Koto,
       Believe me it is people like you who motivate me to stay on these fora.Guys like you can be invited in different colleges to share their knowledge with some of our scholars,Certainly am looking into that as at now.I have been motivated by your wisdom and rich stories.Please whenever you compile those stories(audio-visual)let me please have some.Am ready to order anything from your company,because  now I do order from the Africa productions(theaters etc).I wish I knew that you could help in that regard before.However,now onwards I am ready to order anything from my good Koto(laugh).
Do you know Papa Suso,the kora player? Anyway people like you can cordinate with guys like that and help spreading Gambian art within countries like USA and other destinations.
You will be highly appreciated at FLAWI-Florida West African Institute and also at the university of Gainsville Florida.These are places that I wish you could visit because there African depts need you with these wise and rich articles that you have.We will talk in private Sir.I have people here who have music that was produced by Laba Sosseh and I know that you know Labba more than those guys.
Your knowledge on these issues should be supported, at the farthest possible destination.
Please Koto keep me posted and I will indeed be asking about your latest all the time.
Good bye for now and have a wonderful evening.
Essa.

Oko Drammeh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Essa Bokarr,
I am very honoured to read your feed back because you are a cleaver guy. You too write well, very well indeed. I was reading Soffie's unique taeser and the reflections of Shiek Tijan Nyang and Jabou Joh then I was talking to my self about these flashbacks and then I sat on the type writer with my one finger and nailed the story or the history down.
In my role I have to coordinate it with the events at that time  happening outside the colony but the British did not give us an acvoynt on this. So I have to walk around with my hand-video interviewing people all over the Gambia. I am glad that I can bring this out. Not all that complete because on the internet you can't write a lot but so far it is getting out there in bits and pieces.I am glad. Please enjoy and if you can add flavour to the missing liks you are most welcome.
The storycontuinues !!!.
Oko Drammeh


ESSA BOKARR SEY wrote:
Koto,
      I could not withold expressing my feelins on  how much I appreciated your piece because such articles are helping many on line in different ways.If one looks at waht you write closer and does so in an abjective way,that person  will realise that,it is the whole country's history that Oko is talking about.
Please save these documents bro please!
Essa.

Oko Drammeh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I quess everybody  know where half die is in Banjul ,  why it is called half die etc, ? Soffie talked about the ndengs wild fruits at Bond Road and  Musante.
 In real term it is called Bajul South. It is like trench town in Kingston, Jamaica ,or south central los Angeles in reputition. When a police find you  roaming and ask you where you come from and you say half die you must be under some sort of harrassment. Police do not arrest people in half die and get  away. The greatest fist fighters and hard knock dock workers are from half. The great Ngala Ndoye The (escot of the great Late M.E. Jallow Jallow), Daddy George, Alieu Njie Leewen.etc These guys were the mob. They robbed the loot and they are slick. They dress in the finest clothes and hairstyles. They used knives and the play poker and all sorts of card games and roulettes.

Half ! die Soilders In World wars
Most people employed by the Brist colony were from half die. Most half die residents conscripted by the British army to fight in world war 1 and world war 2. The fought in Bombay,India when it was earlier called MUMBAI the capital in stead of Bombay. Now it is called Mumbai again but in thoes days our soilders would go to the capital in Mumbai to enjoy free duty days. They brought the word back to the Gambia the word MUMBAI as a word meaning good time in the Gambia. In Senegal the don't use the woed in wollof.
These half die soilders intermingled with soilders from Nigera and other African and Indian soilders, caribbean soliers and African American soilders. because their counterparts would not mix with them since the arrival of THE AMERICANS. They told the coalation that white soilders will not mix with black soilders. This raised the consciousness of the Black African soilders including the Gambian soilders to forge a unity and solidarity amon! gst all black soilders serving in the army.

FIGHT FOR INDEPENDANCE
They started to ask for certain rights and were informed by the West Indians African Americans about an African King called Hailie Salassie who is challanging the world leaders as the King of all Kings because of his linage with King Slolomon from the bible who married her grandmother and his nation was never colonised . The Africans started to think about self rule and indpendance like Ethiopia asking the colonial master that after the war would they grant INDEPENDANCE.
The Europeans said NO because they said that Africans cannot rule themselves and they will start tribal war and tribal hate. So no to independance.

