Village Life in Gambia

After visiting the Elephant Tree, we saw some cows gathering to drink.

 

We walked toward the cows, and some children from the village saw us, and came running over to see why we were there.  We told them that we were taking pictures for a blog called, "Gambia Friends," and we wanted to show our readers about life in a small village.  They were very curious, especially about my iPhone camera.

The children decided to help us with ideas, so they showed us the concrete drinking trough where the cows drink water, and they stood around it very seriously while I took their picture.  There were plants in the water, but, I suppose the cows don't mind, because they eat plants anyway.

Then they wanted Muhammed to take their picture with me and their cow.

Word gets around a small village fast, because, next we saw other children playing football (soccer, to some of you), and they stopped playing and ran over to ask us all kinds of questions.  They were looking at my iPhone (which my editor got me to help us take photos), so, I guess they thought that we were rich young men who came from the city.  They asked Muhammed and me if we could help them get a new ball and uniforms for their team. (My editor is smiling now, I am sure.)  Well, I have only started this blog and don't even have a job yet.  But, I said that I would talk to my editor to see if perhaps she could find some helpers for this team of boys in the village of Pirang.  (My editor told me she would see what she could do.)

I took these pictures to show a traditional mud brick, straw-roofed hut in a village.  I got permission before I took the photos, because someone still lives there.  You can also see the handcart standing up next to the hut that is used for transporting things like farm produce to the market.

We ended our day in the village with more children who heard about us and wanted us to take their picture.  So, we all crowded in for a selfie (we wore our masks, of course, for safety around the children inside.)  We were happy that we had made a lot of new "Gambia Friends"!

Trees in The Gambia

Hi!  Lamin here again!  Muhammed and I took a small bus to a village called, Pirang. When we got there, we saw this huge tree. It is called a Gambia Kapok tree, or cotton tree.  It is also known as an "Elephant Tree." We were told that this tree is over 300 years old.  Our great, great, great grandfathers kept this tree safe for us so we could see it.

Look at the size of those roots!

There are many kinds of trees in The Gambia.  Mangrove trees are common near the river and the streams that flow into it.  There are many other native trees with complicated names, like, Acacia Albida, Borassus Aethiopium, Cordyla Africana, Parkia Biglobosa, Eucalyptus, Ficus, and Kigelia Africana.

                                                                                                                                                         

 

Elephant trees are so big, I can fit inside their trunk!  In fact...

Elephant trees are so big, you can fit BOTH of us inside their trunk!  

(Ok, put your masks back on now, guys!)

Fishing in The Gambia

There are many kinds of fish in the waters of the Gambia River and the ocean by the coast.  People catch fish here all year round.  Starting in the 1990s, many tourists started coming to fish off the coast of The Gambia and in the Gambia river.  There are many spots to fish by the shore, including by the reefs, sandbars and rocky places. The sport fishermen usually charter boats near Denton Bridge, which crosses the Gambia River estuary on the Banjul-Serrekunda Highway.  They pay guides to go out on big motor boats to fish for large ocean fish, like Tarpon, Snapper, Grouper, Guitar fish, Thread fin salmon, Jacks, Cat fish, Barracuda, and Rays.  These are big fish that can weigh between 4 and 400 pounds!

I don't know all the names of the freshwater river fish.  But, our editor found out there are 109 different kinds of freshwater fish in the river.  They include several kinds of catfish, Bull sharks (who swim in from the ocean), Moon fish, Mud fish, Grass-eaters, Bonga shad, Flagfin mojarra, Aba, Jewelfish, Kafue pike, Vindu, Heterotis, Tiger-fish, African carp, Roundbelly pellonuline, Sicklefin mullet, African brown snapper, Tarpon, Cornish jack, Elephant snout, Mormyrids, Flathead mullet, Togo killifish, Ansorge's fangtooth pellonuline, Nile tilapia, Reticulate knifefish, Snake-head, Elephant fish, Bichir, Sompat grunt, Largetooth sawfish, West African lungfish, Silver fish, Mango tilapia, West African Pygmy herring, Upsidedown catfish, Mandi, Globe fish, Guinean tilapia, Redbelly tilapia, and Thorny freshwater stingray.  (There will be a test later on all these names...just kidding!)  

Many of these are good to eat, but, some would only be good to look at in an aquarium.  

Now I know why crocodiles mostly eat fish...there are so many kinds of them!

Muhammed and I thought you might like to see the small boats our fishermen use to catch fish from the river.

We took this photo of the boats at an inlet from the Gambia River near "Lamin Lodge".  Lamin is a town on the South Bank Road, next to the Abuko Nature Reserve.

Bambo (crocodile)

The Gambia has many animals.  There are three different kinds of crocodiles in the Gambia.  One of them is called the Nile Crocodile.  In my language of "Mandinka," the crocodile is called "bambo".  Muhammed and I went to Katchically Crocodile Pool in Bakau to get a picture of a crocodile for you.  

Crocodiles can be very big.  A male crocodile can grow to be 14 feet long, and weigh over 2,000 pounds.  That's a whole ton!  In the wild, they can live to be 100 years old!  If you see one not moving and soaking up heat in the sunlight, don't let that fool you.  They can run up to 22 miles per hour.  A very fast man can run up to 28 mile per hour.  If I had a bambo chasing me, I would become a very fast man!  On land I might be able to outrun a "bambo".  But, in the water, I could not swim faster than one.  A crocodile can swim up to 22 miles per hour.  Even the fastest human swimmers can only swim about 6 miles per hour (sorry, Michael Phelps).  So, if you see "bambos" in or around the water, that's not a good place to swim.

Most of the time, Nile crocodiles eat fish.  However, they will attack almost anything that gets close to them, including people, large animals, birds, and even other crocodiles.

These are Nile Crocodile eggs.  They are larger, longer, and tougher than a chicken's eggs.

A Day at the Market

The market area is busy in Farato. People are going places in taxis.

Many people set up tables to sell things.

 

Policeman in the Gambia

This is me, Lamin, standing next to one of our finest traffic police officers in The Gambia, Mr. Camara. This was on Tuesday, September 8, 2020, at 4:00 pm in Farato, near the market. He was working when I asked permission to take a picture of him. It's always a good idea to ask permission before taking someone's photograph, especially a policeman.  My trusted friend, Muhammed, took the picture.