The river Saloum to the river Gambia

The winding Saloum, flanked by tight growing mangrove and home to herons, stalks and pelicans, lies between Senegal's coastal capital Dakar and, further South, the Gambia's port town Banjul. Along with its sister rivers the Diomboss and the Bandiala, the Saloum re-introduced us gently to Africa and, perhaps more importantly, educated us in the art of sailing through shallow waterways, unmarked of course, and often subject to strong undertows. On day one we nearly had heart failure when our speed exceeded our depth but as the week progressed this became a banal occurence. Often our speed was 4 times the depth under our keel and on one occasion 8 times (my mouth was a litte dry). In no time at all we began to go aground happily and were quite content to motor on with the echosounder blinking 0.0 like two startled eyes, our keel shoes drawing patterns in the soft squidgy mud like toes in the sand.
The Saloum was useful training because now we are motoring up the river Gambia itself, heading East into the predominant wind and, it would seem again, against the tide. The Gambia appears to defy the world's best tide tables, having a mind of its own, surging whenever it feels like it and in either direction. The river at this point (some 40 miles inland) is still 5 miles wide so that the opposite bank is often not visible. When it is, it is hazy with heat. Today it is a little cooler (it's quarter past nine and 25 degrees) but when we first arrived in the Gambia it was blazing. Sailing into Banjul from Senegal, strangely through a cloud of dragonflies, the sun was unforgiving. Going ashore, I was relieved to hear the locals complaining it was too hot - surely it could not always be this uncomfortable? Our main task was to 'make ourselves legal' - we trapsed around the sizzling and dusty Banjul streets trying to find immigration, customs, the port authority, a Visa bank machine. We had a map but it bore little resemblance to the geographical reality of this chaotic city. No street signs. People were very happy to help us but frequently gave us wooly, incorrect or contradictory directions. Eventually we found the offices we were after. We had been forwarned by a Swiss boat that immigration had made them pay 2000 dalasi for their visas (only 50 pounds to us but a good month's salary to them) and an additional 500d as 'danger money' for visiting the boat (many Gambians cannot swim). So we entered the sticky immigration office with some trepidation. All went well however and we were granted a 28 day stay in the Gambia in return for an Ikea tupperware and a packet of teabags. Bargain. Customs went swimmingly (Casper looked a little uncomfortable when asked "who is the master?" and we settled for the answer "it depends"). The port authority big man was decidedly uninterested in us, instructing a young man who was busy browsing the net for "the world's hottest girls" (apparently all blond) to sell us a river permit (a cost of 20 pounds). By midday we were legal and set off to find an international phone booth and an African lunch.
From Banjul we went to Lamin, a tranquil creek in the mangrove and a hot 15 minute walk to the messy, sprawling but friendly village of the same name. Here we bought the friendship of a family: Alex, David, Sophie and their siblings helped us make the necessary preparations for the arrival of a special guest - my Mum. Without their help, provisioning (food, drink, water, petrol) would have been extremely tiresome and difficult. The Gambia is a poor country that seemingly produces little itself. It relies heavily on tourism and therefore, as an obvious tourist (being white not because I wear socks and sandals), we are easy targets for income generation. Yes, you get hassled here but in no way aggressively so. Nevertheless you must feel robust to deal with the constant attention. When you see how little the country lives on, it is easy to understand that anyone would do the same in their position. The Gambia survives on imported goods, foreign aid and the presence of comparatively wealthy tourists, the majority of whom are from the UK.
Alex drove us around in his clapped out car (a prize posession), filled up daily with a litre or so of low octane fuel, the radiator leaking and the accelorator glitching. He took us to find vegetables (easy enough), beer (a bit more tricky) and cheese (difficult). We had to go to the main tourist area Serekunda for this. The village shops are basic affairs all selling more or less the same thing: powdered milk, mayonaise, eggs (even these are imported), bread, oil. Vegetables are grown on each family compound and so aren't for sale locally.
Poor Africa, we kept on saying. It has so little. What little it has doesn't work very well so a lot of time has to be spent fixing things to stay in the same place rather than being able to move forwards. Things are expensive if they are not produced here. Take fuel - it is roughly the same price as in Europe but each low octane litre is burned up faster by crappy engines in old cars. And then you might be had filling up with fuel, like Alex did, the pump attendant giving him a third less for his money. Perhaps he thought he'd get away with it with us two cash cows chewing the cud in the back.
The official language in the Gambia (which used to be British and still seems proud of this past connection) is English, with indigenous languages being Wolof and Mandinka. For the first two days in Lamin I thought that Wolof for hello was "toubaminty". But only the children seemed to greet us this way. I then witnessed some very white people throwing sweets out of their taxi window presumably meant for the children scrabbling around in a cloud of dust to retrieve them, excitedly screaming "toubaminty". The penny dropped and I asked Alex just to be sure. Toubab means white person in Wolof and minty is pidgin for sweets. It breaks my heart to see these children doing this. The Gambia is living off Europe's cast-offs and its children learn fast to beg Westeners for treats.