Thoughts from The Gambia

At half-term, 20 students from the senior end of the school visited our sister school in The Gambia for a week. Lower Sixth Former Jamie Wilson reflects on the experience:

The first thing I realised when I got to The Gambia was how friendly and happy everybody is. This was obvious from the moment we stepped into the airport where there were lots of porters to carry our bags for us and all of them wanted to speak to us. The friendliness was also evident around the hotel where everybody said ‘hello’ as we were walking past. We were also told many times how we were welcome to the Gambia and ‘Smiley Coast’ as the locals called the area we were staying in. This is in complete contrast to here in the UK where we don’t say ‘hello’ to anybody that we do not know, never mind stop and have a 5 minute conversation.

The sense of community was also much more evident in The Gambia than it is in England. We were told by Alaji, the project co-ordinator in The Gambia, that there are no old people’s homes in The Gambia as families live in compounds. This means that the sons and daughters will all work and bring something to the compound, be it money or food from the family’s field and will also care for the older members of the family. Alaji also told us about how the families saw it as an insult to ask a particular person to watch their child if they left the compound and so instead the parent would simply inform all the people in the compound to keep an eye on the child. It was also evident that there was a greater sense of community in The Gambia as many people seemed to know Alaji in all the places that we visited. This also adds to the welcoming feeling that you get wherever you go and I feel that this feeling is almost non existent in the UK.
However, the thing that struck me most was how every person in The Gambia was happy with what they had. This was shown when we were travelling on jeeps for the day and stopping at compounds we passed. When we arrived, all of the people were happy to show us their homes, even if they had only the most basic of houses to live in. In the UK there is a feeling of needing items to be happy, be it a new computer game or new clothes, whereas in The Gambia nobody seemed to be upset with what they have. More often than not people do not have enough to spend on luxury items as most of their income is needed to support their large families.
All in all, the trip to The Gambia taught me, and I am sure the rest of the group as well, a huge amount about what is important in life. Many people in the western world think that material things in life make them happy whereas I now feel that true happiness is found through friends and family and knowing that you have that network of love and support around you.