The Gambia - Impressions from the Ground

We were picked up at the airport and brought to what shall be our hotel for this week. It’s a beach resort hotel. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Which brings to mind, as I walk towards the little building which contains my room, how much one’s perception is coloured by one’s needs. Apparently some people find this place nice enough to have their weddings here (there are two during the couple of days we’re here). And if I was on holiday, the signs exhorting me not to feed the monkeys might get a different reaction from me. There is a pool with a bar next to it, but the pool closes at sundown. Given that we work for most of the day, a pool that’s open 24/7 would be much nicer for me, even if it wasn’t outdoors. Heck, I’d trade most of the amenities for a fast internet connection. I can’t get one with my laptop. WiFi access is so spotty that half the time (I don’t try it that often) I can’t even get to a log-in page. This has been recognized by hotel management, so they rent out USB sticks that operate as cell phone modems. One of these should work anywhere in the Gambia, we’re told, which is really neat – only that it requires installing a program, and my system will *not* let me run executable files. So I’m stuck with the “business center” near reception. Internet access is slow even so, but I can check to make sure I stay on top of the more urgent stuff from work, and chat with my wife a bit every day. So far, so good. But it does mean we’re rather cut off from the real world.

Now that’s not all bad – mentally, it tends to happen to me on these trips anyway – enough stuff to focus on. We do a whirlwind tour of the institutions and quickly rack up a meeting record that would befit a full-fledged Mutual Evaluation. Of course our point, this time around (Horst was here during the last ME) isn’t to find all the possible flaws in the country’s anti-money-laundering system, but to find out which of those can best be addressed with a bit of help from the World Bank. And we make good progress. People absolutely do not work much past four in the afternoon here, so we tend to be back in the hotel by five. The standard day has me finishing my notes for the day, then swimming in the pool for a bit, followed by us having a beer near it and later (after I’ve had a chance to shower and get dressed again) meeting up for dinner in one of the restaurants close to the hotel. Which are dirt cheap and serve okay food. Except for the Bennechin Chicken to which Horst introduces me, which is a local specialty, way better than “okay” and hereby strongly recommended. Really good stuff.

Then it’s another day full of meetings. Work progresses apace. Our counterparts from the central bank have been (and continue to be) very effective at securing meetings for us. I realize on Tuesday afternoon that the Ministry of Finance isn’t part of the meetings we have scheduled so far, and ask if that could still be arranged? And on Thursday morning we meet the Permanent Secretary to the Minister of Finance. Good stuff.

We are so fast, in fact, that we should be able to finish a day early. I’d asked our counterparts to frontload our meeting schedule – to keep Friday, and as much as possible even Thursday, free so that we could schedule additional meetings or make-up meetings for some that fall through (generally something one needs to expect in the region). But we seem to be lucky (and have sufficient support from the Central Bank) – the (very few) people who don’t want to meet with us and claim other urgent appointments send a clueless stand-in, which just makes the meeting that much shorter. Remember, this isn’t an ME, we don’t need that many answers – really only the answer to how can we help? And you can’t help someone who isn’t interested in help.
So I realize on Tuesday evening that we can almost certainly get out of here on Thursday. Which is nice, because you can’t get out of Banjul on a Friday – our original plan therefore had us flying back on Saturday evening. Back when I was working at BaFin (certainly in the early years), needing to stay another day at a Beach Resort (maybe compiling a few notes and drawing up a Concept Note by the pool to ease the conscience) would have seemed quite the cool thing. These days it seems poor compensation for another weekend spent without the family.

So I ask AmEx to shift our departure to Thursday. It’s a little more expensive, but once you subtract the hotel expenses thereby saved, not so much. Still, it’s Wednesday afternoon before I know we can go home on Thursday.

Only on Thursday, during a meeting with the police, my cell phone rings. What the … ?! Noone here has my number. And the number that’s calling me isn’t one I know. So I suppress the call and get a text message shortly thereafter. When I check it the moment we’re out of the door, it’s my wife asking whether the volcanic ash would interfere with my return? What? The Gambia has a couple of hills way upriver. Senegal, which surrounds the Gambia, doesn’t even have those. The closest volcano I’m aware of is Kilimanjaro. What is she texting about? I compile a brief answer that I’m not aware of volcanic activity and currently not expecting delays.

Back at the central bank office, Horst checks his emails and notices, as a number two news item in small print beneath the headline of “how to dress slim” on msnbc’s website, a volcanic eruption in Iceland. If I hadn’t mentioned my wife’s text message to him, he wouldn’t have clicked on it (agonizingly slow download speeds having the effect of severely reducing curiosity) – and I would not have been on the phone minutes later. A *long* overseas call later (at least I’m not paying roaming charges on this one – the cell phone calls from Ha Noi came out to over 260 USD) we are now supposed to take the same flight, but only to Dakar, where it stops before continuing to Brussels, and take a United flight from there into DC. Phew.

We get back to the hotel after our closing meeting, where I ask hotel staff to call the airport and make sure that Brussels air will go as far as Dakar, if it can’t go on to Brussels. The answer is that the plane in question didn’t even make it out of Brussels on its way here.

Another *long* conversation from the hotel. Only 40 USD this time, which end up on the hotel bill (the Bank reimburses these costs without fault) and now we’re scheduled for a Virgin Nigeria flight, after midnight, to Dakar, going on to JFK with South African at 2:45 in the morning. I go on from there to DC, Horst has to take a taxi to La Guardia airport to take a plane to Toronto and then to Ottawa. Phew.

Our plane is late leaving Banjul (and unkempt and uncomfortable and not reassuring in appearance at all) – the lady at AmEx did mention that they usually don’t use this airline. I can see why.

And we get into Dakar late. Dakar airport is not nice. And we’re in a hurry. And spend some time arguing with the airline guy, because we get to the check-in desk only 40 minutes before scheduled departure, with 45 minutes being their scheduled cutoff time. They want some form of confirmation of our e-tickets, which is rough, seeing as these were issued over the telephone only a few hours ago. I asked whether a confirmation could be texted to my cell phone, but AmEx isn’t equipped to do that (which I consider a fault, text-to-mail and mail-to-text conversions are very much solved problems these days). They did email confirmations, and Horst’s blackberry finally finds a network it can work with. Which it couldn’t in Banjul. Which means that now the 170 emails or so of the last week (he’s officially retired, so doesn’t get as many as I do) are being pushed into the unit, while he’s trying to scroll through all that to show the confirmation to the airline guy. While I stand behind him and check the Lonely Planet guide for accommodations in Dakar (it seems the likelier option at this point).

But lo and behold, he finds it, the airline guy is happy with it, we spend some exciting time running after the guy through the airport (with all our luggage) (which is hand-searched), jump into a nearly empty bus which takes us across the airfield while two airport employees fill out manual baggage tags, hand luggage and boarding passes to the crew and get on board. And off we go. Phew.

South African has full-flat seats. And they’ve served dinner on the way from Capetown to Dakar, so the moment the seatbelt lights are off I go to sleep (it’s three in the morning local time, after all). And get what feels like a full night’s sleep and still wake up at six in the morning local time where we land. Going West sure is the easier direction of transatlantic flights. Supposing you manage to get on the flight in the first place. ;)