Mariama,
        Your point is well noted. May be, we should also realize that the
issue is not so much as to the poverty of culture, but instead the culture of
poverty. Our culture is our way of life. Regardless of our stations in life,
the values and norms that characterized our culture, are permanent imprints
that leave marks on the sands of time. Whether it is in Banjul, or in
Wahington or New York or elsewhere, the way Gambians celebrate their joys and
mourn their sorrows is essentially the same. The essence that validates these
shared values is rooted in a deep sense of identity; a sense of belonging. It
is not a surprise then, that a child who is born to a Gambian but the other
parent from a different culture, here is the USA or anywhere else, might go
through the same cultural rites of christening as the child born in the
Gambia.

    Secondly, most of the artifacts and the outward symbolisms of our
culture, are concrete manifestations of the relevance they permeate in the
past, whether for good or ill. The fears of the people, their beliefs and
spirituality, their passions and tradegies, which had been an integral part
of the very basis of their existence, are the core representations of most of
the rites and ceremonies that shaped our culture. Whether it is the Kankurang
or the initiation ceremonies into manhood, or the songs( kassak) that
reverberates their melody from the confinements of the circumcised, to the
family that eats together in one bowl under the big Mango tree, the cultural
traits are as potent as the  drums that gathered the community together for a
dance. This is what we should celebrate, but not the huts or dilapidated
Keringting houses that characterized the poverty of the people. Poverty
should not be equated with culture. People are subjected to poverty. Culture
is their way of life.

   Rene

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