Few years ago, a colleague of mine and I ruffled some feathers somewhere in provincial Gambia when we did a human interest story on rural-urban migration. The community in question was once upon a time very lively as it was habitable by countless Fondinkewos. In their past time,these lads could be seen sitting under the mango,gmelina or neem tree as it were the case playing daam or brewing warga and laughing about and talking everything that came to mind
When a GRTS crew did visit the same settlement few years later, the outlook was a different one altogether.The young men were seen only in pockets of groups. They were gone. Where to? Kombo. That was one effect of rural-urban migration laid bare before our very eyes and knowing how boisterous that village was, we could not help but mount our tripod and camera in the main intersection filming few moving elders and kids.
That was then. But that scenario there comes nowhere near the rather deserted nature of my own village now adays.The much talked about ‘back way’ has almost decimated the human fabric of Jokaland. As a matter of fact, it is not my village people alone wallowing in loneliness brought about the mass exodus to Tubabudu. Attend a village gamo or some social function back home and the reality of this reality will strike a chord with you.
I must say that migration in search of pastures new is nothing new to my people. Was it not some two decades ago that an uncle of mine who was in Houphouet Boigny’s Cote d’Ivoire sent us a C90 audio cassette narrating his travails in wula. Even for some of us who were not born before his departure for the land of the unknown, it was joy gathering around a four-battery radio by the dudaalo listening to tell tales of a highly ambitious man at cross roads away from suu; not gotten enough riches and finding it hard to come home.He did come later after my people raised some money from the sale of few small ruminants at the Kerr Pateh lumo.
In these times however, even someone on a weekend to a hamlet in Jarra or some village in Badibu does struggle to find a group of young men to chat with, let alone remisnce about the past. From menial jobs such as local fence making, thatch roofing to work on the farm, the urge for the back way has seen many youth leave their villages. Their burning desire for the other side of the Mediterranean is also fuelled by one or two pictures their friends in Italy or Germany post on social media every now and then. To you and I, they may be mere pictures taken in some supermarket or a leisure camp but boy for our brothers here, those are enough reason for them to give it a shot and join the malango brigade in Napoli or Florence.
Whisper it though but I do hear some folks joking around that the
mass departures for the yooni ganaw has only served to widen the disparity in figures between us and our sisters. I guess you know what they mean; that men like us left behind in Banjul by the back way goers could be compelled by circumstances to practice polygamy. Not a bad thing for anyone in a position to do so.How about local football teams? It is nothing new these days to also hear clubs bemoaning the absence of an important player in a crucial fixture against a rival team. That is also becoming an issue in town, meaning the back way phenomenon has a knock on effects on our sporting landscape too.
With the rainy season looming large on the horizon, my grand father back home in Jarra is looking for a a handful of “strange farmers” to help him out.
By Famara Fofana
