Florio and Jones on Radio 4

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Matt Smith

Jason Florio, Helen Jones and Abdouli Janneh. {link:http://www.floriophoto.com/}Photo courtesy of Jason Florio{/link}

Just a quick note to say that those fine people Jason Florio and Helen Jones are on Radio 4′s Excess Baggage this coming Saturday (Jan 1st) discussing their epic 930km walk around The Gambia, which they completed just over a year ago. You can find out more about the program here, and follow the whole monumental undertaking at the 930km African Odyssey blog.

Edit: this is now available to listen to on the iPlayer: Excess Baggage – Walking in Madeira, Europe and The Gambia

Climbing Kilimanjaro to build a school in The Gambia

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Kathryn Burrington

In August 2010 Hannah Braye climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in memory of her friend Lucy raising over £1,000. This will go to help build a school in Dairuharu in Brikama and the first classroom being built will be dedicated to Lucy, a former Gambia Experience client.
The following are some highlights from Hannah’s fascinating account of her climb. Her determination is a real inspiration and I’m sure Lucy would be very proud of her. Hannah’s account can be read in full on “Nyodema’s” blogsite.

Alice, Emmanuel and Hannah

Day 1 – Londorossi to Big Tree Camp
So today is the first day of our Kilimanjaro trek. Alice and I met our guide Emmanuel yesterday evening (we are the only two in our walking group). He is 26 years old and has been walking the mountain since he was 17, working his way up from porter to waiter, to cook, to assistant guide and finally guide.

We set off early from the hotel. The jeep ride once we get into the national park is extremely bumpy. I am sat in the back seat; there are only a few inches between the roof and my head, which takes quite a beating. How Alice manages to drop off for a cat nap is beyond me! From the gate where we sign in we can make out Mount Meru’s peak hazy in the distance.

We drive past the local potato farmers who are collecting in their crop and finally alight at the foot of the rain forest in the early afternoon. This is where our adventure begins.

The walk through the rain forest is fairly steep but we take it “Poley Poley” (slowly slowly). At times the pace seems almost ridiculous but Emmanuel tells us it is the best way for us to acclimatize.

Day 2 – Big Tree Camp to Shira 1
The day starts with breakfast of a similar size to last night’s dinner. The porridge is a particular challenge. Tanzanian porridge is brown and very watery the oats have been completely ground up. It tastes of little until large dollops of Tanzanian jam, which is as sweet as opal fruits, are added. The porridge will become a daily challenge for some of us. It takes Alice 3 days to pluck up the courage just to try it. Before we set off the porters of an American group also staying at the camp sing a song about the mountain. It is a song that Emmanuel will sing to us many times as we walk. Some of the lyrics are Akuna Matata (which means no worries in Swahili, as most of you will know from a certain Disney movie about a lion cub). I actually prefer the porter’s song to Elton John’s.

As we head higher the rainforest stops abruptly and turns into alpine forest. The trail is narrow and head high plants grow on either side of us. Now we are out of the forest the sun is hot and trail becomes increasingly steep.

We walk for about 4 hours and as the path gets dustier and steeper I put my camera away in my back pack. Of course a minute later we round the Shira ridge and against the perfect blue sky we catch our first glimpse of Kibo, the Kilimanjaro summit, its white glaciers glinting in the distance.

We are camping at Shira 1 camp on the plateau which is at 3500m. At this altitude even just turning over in your sleeping bag gets you out of breath. This coupled with the 4 ½ litres of water we have drunk during the day and the diamox tablets we are taking to prevent altitude sickness (the main side effects of which are tingling hands and feet and an inexplicable need to wee continuously) makes for a broken nights sleep.

Day 3 – Shira 1 to Shira 2
Today we are doing an easy walk for 3-4 hours across the plateau. It is one of the acclimatisation days built into our route to give us the best chance at reaching the summit. The plants in the moorland are beautiful and Emmanuel laughs at how many photos I stop and take.
The sun is very strong today and Alice and I both start to burn despite using factor 40 sun block. As we near the edge of the plateau we realise why. We are above the clouds! They stretch out below us, soft, white and fluffy, the kind that you just want to roll around in. I remark that it’s like looking out of an aeroplane window. Emmanuel is intrigued to know whether planes have windows and whether you can open them. He says he hopes to fly someday. We discuss some of the places he could go and suggest England, although he seems unsure about the weather. It’s a bit of a reality check given how much we take just getting on a plane and hopping to another country for granted. I really hope he gets to fly one day.

