of Victorian time chaos and medieval living as you see it in the movies, with a random appearance of modernism all muddled up in hustle and bustle, the traders hissing at you as you walk past, just to get your attention of course!! And then there was the live stock section. Bakary likened it to the Wild West.


The ferry was too full on our return from the market so Hawa and I had to get a canoe like boat that meant our bike hanging over the edge and Baks and Mulai in another boat in an identical scene. They both hold on the other end of the bike so as it doesn’t fall in ... it was funny because it was unbelievable, but I did feel for them; sometimes after a long day out on trek to the school this is what they come home to. I don’t mean to be sexiest but double wow for Hawa. I felt for her. She can ride every day alone on desolate dusty narrow roads, never feel clean and then at the end of the day maybe have to get her motor bike hanging off the boat and hold it tight ... what a woman!!!! I was blown away.


The homes were mud or clay like huts with thatched roofs or concrete blocks, two rooms per family, (it was like a living historical medieval village.... and B&H live in a compound like this,) (Can you imagine?) The rooms were just used for sleeping, with people settled in groups usually with extended families that form the compound, which was shielded by stick fencing or, in the town or city, the metal sheeting.


In some places there was power, but it went off at certain times in the day and hasn't reached many of the villages.


The schools, THE SCHOOLS!!!! B&Hs reason for giving up their comforts and secure lives for the year their passion for teaching and to offer their support. As humble as ever they say they have had little to offer, but I witnessed how the community embraced them, appreciated their visits, the staff and children at the schools looked to them and valued their words, the relationships they had formed I can hardly believe this to be true.


The schools were a shock to say the least. I had to work hard to contain my emotions. The bare concrete blocks held around 4 class rooms, some just had one block while others had two or three that were built in a square. Inside there was a blackboard usually full with elaborate English texts which the children would copy into their tatty exercise books using their broken pencils. With the help of B&H some class rooms had began to develop little reading corners and areas where children could play shop and learn moths in a practical form. The school building itself was relative to the standard homes the natives were used to, so I got over that one (kind of) but the hour or so it takes for children to walk to school through the sweltering heat through fields and sandy tracks carrying their scruffy books, was humbling. Most of the staff lived away from their homes and loved ones. The store cupboard was a larger room that stored a pile of fire wood for burning, to cook the children’s’ lunch, along with some broken furniture; a far cry from our crammed store cupboards filled with unused exercise books, ring bind folders, pens, rubbers, etc... God the paper we waste.


The children seemed happy, giving us big beaming smiles; a few were shocked and curious. They touched us and pinched us laughing at our white skin. A few were scared and Baks made them cower and cry while he tried to approach them and play. It was very funny. Oh and they absolutely love the camera. It was a pleasurable day despite the continual culture shock that involved the primitive way of life and the profound state of poverty, yet the people were happy, humble, giving and so so grateful.


All the people I was introduced to were very welcoming. Their landlord gave me a gift that I can only see as a reflection of how much respect there is for both Bakary and Hawa.


The funniest bit, besides the children and cars, was when going to the market Baks had forgotten that he had his land lord with him on the back of his bike. They had stopped off to get the foot rest welded onto the bike. Baks arrived at the river crossing and looking behind him asked where Mulai was insisting that he must have just got off the bike. He had barely stopped and even protested when myself and Hawa said ‘you arrived alone’ ‘but I was talking to him.’ Baks restarted the bike and turned to find Mulai.... then we could see him running around the corner. It was hilarious.


I was quietly amused by Bakary’s new found word 'MAN' at the end of a sentence or a statement. No, he wasn’t trying to be a wanabe Rasta - again it was natural, it fitted, they fitted, they have both beautifully embraced the natives and their ways. How will they readjust? I can see Baks seeking out a new drinking haunt in the old Cardiff bay side.... and Hawa kissing every piece of furniture in their home. The hardest bits were the travelling, the heat, the never feeling clean and the damn mosquitoes ...


There is so much I have missed, I only hope it gives justice and credit to them, sharing my experiences and respect and love for Peter Liz and the strength they have, both individually and as a couple. I can only bow down to them. They have lasted their adventure and survived their challenge, have done some amazing work, taken on all the hardship and grown a love for the people. These last few weeks may be the hardest. They are so grateful for correspondence from home. The parcels and letters they get are a gift of joy and a pleasure. They miss their comforts and loved ones and are aching to see their children.


Pete and Liz, a pride and honour to know you, I can't thank you enough for letting me share a snap shot of your experience and for looking after me so so much....


with much love Maria xxxxxxx