..What do you know about Gambia?

[SandiF]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

Wey day mi did mean to ask if you did get back to seeing the 'Big 5'. So true about the love for Jamaica and Jamaicans.

[CyberPhobic]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: SandiF</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Wey day mi did mean to ask if you did get back to seeing the 'Big 5'. So true about the love for Jamaica and Jamaicans. </div></div>

Hey lady,

Yes, mi did guh back but mi neva did stay lang. Gurl, I saw di big Five wen mi went to Senrengeti, and it was rite afta di migration. Mi sey, nuff animals and mi even get fi tekk picho a di Leopard which is rare. Mi couldn't believe how mi waste mi money going to Kruger. Cho.

Wen u goin dat way agenn?

[MsPeaches]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PleXxed</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Not only was the music being played amazing, but I was blown away at just how Jamaican they sounded!
Got me wondering .. did we get the dialect from Gambia, or has Jamaica influence a people from the continent so deeply??
</div></div>

Here in Ghana there are whole radio shows and even a station or two that feature Reggae and the hosts speak Rasta patwa incredibly convincingly. They have a huge following among many levels of Ghanaian society. Ghanaians adore the Rasta subculture, largely for its message of Peace and rejection of partisanship, but most speak their own 'tribal' or geographical versions of English. The local equivalent of Jamaican patois per se is PIDGIN ENGLISH, very similar but with a few differences rooted in Africa. But Ghanaians are VERY proud that it is here that the Marleys came to settle up in the hills of Aburi. Jamaica is just as 'sacred' a place here as Ethiopia is to the Rastas themselves. I am constantly peppered with questions about Jamaica and its people.
There are so many connections.

[X]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

MSPeaches - regarding Ghana, is it true that land there is very expensive, however if a Jamaican or any Afro-American/Canadian go back to Ghana and is able to PROVE that they are of Ghanian decent, they would be eligible to receive free land from the government??
Any truth to this?

[RichD]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: pleXxed</div><div class="ubbcode-body">MSPeaches - regarding Ghana, is it true that land there is very expensive, however if a Jamaican or any Afro-American/Canadian go back to Ghana and is able to PROVE that they are of Ghanian decent, they would be eligible to receive free land from the government??
Any truth to this?

</div></div>

couple years ago i was talk to my friend from Ghana and he said he bought his house lot in Accra for about $3000 CAD

he bought land in his home village(techiman i think) and in that area it was about $800 CAD for a lot.

never heard him talk of free land

[X]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

Thanks RichD.

[MsPeaches]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: pleXxed</div><div class="ubbcode-body">MSPeaches - regarding Ghana, is it true that land there is very expensive, however if a Jamaican or any Afro-American/Canadian go back to Ghana and is able to PROVE that they are of Ghanian decent, they would be eligible to receive free land from the government??
Any truth to this?</div></div>

pleXxed, in the 1970s, I believe it was, or maybe 1980s, there was a campaign called HOMECOMING for what they call 'The Diaspora' here. This was indeed a drive to bring back to Ghana 'members of the Diaspora' , who are the people you mentioned. The government was hoping that the 'Diasporans' would bring with them money to invest in Ghana and the ideas to go with it, thus helping to rejuvenate the Ghanaian economy without selling it out to European, Asian and other 'foreigners'.

In theory it was a great idea. But I think that what they forgot to factor into the equation was the fact that - as in most West Africa countries - there are already people living on virtually all the land here, and they would have to be displaced from their own ancestral lands in order for this to happen. If you take into consideration the fact that Ghana has a population about half of that of Canada and size-wise you could drop the entire country into Manitoba and have plenty of room to spare, you get the picture.

So it seems that the idea fell by the wayside somewhere along the way. When I first arrived in Ghana it was still referred to occasionally in the media, but one scarcely hears it mentioned these days.

The price of land in Accra has been escalating rapidly during the past several years and it's unlikely you would find a plot in Accra or other large cities for anything like $3000 now. It would more than likely be upwards of $10-15,000 now, or even much more depending on the location.

