Travel

I worked in human rights when I was in The Gambia. There are a lot of grey areas in human rights. It's tough to figure out what's theory and what's practice. 

Something I wrote while in The Gambia.

Gambia is a very very hot country. Especially when I first arrived. It was the middle of the monsoon season and the heat was
stifling. The rains last from June to around the middle of October. Be prepared to find yourself stuck in the middle of a downpour. The grey clouds can sneak up quickly.

The Gambia has great beaches where I could cool off. Some days the waves were so huge that they picked me up and rolled me on the bottom. Undertows have a lot of strength and a lot of people get into trouble.

Gambians are friendly. They always greeted me no matter how many times I had seen them that day. Always make sure you say hello too! Bumstas (hustlers) can be a problem. The only way to deal with them is to ignore them. It seems rude but unless you cut off contact from the beginning, there's no way to get rid of them.

This is the Touray family in front of their house in Gunjur.

Compounds are what Gambians live in. Small one floor apartments joined by a courtyard. Many parts of the same family live together in numerous flats. I lived in a few compounds with my roommate Christine. Christine and I are from the same Canadian government program. We went to Gambia together.

The "Yellow Compound" was my most permanent home. It was bright yellow and spanking new. So new, it didn't have a sink when Christine and I moved in. So new, we're were still asking for furniture, a phone and other tiny things right up until the day we left the country. Things that I never knew I could miss. Hot water, being able to access the outside world and power are things I thought I would miss but didn't. I almost never saw our landlord. He's a border guard between Senegal and Gambia. He only came to see Sira, his wife and our landlady, once every two weeks. He splits his time between her and his other wife in another village.

The Yellow Compound has two maids and two guards. The guards are in charge of letting us in and out. Sometimes they don't open the gate. I had to climb over the high wall once. It's not a good idea when wearing a long dress. My knees got mixed up in all the fabric. I impressed the kids of the neighbourhood with my feat.

The Yellow Compound has a banana tree, a dog named Bebe and a scorpian whom I sucked up in Sira's vacuum cleaner (we had power that hour.) Music and chanting from the mosque down the street filter in every morning and evening. Roosters used to wake me up but now the guards sweeping outside my window do. The men like to look in at us. Privacy is no where but locks are. Even the fridge has a lock on it. People know my every move. Even people I've never ever seen before. They know I'm Canadian. Though from time to time, they think I'm French. Some mornings I put on my flip flops and walk a few metres down the sandy street to buy a loaf of the most delicious bread. Sometimes I get up early in the morning and go for a swim at the "country club." A dilapidated pool at an old British airplane hanger. Sometimes I meet a big bunch of people, expats and Gambians, and go for a run. Hash House Harriers we're called. Sometimes I love it here and sometimes I don't. Degrees are extreme and it was 37 yesterday. The air conditioner in my office keeps me at a cool temperature. Too cool and I have to turn it off.

Food. I'm addicted to these really, really bad "muffins." No one knows the correct name for the things. Though I've asked countless shop clerks. A woman told me they were buns. They are lumps of banana tasting dough. So dry that after every bite I have to take a swallow of water. Dry as hell and I like to especially eat them frozen. I also don't mind chomping some Fish Benachin prepared by a Gambian friend or shortbread, imported from England. Diet cokes every lunch. If they're avaliable.

Nothing is in the middle in The Gambia. It's either high or low. High when I'm enchanted by the jungle. The wild monkeys running at me, huge baobobs and vines tangling their way into my memories. Low when I'm faced by pollution on all surfaces, kids who act like they're 88 and the disfigured beggars who sit in front of the supermarket and bank. Smells are many. Interrmingling with body odour is orange and wood and garbage and strong perfumes of incense. Travel is by foot or by destroyed yellow and green taxis. Walking on the beach is a favourite of mine. So is the swim after a tough day at the African Centre. The trip to Banjul is great because the big white bush taxi only stops a few times during the 20 minute drive. Continous and the breeze hits my face.

Friends are not hard to come by. Christine and I have met many British and Irish folks. They'll have their first Thanksgiving with us Saturday. Other foreigners are in the country. The Nova Scotia-Gambia Association is here. I will share Thanksgiving with 10 Canadians on Sunday. The man I work with is from Ghana. The woman down the hall is from Sierra Leone. Zoe's from Zambia. It's hard to make Gambian friends but I have. Women don't have time and are shy. Men have too much time. Michelle, a secretary at the Centre, made time. Work is like swimming through glue. Deadlines mean nothing and if I ask for a piece of work to be done. I know I'll have to ask a few more times. I've argued with Zoe over a couple of things. After I leave her office, I always think to myself, "I've been fighting with a woman who has met two Popes!" But I've also been talking to a woman who knows more than I ever hope to about the state of human rights in Africa. A woman who has to have so much faith in order to keep carrying on. A woman whom I have a lot of respect for.

Reading, writing, walking, swimming, talking, listening, thinking, observing, smelling, growing, beer drinking, in for lunch, out for supper, parties with such a mix of people, surfers, sunsets and 24 hours in The Gambia.

Something I wrote while in South Korea.

Korea - the place definitely
turned my head upside down and made me think in different ways.

I met a lot of different people, Westerners and Koreans. It was a fantastic social experience but a horrid work one. I was teaching English to kids. A word of warning to people who want to teach in Korea - contracts aren't worth
anything.

My first school was a nightmare. I was the only teacher, English
or Korean, in a hog won of about forty kids. It was brutal. My boss tried to take my passport for the year, he didn't give me pots and pans to cook in, furniture or a phone.

I had to beg for oil to heat my apartment and the school, and plea for paper, pencils... The furnace broke in my apartment
and I had to survive in freezing weather.

I was the only foreigner in the town and sometimes when I looked in the mirror, I was surprised that I wasn't Asian. I travelled around the country on my weekends off and that's
what saved me. 

I met two Canadians who helped get me out. Things went from worse to a little better. At least I had heat! There were still
problems in the new school. The new bosses tried to move another person into our tiny two bedroom apartment, changed the schedules every week and finally they fired my roommate and left me with all the classes, no extra pay.

When I was offered the position in Africa I left to come home.

Korea wasn't all bad. I learned so much from living overseas. I made some cool friends and I saw many interesting sights and had ripping adventures.