THE GAMBIA

Dear WACCO Fans

This comes to you from the Atlantic Coast Capital of Banjul in the country THE GAMBIA and it is about THE GAMBIA !!!

What a place ! Gambia is the home of Kunta Kinteh, a real person who was sold into slavery and whose story Alex Haley featured in the mini-series ROOTS which aired in 1976. More on this later.

Gambia is certainly more progressed in tourism than any of the countries we visited - it is a popular seaside destination for Europeans, especially the Dutch, English and Germans. It is very cheap and we washed of the heat and dust of Africa in a $20USD per person per night air conditioned room in a big resort right on the Atlantic Coast !!!

The old city of Banjul is very run down but has character with children running around freely and always willing to play with us. The old city features a huge arch from which you can see the entire city. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Philip visited here as well as Proncess Ann and Prince Edward given that it was an English Colony from 1765 capture from Portuguese to 1965 with independence. The Gambia has recently re-joined the Commonwealth. The Gambia is the smallest mainland African country surrounding the Gambia River and surrounded itself by the country SENEGAL. We had to cross Senegal to get here from Bissau - a 300km trip that still took two drivers, two cars over nearly 9 hours!!! Boy were we glad to see the Atlantic and the weather in Banjul is very cool and dry but hot in the middle of the day. The Gambia has 2.5 million people and almost 100% Muslim. 80% of women have suffered Female Genital Mutilation and it is now illegal. Peanuts is biggest export.

The highlight of The Gambia was definitely the one day trip 30km inland to the village of Juffureh where Kunta Kinteh was born and stolen by the English as a slave along with 97 others and taken to Annapolis in Maryland USA in 1767. The author Alex Haley wrote the book ROOTS which followed the story of Kunta Kinteah and later made a mini-series that was popular all over the world and became synonymous with the West African Slave trade that stole and killed millions until slavery was abolished in the mid 1800’s. Our local guide is from Juffereh and his grandma knew the Kinteh family - we sailed in a local fishing long boat to Kunta Kinteh Island (also known as James Island and St Andrew’s Island). This island is 3.5km away in the middle of the Gambia River and was home to a Fort which was occupied successively by the Portuguese, French and English as a strategic military post but later used to export slaves to the Caribbean, Brazil and USA. It is now in ruins but tells a bitter story alongside a good museum on the north bank.

The Gambia was easily our favourite place to stay and really moving forward with tourism - a light post and great example for its neighbours.

John WACCO Golfin