First Impressions

Some first impressions, but I am not sure how accurate they are because I have seen little of the country and neighborhoods.

- Poorer than I expected.

I knew there was going to be poverty, but I expected some areas of the city to be nicer. So far I have not seen any (I have not been to the tourists' hotels). I thought the US embassy would be in a nice section of the city. At first glance, I thought it was in an average section of the city. The road was good, but there were no sidewalks. Buildings on the street seemed abandoned during construction, and others looked old and falling apart. Later, I learned it was in a better neighborhood because the street had the more expensive western supermarkets and the abandoned buildings during construction belong to people with more money. These people are the ones who can afford to build such big structures. People who own these buildings run out of money and need to work more in country or abroad before they can finish construction.

- Surprised by the lack of sidewalks

So far I have only seen sidewalks in front of the British embassy and some roads in the capital, otherwise they do not really exist. The poorer sections of the city have narrow streets. The buildings are built up to the road with no sidewalks. The only time there is a section of the road separated off is when there is an open sewer running down the street.

- Women wear beautiful dresses all the time

Women wear the most colorful dresses with matching head wraps almost every day. Even when we went through a poor section of the city, we saw a large amount of women wearing these dresses.

If you want to see some of my pictures of Banjul, check my pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/Alexander.Silvester