There are other problems associated with land acquisition here. Foreigners are officially not allowed to own land in Ghana. People have been known to work around this in some cases, but they are always in danger of losing their shirts. Then there are problems with respect to valid titles, obtaining consent from the local chiefs, etc etc. And there is a lot of swindling and land fraud perpetrated on unsuspecting foreigners (and even Ghanaians!) by shysters of all descriptions. I myself was taken in by such a scam and it took 2 1/2 years to get through a court case that got my money back for me. It is more the norm for land to be leased for up to 99 years than for it to be sold.

Land in the villages would be a lot less expensive but very difficult to come by, and you might not have water or electricity. A lot of small towns and villages have one 'borehole' - sometimes 'mechanized' and sometimes not - for the entire village. Of course, if you could afford to install solar and dig your own borehole or well, that might not be as much of a problem as the roads getting in and out which are every bit as bad as the equivalent in Jamaica.

Then there's the problem of MONEY. There's only one branch of one bank in Ghana, for instance, that will cash a Government of Canada cheque - ask me how I found out! And Ghanaian Visa or debit cards or cheques can't be used to pay for anything from outside the country or on the internet - a real pain!
So as we say here, &quot;It's not easy..&quot;

So you'd have to 'know people' and be more than cautious in order to do it successfully. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying WATCH OUT!
But DO come and visit. It's a great place to be.

I hope this has been helpful.

[Tulip]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

I googled some pics of Gambia they were certainly lovely. After reading the posts in this thread, I'd put it on the list of places I'd like to visit.

[evanovitch]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

Witchcraft, An Idiom of Power

21 April, 2009
The Gambian Journal


It has been about two weeks since anything was heard of about the notorious witch-hunters supposedly ordered in by President Yahya Jammeh. This came after international public opinion focused some attention on the weird developments in the country following the arrest of opposition politician Halifa Sallah last month.

Gambians are used to seeing extraordinary things happening around their mercurial President Yahya Jammeh, but they could not help being startled by his state-sponsored witch-screening campaign launched over two months ago.


President Jammeh’s witch-hunters, ordered in from Guinea Conakry, were engaged by him for a two-year contract of screening the whole population, identifying witches, isolating them in make-shift detention centers and forcing them to drink mysterious concoctions that sent many sick and several dead. Accompanied by armed and uniformed soldiers and a band of drummers, the witch hunters raided state institutions like police and power stations, Gamtel state telecommunications company headquarters, villages and abducting people they considered witches.



The belief in witchcraft is widespread in The Gambia even if people have had less cause to be concern with it nowadays than they earlier had. The inroads of both Islam and Euro-Christian influences have helped push the witchcraft ideology into the back ground but this does not mean that it cannot burst out again given the circumstances.



Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is the use of certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers in order to inflict harm or damage upon members of a community or their property. In many societies, people distinguish between bad witchcraft and good witchcraft, the latter involving the use of these powers to heal someone from bad witchcraft. The concept of witchcraft is normally treated as a cultural ideology, a means of explaining human misfortune by blaming it either on a supernatural entity or a known person in the community.



Belief in witchcraft, and by consequence witch-hunts, are found in many cultures worldwide, today mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and historically, notably in Early Modern Europe, where witchcraft came to be seen as a vast diabolical conspiracy against Christianity, and accusations of witchcraft led to large-scale witch-hunts, especially in Germanic Europe.



In the Gambian tradition there is hardly anything good about witchcraft, all witchcraft is evil. Witchcraft and sorcery are considered two entirely separate things. Sorcerers on the other hand can be either good or bad. In The Gambia the buwa or doma is a vampire-like mythological creature that may inhabit the bodies of ordinary people and go out on such ventures only at night. They are said to have shifty eyes and be obsessed with food. When traveling at night they emit a phosphorescent light from their armpits and anus. Domas and buwas are believed to kill ordinary people most especially children, pregnant women, sick people, young people in circumcision camps by remotely sucking their blood. They can also enter the bodies of animals to attack humans. Like the gender connotations of other beliefs in witchcraft of other patriarchic cultures elsewhere, witches are general women, often old ones. The 'supernatural' or 'night' witches in Gambian mythology inherit their craft along the matrilineal route from the mothers, not from the fathers.



