Gambia, an African Odyssey

 

Interesting documentary on The Gambia, a small country in West Africa, surrounded entirely by Senegal save for a small coast on the Atlantic. 

Its basically a cruise ship with tourists visiting the country. But the narration does focus on the history of the country, its people, customs, traditions, villages, economy, wildlife, birdlife in small parts each. 

The Gambia is famous for the autobiography "The Roots" by Alex Haley in which he traces 7 generations of his family back to the Gambia. It was the centre point of the slave trade back in those days and there are some traces of that slave trade in the form of warehouses and holding posts for slaves until they were transported to America. 

Gambia is also famous for Kora, the musical instrument that originated from here and the music of this area is quite good, very rich and mellifluous. Agriculture and tourism are the mainstays of Gambia, there are no manufacturing activities. Fishing is a major activity what with the River Gambia flanking almost the entire country. 

Border trade and movement of people into Senegal takes place on a daily basis with no controls whatever, people marry there, come here for a festival, do trade there, come to work here. The documentary does take us through some villages flanking the river viz. Tendaba, Kuntaur, Georgetown, Banjul, its capital. 

Nice documentary to watch, narrative format plus lots of interviews with locals with sub titles in place. You can watch this documentary here 

A Place called Freedom

This is of a different genre by Ken Follett, the master story teller. This is a historical fiction novel set in Scotland of 1766 when slave trade existed. Mack McAsh is a coal miner in the employ of Sir George Jamisson. Sir George has two sons and apart from mines he has some plantations in Virginia and some sugar plantation in Barbados. But he is perennially indebted. So he has to marry off his eldest son to Lizzie Halim of the Halim Estate. Lizzie's mother is also severely indebted and she seeks the hand of Robert the eldest son of Sir George. Mack is involved in a coal mining incident where he rescues several people. He constantly seeks freedom from slavery. The Halim estate does not have any mines but it is reckoned that after the marriage between the two families, mines can start there. But Lizzie is against such thing having seen with her own eyes the kind of degrading lives led by the miners. Follett is brilliant in his narrative and the pages moves exceedingly fast. Goodreads 5/5