So today I had a morning tour of Banjul, the capital of Gambia. The city is rather small with a population of less than 60,000 people, but the city is spread out.
First up was the National Museum of The Gambia. The museum was laid out on three floors with the ground floor displaying the political (lots of pictures of mayors) and cultural history of The Gambia. Here, we wandered around and saw a miniature replica of an old Gambian house as well as a fascinating display about the use of masquerade in Gambian culture.
Apparently, various tribes in The Gambia have specific costumes (they call them masquerades) that are used during boys rites of passage, for spiritual rituals and to provide entertainment. Now it took me a while to understand what this was all about. Something was clearly lost in translation as it was being explained to me, but after reading some of the titles on the pictures I eventually understood. So as I understand it, there are various masquerades that the tribes don for various occasions. However, more and more, the masquerades are used during festivals to promote Gambian heritage.
And the most prominent masquerades are apparently the Kankurang associated with the Mandinka tribe and brought out for male initiations and to ward off evil spirits. There were also pictures of the Agoogu, which is apparently patterned after the Nigerian masquerade and is used to communicate between the living and the ancestors.
Also on the first floor were two fanals, which are large boat shaped lanterns that are lit at night and paraded through the streets with much fanfare and singing and dancing during the Christmas and New Year season. At the end of the festivities, the fanal is given to a worthy person chosen by the makers of the lantern. Sounds like fun.
So after wandering the first floor, we moved to the second floor which featured The Gambia’s archeological history with displays of the Wassau circles and earthen pots discovered during archeological digs. There were also displays about The Gambia’s colonial and post-colonial history and the introduction of Islam. However, for me the most interesting display was the voting bin and voting marbles associated with The Gambian election process.
Now because not everyone can read in The Gambia they use marbles and coloured bins for voting. Each party or candidate has a specific coloured bin. When you go to vote, your name is checked off the voter registration list, you are handed a marble and you then go to the voting booth and drop the marble in the bin colour of your choosing (which may also have each candidate’s picture on the bin associated with the candidate’s party). The voting monitors listen for the drop of the marble to ensure there is only one marble dropped in the bin. Once you have dropped the marble, your finger is marked with a stain that cannot come off for days ensuring that you do not vote twice. All in all, a very clever system.
The last level of the museum was the basement where there was a display of musical instruments that are popular throughout the country. There were various types of drums used by the tribes as well as a balafone, which is similar to a xylophone. There was also a kora, which is associated with the Mandinka tribe, but is also considered the national instrument of The Gambia.
Anyway, after the walk through the museum (which I actually thoroughly enjoyed and I am not a huge museum fan), we moved on to Arch 22, which is an arch marking the entry into Banjul. The Arch was built in 1996 to commemorate the military coup that took place on July 22, 1994, when Yahya Jammeh and his army overthrew the democratically elected Gambian government of President Dawna Jawara.
Now from what I understand, Jammeh was a pretty bad dude. He used his secret police over the course of 22 years to abduct thousands of Gambians and torture and/or kill them. He was finally overthrown in 2016.
We ended up going inside the arch and climbing the 100 steps to the top where the views were spectacular. We also took a walk through the museum of sorts at the top which tells the horror stories of families affected by the rein of Jammeh.
Once back down the winding staircase, it was off to the Kachikally Crocodile Pool. Now I loathe crocodiles, and I was only going to see this because Malang said it would be fun. It was not!
Now the drive was interesting because we ended up going through a rather large village to get to the crocodile
pool so we passed lots of school kids and more goats and donkey carts. However, the highlight of the trip was the artwork outside the entrance to the pool. Beyond that … ugh.
We first walked past a pool of slimy green water where we saw a croc staring at us. We then walked around a corner and in front of us were 5 crocs just hanging out on the dirt. At first I thought they were statutes because they were not moving, but then I saw a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye and realized they were not statutes. Help me!!!
I then met the owner of the place who told me he had 100 crocodiles on site and wanted me to make a “donation” to his operation. Uh yea … NO. We already paid an entrance fee and based on the rings and jewelry you are wearing, you do not need the money. (Sounds like a con to me to line his pockets.)
Anyway, after a few minutes, I said I wanted to go despite the fact that they kept trying to get me to touch one of the crocs. “It’s very safe” they kept saying. “They are not blood thirsty because they are only fed fish.” Yea right. Very safe until it is not.
As we were leaving, I spotted a couple of cattle egrets in the trees, which was the second best thing about the visit.
Now our last official stop of the day was to the Monkey Park, where green monkeys and red colubus monkeys hang out. And I was all in on this one.
The drive took us back out of town past a roundabout with a lovely statute and past gorgeous street art. (Actually the street art seems to be everywhere here.).
Anyway, we stopped and bought some bananas and after paying the entrance fee (no donation ask at this place) we picked up the trail and took a walk through the park. We immediately spotted some red colubus monkeys hanging out in the trees.
And something I did not know. Red colubus monkeys are not fond of bananas, but they do like peanuts. In addition, the monkeys are very shy and even if you have peanuts to give they are very, very reticent to come near you. When they move from tree to tree they literally spring across the ground and bound up into the trees or they swing from a branch and do not come down.
But on the flip side, we had the green monkeys who proved to be hungry, greedily little buggers who would eat you out of house and home if they could. As we walked along the path, the green monkeys followed us with their hands out and as soon as we pulled out a piece of banana and put it near one of them, the monkey would grab for it, peel it and eat it before we even had a chance to move on.
As we walked, it became clear that the dominant monkeys were eating all the bananas being handed out and the weaker monkeys were getting stiffed. We made it a point to seek out the smaller and weaker monkeys, but our strategy might not have been a good idea because as we were trying to feed a smaller monkey one of the big guys grabbed the banana. This apparently pissed off some of the other monkeys (who were from a different family – there were apparently two families around us) and all of sudden we had a front row seat to a melee. I missed some of the action, but managed to turn on my video just in time to catch a couple monkeys flipping in the air and pawing at one another and then the standoff. It was incredibly interesting.
So once thing settled down, we continued to pass out bananas (hunting down babies where we could). And on the plus side, the dominant male hung back and was not really interested in the bananas anymore. I guess he was not interested in another fight today.
And overhead, there were a bunch of red colubus monkeys who were hanging out on the branches (literally) and playing around in the trees. I was thoroughly enjoying the Monkey Park.
Once we ran out of bananas, we started the walk back to the entrance and along the way we spotted a Nile monitor lizard snaking its way through the underbrush. But the bigger coup was spotting a northern red hornbill on the path in front of us. Unfortunately, I was not fast enough to snap a picture when the bird was sitting on the path, but it hopped into the bush and I quietly walked in its direction and managed to catch a picture from behind and then a picture as it turned its head. I was thrilled to see the bird!
From here, we ended the morning visiting a local craft market, but it turned out that there was just a lot of beaded jewelry and statutes that can be found anywhere. Not much creativity at this place, although I did find a Christmas ornament! Yay!
So that is a wrap for this trip. Tomorrow we head back to Senegal and then on Sunday, I catch a flight home through Istanbul arriving later on Monday. I will be home until mid April, and then I head to … Europe (Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in that order, and no I have not been to any of these countries).