Under the monotheistic religions of both Christianity and Islam, sorcery came to be associated with heresy and apostasy. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of ancient Europe , fears regarding witchcraft rose to fever pitch, andsometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. Throughout this time, it was increasingly believed that Christianity was engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the Devil and his secret army of witches, who had entered into diabolical pact. In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. Accusations of witchcraft were frequently combined with other charges of heresy. Ancient Roman Catholics and Protestants used the Malleus Maleficarum, a famous witch-hunting manual used to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely to be a witch, how to put a witch to trial and how to punish a witch. The book defines a witch as evil and typically female.



The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle Witches, commonly involve a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil. The witches or wizards addicted to such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments, observe &quot;the witches' Sabbath&quot; (performing infernal rites which often parodied the Mass or other sacraments of the Church), pay Divine honor to the Prince of Darkness, and, in return, receive from him preternatural powers. It was a folkloric belief that a Devil's Mark, like the brand on cattle, was placed upon a witches skin by the devil to signify that this pact had been made. Witches were most often characterized as women. Witches disrupted the societal institutions, and more specifically, marriage. It was believed that a witch often joined a pact with the devil to gain powers todeal with infertility, immense fear for her children's well-being, or revenge against a lover.



The Church and European society were not always so zealous in hunting witches or blaming them for bad occurrences. Saint Boniface declared in the 8th century that belief in the existence of witches was un-Christian. The emperor Charlemagne decreed that the burning of supposed witches was a pagan custom that would be punished by the death penalty. In 820 the Bishop of Lyon and others repudiated the belief that witches could make bad weather, fly in the night, and change their shape.



This denial was accepted into Canon law until it was reversed in later centuries as the witch-hunt gained force. In 1307 the trial of the Knights Templar shows close parallels to accusations of witchcraft, maleficium, and sorcery and may have been the beginning of the great European witch-hunt. Other rulers such as King Coloman of Hungary declared that witch-hunts should cease because witches do not exist. Divination and Magic in Islam encompass a wide range of practices, including black magic, warding off the evil eye, the production of amulets and other magical equipment, conjuring, casting lots, astrology and physiognomy. Muslims do commonly believe in magic (Sihr) and explicitly forbid its practice. Sihr translates from Arabic as sorcery or black magic. The best known reference to magic in Islam is the Surah Al-Falaq (meaning dawn or daybreak), which is a prayer to ward off black magic.



Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn From the mischief of created things; From the mischief of Darkness as it overspreads; From the mischief of those who practice secret arts; And from the mischief of the envious one as he practices envy.(Quran 113:1-5)





Also according to the Quran:And they follow that which the devils falsely related against the kingdom of Solomon. Solomon disbelieved not; but the devils disbelieved, teaching mankind sorcery and that which was revealed to the two angels in Babel , Harut and Marut....And surely they do know that he who trafficketh therein will have no (happy) portion in the Hereafter; and surely evil is the price for which they sell their souls, if they but knew. (al-Qur'an 2:102)





However, whereas performing miracles in Islamic thought and belief is reserved for only Messengers and Prophets; supernatural acts are also believed to be performed by Awliyaa (Waliwu) - the spiritually accomplished. Disbelief in the miracles of the
Prophets is considered an act of disbelief; belief in the miracles of any given pious individual is not. Neither are regarded as magic, but as signs of Allah at the hands of those close to Him that occur by His will and His alone. Some Muslim practitioners may seek the help of the Jinn in magic. It is a common belief that jinn can possess a human, thus requiring Exorcism. The belief in jinn, contrary to that of in witches, is part of the Muslim faith. Imam Muslim narrated the Prophet said: &quot;Allah created the angels from light, created the jinn from the pure flame of fire, and Adam from that which was described to you (i.e., the clay.)&quot;. There was no mention of witches. Others say there was no need of mentioning witches because they are only human persons in spite of everything.




