BALDEH BOLONG

TWO YEARS WHEN I WAS A CHILD

2011-11-12T06:35:00.002+05:30

To say that a picture evokes sweet or painful memories is perhaps an understatement. If you disagree carefully examine this picture which I obtained from the National archives in Banjul. The picture was taken during the bloody July 1981 abortive coup led by one Kukoi Samba Sanyang who until now is hardly seen publicly in the Gambia. Yet majority of Gambians don't even know where Kukoi is.

One can barely figure out the true intentions of these boys, what is clear is that the scene is somwhat chaotic showing once again the effects of lawlessness and war. According to my birth certificate I was less than two years when the coup began and turned two years by the time the rebels were flushed out of town by the Senegalese security forces.

The picture also reminds me about the unfinished or should I say the unpublished book on the 1981 coup by veteran journalist Baboucarr Gaye. He started the book but could not publish it before the call came for him to join the land of the silent ones. How sad!

Another painful reminder of the abortive coup has to do with scar on the legs of my grandfather who almost died in 1981 when he defied all odds to go to work at Cable and Wireless. He was shot, but not without sustaining injuries. Poor him, my grandfather survived and was able to narrate the story to me, others couldn't.

He died some seven years ago. Two years when I was a child, the picture is still the same, my grandfather has died with his scars and other pictures are still out there waiting to be showcased.

by Ebrima Baldeh

THE RIOTS ARE OVER BUT...

2011-08-15T03:44:00.003+05:30

AFTER THE RIOTS IT SEEMS BRITAIN IS BEGINNING TO ASSESS WHAT WENT WRONG AND WHY IT SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. Barbara Scott gives us her reactions.

This week in Britain we are witnessing unprecedented scenes of rioting, looting and arson in many of our major cities. What started as a localised incident has escalated beyond belief. The images that are unfolding on our TV screens and in the press are horrifying. We are used to seeing this in war torn countries like Egypt, Libya and Syria but not our own. Unlike those, our riots are not caused by an uprising of oppressed people but by criminals and opportunists. They are totally out of control and the police seem to be unable to stop them.

The Prime Minster is promising us a robust response and although too late for many of the victims, let us hope this will be the case. What sickens me the most is that the perpetrators of this violence are being egged on by Twitter postings. Most of them have Blackberries or iPods. So much for the 'deprived youths' as the liberals are fond of calling them. Once again social networking has shown it's ugly side. On the other hand Twitter helped to rally people to help clear up the mess left behind after the mayhem, so something positive has come out of it but on the whole it has been responsible for spreading the word to the looters of where the best places are for them to carry out their crimes. In some countries looters are shot. Here we have less draconian measures. We take photos of them and hope to bring them to justice. This often means weeks, months or years later. So many of them are under the age of criminal responsibility that they may never be punished. Depressing news, especially as we are building up to the 2012 Olympics which will help boost our economy and therefore help the unemployed and under priviledged. It just doesn't make any sense.

'A journalist with so many eyes'

2011-07-27T10:03:00.009+05:30

'No, I am saying what is in me'

The world of fashion and modeling look promising for a young Gambian lady who doubles as tv journalist now a student journalist in the United States. Mariama Faye also known as Fayer Kanuteh breaks her silence and told Baldeh Bolong about what the murky world of glitz and glamour.

Now let’s talk about your mission in the United States?

I came here mainly to study journalism.

What do you hope to after your studies?

Come back to the Gambia.. If I am accepted to rejoin the TV, i will be glad to work for my country again.

What if you change your mind to stay and work in the U.S?

I will cross that bridge when i get there but my aim is to come back to the Gambia because only my own people can recognize and appreciate the job I am doing.

Come on, the U.S is a magnet to hundreds of young people around the world, they think there are brighter opportunities there than in than countries?

That is them i am me.. there is nothing greater to me than The Gambia. No matter the ups and downs i love my country... I can never be american but i can always say i am Gambian.

Well many people would say the same thing, what they do later is a different story, are you saying this because you want to be taken seriously?

no i am saying what is in me

Now tell me what exactly want to pursue in life, to be a model or a journalist?

Both

You tell us why you participated for the first time in beauty pageants in the Gambia?

Why I participated in beauty pageants?

Yes...

