This is one of my friends houses in the Gambia. This give you an idea of what many of the homes are like in the Gambia, both inside out outside the home.




That's my friends step-father in the picture. I think around 5 young men and women, 4 kids, 3 elderly people live in this house. As the family expands they build onto the house little by little. As you see behind the man sitting there is a house made up of about 3 -4 seperate rooms. Then across from him there is another small home made up of a couple of rooms. The bathroom is outside the two homes towards the edge of the property and is similar to what outhouses were like in America. The taxi's in the driveway are no longer in working condition. Idiboy's brother Adam is a mechanic and I think he had been working on the two taxi's, but no luck.



You see pictures on his walls of Reggae artists, along with a picture of a famous Islamic Sufi Shiek named Ibrahim Nayass. His branch of Sufism known as Tijani is the most popular practice of Islam I found in Senegal and Gambia. Although my friend wasn't really practicing Tijani himself, his mother and some other family members were more into it. Traditional Tijani Sufi's will gather on Friday's for "wassifa" where they will form circles and call out the names of Allah in unison till the energy biulds into a euphoria that is said to bring them closer to Allah.

Another picture you may notice is actually of Muammar Quadafi. I had to ask who it was because I couldn't tell just by looking at the poster. It appears to be a younger version of Kadafi. Kadafi tried to form the African United States and unite the whole continent of Africa, so he has one favor amongst black African's for being a Pan-African, African pride symbol-figure. Although ofcourse he is very controversial in other parts of the world, but regular locals in the Gambia seem to like him.



Along with the Reggae/Rasta posters you can also see a poster of 50 Cent. Not only do Gambians love hip-hop and American culture, but I think it is also a source of pride and inspiration for Africans to see blacks in the US achieve such levels of fame. Anybody from 2pac, Suge Knight, to Barack Obama, Snoop, Michael Jackson, these are all inspirational figures for them. Although part of it has less to do with black pride, and America's cultural influence in general, because you will even see Eminem t-shirts and posters around the region.


These videos below shows me eating in the house, it looks like it was a bowl of rice and maybe some chicken or fish, and patatoes, carots maybe.. very good, and even more blessings because it was shared with others.