Day 4 – Shira 2 to Barranco Camp
Today is a harder days walking. We are ascending to 4600m before dropping back down to 3850 to camp, as this will help us to acclimatize. As we climb steadily higher the moorland fades out into rocky terrain with large boulders scattered about and not much growing. Alice isn’t feeling well with the altitude at this height and it is a bit of a wake up call that this isn’t just a lovely little walk we are doing.

As we walk Emmanuel teaches us some Swahili. His favourite phrase is ‘poa kachizi coma dizi’, (pronounced porky cheesy camondeesy). This translates as ‘super cool like crazy banana’. We think something maybe lost in the translation! We teach Emmanuel ‘easy peasy lemon squeezy’ in return – something I come to regret on summit night when, whilst I have my head between my legs in an attempt not to pass out, Emmanuel insists the walk is easy peasy lemon squeezy! My favourite Swahili phrase I have learnt so far is ‘la la salama’ which means sleep well, which I certainly did that evening after the exertions of the day.

Day 5 – Barranco to Karanga Camp
One of the strangest effects of the altitude are the crazy dreams that you have. The sleep is much lighter and I find I am having 3 or 4 memorable dreams a night.

The start of today’s walk was not so much of a walk as a climb up the cliff face opposite camp. The fact that there are no photos of this part of the trek is testament to how steep the trail was.

The rest of the walk is up and down, up and down for about 3 hours. We climb to 4200m but descend to 4100m to camp at Karanga, which in Swahili apparently means peanut. It feels like we are camped on the edge of the world.

As we are camping higher than we have before the wind is much stronger. Most of our tents don’t have any pegs and the porters use large rocks to pin them down. During dinner the mess tent takes a real battering and it feels at one point like it might actually be blown off the mountain. A miniature dust storm swirls up around us from the floor and our food becomes all of a sudden crunchy. We each hang on to a corner of the tent with one hand and a pole/plate/table or whatever we can get hold of with the other. It is at this point that Matt decides to break into a rendition of Gloria Gayner’s ‘I Will Survive’ at the top of his voice which sends us all into hysterics and bowls and plates flying.

Day 6 – Karanga to Barafu Camp
Today is only 3 hours walk up to 4600m as we need to rest in the afternoon for the summit attempt tonight, although the trail is quite steep.

Barafu means ice in Swahili, which is extremely fitting. There aren’t many redeeming features to Barafu. The wind is biting cold and so noisy. The terrain is like being on the moon, thick dust swirls into the air and is constantly in your eyes and throat. Even the ravens don’t inhabit Barafu. The wind is so strong our toilet tent stands no chance of staying upright and the long drops are positioned right on the edge of an exposed ridge so that the wind howls under the tin roof and a blasting ice draft blows up from underneath you. There is however a beautiful view of the neighbouring mountain. It is also over 5000m but it is a technical climb so not many people attempt it. Its peaks look like the turrets of a castle and it reminds me a little of Tryfan in North Wales.

At our early dinner we stock up on carbohydrates and I think the nerves start to show on everyone as we prepare for summit night. We go to our tents and attempt to sleep but at this altitude and with the wind shaking the tent continuously around us I’m not able to drop off. If I reach the summit I will already have been awake for 24 hours.

We gather in the mess tent at 11pm for tea and biscuits. Alice and I polish off an entire bar of dairy milk in preparation for what lies ahead. One might have thought that I was fairly prepared for the summit. I had fared well so far, not suffering with any symptoms of altitude. I had taken double the dose of diamox to the previous days, as instructed and I was toasty warm, my summit outfit consisting of 2 pairs of thermal leggings, walking trousers, waterproof trousers, 4 layers of thermal tops, a thick fleece, a down jacket, a waterproof jacket, 2 pairs of gloves, a fleece hat and a ski mask. But I’m not sure anything can fully prepare you for summit night!

We start off ‘poley poley’ as ever. The moon is only one night short of full and the path is illuminated in front of us. Emmanuel and Frank don’t use head torches. However we’ve only been walking an hour or so when the queasiness sets in. This can be controlled fairly easily by continuous burping but Frank has to carry Alice’s backpack for her from early on. As we pass 5000m I start to feel light headed. I have a pocket full of sweets which I munch on continuously in an attempt to keep my blood sugar up (apparently it plummets drastically at extreme altitude). The further we go the more the yellow dots start to dance in front of my eyes to the point when I can hardly see the floor below me and with every step I feel as though I could pass out. Emmanuel doesn’t let us rest long, constantly calling “twende twende” (lets go, lets go), as the trail is extremely exposed to the wind and there are few places to shelter. Soon I too have to surrender my back pack to him to. The temperature drops to -15 degrees. The first things I lose feeling in are my hands, then my feet and face. It’s around this time that I start to compose the email in my head…the email explaining to everyone who had sponsored me that I didn’t make it to the top.