Well fashion is a passion to me.. i love anything that involves fashion. i participated in Gambia because i belice in the saying charity begings at home

if i want to represent Gambia at any level the Gambians have to know me first in order to support me.

Now what next for you after your crowning at Paradise hotel certainly that was a special night for you?

what i wanted to do was work something out with SOS Children's Village. Anything. unfortunately things did not work out because the person who should have lead the way was out of town for a long period.

You were one time Miss Bakau, and later participated and won another event in the Gambia. How did you win, what is your secret?

hahaha no secret Baldeh

i just did what i had to do.. walk the runway, smile pose and be confident thats it

Excuse Mariama but there are some people who have negative concepts about fashion and modelling. For example some believe that it actually lure and expose the individual to all sorts of peoples?

that is very true and their belief is correct too.

So how did you weather the storm? I mean your dealings with these people you met?

Just be professional and cool

its is some how similar to working in the media. You meet different types of people and hear all sorts of things it is up to the individual not to mix business with pleasure

Did you ever have any point in time where someone asked you out?

hmmmm lol Yea sure.

And what did you honestly do?

What I honestly did? i go for the ones I like and think are genuine.. if I don’t see any spark between us thats it you are unqualified .. but when it comes to the job no fooling around

You married Jali Madi Kanuteh because he is a musician.

Because God said we will get married

Because you love him

Yes that correct

Whats your last word, do you really miss him?

More than anything I miss in ma life

Mariama thanks for talking to Baldeh Bolong.

Its a pleasure

For more details on Mariama Faye, go toher profile on face book/ Fayer Madi Kanuteh

Is this the connection Barbara refers to...?

2011-07-26T05:58:00.004+05:30

on a typical family breakfast: serve yourself if you like

Barbara Scott tells us more about some life-changing holidays on the African continent, in these days of globalisation and clash of civilisation, no one can put it better than the author of this piece who has experienced what is like for a British woman to connect with real lives and real people in the West African state of the Gambia.

I have just finished watching a programme on TV called Holiday Hijack. It is a new reality series which aims to show unsuspecting holidaymakers the other side of the country they are visiting. A side which few tourists ever get to see, especially the ones who have the money to go to 5 star luxury hotels. This was the first of the series and the country they were visiting was Gambia. I must say I was a bit apprehensive about it because so many negative stories appear in our papers regarding tourism in your country that I thought this was going to be the same. How wrong I was. The four tourists, three women and one man, thought they had won a free luxury holiday which would have cost them £300 per night for 7 days! They were all seasoned travellers and had plenty of money. They always travelled to luxury resorts and never went outside their hotel, preferring to lay around the pool drinking and partying! Nothing wrong with that I suppose. Certainly not in Western eyes.

You can imagine then their surprise when they were introduced to a local family who lived and worked in Kotu who were going to be their hosts for the week. Not at all what they had planned. They were taken to the home of a lovely woman who lived with her brother and worked Fajara Craft Market. When they saw their accommodation they were, to say the least, rather shocked although the family had made every effort to make them welcome and comfortable, as is they way of the Gambian people. At first they struggled to get to grips with the culture shock. These were people who were used to hot showers, flushing toilets, washing machines, hair dryers, all the things that we in the west take for granted but are a rarity for the average Gambian. However, by the time the programme had finished and they had seen how hard life can be but how kind and caring their hosts were they were sorry to leave. They had all changed their opinion and felt humbled by their experience. They were even offered the chance of spending their last night back at the luxurious hotel that they had left 5 days before but turned it down so they could spend it with their new 'family'.

They vowed to change their way of holidaying in the future and to go out and meet the local people and spend their money outside their hotels instead of in the shops and restaurants within. They had been shown a way of life that they had never imagined before and gained so much from it. From shallow, patronising and quite frankly arrogant tourists they became more caring and thoughtful. That is what the programme aims to do. The people of the Gambia helped them do it. Viva La Gambia!!

'Potto potto'

2011-07-22T06:51:00.003+05:30

Very close to where I live: Central Wellingara, WCR

The rainy season has entered into a critical stage of its natural cycle, usually in the month of August weather forecast beleive the Gambia record more rainfall. However, one thing that has ALWAYS remain CONSTANT is the continued tension between the passerby and the motorists.

Ask anyone walking on this road how many times do they insult drivers, the response is: many times. Sometimes while on a cab, the driver usually apologise for 'sins' they have committed. But how often do we take such apologies?