Also in the Quran, chapter of Jinn:&quot;And persons from among men used to seek refuge with persons from among the jinn, so they increased them in evil doing &quot; (The Holy Qur'an (Maulana Muhammad Ali) 72:6) To cast off the jinn from the body of the possessed, the &quot;ruqya,&quot; which is from theProphet's sunnah is used. The ruqya contains verses of the Qur'an as well as prayers which are specifically targeted against demons. The knowledge of which verses of the Qur'an to use in what way is what is considered &quot;magic knowledge&quot;.





So it is perhaps safe to say that the belief in witchcraft is part of an African tradition independent of Islam and Christianity. So much so in fact that many take Africa to be the natural abode of witchcraft. And so it has been since the time of the pharaohs, when in Greco-Latin literature Egypt appeared to be the origin of all witches. In anyway many Africans still continue to believe in the existence of witches, the efficacy of sorcery and in the co-existence, side by side of the real world and a spiritual world of equal relevance. And Africans soaked in Western learning often also subscribe to this belief. It is still amazing that the mainstream of educated Africans continue to reinforce the image of Africa as the abode of witchcraft — as the continent where even under conditions of modern technology (including advanced equipment in the domains of armament, information and communication), modern science, modern organization (the modern state; the formal organization as the dominant expression of civil society), and the effective inroads of Islam and Christianity as major world religions, witchcraft remains a dominant discourse.




The matter is further complicated by the fact that Western modernity has had its own share of occult images — ranging from zombies and vampires to astrology and other forms of divination, shamanism, UFO-ism, gaiasophy, the teachings of South Asian gurus processed for European and North American consumption, and whatever the constantly innovating spiritual fashion industry of New Age will bring. Are these beliefs in the proper sense of the word, comparable to nineteenth-century Danish villagers’ beliefs in the invisible world claimed by their version of Christianity, or nineteenth-century African villagers’ beliefs in the powers of their ancestors to effectively interfere in the visible world? It is this ancestral belief that provides pillar for the belief in witchcraft that has not disappeared under the onslaught of modernity, but has installed itself at the very heart of modernity.




Some academics have suggested that the African actors’ discourse concerning power in the post-colonial state, and concerning the acquisition and use of modern consumer goods, hinges on their conception of witchcraft. Whereas witchcraft cases in the colonial era, especially in former British West Africa , were based on the official dogma that witchcraft is an illusion (so that people invoking witchcraft would be punished as either impostors or slanderers), in contemporary legal practice in The Gambia of today witchcraft appears as a reality and as an actionable offence in its own right. In our view, the inroads of modernity and post-modernity in Africa have not rendered witchcraft obsolete. It is, however, no longer a concept tied to a rural cosmological order.





Such a rural order does not exist any longer. Instead, new regional and national settings have emerged in which witchcraft has managed to insert itself as a central aspect of the discourse and the experience of modernity — having severed all connections with the village and its once viable kinship order. Witchcraft, it has been said, is an idiom of power. Yahya Jammeh has changed the title for secretaries of state, they will again be called ministers, he has almost ordered the National Assembly to remove the limit on the number of ministers he can appoint to his cabinet, do not be surprised to hear him establish a Minister for Witchcraft.

[evanovitch]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

<span style="font-style: italic">then u have dis atrocity that continues </span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting? </span>


As we head towards the end of May, many households in the Greater Banjul Area are apprehensive about the planned exodus back to the Fonis and Casamance of thousands of Jola-speaking women who works as domestic maids in the area. They will be away for between two to four weeks taking part in dozens of initiation rites and many families are forced to face the challenges finding temporary replacement. The folkloric ceremonies have an air of weeks of festivals of singing, hand-clapping, dancing, drinking and merrymaking that go on throughout the days and nights of the season. Some Jola communities will abandon their Diaspora villages and communities to return home for the events that take place on the average of every three years. This year’s season of initiation rites approaches just after the conclusion of a three-day international conference on harmful traditional practices, which was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Brufut on Tuesday 5th of May and came into conclusion three days later on the 8th May.



