Ebou et al

you would be surprised that we had close relations relatively amongst  Banjulians and yes we need a thousand sessions to even get close to the good old days

there are many things that were going on before the atire days . yes we had no atire -green teas then- but what we had was groupings and serious discussions and debates on the current situations back then. , and many us us became public speakers per say because of those street debates and Oh yes the books we got fro China and Cuba and south Africa . the red books ( China Pionyang times  periodicals- Chairman Mao days)  the green books later from no other than Ghaddafi with his green revolution and Kwame Nkrumah books and speeches and Gamal Abdul Nasser rebuttals of the british yes even Marcus Garvey .

We would collect books from the library and other sources and read then come to meet and discuus them and analysize them , You had CIDs and secret cops-whom we all knew anyway  - like Kujabi  who would come to the homes of some of the debaters and yes BURN the books in front of the compounds to stop us from being revolutionaries - what a joke ( OKO can vouch for this I am sure - as he was a victim of this too)  Kujabi and his boys would even go to the post office to check our family  mailboxes- fyi there were only 300 mail boxes then for the whole country-- and intercept the red and green journals before we got them but alas knowing ndongo Banjuls we always beat them to that as we had our own counter intelingence that removed them  our mails first before they got there. Itt was funny like cats and mice .

It was indeed true that any books from Cuba , Libya and the eastern block including Russia were intercepted and burned down. We wrote our manisfestos  as we saw fit for the Gambia as practice then just to kill time until green tea atires took over to lead to idle talks about women and rumours

One rumour that leaked out during the election of  David Kwasi Jawara was that the mineral factories of Farage hill street  and Nachief  picton were given some liquid safaras to put in the drinks so that the people of Banjul will like him so that they will vote for him ( laugh - funny  now but was a topic then ) It never happened as the news leaked  out . true story !!

It is close to iftar so i will leave with that - was it cultural or just stupidity - I do not know

you be the judge 

good evening
hdg