It is only down to Emmanuel and Frank and the way they look after us that we manage to struggle on through the next few hours. Frank does up my shoes laces when my hands stop working because of the cold. They give us their walking poles and head torch when mine runs out, rub our hands to get the feeling back, get the water from my back pack (the only bottle that hasn’t frozen solid) and pour it in to our mouths. And all the while Emmanuel sings to us.

Gradually my head starts to clear slightly. I think my brain can only concentrate on either the cold or the lack of oxygen but not both at the same time. We find our rhythm. We’ve been walking for 5 hours at this point but all I have is what feels like a few minutes of conscious memory. Just as I start to fear the mountain may be starting to get the better of me again, Emmanuel announces that we are nearing Stellar Point, where we join the crater rim. From there it is only 45 minutes to an hour to Uhuru Peak, the summit. The timing is perfect to give us hope. I know that if I can make it to Stellar point there’s no way I won’t make it to the summit, I’ll have come too far. However, Emmanuel may have been a little premature in his announcement as it feels another age before I look up from the floor to realise we are on the rim and Emmanuel is gathering us together for a group hug. It’s 5am.

Up on the summit the temperature falls further to -20 degrees. It’s so cold that the boiled sweets I’m sucking won’t melt in my mouth anymore and I have to spit them out. As we follow the edge of the crater round there are dark shapes appearing all around us and icicles grow vertically up from the floor.

Unlike the last 5 hours the last hour passes in a heartbeat as I anticipate the exhilaration of reaching the top. And all of a sudden we are there!

With the light comes a feeling of great joy and achievement and another round of hugs. It also illuminates the precarious nature of our journey around the crater rim at times!

I feel like I could stay on the top of the mountain forever. But it is still well below freezing and we have to keep moving. We begin the long descent down. If I didn’t know that only an hour or so earlier I had walked up the same path I never would have guessed. The mountain is thick dust that your feet sink down into. All I have the energy to feel is relief that I made it. The sun becomes increasingly hot and slowly the feeling returns to my extremities in a flash of pins and needles, all except the fingers of my right hand, which stubbornly remain numb for the next week!

So now the adventure is over and I reflect on it all. We’ve been through a lot, wind, rain, glaring heat and dust storms. There have been tears (me secretly at the top), singing and a lot of laughter. We are filthy, bedraggled and greasy. There have been the inevitable toilet issues along with nosebleeds, black toenails, sunburn and an awful lot of snot. It is impossible to hang on to much dignity when walking Kilimanjaro. But as Alex so rightly put it at our last meal together, you regain it all and more when you reach to the top.

The short walk ends… in triumph!

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Matt Smith

Jason and the team about to walk under the Banjul arch... Photo by Helen Jones

We’re very happy to announce that the Short Walk in the Gambian Bush has been a complete success – with the team actually finishing their epic hike a few days early! The team actually made it back to base camp at Makasutu on the 12th December. We’ve held off announcing their arrival whilst the guys tried to find a suitable internet connection to upload some of their fabulous photos. We’ve included a few here. All that’s left to say is a huge well done to the guys, and to everyone out there who hasn’t yet donated to this project – you can do so at Jason’s Just Giving page. What are you waiting for?!

You can check out the rest of the photos and some hair-raising accounts of the last few days of their journey at the Short Walk blog, plus check some of Jason’s older (and equally gobsmacking) photos at his own site. And let’s not forget Helen Jones’s blog while we’re at it! As a brief aside, isn’t Neil just the best name ever for a donkey?

Early morning on the road... Photo by Jason Florio

Early morning - on the road again.

A fisherman on the River Gambia at Janjanbureh. Photo by Jason Florio

Two Gambia kids in the river at Tendaba. Photo by Jason Florio

The short walk has begun…

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Matt Smith

Jason Florio packs for the Gambia expedition

If you’ve been following the Gambia blog you’ll know we’ve been supporting Jason Florio and Helen Jones on their proposed on-foot epic circumnavigation of The Gambia. The project is partly to document a personal obsession both Jason and Helen have developed over many visits to the country, and also a charity event, looking to propogate the ideas of the Gardens for Life project, set up by the Eden Project.

