Safety Tips in The Gambia

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PLEASE PREPARE! Malaria can sometimes be fatal and at best may make you regret that you survived. Medicines must be taken weeks BEFORE you come here. There are 4 different species of Malaria and humans can get them all from the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Illness and death from malaria are largely preventable - if you plan ahead.
While you are here you need to use a repellent spray early in the morning and any periods of darkness, especially at night. The Bartender at my beach hotel had Malaria 3 times before he was 25. Do not take chances!

I would suggest you buy repellent with 100% DEET.

DEET

Please note: If you run air conditioning, you do not need a net!

Actually, Ricky52 has a point. You need to research the kind of mosquito or disease in the area you plan to visit.

You can visit the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicines site (which has up to date research on diseases) not just malaria but river blindness, schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis. It is extrememly important that you know about the local diseases. I answered your question specifically for malaria. However, we have been doing research in W Africa for a long while and the trick is to research without actually getting the disease yourself.

I certainly would not bathe in rivers or pools there, no matter how hot you are.

A few years ago me and my boyfriend went to the gambia.
it was somewhere around Easter.
It all looked a really great idea because we knew somebody who knew somebody that could show us around the country (which isn't really big :) ).

so we booked our flight to Banjul and booked a hotel in Bakau.
the hotel was ok. but before you book a room somewhere make sure it had airconditioning because we almost didn't sleep at all. also don't forget to take your muskitonet and a lot of anti muskito creme. because the malaria fly is always nearby...

so after meeting up with our local "friend" we travelled around the country. the local was really nice and he had some western friends and a western boss so he knew that we(white people) were just the same as them (black people).

he knew and he didn't make a difference. but others did. for exemple adult girls and woman didn't appreciate my stay in the Gambia. when we were driving around some girls shouted things to me (in Wouluff) which I didn't understand but our guide told me they didn't like white girls because they think that white girls and woman come to steal their husbands and men. they think that because they think that white people are really rich. especially whites who are a little bit fat (or really fat, because the fatter the richer..)

so that was not always easy. but the worst part to me was the little children who saw us as a god, as a santa just because we were white.

they run behind our car for hours just to see our face or to touch our hands or just to look at us for ages with their mounths open.

the country, nature, people and the very little things to see there are really beautiful and nice but I was glad when I was on the plane home so I didn't have to feel guilty for beeing white.

Gambia is definately a poor country, and tourists feel temped to held, esp. the children. That is noble if you keep some things in mind:

If you want to sponsor a child in school, male sure, the money doesn't disappear in the wallet of the teacher. Insist you have a receipt thtat the schoolyear has been paid for!
One reads again and again: bring pencils. That may be a wrong afvice. Often, these pencils (if a child gets them in numbers) are sold to help the family. But then, if through this channel children earn more money than the parents, it may distroy the family structure.

Never ever throw goods out of the bus or vehicle like some guides tell you to do. Many kds died or where wounded. They are not animals, you can come close to them!

please, please, please take your malaria tablets. do not listen to advice that they are not in season or the area, that is rubbish, mossies are out all year round, ok granted in the rainy season they are doubled, but they still do linger in the dry season. my husband and son stopped taking theirs because of this advice they were both rushed to hospital with falcaparum, the fatal malaria. thank goodness they pulled through. if you are away and have side effects from you tablets, seek medical advice before you stop taking them.

Bumsters are young men, not necessarily Gambian who haunt the tourist areas looking for an easy buck. They will try to engage you in earnest conversation and sometimes will not take no for an answer.

Best way to treat them is to be strong but polite and make it plain that you do not want their company. They in turn can be very rude, but as you get used to it, can seem quite funny.

If you require help or a guide ask the hotel or your tour operator.

We went on a excursion through our hotel, the guides are usually cousins of people who work there, they met their reletives while out on the trip, said there goodbyes and we got pick pocketed.
Got back to the hotel went to put our gifts away , they had all been stolen by the tour guides relative. Couldn't believe we got robbed on the trip.

People told us to take books and pencils on the villiage tours for the children, which we did also we took sweets, when we handed them out the children scurried after them and got beat with sticks by the guards.
It broke my heart.