Updated
September 2, 2007

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The mosquito carries malaria, during the rainy season it breeds rapidly and any mosquito carrying the disease can pass it on to any person it bites

It cost 75 pence a week to protect yourself effectively with drugs in Gambia, but families need food to survive and so each year many people die from malaria.

The mangrove swamps reclaim land from the river but are a breeding ground for mosquitoes in the rainy season from lat May to early November - the closer you are to the river the more mosquitoes there are.

May's house has mosquito nets, good through ventilation and a fan when the power is on, but many local people have no protection from the insects and believe they develop an immunity - to do this, many children die before they reach Reds age.

You know who got it first? .... Me?
(No) You know what is my disease?
When I don't eat for three days
But this malaria, this diarrhoea, this scratchy body
I don't get it
But if I don't eat, this is my problem

Who got it first?....
My father first get it
When my father get it - then when he's fine -
One day we went to the farm
_ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ .

When we finished cutting the grasses
Then we come back to home
_ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ ._ . _ .

That was in rainy season
One day she (my younger sister) began to sick
Then we took it to the hospital
They gave him injections
They gave him tablets
They check his body and the final answer was Malaria
And we bring it back to home
We give him those medicines
Until few day, then it began to get fine
And then it is walking with my other young sister Fatoumata
When it's walking with Fatoumata, she was fine
And then the next day she started to sick again
That time we are staying with our aunt
When my sister was lying in the bed
Then he started to open its wide eyes
Then that time he was fainting
And we rush to the hospital again
When we went to the hospital they admit her
Then they give him water
But the water cannot pass through its body
And they try to give him injection and
then the injection also cannot work...

When we are there, then my father also arrive
Then they say they are going to take her to Royal Victoria Hospital at Banjul and my mother say, 'Let me go home'
Then I was crying, because I know he is going to die.....

......and they just take an ambulance

They took her to the hospital
It was there Saturday, Sunday
And at Sunday night my father was there, since around 11o'clock
Then my father is waiting whether he's going to die
Then my young sister, it was telling to my father to go home
Because it was very late and my father take a car
And he wanted to take my sisters clothes along
because he know she is going to die

And then my aunt told him don't take anything
Because when he take all those things
(People) will think he has something
A and they can attack him at night (and steal the bundle)
Then he left .....

When he left, then my young sister tried to stretch her body
At that time the doctor were waiting because they know he's going to die
My aunt she pulled her arm, she went to touch my young sisters leg
And my young sisters leg was cool
And then the doctors started to come
And the doctors asked my aunt, 'what is the matter'?
Then my aunt told them "Help me here"
And they started to press my younger sister, his heart
My aunt told them 'You don't press I like this'
And the doctor told him, 'He is ready to die', 'that's why I'm helping him to be easier....

And then my younger sister is dead
And then they take her to the dead house
When they take her to the dead house, my aunt was sitting outside
Then my father came to the hospital
When he stand at the gate of the hospital and he see my aunt sitting outside

He know my younger sister was dead
case closed

Mandinka does not have he and she rules so he, she and it are used irrespective of gender. On my visit in March 2001, May, Red and I were by the sea near Fajara and a small boy drowned - just disappeared as if the sea had eaten him. Red investigated - "It was just his time" Red concluded.

Later Red explained that the sea only eats Gambians because it knows them, it doesn't eat strangers.

Sadly, this is mainly true of the Gambian sea, it is also true that Malaria mainly kills Gambians, most visitors take anti malarial drugs far to expensive for local people to buy. So each rainy season someone in the family dies.

If this true story touched you, please make a donation through GTS to Elsa, all the money will be used for his education and towards getting his stories published.

Please contact: Francis Glynn to make a donation to Red.