 HALF DIE YOUTHS IN THE BUSUMBALA MASSACRE
After the war the french send all their African french speaking soilders to CHAROI camp military in Senegal ( a film on that is out ) and the Gambians and other English speaking soilders were sent to BUSUMBALA in the Gambia. The soi! lders never give up the claims for Indepandance . India pressured Britain and got their independance in 1948. The Busumbala camp was like a prison. They were poorly feed and put on constant stand by to go back to war and face Hitler again or to face the fierce jungle warriors of martial arts in south east Asia. The soilders were deied the right to stage strikes. So they did and the BUSUMBALA camp was turned into the killing fields.,  killing all soilders but a few. This was known as the Busumbala Massacre.

THE COLONY
The news awakened the people of the colony. The killings changed Gambian History. Many ex soilderrs joined the civil rights movement and the march for Independance for all of Africa. This was the first time that Africans wanted to unite the continent. Europe also became awakened and the did not want to grant independance to all at once. So the Europeans decided to give up colonialism and give independance to The African. Most of these soilders from the! Gambia came from Half die.

THE COLONY
Since Banjul was the colony and only banjul was the seat of government half die became a district of original Gambians. Althought the Creoales were first located at Half die but the the malaria epidemic that almost wiped out the residents ,the place was evacucated  They were later relocated to Soidier town and banjul central.
The port authority was not there.This was then Eliminite (tatanium) export whaf .The dockworkers were station at governmen twharf, now costoms department. The ship builders of Gambia and boat builders came from half Die. They are decendants of fishermen,shipbuilders and traders.They are mainly wollof speaking people. The share the same traditions with the wollofs of Dakar. They are the ndaga people.They mostly listen to music from Senegal. I am from Hallfdie.

SEAPORT LIFE
The ladywright  and the Fuladu  ship vessels were station at half die. They travelling weekly upriver and stoppi! ng at each seaport wharf on the banks of the river Gambia.and also bringing back weekly from upcountry the food, the wildlife,wrestlers,bamboe beds, exotic birds and parrots parrots ,monkeys and a flow of migrants. The Meta ferry boat and the LC 5 & 6 , the Gambia river transport with famus boat like Ambere, Duncan, Tina one and Tina 2 ,The famous Lady Denham.and the barra boats used to dock next to meta owned and controlled by the tribe of Serere. The came from the Senegal Delta.

MUHAMMEDAN SCHOOL (now 100 years old)
Half die was the "NO" district of Banjul against the colonial master in a struggle to preserve Gambia pride and culture.They resiste many government policies and refused the tax system and the land rates bill. The started the first civil rights in 1958 with the slogan of We want bread and butter " to the then givernor Win Harris. There were few schools then in Banjul and most schools were christian schools. Most Gambvians in Half die were muslims. Ther! e were two Muhammedan schools in half die but no high school or college for Banjul muslim. If you convert to christianity and acent your name in Afro-christian names you are likely to go to high schol and if your are a member of the missions schools you are likely to go to high school.For halfdie muslim only 4 kid a year can make it tio high school. So the started Adult school for the over aged with afternoon classes at Muhammedan school and there was also a night school also at Muhammedan school at Buckle street.

WORD OUT
In conclusion Half die was the resident of the original people of the Gambiawith roots in the fishing community of Senegal..Who had lived like Gambians through world war one as a colony of the British, world war 2, the depression, the fight for indepandance, and the modern art and sport capital of the Gambia

It is a history worth preserving.

To be contuined and more on What was Mbarri Bos and who was boss Kuru Boy Secka.( The bycicle repa! ir man).
Oko Drammeh

P/S I knew Njie Sasu ( Mass gudang)


Sheikh Tejan wrote:
Sister Jabou ,
Thanks for your notes on " Afdie ". The street name of late Ndey Oley Jobe is Wilberforce Street otherwise known as "tatimareng.". You forgot to mention that all the bad boys came from " afdie " laugh .
Chi Jamma ,
Bro Sheikh .