I remembered vividly last year when a cab driver around my Wellingara neighborhood sent a beautifully dressed lady home after putting mud over her white clothes. Angry about what had happened to her on the morning rush hour to get a bus to Banjul, innocent bystanders could not help but hurled insults at the insensitive cab driver.

'Sorry' was all, the poor fellow could say. No matter what, the lady had to go back and changed all again.

Let it also be noted that sometimes those walking on the road are to blame for the problems they faced. The other day, I heard a young fellow telling a driver: 'if you hit me' But would you do anything at the hospital bed? I asked.

of stress and frustrations

2011-07-06T18:34:00.002+05:30

Having just read the story of the plight of young Gambian Amadou Jallow I felt moved to reiterate a piece I wrote a year or so ago of misconceptions about there being a better life in Europe. For some maybe, but for a large majority it is not always the case. Yes, if they are able to find work and a decent place to live, then life can be much easier than in The Gambia. But in these days of recession and unemployment you have to either have friends or family in your chosen country or be very resourceful.

It is so sad that many of these young men feel unable to return to their families for fear of being chastised for not making something of themselves. It is admirable that they have been sending a good deal of any money they do make, home, to help their families. That I know this is the African way and many other cultures do the same. If anyone from the West decides to try a new life elsewhere they do not feel duty bound to take care of the families they leave behind, unless of course it is their wives and children. Mostly they accompany them anyway. This means they have a chance of making a better life for themselves and then one day being able to help their families if the need arises.

Barbara Scott

It is a struggle for lots of families here in the UK to meet the rising costs of fuel, rents, household bills etc. We do have a good support system which is taken advantage of by many people who have not contributed in any way towards it. It causes a lot of bitterness and resentment in those who have, as you can well imagine. At least in The Gambia, however hard life might be, there is always a good family backup network. From what I have seen everyone helps each other in times of need. It's a pity that young men like Amadou are led to believe that this is what happens elsewhere. It doesn't!

Back from Bissau

2011-06-28T02:59:00.002+05:30

Even after my return from Guinea Bissau, I continue to flash my back to the former Portuguese colony, the people I met, dozens of houses I saw, and above all the impressive forest cover that greets you as you drive along the tar road.

For me, the trip to Bissau, just like the assignment in Sierra Leone in April brought me closer to the purpose of the visit. A delegation comprising seventy people among them lecturers and students left Banjul last Sunday to conduct research on the history of the greater senegambia region. Am compiling that report for the news on GRTS.

'The story of the week'

2011-06-08T07:50:00.004+05:30

Chasing Riches From Africa to Europe and Finding Only Squalor

Marta Ramoneda for The New York Times

Amadou Jallow, who was teaching science in Gambia before setting out for Europe, in his shelter at Palos de la Frontera. “I thought I was going to be a millionaire.”

PALOS DE LA FRONTERA, Spain — Back home in Gambia, Amadou Jallow was, at 22, a lover of reggae who had just finished college and had landed a job teaching science in a high school.

An illegal campsite outside Palos de la Frontera, Spain. “We are not bush people,” one man said.

But Europe beckoned.

In his West African homeland, Mr. Jallow’s salary was the equivalent of just 50 euros a month, barely enough for the necessities, he said. And everywhere in his neighborhood in Serekunda, Gambia’s largest city, there was talk of easy money to be made in Europe.

Now he laughs bitterly about all that talk. He lives in a patch of woods here in southern Spain, just outside the village of Palos de la Frontera, with hundreds of other immigrants. They have built their homes out of plastic sheeting and cardboard, unsure if the water they drink from an open pipe is safe. After six years on the continent, Mr. Jallow is rail thin, and his eyes have a yellow tinge.

“We are not bush people,” he said recently as he gathered twigs to start a fire. “You think you are civilized. But this is how we live here. We suffer here.”

The political upheaval in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa has opened the way for thousands of new migrants to make their way to Europe across the Mediterranean. Already some 25,000 have reached the island of Lampedusa, Italy, and hundreds more have arrived at Malta.

The boats, at first, brought mostly Tunisians. But lately there have been more sub-Saharans.

Experts say thousands more — many of whom have been moving around North Africa trying to get to Europe for years, including Somalis, Eritreans, Senegalese and Nigerians — are likely to follow, sure that a better life awaits them.

