Bumsters or Bombs! A debate

Thursday,5th February, 2009

Just back from The Gambia Business Forum at the Kairaba Beach Hotel. Today's guest speaker was Aliou Secka - the Chairman of The Gambia Hotel Owners Association - who spoke on Tourism matters concering The Gambia.

A little country of 1.4 million people. I did find it very refreshing that the topics of discussion were on improvement of standards, the declining tourists, ways to improve arrivals including offering an all inclusive package, etc. However one important and pertinent point discussed was the so called 'menace' of 'bumsters' - a colloquially inheritted name for young Gambian boys who try to befriend tourists with the hope of being favoured by them - and eventually becoming guarantors of a passage to Europe. While this may be seen by many as an irritant - what strikes me in todays world is that in other tourist destinations, tourists are worried about the security, attacks, safety while walking the streets. Mugger, murderer, organ thief, con-man are the thoughts that pass through my head when a stranger approaches elsewhere - Here all theyre looking for is eventually a shortcut to a presumably better life. Dear tourists to The Gambia. Come on - The Gambia is trying to improve - Don't use Bumsters as the excuse to stay away. I'd rather be bumstered than bombed!

A short story on Bumsters - 

Seedy is 13 years old. He belongs to an extended family of 13. He lives in this extended African family with his mother, an uncle and about 10 half brothers and sisters in Latrikunda in Banjul. (I could easily write more about the extended family culture in Africa that is in a way similar to the Joint family situation in India - but that would require a whole new chapter. Moreover the reasons for the creation of extended and joint families are quite different - though their 'living' situation is quite similar.) 

Seedy goes to to the Latrikunda upper basic school but his mind is never on studies. He dreams to emmulate his older brother, Tche( short for Cherno - pronounced Chey - a name quite popular here, in honour of the famous South American 'Guevera'). Tche was the first in the inner circle of Seedy's family to successfully 'get away' 

to Copenhagen. Several years ago Tche, 18, met Isabel, 55, Scandinavian tourist in Banjul. Isabel was single, lonely, divorced,... (there are several more adjectives to describe cold life in cold countries) living off her state pension and decided to come to The Gambia on a whim. Her first visit was very memorable as she not only found warmth in the country, She found warmth with her guide too. Her guide, Tche, several years younger then, looked after Isabel in every way possible and their relationship had turned from comfort and lust, to love for her and from dreams into reality for him. They got married in The Gambia amidst traditional fervour of Tam-Tam drums, 'honking-motorcades' et al. For Isabel it was what she could have never asked for earlier. A devout companion willing to do anything - not just for money, but for a future. 

His future. 

What this future was, no one really knows. But what "key" did this gateway to this future need? To provide companionship? To meet the needs - both moral ,social & physical of the partner. This was and is an ideal Win Win. (My friend John Rao may accuse me of 'plagiarism of thought' and thus I shall give him credit here for constantly driving this into my head on several occassions when we discussed the issue in Banjul - over several bottles of Julbrew I must needlessly admit). The Win Win aspect. An elderly European lady - getting someone to look after her in the coldest years of her European life. And an otherwise disgruntled youth, who's immense energy was now being channelled towards achieving his dreams. What were these dreams. To travel to Europe. Why? For a better life? In a certain way to explore different lands - looking for treasures? Not much different from the dreams of Marco Polo or Columbus - and more pertinently - those of Mungo Park who died exploring the Niger river via The Gambia ( sans Visa sans Passport - as many modern African argue - 'He came with a Boat to explore our lands and we're just doing the same now - just a few years later!!' they say, indignantly justifying the 'pirogue' expeditions of african youth attempting to travel to Europe via North African seas - Sans Visas too - being objected to by the European Union! ( I must once again admit that there are a large number of Asian - Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Srilankan youth who make a fateful trip from home through west africa to attempt a similar voyage). Back to Tche and Isabel - they no longer live together. But that brief union sparked off a 'Tche-ain' reaction in Tches family. Tche visits every year bringing gifts for Seedy and all other cousins and members of the extended family. The gifts vary from mobile phones for the more dear or chocolates or trinkets or scarves for the rest. And in those gifts lies not only the surprise and pleasure of the gift. In it lies the dream. And the path to that dream as well.

Thus Seedy, on his way to school and especially after school, has his mind on every tourist bus that passes. When will Seedy find his 'Isabel'?

I'm sure that the above scenario can be debated for long. Is this an ideal situation for every tourist or for that matter and more importantly - for every Seedy? The answer is No. Certainly not. But as is with the issue of child labour and those seeking to forcefully arrest and stop it or ridicule it, remember that those children are bread winners (for themselves and thier families too).They should be given another channel, well prepared to ensure that it is not a stop gap solution. Pick up a child from a factory and send them to a remand home, where they could be equally exploited. Those championing the cause against child labour should have not just a solution, but a lasting and more rewarding solution. Take a child away from a labour situation only if you can provide the child with an alternate souce of income and more importantly - find a reliable source of income for the family. Else the child will be pushed back and probably into a more perilious and denigrating source of remuneration.

I'd suggest that, rather than hounding the factories with sting operations, use the funds spent on such operations together with funding from organisations that spend billions oon ineffective monitoring - to improve conditions in every factory employing children - and for free. Provide a system of education for all employees. Thereby the owners of factories will be productive and protected and money will be wisely spent. Win Win again. Of course there is no parallel between Tche's 'employment' and Child labour. But there lies a similarity between Seedys aspirations and of children in those factories.

The European Union, Ive often repeated, would have had far less a problem of the 'backway' syndrome had they spent some efforts developing industry and civic amenities in the lands they colonised. 

And in the case of Seedy's and Tche's, we must make sure that, while we curtail the present key to their aspirations, they do not land up on the streets, using methods far more sinister than soliciting friendships for their gateway to Europe, methods like peddling drugs or mugging tourists in an attempt to find shorter short-cuts to their aspirations in life.

Ram Mohan, Banjul,THE GAMBIA