The three-day workshop was organized by WASSU-Gambia Kaafo and University Autonomous of Barcelona in Spain. According to the organizers the conference would accord participants the opportunity to learn, review and update the achievements registered in The Gambia and draw useful lessons and good practices from countries and organizations that have successfully implemented projects concerning FGM in Africa and Europe, through the promotion of a holistic approach. Participants were drawn from the usual crowd of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, government and UN agencies. It also drew many participants from around Africa and the rest of the world - doctors, nurses, religious leaders and traditional practitioners, and Civil Society Organizations. Participants covered areas such as the role of international organizations in the prevention of harmful tradition practices and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the role of government in eradicating harmful traditional practices.



Declaring the conference open, Vice President Aja Isatou Njie-Saidy, who is also responsible for Women’s Affairs, thanked the sponsors of the forum who, according to her, are very much instrumental in the fight against all forms of harmful traditional and cultural practices (including FGM) against women and girls.



According to VP Njie-Saidy, it is The Gambia’s intention to re-dress this issue, through sensitization and other ways of addressing this global problem and concern. She said that they have now realized that it is indeed a deep-rooted traditional practice that has been passed on from one generation to another, adding that The Gambia is one of the twenty-eight countries in Africa where the practice still exists.



Dr Njie-Saidy made reference to the UNICEF cluster survey or MICS 2007, which shows a prevalence of almost 78%. This figure, she noted, indicates that a lot more work needs to be done in the area of eradication of FGM. &quot;We believe that a legislation to ban FGM may be difficult to implement, but instead public media education, backed by facts and figures based on empirical data may create an understanding and enabling environment through health related studies, to confirm its health implications, which have been documented over the period,” she said.



It is indeed surprising to hear the former head of the Women’s Bureaus who herself is a victim of the process, hailing from a community who are dedicated to the practice, say that they only recently came to realize that it is a “deep-rooted traditional practice.” While at the head of the bureau and with funds from many external donors including the World Bank with its ten-year Women In Development (WID) Project, Mrs. Njie-Saidy was a fire-eating anti-FGM activist. She continued so even when she was brought into the Jammeh regime until about ten years ago in 1999 when President Jammeh ordered a ban on the debate.



President Jammeh had been tolerant of the anti-FGM lobby as long as it brought in project funds into the country. But when the World Bank phased out the WID project instead of extending it , Jammeh decided there was no longer any point tolerating the “Western imperialist campaign.” As a result there has been a ten-year de facto ban on the campaign against FGM in The Gambia. Government delegations attending international gatherings on gender issues and the practice of FGM have always abided by the correct political rhetoric on the issue but they have always insisted that taking legislative measures against the practice will be ineffectual. Over the last couple of years however, government seems to have slightly relaxed its stifling of the talk on FGM but there has been little debate on the issue since the public denunciation of former World Health Regional Director, Dr. Samba, by fanatical State House imam Fatty about seven years ago. The talk on the practice has always been a monologue, or at best a sermon to the choir instead of the congregation. It is always the gatherings of the likeminded held in cozy conference halls. Opinions held by the majority of Gambians, who still practice it, never manage to come through in such forums. Many Gambians, even the women victims themselves, are indifferent to the issue of FGM. The struggle against FGM is mainly led by a small group of women elite who have not been able to popularize it and turn it into a mass movement. It is mainly project funded and seen from a Euro-centrist view point. Many Gambians will rather have the practice termed female genital cutting than mutilation. The Euro-centrist view point categorizes FGM in the realm of gender and sexual oppression devised by patriarchal societies. But some of the FGM cultural practices involve not actually cutting up, but sewing up the female genital organ. Even those who cut up do it differently depending on customs and traditions.



