The Gambian tourist season here
is now largely over: the most popular time for visiting The Gambia is
between mid November and the end of April. Then the temperatures and humidity
levels are kinder and it is outside the rainy season.
This is the time of year when
taxi drivers prepare for the leaner income months ahead.
Their services will still be
needed but at the more usually modest seven-seven rate. The difference between a seven-seven and a
taxi is generally how much of a tourist the customer appears or chooses to
behave.
The main artery from Fajara down
to Westfield is
the Kairaba Avenue.
Here are the main larger shops and junctions off to Senegambia
and Serrakunda. This road is always busy, teeming with traffic, much of which
is coloured yellow and green: the taxis.
The drivers have a system of beeps to
communicate with others. They beep to let pedestrians know they have space
aboard; they beep when approaching a small junction to warn other vehicles,
they beep to admonish and to greet. In short they beep almost continuously,
adding to the cacophony of the traffic. (Perhaps this should be called
car-cophony.)
Taxi drivers eyes light up when
“toubabs” (fair skinned folk) hail them and they are hugely disappointed,
sometimes even quite bad tempered, when we demand a seven-seven fare like the
locals. This fare of 7 Dalasis will take one person any distance along a set
route, rather like a bus journey. After an evening out, though, especially when
coming home alone I always get taken all the way to my door, and I am happy to
pay taxi rate which is negotiated before we set off. This is called a town trip
and gives the passenger exclusive use of the taxi whereas a seven-seven ride
allows 3 other fares to be picked up too. It is a very effective system for
all.
But the taxis do so much more
than simply carry people around town.
They are also the removal men and
quite small taxis with roof bars can often be seen dwarfed by a three piece
suite on the roof, or the boot hatch wedged open by a fridge in transit.
The other day on my way back from
St Therese’s Upper
Basic School,
a taxi drove by with a dozen lengths of drainage pipe twice as long as the car
itself balanced precariously on the roof. Cars in all directions stopped as the
taxi with its cumbersome load turned, across the traffic at a busy junction.
The arc of turn was impressive.
With very little notice taxis
will take people on long distance runs up country or even for a few days away
in neighbouring Senegal.
The taxi driver becomes guide for the short holiday and many even manage
without accommodation. Such long distance journeys are challenging because of
the condition of many of the roads. The south bank road is still sand along a
third of its length and will deteriorate rapidly in the fast approaching rains.
The taxis also serve as breakdown
vehicles and most carry tow ropes in the boot for this inevitability.
But recently I have found another
taxi function. As a consequence of becoming an unofficial guest house
proprietor, thereby producing more waste than was expected, my landlord has
given over the task of rubbish removal back to me. A waste collection system
has not been fully established here so this presented me with quite a problem.
I did not want to add to the growing abuse (or existing vulture colony) of the large
area of undeveloped land at the rear of the Pink Palace
and so had to find a solution. As you would have guessed by now this solution
was a taxi driver – in fact he is the messenger at the office who operates a
taxi as a second job in the evenings.
So once a week I get a lift home
and my rubbish cleared away to the official site in nearby Bakau. Of course it
gets a “town trip”.
