I vividly remember the day I got cut, though it’s a memory I wish I could erase. That day, the sun was relentless, and the air was heavy with a palpable tension that hung over the community like a stormy cloud ready to burst its worries away. I had grown up in Sankandi, surrounded by […]
I have travelled to almost every country in the world. I know, you already concluded that I am lying but bear with me as I wrap a context cloth around this quite bold revelation. We all travel to places before we actually physically travel there by allowing our minds to wander into the wilderness or […]
Marley’s message is hugely relevant to Israel’s on-going war on Palestinians Robert (Bob) Nesta Marley, OM (1945 – 1981) was a Jamaican, songwriter, singer, guitarist, band leader – and activitist. Bob Marley helped take reggae, that rebellious Jamaican music genre, to every corner of the world. Marley’s music also carried along with it his message […]
By Amran Gaye Four decades, give or take: that’s how long the women had fought. They were from all walks of life and from all over The Gambia. Some of them had been cut, and some had not. Some were religious, and some not. But they all knew the harm in it, and wanted to […]
By Sapientia Seeker It’s almost sunset, and I, standing in this salty lake, toes dipped in the soggy mud of my origin, watching the majestic flow of the meandering River Gambia from a fair distance offshore. The waves in their gentle rebellion as if to say we’ll fight back, heave as the evening tide begins […]
It is not bad to see from where you sit. This story was told in some ancient book from the Arab world, the area where lived a man we would come to know as Muhammad—peace and blessing of Allah be onto him. Muhammed is not just for Muslims a prophet, a messenger and a righteous […]
Expecto patronum
By Sheriff Baba Bojang I have a dearly friend who always tells me that no one can cage him. I tell him, no one wants to cage you, it’s your nafs, your self, your ego that encages you. Fight it and conquer it and you will be free – or feel free – like the […]
Introduction Exactly twenty years ago, I was called to the office of the US ambassador to The Gambia, George Haley, and invited on behalf of St Mary’s College, Maryland, to visit America. St Mary’s is a pretty little college of about 1,600 students sitting on the banks of St Mary’s River near the picturesque Chesapeake […]
By Talib Gibran Growing up in Foni where power once gracefully seated, bad news from the urban areas took days if not weeks before it would reach us. Bad news travels fast; well nothing could be further from the truth when you lived in Foni at the time. Security literally made sure no bad news […]
With Talib Gibran If you’re familiar with classic literature, then you’re definitely familiar with Dear Elizabeth; a spellbinding love story told in letters from two brilliant but damaged poets, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. The literary ingenuity-published as Words in the Air-melted hearts round about the time Lehman Brothers succumbed to the Great Recession. The […]
With Talib Gibran A few days ago, a friend who lives afar sent me a rather simple question: Are you all right? I was supposed to say yes. And I said yes. Her concern emanated from a dream in which she witnessed my burial. Talib, wrapped in a shroud, legs and hands tied like a […]
With Talib Gibran I will start today, this Friday, with the re-narration of a story I first heard from Wole Soyinka after apparently leaving Trumpland.One of the horror stories that emerged from the ISIS-controlled parts of Iraq was the gruesome tale of a mother whose only daughter was affected by wanderlust, even in that endangered […]