The Banjul Ferry

I did it! Although we were warned by everyone that had done it before that taking a car on the Banjul ferry was a bit of a nightmare, I am proud to say that I survived it. Apart from the occasional waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, the subsequent BFPTS (Banjul Ferry Post Traumatic Stress) after-effects that shadow such an experience are not as bad as I would have thought. Note that I said that the after-effects of the experience were not as bad as I would have thought; the experience itself on the other hand merited all the qualifications that people had used to describe it: ‘mind numbing’, ‘dangerous’, and even ‘deadly’.

But then that’s what they say about the wooden roller coaster at the PNE, and I still enjoy getting on that rickety circa 1958 90-minute thrill-seeking death-defying ride at least once a year. Don’t really know why I do it…even thought you feel really, really unsafe during those 90 minutes, especially after that first, horrifying plunge when that inevitable feeling that something’s gone terribly wrong with the ride and you might just be the first one in history to have paid 6 bucks to end up splattered on the Playland pavement. However, although every terrorized iota of your being is consumed with the sensation that your body is in immediate physical peril, you are somehow comforted knowing that you are in Canada, land of the over-regulated where fun is regulated to the umpteenth degree for the sake of public safety.  Quite a different story here in Africa.

Back to my Banjul Ferry adventure. I experienced this floating hotchpotch and lived to talk about it. Chaos and movement and beauty and terror and people and animals crowded against each other moving and selling and anything imaginable. A bit like Walmart on Christmas Eve, I guess.

We (Madeleine and I and our friend Kitt) decided to join our Yaakaar group in Senegal and our journey would be via land (according to Google, a supposedly 5 hour road trip) as opposed to flying (20 minute flight, when the plane works…). Google would have been correct in their estimated travel time, if one does not take into account the 50-minute Gambia River ferry crossing. The crossing itself takes about 50 minutes on the rare (like never) days when the ferryboat a) is working, b) isn’t battling against the river flow c) isn't crawling around some unexpected sand bank, or d) hasn't sunk. Also, not only did our friends at Google (by the way, have you ever wondered how these Google people come up with their travel estimates, sitting in their googleplexes in California?) not factor in the 50+ minute ferry ride, but also they did not take into account the couple of hours getting loaded on to the ferry and the even more entertaining off-loading time at the other side.  These guys were really off the mark when it came to coming up with the estimated time of travel between Banjul and Mbour.    

On that particular Friday morning, we managed to get to the ferry terminal just before noon, which we thought was a good time since its still a bit early in the day, and Friday being the Muslim holy day, we figured if people were travelling, they would have left the night before. Wrong. In any case, we were eventually told that there is never a good time to arrive to avoid the crowds, the chaos, the noise, the pick-pockets, the waits, the heat, the beggars, the chickens, the vendors, the goats, the big exhaust belching trucks, and more goats at the Banjul ferry terminal.

Mosa, Amal, & Madeleine

Luckily, we are friends with Amal. Amal teaches at our school. She was born and raised in the Gambia and happens to know everyone who needs to be known in the Gambia, including the Head of the Banjul ferry terminal. Amal had phoned her head honcho friend at the ferry terminal and had announced the imminent arrival of her school director and his wife. Not to say that they rolled out the red carpet when we arrived at the terminal, but close.

The head of security, Mosa, a little man with a heavy hand, met us at the gate. Amal had told him about our little blue car with big green diplomatic license plates. Many a times since we’re here, those plates have made travelling a lot easier for us. That day was no exception. In a matter of minutes, Mosa had led us through the masses of chaos, like Moses delivering the Jews from slavery, parting the waters of the Red Sea and all. The only thing missing for him to look the part was the long wooden staff, the long red robe, and the beard…and oh yeah, Mosa was black, Moses was white... at least the one in my Grade 4 catechism book. Mosa walked in front of our car, and everyone and everything, from the head-basket-carrying throngs of people to the exhaust belching lories, parted ways to let the little blue car with the green diplomatic plates snake its way up to the loading ramp.

In no time, always confined to the safety of our little blue bubble with the green diplomatic license plates, we were brought to the front of the line, in front of all the walk-on passengers, the beggars, the vendors, the cars, the chickens, the big exhaust belching trucks, the pigs and the goats. When people contested our passing through, Mosa would point at our license plates and yell Diplomat! Diplomat! Did we feel a bit uncomfortable about our newly ordained prestigious diplomatic stature? Nah...none the least. After all, if Mosa said we were diplomats, we were diplomats. At that point in time, according to we three in the car, Mosa was the man, the most important man on the face of the planet. Even our intrinsic Canadian sense of social equality did not interfere with our thanking our lucky stars for Mosa’s intervention.

Still wide-eyed and awestruck by the spectacle that was being played out in front of us, we waited around for the ferry to show up. After 30 minutes, the ferry appeared and slowly made its way up to the loading ramp. That's when all hell really broke loose.

The crowds of people with stacks of stuff on their heads and women with babies tied to their backs surged ahead, surrounding our car. The other cars around us revved up their motors, the big exhaust belching trucks were belching even more exhaust, and even the always Zenlike goats around us were starting to lose their cool. You can always be sure that there is something cooking when goats lose their cool.  However, it turns out the only three people finding all of this unnerving were the three wide-eyed awestruck wimpy Canadians in the blue car with green plates.  Supposedly, this is normality. Scrambling, pushing, shoving, arguing, shouting…its all part of the experience of getting onto the ferry, even if the ferry hasn’t docked yet.

The ferry finally docked and even before the loading ramp was secured in place, the walk-on passengers and goats made their way on the ramp among the cars and trucks. No less than seven guys started telling me it was time for us to move. That’s seven guys, three telling us to go move forward, and four telling us to back up. At that point, confused and slightly inebriated by the exhaust fumes of those big trucks, I decided to go with my gut instinct and aim for an opening in the mass of derrieres of walk-on passengers going up the loading ramp.  I managed to maneuver the car around all those derrieres, eventually ending up on the boat car deck where I was directed to a parking spot between two trucks. We’re talking big dilapidated 16 wheeler trucks here.

We ended up literally wedged between these trucks, unable to open our car doors. But that was ok. At that point, we were content to remain in the confines of our blue bubble with the green license plates, and wait out the storm of the crossing, like three fish looking out of the safety of their fishbowl habitat. We were speechless, well almost speechless. Repeated sighs of relief, punctuated by Kitt’s unexpected and rather colourful one-time expletive pertaining to the holy state of unlawful carnal knowledge was all we could think of to best describe the last few minutes that had unfolded in front of us.  Yes, we were trapped inside our vehicle. If the boat sank, there was no way out. But that was still ok; none of us had any inclination to step outside the car and mingle with the 2000 other fellow human and animal passengers. Call us antisocial if you wish, we were fine in the car. There were bodies sprawled on every square inch of that ferry. You even had people sitting and laying on the car deck.

The crossing itself was uneventful, but then we never did get out of that car so, therefore, for all you know, there could have been a ferry jacking or an other apocalypsic happening and we would have been oblivious to any of it. The disembarking in Barra was as interesting as in Banjul, except we were old pros by then, and therefore, nothing really worth writing home about.

One thing for sure; I will never, ever again, complain about the food on BC Ferries.