The 'bumster' on the way home

As I set out on my 45 min walk back from church a young boy (around the age of 13) and his friend of a similar age latched onto me. The boy then started a series of stories of woe. 

The first went something like this, ‘I really want to play football on the beach with my friends but you cannot play football unless you have a ball and I can’t afford one’. I began by saying that I wasn’t going to give him any money and then I discussed what he had said with him and said that it didn’t really make sense because if everyone had their own football then you wouldn’t be able to play a game?

The boy looked a little confused and frustrated and then changed tact, this time saying, ‘My parents cannot look after me anymore because they have no money and now I live with my aunt but she doesn’t like me and gets angry with me and I need money to get away from her’. I then proposed that if his Aunt had been so kind to take him in when his parents could no longer look after him then he should make an extra effort to be kind and patient towards her.

Even more frustrated the boy tried again, ‘I live a long way from here and I want to get home but my feet are tired and I don’t think that I can make the journey without resting and then I will be home too late. I really need the money for a taxi’. I told him that I could understand his predicament because I too had a long way to walk however he shouldn’t wander so far from home in the future and then he wouldn’t find this a problem.

Persistent, the boy tried again, ‘Your white skin, does it burn in the sun yes? Well I have some cream to stop this; you can buy it from me’. I asked him why he had such cream and he told me it was because he knew lots of white people so I thanked him and said as I had my own he should really save his cream for all the  other white people he knew.

After half an hour!! The boy finally cracked and said, ‘You don’t understand, I want money’. To which I said, ‘I told you I wasn’t going to give you any’ to which he huffed and then the boy (and his silent friend) turned away from me and walked back in the direction from which we had come! The walk home seemed to go so quickly!!

He was quite a young and relatively pleasant bumster unlike the guys me and two other VSO girls encountered on the beach. The three of us had gone down with a few VSO boys to watch them play football and once the boys were off playing we were ascended on by a group of 4 men who really wouldn’t give up.

They began by polite conversation, what is your name, where are you from, what is it like there, how long have you been here etc. Then they stepped it up a notch and asked for your telephone number, hotel and other personal details, telling you that you look pretty etc. When we politely told them that we didn’t want to talk to them they got angry saying that men in Gambia are friendly and if you are not prepared to be friendly then you shouldn’t be in the Gambia (all this took place whilst they were communicating with each other in their own language – all very off-putting).

In the end we couldn’t take it anymore and the three of us left. He guys were pretty hardcore (probably all aged between 18-30). When we got back to the hotel and discussed it with the others some suggested making up a foreign language and acting like you just don’t understand them at all. I’m going to try that next time!!!

On a positive note I’ve been told there are very few bumsters in Kerewan!!