The Gambia

The Gambia.

For the record. It is nothing like the Dominican Republic. Sadly.

Well, let’s just call the little tiny country a huge pain in the… well, you know. It was a long 12 hours of travel from Dakar to the border. We get to the border and the passport control people are confused by Stevens’ lack of visa, but after telling them that he didn’t need one, they let us through. Cue Gambian problems. We get to passport control there and Hannah and I are fine. Stevens, being Haitian, must have prior clearance to enter the country. Even though we went to the embassy in Dakar, got our visas and asked SPECIFICALLY about him, they said we only needed a visa. Well, finally after about half an hour or forty five minutes, the guy decides to give him a 7 day visa. Exactly enough for what we needed. So we cross the ferry and get to the hotel. Nothing too special. Just your run of the line crappy hotel. The next morning we decided to get money out. I go to the machine and try my mastercard (which someone had told me was accepted mostly everywhere in the country. Turns out he probably had no idea what I was saying) which didn’t work. Hannah’s card was rejected, but her second one worked. After a bunch of money troubles, everything worked itself out. I owe Hannah money. Simply said. The middle of the trip was okay. Nothing too exciting, just a country speaking English, which was weird enough in itself. We decided to leave early to try and arrive on time for the Akon concert, seeing as we were doing nothing in The Gambia. Well, we made it to the border, crossed the Gambian side—no problems. We get to the Senegalese side where they don’t want to let Stevens in because he doesn’t have a visa. We get our heads talked off about how Hannah and I have visas, how we follow rules, why can’t he? He was brought here by the President to study, so he shouldn’t be having fun, going on vacations. He should stay at the University during vacations and study. He doesn’t have the right to move out of the country. He wasn’t brought here for that. After almost an hour of that, the man decides to let him in (out of the goodness of his heart or some bs like that). We get to the taxi area to go back to Dakar and they try to make us pay $80 dollars, which again, is complete bs. Finally we got everything figured out and headed back to Dakar, only to be stopped every half an hour by customs officials because we had fabric smugglers in our taxi. Fabric is at least half price in the Gambia, which is why they would deal with all of the customs officials and pay them all off.

Honestly, it would have been better had we not gone on this trip. It was really upsetting. But after talking with my host mother, it’s even more upsetting. She agreed with what the border official said. Basically the Senegalese have imprisoned the Haitians here and won’t let them out. She said that they’re supposed to be poor Haitians, so why would they have to travel? I just feel like no one even thinks about them as people. He’s not a production. You can’t just make them stay at the University for 5 years, doing nothing. It’s ridiculous. They think that the Haitians are here out of a necessity, but how many truly poor Haitians could you bring to do studies here? NONE. Truly poor Haitians don’t even speak French. If you want to prove that you are helping someone who is truly poor, bring over the Haitians who can’t afford to eat, who don’t speak French, who have never stepped foot in a school, and then tell me that you’re helping the poorest of Haitians. I’m really upset, and more upset that my host parents are talking about it in Wolof thinking I don’t understand, saying that he has no right to do anything. I’m getting angry again. At least Sylvie understood. You can’t expect people to stay in Saint Louis for five years. That’s not helping someone, that’s imprisonment. I feel like the Senegalese are extremely ignorant. How can you think that someone who has gone to College in Haiti is going to be extremely poor? Completely ignorant.

I’m leaving,

Pissed off…

Kate.