Ouch Of Africa

There's a tale about a British tourist who wanted a cheap "winter
sun" package holiday; the travel agent duly obliged and offered him two
weeks in Gambia at a reasonable price, which he accepted. But he
returned later with a serious complaint; he had spent an uncomfortable
two weeks surrounded by black people, having been given no warning that
his chosen destination was so popular with those of darker hue. He had
also been unaware that he had chosen to holiday in Africa, supposing
Gambia to be a region of Spain or Portugal. Is that apocryphal?
Certainly it would be inconceivable to me to take a holiday and not
even be aware of which continent I was in; not only do I pre-read the
brochures, I diligently search the library for "Lonely Planet" guides
or their equivalent, and read up the resort and hotels in the
"Gazetteer" of the region, by which time the frightful array of
contractible diseases and tourist-centred scams makes you wonder
whether a weekend in a plush country hotel in the Lake District might
not in fact be preferable to an exotic week in the third world. But my
wife was sitting on a redundancy nest-egg, having immediately obtained
another job to commence later in the month; I was in the happy position
of being able to take holidays at any time and with little notice, as
long as they didn't clash with my work colleague's, and February is a
horrid month to be anywhere in Britain, let alone remote outposts on
bleak Northern hillsides; so we went to Gambia. But "Lonely Planet"
didn't cover everything&;#8230;

Gambia (or "The Gambia", as it's often described) is a thin sliver of
land, a single river valley surrounded by the hugeness of Senegal, an
English-speaking enclave in French West Africa. It produces very little
of consequence except peanuts, and is heavily reliant on the British
tourist trade. Its people are a mixture of Christian, Muslim and
traditional animist, though there seems to be little religious
conflict; a few years ago there was a coup, which caused cancellations
of holidays for a short while, but mercifully there was no bloodshed
and the tourist flights soon resumed. Small, poor countries have small,
poor airports and the formalities were brief, allowing us to soon be
trundling down to the coastal strip on a proper tarmac road. We later
learnt that this was the ONLY tarmac road in the country and had been
commissioned by the Kuwaiti ambassador who had become tired of the
swerving, bouncing, pothole-dodging journeys which are the norm in
Gambia - and, of course, most of Africa. Fortunately the diplomatic
quarter adjoins the tourist strip, so we could all enjoy the smooth
munificence of petro-dollars.

Tiny Gambia has pioneered something which all countries with a tourist
trade would do well to emulate, namely the discouraging of
"all-inclusive" holiday packages, at least in the busy tourist areas.
This means that holidays have to be booked on a bed-and-breakfast basis
and tourists are then free to patronise local businesses without
feeling that they are wasting money; of course, there are some
countries where this isn't possible, either because there is no decent
food outside of tourist hotels or the streets are simply too unsafe.
Fortunately, with some provisos, this is not the case in Gambia, but we
arrived late and jet-lagged and were requested to stay in the hotel for
the first night until we learnt the ropes. The problem lies with a
posse of young men called "bumsters" who lurk around the tourist hotels
offering to "escort" people or, in some cases, inventing plausible scam
stories with which to hit the newcomers. Ones which were tried on us
involved an "off-duty waiter" who hadn't enough money to buy milk for
the baby and a football team seeking sponsorship (we had been invited
to sponsor an elephant during a previous visit to Goa so this wasn't
entirely new to us!). However, as our hotel was slightly isolated and
the African night is pitch-black (and very beautiful, by the way) it
wasn't a bad idea to accept a late-night escort - we agreed beforehand
on the payment of a small tip and made clear that it didn't include the
gift of my trainers, glasses, binoculars or other such trifles.

Although Gambia doesn't possess any of the large mammals which attract
wildlife tourists to Kenya or Namibia, it's an excellent country for
birdwatching. We hired a guide by the simple expedient of wandering
down to the local golf course with binoculars; an alert local guide
soon spotted us and came cycling over. We proceeded to deliberately
misidentify some fairly easy species in order to test his knowledge,
and he passed, so we allowed him to book us a few trips, although we
also went out with one of the wardens from the nature reserve who
turned out to be excellent. Hiring a guide was a necessity, not only to
avoid being hassled by other would-be guides, but because it puts money
in the way of conservation. The warden charged us ?15 per person per
day and took four of us into the bush; even after subtracting the cost
of taxi hire and a helper, ?60 is a hell of a lot of money for an
African man to bring home for a day's work, but money well spent for
us. And hunting or killing birds for sport or food becomes very
anti-social when rich tourists are prepared to pay a week's worth of
food to see them free and alive!

