Live From the Gambia

Teenage Pregnancy & The Abortion Story

There was an article in the newspapers the other day about a nurse committing an illegal abortion on a grade 10 student, and being sentence to 2 years in jail and hard labour. Everyone who heard it was horrified at the callousness of the nurse, performing such an operation on such a young girl, ending a life before it had even started. The nurse's association of the Gambia issued a press release distancing themselves from the whole stinking affair, and claiming that the woman who had performed the abortion should not be called a nurse, as she had carried out her operations without a proper license. People made the right noises of disapproval when someone brought the topic up in conversation, before hastily moving on to something else. And, as always, everyone refused to examine - or even acknowledge - the problem behind the problem.

"Reading the Ceiling"

I started reading "Reading the Ceiling", by Dayo Forster, yesterday. I am only in a hundred pages, but I am completely drawn into the story. The prose gets really, heartwarmingly beautiful at times, and I guess being a Gambian some things resonate with me in ways they wouldn't with someone who has never lived here all their life. I will post a review when I finish reading it, but even now I would highly recommend it, not as "Gambian literature" (as in: read this, and excuse that it may be a bad book, the prose does not flow, the plot does not make sense, because it was written by a Gambian), but just as a good book anyone could enjoy.

Face of Africell Second Round

Yesterday ten people were voted out of the face of africell competition, so now it's down to twenty. The girls voted out put on brave "it's ok we can live with it" faces - for five minutes, then burst into inconsolable tears. The ones who didn't get voted out tried to hide their relief, and be gracious, hugging the others and patting them on the back. The GRTS cameraman swung the camera around wildly ("too many cool shots here - which to choose, which to choose?"), so you'd get a glimpse of a thigh here, a flash of a cheek there.

Afterwards they showed the scores, and Ms Leigh came first on the voting tally, with Lilian Bruce Oliver right behind her. The votes will accumulate instead of being reset at each round, which means unless something unexpected happens they will stay as they are now, with very little change from week to week. The finals are on the 8th September.

The Rainy Season in The Gambia

The rainy season has started in The Gambia again, which means two things:

1) really bad, muddy roads whenever it rains all night. Last time it did an all-nighter there was a news item on TV showing people being flooded out of their houses, and roads being swamped, cars being washed away.

2) more varied weather conversation with strangers on the street (instead of having only the one topic of conversation concerning the weather [i.e. the heat, the almost-unendurable, turning everyone's life into hell but we have to put up with it, damn I wish I could afford an Air Conditioner heat], now there's also the rain to talk about. Including how unpredictable it is, how we don't really need it here in the city and the people upcountry need it more, how August is always like this, etc.).

Yesterday the clouds gathered into a massive party, making the sky go black and overcast, and everyone looked up fearfully and started walking faster to wherever they were going.

August 23, 2007 - 4:50am

.

Gambian Musicians and how to Identify them

Though it may not be obvious at first glance (or second, or third), there is quite a burgeoning music scene in The Gambia. Because it does not work in the same way as traditional music scenes in other countries, it is sometimes hard to make sense of it. This guide is written to help you identify the different types of musicians, which is always a good first step towards general musical enlightenment. By the time you finish reading this guide, you will know 90% of what there is to know about the current state of music in the country, ensuring you will never be left out again in conversations with your musical friends.

The Different Types (and where to find them)

1) The Rapper Dude: Usually in their late teens or early twenties, from upper-middle class / upper class families.

Moon Tiger

So I was reading this novel called Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (an excellent novel, by the way), and midway through it someone mentioned "Moon Tiger mosquito coils", and it suddenly dawned on me that they were talking about "Muntyga". Yes, the "Muntyga" your grandmother used to have alight all night in the living room to chase away those annoying mosquitoes.

I always thought "Muntyga" was a Wollof word. I did some research online after reading the book, and found out that "Moon Tiger" was actually the name of one of the companies that made mosquito coils. My explanation is that the coils made by this company were the first to be brought to The Gambia, and so the name stuck and became the generic name of the product. It made me wonder what other words got "imported" into the language this way.

Moon Tiger

So I was reading this novel called Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, and midway through it someone mentioned "Moon Tiger mosquito coils", and it suddenly dawned on me that they were talking about "Montiga".

Face of Africell

Africell have been running a competition to 'discover the face of Africell', with first prize a new car, and second a trip to Paris. The winner also gets to be the full-time PR person for the company. There were judges who got to select the first round of 30 people, and now the public are allowed to vote using their mobile phones for who they think should win the competition.

More than 250 people turned up for preliminary auditions. The audition videos of the 30 people who got selected have been on GRTS TV the past three days, and they were really fun to watch. One thing I was pleased to discover was that the judges didn't choose based on proficiency at English alone, which too many times gets to be a problem over here, with people snobbing other people based on their (lack of) English-speaking skills, which is just plain silly, given that it's not even our language.

Welcome

Welcome to the "Live From The Gambia" blog.

Here I hope to be able to tell you about what's going on in The Gambia, from the point of view of an average guy living and working here. For people living abroad who want to keep up with what's happening at home, this blog will try to bridge the gap between reading stories in the media, and actually being here to experience things. For those at home, maybe this will give you a fresh perspective on things, or at least provoke some discussion around issues.

This is not a political blog, which means we will steer clear of any politics, as much as possible. It is also not a blog set up to teach you anything (apart from maybe what it's like to live here), or to get you to start believing in anything - please feel free to disagree with whatever I post, at any time. The tone will stay light at all times, and I would love to hear your comments on anything posted here.

I hope you enjoy it.