The problem with the Gambian anti-FGM is that they are without a strategy that differentiates the various types of FGM and devises ways of tackling them accordingly. The campaign has a single-issue methodology which fails to properly link FGM to the wider social setting and other problems faced by women. It has not staggered its campaign plans into achievable goals. Given the importance of health risks involved in the practice of FGM, and as the fight is still on, activists should make it a duty of providing healthier cutting alternatives that comply with the best possible sanitary practices until the practice is completely stopped.

[MsPeaches]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

[evanovitch]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: MsPeaches</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
evanovitch

Right on, loud and clear!!! So many quack so-called 'pastors' preaching materialism and how to get everything you want! The amount of money collected by the dozens of TV 'pastors' alone - just the thought of it boggles the mind!

When we turn on a TV here - even on a weekday - there are al least half the stations available occupied by preachers of all sorts - some of them saying absolutely OUTRAGEOUS things and encouraging people to get ahead of their neighbours and telling them how to do it. Every time I see one I say to myself: THANK GOD I'm a Muslim!

But for a significant part of the population, the 'old religion' is still practised - the positive side, the negative side and the downright scary. People kidnapped and bodies dismembered for 'ritual purposes' and the African movies they show are full of people being killed or maimed or rendered barren by their enemies using witchcraft.

Fortunately, if you live a righteous life, you can't be killed by witchcraft because God/Allah won't allow it. But they can sure make you miserable for a day or two!


</div></div>

thank u dahling..mi delete it cause peeps awn yah seh mi too confrontational...but di truth is pawt of being a believer....u cant juss turn a blind yeye cause a one who involve is smaddy u like...i may go too far in my delivery but i memba dat even Jesus went postal wen He saw wat was being done in His Temple...

[MsPeaches]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?


I am quite bemused by the use of the word 'modernity' in the above articles - which demonstrates that the writer is a smaddy who has a secular perspective on Life and calls it 'modernity. &quot;Modernity' is in fact a very subjective word and its definition depends on what a certain given individual considers 'Modern&quot;.

[MsPeaches]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
thank u dahling..mi delete it cause peeps awn yah seh mi too confrontational...but di truth is pawt of being a believer....u cant juss turn a blind yeye cause a one who involve is smaddy u like...i may go too far in my delivery but i memba dat even Jesus went postal wen He saw wat was being done in His Temple...
</div></div>

<span style="font-weight: bold">BOAL!!!</span>



Mi had mi poas all reddy fi hit di SUBMIT button an den suddenly mi si SARRY - DI POAS YOU WERE RESPANDING TO HAS BEEN DELETED!

Mi seh whaaaaa?! Jeezam pease! - dere muss be a GHOASS roun here!!



Mi Sistren, the TRUTH is that there is as much Evil as Good in this continent - both exist in the same places and at the same times - and it's something one learns to live with and stay away from. Cultural practices run deep. Life is full of drama drama drama. But once you work your way into the community you never want to leave.

[evanovitch]

Re: ..What do you know about Gambia?

i grew up wen Jamaica had communities..tenk u lawd...i am closer to dying of old age dan being a youngster but fi all the modern things i have seen i would not give up how i grew up and the Jamaica i was priviliged to grow up in..

fi real...we had a community...people who had dem disagreements yes, but were there for each odda wen it counted...fi real...i feel old sometimes wen i think of wat i learned from untutored men an women who had more wisdom dan some i have to deal wid now...i tell people seh i know people before dem knew dem could grow up to be somebody and some get vex...cause nuff dont want to embrace weh dem come from..but i love all of wat went before me cause it mek mi ...

mi know mi faults n work on dem daily but mi cannot stand fi see people tek advantage of people juss cause dem feel dem ha papers r work in office...

dont ask y i am being maudlin....going to Jamaica mek mi like dat dese days....mi destiny is dere in wateva form n sometimes mi fraid fi wat form it wi tek

cannot run to Africa before mi try a yaad before going furda abroad...