On the last day we called the bird list complete and booked in for a
massage; just the thing to relax us in preparation for the late
afternoon flight. Or so we thought. People who choose to spend their
holidays in countries which rate from relatively to downright poor can
always avail themselves of reasonably-priced personal services, and
massage is no exception. In Turkey, for example, massage is a male
profession and very respectable, and generally follows a sauna and a
soaping; highly recommended. In modest but manic India, massage is
same-sex and ayurvedic and, according to fellow-travellers, accompanies
New-Age indoctrination, rather like going to the church bring-and-buy
sale and finding Billy Graham running the tombola. In Thailand, women
were offering massage on the beach; it didn't LOOK dodgy, but we were
staying in Pattaya which simply seethes with all manner of dodginess,
and we walked everywhere in a family phalanx to avoid being importuned
by young ladies offering personal services, so we didn't find out. In
Gambia, the masseuse was the proprietor of the beauty salon attached to
the hotel; no dodginess there, surely? Debbie and I booked in for a
full body massage and, as we wanted to both be treated at the same
time, the masseuse brought in a mate. I got the mate.

Masseuse took Debbie into one cubicle and pulled the curtain; I was
left with Mate. We had spent the earlier part of the morning swimming
and sunbathing, so I had turned up for my massage wearing shorts. Mate
wasn't impressed;

"Take those off, please," she commanded.

I did so, and stood stark naked before a young black woman for the
first time in my life, although my wife was less than ten feet away.
Just like going to the doctor's, I told myself. Sadly, Mate was now
even less impressed&;#8230;

She started on my back first, so I could regain my modesty for a while,
laying face down on the table.
Mate had a definite style; she would dig her fingers into an area of
podge where a muscle might reasonably be supposed to be and, when I
inevitably tensed, there was the offending article ready to be
pummelled into submission. I could just about bear it on my back, arms
and shoulders, but soon she was down to my thighs, and it was getting
rather ticklish; in a few minutes she would be turning me over and
doing my front! This was getting less and less relaxing by the minute.
Over I went, and Mate found a small flannel &;#8230; sorry, a rather
large flannel &;#8230; with which to cover my genitals whilst she
restarted the torture on my sensitive side. As her hands began to move
south over my chest, then my stomach, I had to suppress two contrary
urges; I was trying not to squeal like a little girl, and at the same
time not to get an erection like a little boy. Think flaccid thoughts
&;#8230; The fingertips threatened to move into todger territory,
but stopped just short at the curly boundary. Phew! But it was not all
over yet; there were still the inner thighs to be dealt with, and at
this point the yelps became audible such that Masseuse poked her head
through the curtains and proceeded to give Debbie a running commentary;
funnily enough, my wife is far more ticklish than I am but had hardly
uttered a peep. Finally Mate whipped aside the flannel as though it was
the final scene in "The Full Monty", and I was done. Not really dodgy
at all, I reassured myself, just a fairly literal interpretation of
"full body".

I was not at all relaxed as we made our final preparations for our
flight home; I felt as though I'd been beaten up, although there were
no marks or bruises; the throbbing was emanating from within my poor
muscles. Debbie - who'd managed to retain her dignity and underwear
throughout - conceded that her own massage had been "a bit rough"; I
was wondering whether I'd actually been attended by a member of the
secret police, an off-duty dominatrix or maybe just a local girl whose
ancestors had once been shipped off into slavery seizing the chance to
exact a bit of painful revenge on whitey whilst being well paid for it.
Or maybe it was all just African enthusiasm; cheerful Gambians never do
anything by halves! We're hoping to revisit Gambia soon to recapture
that enthusiasm, and a lot more birds. But, as for the massage, maybe
just head-and-shoulders next time!