New York: Crash Landing

August 18th, 2006 | By Joshua | 5 Comments »

“The final destination of any journey is not, after all, the last item on the agenda, but rather some understanding, however simple or provisional, of what one has seen.” —Pico Iyer

But before understanding is splashdown in America, tripped up and stumbling through the boroughs, change of speed, social mayhem — instead of just the two of us in some unknown world, there are ALL of us, parents, cousins, aunts, babies, friends in the familiar/foreign big/small World of New York.
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Provence, France: Everything is different. Again.

August 15th, 2006 | By Joshua | 2 Comments »

Fifteen months after our trip began with a 10-day stopover in Paris, the nation of France is again our cultural buffer between Third and First Worlds. Not that France is a developing nation, just that it’s different enough to keep things interesting,
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Meanwhile, somewhere over the Rock of Gibraltar…

August 14th, 2006 | By Joshua | No Comments »

Casablanca: Day Two

August 13th, 2006 | By Joshua | No Comments »

Today’s mission is the Palais Royale and the souk in the Habous Quarter, an old, clean, pleasant market of Moroccan clothes and wares. Though there is nothing we need, we are entranced by it all and end up purchasing a pair of his-and-hers flowing djellabas. Mine is very Obi-Wan-Kenobi, with its sandy colors and long hood, and Tay’s is a rough-textured brown, simple with earthy flare. There is also an olive market, an oil and perfume stall, and many, many hats to try on.
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Casablanca: Day One

August 11th, 2006 | By Joshua | 2 Comments »

Expanding our originally scheduled two-hour layover in Casablanca to two days was a no-brainer. We’ve both always wanted to go to Morocco and even if we only visit its largest and least interesting city (according to anyone who has traveled here), we are sure it will be worth it. We are not let down.
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Going to The Gambia?

August 10th, 2006 | By Joshua | No Comments »

The most thorough and up-to-date guidebook that I’ve seen is The Bradt Guide to The Gambia by Craig Emms, Linda Barnett & Richard Human (June 2006). It is a comprehensive, insider’s job, with excellent maps.
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Crocodile Love

August 9th, 2006 | By Joshua | 2 Comments »

What do you do with one day to kill in The Gambia? That’s easy: If you’re a Canadian or European sugar momma, you go to the beaches around Senegambia and respond to shouts of “Hey Boss Lady!” from glistening Gambian studs, a.k.a. “Bumsters.” If you want last-minute shopping, you head to Bakau, where you bargain for wood carvings, jewelry, and batiks. And if you’re a 30-something couple at the tail end of your extended honeymoon and looking to start a family when you get home, you go to the Katchikally Crocodile Pond, where wishes for fertility and power have been made and granted for more than 500 years.
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Sara Kunda to Kombo: Traveling in The Gambia

August 7th, 2006 | By Joshua | 1 Comment »

The journey from Sara Kunda to Kombo, as the area around The Gambia’s capital is known, allows us to experience nearly every challenge encountered in upcountry African travel. (Okay, perhaps that’s a naive statement, as we aren’t in a war or disaster zone, but for this African novice, it was a long day.) That we arrive safe and sound, and with most of our possessions is pure luck, perhaps with a little protection from Tay’s leather-sewn Mandinka travelers’ juju.
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Sara Kunda: A Gambian Homecoming Part II

August 6th, 2006 | By Joshua | 4 Comments »

Tay’s Toma is little Sutay, the child she helped pull from her friend and sister, Fatou, 10 years ago on a fateful moonlit night. Tay, Fatou, and their mother, who was also the village midwife, rode12 kilometers in a donkey cart to the nearest clinic, to the sound of crickets and howling hyenas. When they arrived, finding neither the electricity nor the nurse they were expecting, they lit candles, and out came little Sutay. It was the first childbirth in which my Tay had ever participated, and they’d ridden back under a velvet sky, bathed in the magic of new life (Tay would later become an OB nurse, so her Toma’s birth was a life-changing event for them both).
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Sara Kunda: A Gambian Homecoming Part I

August 5th, 2006 | By Joshua | No Comments »

The pre-dawn sky is as star-shiny night-black as it was when we crawled under our mosquito net a few hours ago, at the end of our party, after the last of the goat had been consumed. Now we are up, in the candle-lit darkness, packing our bags while the Imam calls Sara Kunda to the first prayer of the day.
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