Well, we’re pleased to say that the trip has got off to a good start and the guys are making good progress. You can see their route on the map below and follow their travails on their Short Walk in the Gambian Bush blog, on the Adventure blogs site. Their experiencing a few problems getting on line at the moment but the blog should have some regular live updates. Here’s to a long walk in the country!

A walk in the bush: the Gambia route map

A short walk in the Gambian bush…

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Matt Smith

Jason Florio, Helen Jones and Abdouli Janneh. {link:http://www.floriophoto.com/}Photo courtesy of Jason Florio{/link}

Now then, here’s a project for you: to circumnavigate the entirety of The Gambia on foot – all 700 miles of it – carrying your own gear, and capturing audio footage and images of people’s lives as pass through, creating a living account of a unique culture. As you go you’ll pass on knowledge gleaned from the Eden Project hive-mind on how to produce and sustain crop and vegetable growing gardens which will provide food for generations. Oh, and you’ll also need to maintain a multi-media website and blog on the move, both of which will be left behind as a legacy for the people of The Gambia to celebrate their history and their bright future. Any takers?

Jason Florio is a world renowned photographer, chronicler of far-flung places, and member of the Royal Geographical Society. To date he has worked across the globe from Surinam to Afghanistan and had run-ins (and tea) with both the Taliban and the mujahadeen. He fell in love with The Gambia 13 years ago on a visit to Makasutu and has been back every year chronicling the changing lives of the country and its people. His stunning photographs, collected over the last 13 years (some of which we are proud to be able to feature in the interview below) were collected in a book simply called Makasutu, published this year.

Helen Jones has been visiting The Gambia for about 14 years, and has equal passion and reverence for the country and its people. As massage therapist and nutrition adviser by day, Helen has made various trips to the country studying and working with the local people. She has also worked on various photography assignments across the globe and worked with Jason on the Makasutu project wherein this admirable (and mildly unhinged) project was dreamed up.

Jason and Helen will be undertaking the trip with two Gambian locals – Abdouli Janneh and Mohammed Nije – both of whom are experts on the the country’s history and culture and are fluent in various tribal languages the team will encounter, including Jola, Mandinka and Wolof. Janneh and Nije will act as guides and translators and will also assist with the audio recordings and the upkeep of the websites.

So there we are: a 700 mile walk around The Gambia. Sounds easy doesn’t it… To keep up with the preparations for the trip, and all importantly to donate towards the project, you can visit the team’s blog: A Short Walk in the Gambian Bush, or go to to the Gardens for Life section of the Eden Project website.

We were lucky enough to be able to speak with Jason and Helen as they prepared for their odyssey.

The Gambia Blog (hereafter TGB): How did you guys first get involved and interested in The Gambia?

Helen Jones (hereafter HJ): I first visited there in 1996 on a package holiday with two friends who had been there before (and subsequently moved there to produce an album of West African music) and I’ve been every year since! It’s like my second home. I have great friends there and as soon as that plane hits the tarmac at Yundum (Banjul) airport, the stresses of living in a big city seem to disappear.

Jason Florio (hereafter JF): For me it started with a phone call from my old friend Lawrence Williams in 1996. He told me that he was working on creating an overlanders’ camp with his business partner James English in The Gambia and I should come and check it out. I went later that year and started making photographic portraits of the people that lived and worked in and around the holy forest of Makasutu where the ‘camp’ would be built – I was hooked from the first day.

TGB: How have you seen the country change over the years?

HJ: Yes, for sure. Mobile phones are such a common sight now, especially in the villages. I remember a friend tried to start up a business way back in ’97, importing mobile phones but it failed miserably because no one could really afford that luxury. As Florio will no doubt testify, its kind of odd to be in the middle of the balong (river), in the most idyllic, tranquil surroundings and suddenly, you’ll hear Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’, which is the boatman’s ring tone!!
I also remember that first drive from the airport to Senegambia, where the main bulk of hotels are, and it took about and hour and a half because the bus kept having to dodge round the potholes in the road! It now takes half that time, as the roads are much better.

JF: As with so many other rural places the obvious changes have been in the rapid growth in modern communication – mobile phones abound. In the ‘early’ days I would have to get on a motorbike, drive through the bush to Brikama and send faxes or wait in line for ages to use the payphone. Now if I want to get hold of my old fisherman friend Abdou Ndong I don’t have to send notes with people going back to his village. I just give him a call on his mobile.