But for Mr. Jallow and for many others who arrived before them, often after days at sea without food or water, Europe has offered hardships they never imagined. These days Mr. Jallow survives on two meals a day, mostly a leaden paste made from flour and oil, which he stirs with a branch.

“It keeps the hunger away,” he said.

The authorities estimate that there are perhaps 10,000 immigrants living in the woods in the southern Spanish province of Andalusia, a region known for its crops of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, and there are thousands more migrants in areas that produce olives, oranges and vegetables. Most of them have stories that echo Mr. Jallow’s.

From the road, their encampments look like igloos tucked among the trees. Up close, the squalor is clear. Piles of garbage and flies are everywhere. Old clothes, stiff from dirt and rain, hang from branches.

“There is everything in there,” said Diego Cañamero, the leader of the farm workers’ union in Andalusia, which tries to advocate for the men. “You have rats and snakes and mice and fleas.”

The men in the woods do not call home with the truth, though. They send pictures of themselves posing next to Mercedes cars parked on the street, the kind of pictures that Mr. Jallow says he fell for so many years ago. Now he shakes his head toward his neighbors, who will not talk to reporters.

“So many lies,” he said. “It is terrible what they are doing. But they are embarrassed.”

Even now, though, Mr. Jallow will not consider going back to Gambia. “I would prefer to die here,” he said. “I cannot go home empty-handed. If I went home, they would be saying, ‘What have you been doing with yourself, Amadou?’ They think in Europe there is money all over.”

The immigrants — virtually all of them are men — cluster by nationality and look for work on the farms. But Mr. Cañamero says they are offered only the least desirable work, like handling pesticides, and little of it at that. Most have no working papers.

Occasionally, the police bring bulldozers to tear down the shelters. But the men, who have usually used their family’s life savings to get here, are mostly left alone — the conditions they live under are an open secret in the nearby villages.

The mayor of Palos de La Frontera did not return phone calls about the camp. But Juan José Volante, the mayor of nearby Moguer, which has an even larger encampment, issued a statement saying the town did not have enough money to help the men. “The problem is too big for us,” he said. “Of course, we would like to do more.”

On a warm spring night, some of the men play cards sitting on the plastic pesticide containers and broken furniture they have collected from the trash. Some drift into town to socialize and buy supplies, if they have money. But they are not welcome in the local bars. During the World Cup last year, the farm workers’ union arranged for a truck to set up a giant television screen in the forest so the men could watch it.

“The bars don’t want them,” Mr. Cañamero said. “They say the men smell bad and they are not good for business. Most of them are Muslim, and they don’t buy alcohol.”

Mr. Jallow had his mother’s blessing but had not told his father about his plans when he left home on his bicycle in 2002, heading for Senegal, where he hoped to find a boat to the Canary Islands.

He ended up in Guinea-Bissau, where, one night two years later, he got word that a boat for Europe would leave in a few hours. There were so many people aboard — 131 — that he was barely able to move for the 11 days he spent at sea. The last five days were without food and water.

Passengers were vomiting constantly, he said. The young man sitting next to him died one night, though no one noticed until the morning. His body was thrown overboard.

“A lot of us could not walk when they took us off the boat,” he recalled. “I could still walk, but it was like I was drunk. I put myself in God’s hands that he would take care of me.”

After 40 days in a detention center in the Canary Islands he was brought to the mainland and released with a standard order to leave the country. “I thought I was going to be a millionaire,” Mr. Jallow said.

His mother managed to get an uncle on the phone who said he would meet him at a train station. But when he arrived there, his uncle’s phone rang and rang. Later, he learned his uncle lived nowhere near the station. Soon, he was steered to the forest by other immigrants.

In the six years he has lived in Spain, Mr. Jallow has found temporary work in restaurants or in the fields, sometimes making 30 euros, or about $42, for 10 hours of work. He says he has made about 12,000 euros, close to $17,000, since coming to Europe, and sent maybe a third of it home. He has not talked to his family in months because he has no money.

“Times are bad for everyone here,” he said. “Not long ago, I saw my uncle in the woods. But I told him he was nothing to me.”

*Publisher's note: We have decided to publish this story with the hope of shedding more light on an issue that is increasingly becoming a problem for thousands of young Africans clamoring to travel abroad against all odds.