[log in to unmask] wrote:
Soffie,
LOL, no one in "Afdie" presumed ourselves poor until we saw Fajara, but ours was only financial poverty because of the richness in the other important areas that mattered, and thse are as good as solid gold sister.
Someone recently told me who your dad was and I had no idea.

Since they expanded the Ports Authority and up to the last time I was home, which was in 1997 Dec ( have not gone  back to Gambia only because I do not want to be in the clutches of the barbaric powers that infest the land at this time) I have looked upon the areas there on the lower part of Wellington street  where our family compound, the old "Njohen" was and up to the corner of cotton street and beyond to Orange street with heartbreak at the dissappearance of the area as we knew it. It is good to have the expanded port with all its' implications, and the benefits it can bring to our country( provided people pay their customs duties and taxes haha!) but I cannot help but mourn the loss of the neighbourhood as we knew it.

Mbaari Boss was the famous bicycle repair shed of uncle Kuru Boy Secka who was well beloved in our neighbourhood, but i will let you memorialize that in your writings Soffie. By the way, two bullies ( I will not name them) at his compound tried to make my life miserable during my GHS days. My theory was that they were angry because they were school dropouts since i could not think of any other reason. But I had many in the neighbourhood on my side.
Then there was "Marseh Musanteh"  which was there even when my mom was a kid, with the neighbourhood characters like Ya Oumie Saine who used to sell vegetables ."gejjah", "yaate" "tuufah" etc, and who was a ficture at that market until her death.
She was there even when I visited as a kid from Jamgjangbureh.
She used to \remind me that she knew my ! mom when she was still braiding her hair in "Pahha", ( very old traditional hairstyle of young wollof girls where part of the head is shaved off and there is one large braid) which means when she was a very young girl, especially if I passed her and did not greet her. That is really telling you off  and reminding you of your place when someone tells you that.

Or did you know Pa Kakoroh who sold firewood? What a grouch, although he had the most mild mannered and peaceful kids, Ndey Kakoroh and her brothers and sisters. We avoided making him mad by all means because if he reported you to parents, it did not matter if you were wrong or not. The mere fact of an adult going to the point of reporting you to parents meant you were a "haale bu yaradeku"
Then you had the other side from Brown street, past Mbengen on to lower Hagan where the "park bu ndow" was, "Nyangene", Njoofene" etc.
I really freaked when I was told that  Ndey Ollie Jobes' old street ( is it possible that I forget the name when I spent so much time hanging out with her there?) the area where Sambene was and up to Cotton street was to be part of the ports expansion.
There is also Zebra s! treet where my grandmother Sukainah Njie lived. I do not think I know Njaggah Poh though.
The call of the azzan at "jakki Afdie" for the fajr prayers was my alarm clock to get up in the mornings, and the sound of the first and second "siren" at PWD was what a lot of us kids used to gage how or if we would be late for school.
But all those people shared such close ties and such goodwill towards each other and it was very obvious. We kids also knew they loved us and were doing their part to keep us in line in true Gambian tradition of old. Of course, the "ndongoh Afdie" were in a class all their own, but it was definitely all in the family.

Recently, I had a good chuckle when my niece Yama Joh and her husband Pa Njie Girri Garra's daughter Nana Njie ( named after her auntie Nana Njie) married the son of Mam Makurrah Samba.(lower Buckle street) Kurrah and my bother Musa Joh were running buddies and I still picture him that way. It was a real "afdie" union and testament to the fact that some of us are the "killifahs" now. It is good but takes some getting used to.

Jabou Joh

In a message dated 1/15/04 10:21:26 AM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:



Thank you sister Jabou.  I was young and un-initiated but yes, I knew Mbaari Boss, Sangaar bi, Marseh Musanteh, and of course 'pargi afdie' was right there.  I used to go get 'Ndengs' when "they" would not share with me.  Much of who and what I am is a result of having been surrounded by IT ALL in 'afdie'.  So much was happening in those parts.  Never a dull moment, always lively, inspite of the disadvantages, the struggles, and the poverty.  I had no idea we were poor until I saw Fajara -:) but were we alive! - mind, body, and soul.
Regards,
Soffie



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