Moussa, shepherd. {link:http://www.floriophoto.com/}Photo courtesy of Jason Florio{/link}

TGB: What is it about the country that draws you back year after year?

HJ: The Gambian people and my friends. I just love the peace and quiet of being in the bush at Makasutu Culture Forest for example or on a deserted beach further up the coast. Nothing quite like the Atlantic Ocean to wash out all the city-life cobwebs! There is something so special about the country and a lot of that is to do with the energy of the Gambians for sure. I guess it’s to do with the simplicity of life there. Even after all these years, I still want to cling onto the nearest Baobab tree because I don’t want to leave! There is just so much explore down there and its different every time I go.

JF: for me one word sums it up – Makasutu. That one word encompasses the great friendships I have formed in The Gambia and my desire to learn more about the people and the country through my photography.

TGB: What’s behind your decision to walk the perimeter of the country? Could you tell us a bit about who is walking and the local guides you will be taking with you.

HJ & JF: We both made a decision earlier in the year to base ourselves for a few months away from London and New York (where Jason has been living for 14 years and Helen living part-time). A friend at a dinner party in Brooklyn told us how he had walked 500 miles across Europe the previous year, and that’s when Helen said how about walking around the Gambia? Jason had already been looking into a kayak expedition of the River Gambia and walking seemed like a great alternative as a way to explore more deeply the country and culture.

The two guides / co-travelers we are walking with us both work at Makasutu Culture Forest. Janneh is a serene human being who has a Buddha-like calm. Before working at Makasutu he had been in the military and worked as a teacher of English – when we were working on my ‘Makasutu – Mecca in the forest’ book last year he was a great help in teaching us Mandinka – he will be our chief translator for the oral histories and interviews we will be recording along the route. Mohammed is a straight up no-nonsense guy who will be on hand to help explain and navigate our way through the culture and country and fend off charging hippos and wrestle man-eating baboons.

TGB: How did you come to get involved with the Eden Project? Can you tell us a bit about the Gardens for Life project?

JF: Most roads in this story lead back to Makasutu – I was at Makasutu in 2007 when Don Murray from Eden brought a group of Friends of Eden over to The Gambia. I spent a lot of time with them and documented part of their visit – which included presenting the Gardens for Life project to local schools which are in the Balabu Conservation area (which surrounds Makasutu). After that I made a couple of trips to Eden with Lawrence and James from Makasutu to help set up The Gambia exhibit in the tropical biome.
When the idea of the walk was formulated Helen said we need to use it as a tool to raise funds for a charity, and the first thing that came to mind was GFL and the Makasutu Wildlife Trust. We dropped a line to Don Murray at Eden about it and in his inimitable style got the gears in motion and before we knew it we were sat around a table with Eden’s top players, TGE’s Chris Rowles and Karen Durham.

GFL – in short – is a way to promote sustainable development and global citizenship through local and international school garden partnerships. At the moment there are 5 schools in the project in The Gambia … who all need desperate help with basic tools, fencing and seeds.

TGB: Practically speaking, are you currently in training for your expedition? Will you be carrying all your own gear with you? Are you going to be camping each night and making all your own food etc?

HJ: Yes, we are. We’ve been doing 17-odd mile walks along the Wey Navigation footpath in Surrey each week, as we hope to walk an average of 12-15 miles per day in The Gambia. We are both pretty healthy and active. I’m a massage therapist so I have to train regularly to maintain my fitness levels and Florio is always carting heavy camera equipment and running up Mayan pyramids, hillsides and the like to get the best vantage point for his photo’s!! We both also cycle everywhere when we are in New York.

We’ve decided to take two donkeys with us to carry all the gear. We initially thought about taking a camel but decided that a spitting moody creature might not be entirely pertinent (sorry to all you camel lovers but that’s my experience of them!). We’ll both be working on route – i.e. Florio taking photos and me assisting with recording so we need to be ready to capture what we see along the way and carrying big backpacks too will be a hindrance. Janneh and Mohammed will both be assisting and we will all be recording our own journey, through photo’s and journals.

We will be camping every night. We have both tents and mosquito net options. There is nothing quite like sleeping under African skies! To treat ourselves, there are one or two lodges along the way that have very kindly donated rooms for us but on the whole, it’s camping. As for food, we will buy what we need, rice, fish, vegetables etc daily and cook it ourselves on the fire or pay one of the local women in whichever village we stay in on any particular night to cook for us. Gambians are very hospital and love to cook for you

Ismaila Badji and his horse. {link:http://www.floriophoto.com/}Photo courtesy of Jason Florio{/link}

TGB: You’ve said that you’re going to be making audio recordings and taking photographs en route? Will you be travelling with your Deardorff camera?!

