A journey south

[rezendi]

Negotiations for a seat in a sept-place tend to be quick and curt. Timing is everything. If you arrive just as the Peugeot which was previously head of the queue is pulling out, you’ll get the prime front-seat position, but you’ll have to wait; if you’re the last to arrive, you depart immediately, but squeezed into the middle of the back seat

Comments

[girl_on_a_stick]

"Temporary holiday romances"
Or simply just sex tourism. This is becoming an issue for me with female passengers more and more, i really struggle with it. Where is the line? Is it different because the usual gender roles are reversed? Different because money doesn't change hands directly, but rather in the form of hopes and promises? Who is taking advantage of who?

[rezendi]

Yeah. Concur. The line is fine.

[yiskah]

I was really quite horrified by the Gambian beach resorts in a way I haven't experienced ANYWHERE else. I've travelled (often alone) in a number of places where sexual harassment is rife, but it somehow felt quite different to me in the Gambia, I guess because I was aware that the assumptions behind it were quite different. I don't know why, but it somehow feels less gross (though still, of course, gross) to have some dude in e.g. Cairo come onto me in the street because he's horny than to have some dude in Serrekunda come onto me because he has a legitimate expectation that I might pay him for sex or companionship (either directly, or in terms of access to the west). I'm told that inland Gambia is quite different and I'd really like to go back and visit those places, as it's really the ONLY country (of the 80+ I've visited) that has left such a bad taste in my mouth, and I don't like that at all. (The only saving grace of my Gambia experience was a really lovely Gambian chap whom I met on the sept-place from Ziguinchor who hung out

[rezendi]

I was thinking of Abene at one point but decided to just loiter in Kafountine an extra day instead.