Courtesy of the BBC

 

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Gambia's future hopes


By Susie Emmett in Gambia

I am not sure of the origin of this often-used phrase "only worth peanuts" but in The Gambia where these nuts are the principal crop - the peanuts are not even worth peanuts.

For generations, farmers in The Gambia have specialised in groundnut-growing. Last year, unusually, wonderful rains blew in from the Atlantic at precisely the right time for the nuts maturing below ground.

But the excellent crop - triple a normal year's yield - coincided with the collapse of the marketing system.

In the cool shade of a mango tree at the centre of his family's cluster of huts, farmer Usman Koli was sitting steadily shelling one by one the great basket load of groundnuts on the mat beside him.

He told me how last year, as usual, he gave most of his harvest to the traders who came buying. But that now, eight months later, he - and thousands others like him - have still not been paid.

Usman hasn't been paid eight months after buyers took groundnuts.

The government had handed the nut buying and exporting business to a businessman and it has been a disaster.

Not only have farmers lost out but The Gambia may well have lost its export contracts. For Usman Koli, shelling the uncollected nuts he has kept in store - now riddled with insect damage - is a bitter task.

Public anger

In that village and in the streets of the capital - Banjul - there was a sense of frustration and uncertainty. But in the capital - there is another reason.

People are still trying to understand why in street demonstrations in April, against alleged police and military brutality towards young people in their care, the authorities opened fire and 12 of the protesters died from gunshot wounds.

Articles in the daily newspapers call for the authorities to seek out those responsible. "The longer this takes," one office worker told me, "the less faith we have in our system of government".

Storm clouds will soon blow in off the Atlantic. The welcome rains will cleanse every dust-laden leaf. But Gambians are hoping for something to clear the air of confusion as well. >Beach life It is for the young of The Gambia that one fears. A future in farming is unattractive if you do not get paid for what you produce.

And your respect for authority collapses if they do not appear to follow the law themselves.

Dried fish has also failed to attact Gambia youth

I walked down from my hotel to the beach in the hope that the stiff evening breeze off the brilliant blue ocean would order my thoughts.

As a lone white woman, almost immediately, I was approached by one of the young men who comb the beaches searching for a rich tourist who might prove a way out of The Gambia - and poverty.

But he quickly overcame his disappointment that I would provide neither and as fishing boats beached their afternoon's catch he was happy to talk about his hopes instead.

He had left his home village, where fishing and farming were the only options, for a spell in town. Touting for tourists had not gone so well, nor had working for a builder.

But he had found some success as a weekend wrestler and so was thinking of investing his profits in a share of a fishing boat.

He is one Gambian who is fighting his way to a better future.

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