JF: I had thought very seriously about taking the Deardorff Camera, but the cost of the extra donkey to carry it maybe pushing the budget a bit …it weighs a ton! I will still be taking a medium-format film camera as well as a digital camera package – we hope to be blogging with images as much as possible en route, so the digital will be essential.

TGB: I’m intrigued by your concentration on the individual in the Gambia photographs, and your use of the black sheet. Does that Disfarmer style – removing the subject from their environment – not somehow work against the notion of wanting to preserve a kind of anthropological document?

JF: For this body of work I wanted to find a way that would from the beginning keep it consistent year after year. And so for me concentrating on the person was paramount, and thus using the sheet was a way to avoid the distraction of the landscape behind them. It is entirely a focus on the individual – I am more interested in preserving the person rather than just creating a cold body of evidence for anthropological study.

TGB: Given that you’ve experienced the full spectrum of Islam across the globe, what do you make of the nature of Islam in The Gambia? How does it differ from what you’ve experienced elsewhere?

JF: Islam came to The Gambia though North and East African Muslim traders and holy men and was absorbed into society first by the cultural aspects of Muslim society then spiritually – and the school of Islamic thought that gained most acceptance in The Gambia was that of emphasising spirituality and mysticism with a focus on personal purity – a jihad of the heart if you will, rather than a more militant stance. With this as a backbone of Islamic thought in The Gambia one finds Gambian Muslims to be very warm and accepting of non-believers. The Gambia being known as ‘The Smiling Coast’ attests very much to this.

In general my travels through the Muslim world, have been excellent experiences – other than a couple of run-ins with the Taliban, I always have enjoyed great hospitality – just as I receive when I am in The Gambia.

TGB: What has been your favourite Gambian moment and/or photograph?

HJ: Can I have ‘moments’? It has to be all the times when I’m on the Mandina balong in a dugout canoe– especially when you row it yourself. It never ceases to make me awestruck with the beauty and tranquillity that surrounds you.

Abdou Ndong, fisherman and salt merchant. {link:http://www.floriophoto.com/}Photo courtesy of Jason Florio{/link}

JF: That’s a tricky one. If I can site one moment. It was my first time in The Gambia and a local fisherman, Abdou Ndong had taken me out with him to observe him fishing – we had just got in from the overnight trip in his leaky dugout canoe, the catch was frighteningly meagre and he gathered up half of it and gave it to me. I naturally pulled money from my pocket and handed it to him … he said ‘No, no .. this is for you ..It’s not about money’ and he paddled off home. We have been great friends ever since. He is also one of my favourite subjects to keep re-photographing!

TGB: You have said that you want to create an interactive website after your trip. Could you explain some more about what that might look like?

JF and HJ: Through audio and visual means I want to create a document of the journey that can be shown in galleries and online – but also to use the images and recordings as a framework for a ‘legacy’ website for The Gambia. A place where Gambian people can up-load their personal stories about themselves, their villages, and their oral histories – preserving them for educational and historical purposes. The website will be based on a map of the country… When one clicks on a village that content has been collected for, one will be able to read personal stories, histories etc about that village.

TGB: Is there anything you’ll be taking with you that you just can’t live without? And what will you miss most about home?

HJ: Books and iPod! I love reading so I always travel with at least 3 books – one novel (for falling asleep to!), one factual and my journal. We will all be keeping a journal on route, especially to update the blog. And, then any other books I can pick up along the way. I love music too…as do the Gambians. My iPod spends half its time hooked up to a Gambians ears!

The only thing I really miss when I’m out there (I previously spent 4 months in The Gambia) is my dog, Poet! However, that is somewhat alleviated by the amount of stray dogs that follow you around everywhere. Oh, and maybe the odd Sunday roast. Ironically I hardly eat them when at home but there is something about when it’s not available……….

JF: I will be taking fresh coffee. When I am on a journey I don’t tend to miss home too much…. But this will be the first time being on the road and on foot solidly for over two months… I’ll let you know in the blog!

HJ: and I might be nicking some of that fresh coffee!!

TGB: And the all-important bit: where can we donate?!

HJ: we will be setting up a ‘Justgiving’ page so that donations can be made directly to Eden Projects Gardens for Life programme in The Gambia. All the details can be found on our blog A Short Walk in the Gambian Bush. Continue reading →