The Gambia

In January 1977, my mom broke all her TV rules – no violence, nothing after 9 pm, no more than two hours a week – and we all watched every episode of the series Roots, a story that starts in The Gambia. I also remember watching Roots: The Next Generations two years later. I’m proud of my parents. Watching Roots as a family, the ensuing conversations, along with more substantial anti-racist acts I witnessed as a child helped me make connections and develop ideas about the humanity of all people. Alex Haley’s books and the DVDs of both TV series are available through every library system I checked, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Los Angeles. A recording of Alex Haley telling the story of his search for roots which ends in The Gambia is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq7lID_KfKY&list=PL04FYk8hHBC1wGAJynp96jnorGeB8EeUq&index=4

The story of Kunta Kinte isn’t the only story of an enslaved person stolen from The Gambia. The woman known as Phillis Wheatley was taken from the same watershed at seven years old. Her brilliant words made her path to freedom possible. Unfortunately, Wheatley’s genius did not protect her from a difficult life or complaints from future generations that she was used to set an impossibly high bar for others who looked like her. Her work, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/409

And there is so much more to The Gambia than the history of slavery. It’s a vibrant place with diverse people and interesting tourism that we can access while staying at home. I really enjoyed the resources I found, especially as they enable us to make new connections.

· The young readers book Wild Wings by Gill Lewis, which I checked out from the San Bernardino County Library, connects osprey lovers in Scotland with those in The Gambia.

· The Mirror Boy was filmed in The Gambia by the Nigerian industry known as Nollywood. In it, a British boy connects with his African heritage. I watched it on Netflix.

· Lenrie Peters, Gambian poet, connects us to a deep human experience. A sample of his poetry is found here: https://www.festivaldepoesiademedellin.org/en/Revista/ultimas_ediciones/74_75/peters.html

· Tubabs in Africa follows American anthropology students as they explore The Gambia and make connections to their own lives through their research projects. I watched it on Kanopy.

· Sona Jobarteh connects the music of her family heritage to a modern style accessible to audiences all over the world. One of her videos is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtmmlOQnTXM

More beauty from The Gambia and options for a great trip can be seen at https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-gambia/. When this pandemic is over, you might want to plan travel to The Gambia using your local travel advisor. Shout out to my favorite travel advisor, Kaitlin Darnell at Laura's Travel in Redlands. May the travel industry survive and thrive - may we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace and health to flourish in The Gambia and throughout the world.

Photo credit: Dan Roizer https://unsplash.com/photos/GygPFmXGD1o