1. 27 Jun


    October 2012: Please visit our new blog about our forthcoming expedition - ‘River Gambia Expedition 2012 - 1000km source to sea African odyssey’ - over on Wordpress.

    Thank you so much for following us on our last journey - ‘A Short Walk in The Gambian Bush - a 930km African odyssey’which produced award-winning portraits from Jason Florio, of village chiefs and elders of The Gambia, West Africa.

    We hope that you’ll jump on board and follow this next one - over on Wordpress. We’ll post the occasional update on here, but if you want to follow our adventure, then please sign up (all that’s needed is an email address and verification) for updates on the River Gambia Expedition.

    ‘The River Gambia Expedition – 1000km source-sea African odyssey’

    The Journey – 1 river. 2 borders. 3 countries – Guinea-Senegal-The Gambia, West Africa

    Paddles in the water: mid October 2012

    When: October – December 2012

    Why: To create an historical – visual /audio/written -  document of the peoples, cultures and environment along one of Africa’s last, free flowing, major rivers – The River Gambia.

    Estimated journey time: 2-3 months

    Modes of transport: Canoes & Trekking

    River Gambia Expedition 2012:

    Experienced West Africa travelers, husband and wife team - multi award-winning photographer, Jason Florio, and, photography producer, Helen Jones-Florio – will attempt to create a modern-day account of the people, societies, and life along the length of one of Africa’s last, free-flowing, major rivers – the River Gambia. There has also been talk, for a number of years, of damming the river. This journey is about documenting the communities and environment before this happens.

    They will be promoting canoeing and trekking, as a means of travel – thereby maintaining a low carbon footprint/environmental impact. Travelling through the through the homelands of over seven different tribes, their journey will begin at the source of the river, where it trickles out of the Fouta Djallon highlands of Guinea, on into hippo-abundant Niokolo Koba National Park, Senegal, and finally into The Republic of the Gambia – following the same course as the early gold and slave traders had done century’s ago – to the 10km wide mouth of the river, where it opens into the Atlantic Ocean after over a 1000km journey.

    Meet the River Gambia expedition team: Expedition team leaders, Jason, Helen, and rest of their team, will collect - through multiple medias: visual/written/audio -  stories documenting the lives and cultures of the indigenous people, who live and work along the course of the River Gambia. Using traditional protocol, relevant to each country, they will approach village chiefs to ask permission to stay in his/her village.

    They will travel with  Abou Ndong & Ebou Jarjau, two local Gambian experienced river men will be on the team for the entire journey; along with hiring local guides in Guinea and Senegal – thus making it a diverse and international team.

    We look forward to seeing you on other side!

    Thank you

    The Florios

    Check out how you can own one of award-winning photographer, Jason Florio’s, fine art photography prints from the River Gambia Expedition 2012 http://rivergambiaexpedition2012.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/two-ways-to-own-one-of-award-winning-photographer-jason-florios-fine-art-photography-prints/

    We also have a Facebook page & Twitter

     

  2. 15 Oct


    Image: A Short Walk in The Gambian Bush expedition team celebrate reaching the village of Koina, The Gambia West Africa - half way home on their 930km walk! L-R: Momadou, Janneh, Samba, Florio, Jones (foreground) Blog Entry: Monday 23rd November, 2009 The team reach the most easterly village in The Gambia, Koina (Senegal just over the border) - 463km walked to-date! celebrating with Alkalo’s family, drinking atayah green tea with lots of sugar!! Crossing The Gambia River on a flat-bottomed paddle boat with donkeys, gear, cart, team and all for D75 (1.70GBP/$2.70USD)! And a little Jamaican influence in The Gambia…. We reached Koina, at last. The last village in at the Eastern tip of The Gambia. The villagers of Koina are from the Serahoule Tribe, who make up about 9% of the Gambian population. They are known as the entrepreneur’s of The Gambia - dealing in property development and diamonds, amongst other things. Their village’s tend to be very ‘modernised’ in the respect that they use a lot of concrete to build their houses and corrugated iron for the roof’s. Also, we noticed that despite having a lot of space, they build their houses back to back in their villages, creating narrow streets, almost like walking through a souq - a devil to get the donkey and cart through actually!! The women are often beautiful adorned with large dangling gold hoops in their ears, necklaces and hair beads. The men also like to show off their wealth, wearing gold rings and often you will catch the odd flash of gold in their beaming smiles. Due to the fact that Serehoule tribe’s prefer concrete over the traditional mud huts and sandy pathways, we found it difficult to find a place to pitch our tents as they also like to pave their compounds with concrete too. No soft tent-peg-friendly sandy ground here! However, a solution was found (as is always the case with the ever-resourceful Gambians), the alkalo’s son, Chima Gumaneh, and his family found us the only non-paved section of his compound - the rubbish dump around the back, by the donkey stables. Hey, its not the first time, we’ve camped on rubbish tip on the journey and we are ever grateful for a place to pitch our tents after a long days work! However, they very industriously set to work, swept and cleared a large area for our tents. Our donkeys were given fresh groundnut hay and stabled alongside the rather boisterous village donkeys. That move soon had to be changed when we turned to see (p)Hadley (our extremely head-strong and independent little donkey) kicking his back legs at the Alkalo’s donkeys snout!! Could have been messy. As it was, there was not that much room to move our donkeys much further away from the Serahoule’s, so we had to hitch them almost on top of our tents. I don’t know how many of you have had much experience with donkeys but they like to chomp on food, very loudly, all night (Flo and I we often pondered on when they actually slept?), heehaw to each other (whether its mating or fighting talk!) and, oh yes, lets not forget their rambunctious farting!! The word cacophony springs to mind. Suffice to say, not much sleep was had that night. P.S. the Serahoule’s also favour enclosed concrete ‘bathrooms’ which, in actual fact I was particularly grateful for -  my first truly private bath (still with a bucket of water - but I’m not complaining) of the journey. However, I could hear the village kids in the next stall, laughing and joking in Serahoule, which I can’t speak let alone understand at all, but I had to burst out laughing when I heard one of them practicing his best Jamaican accent by repeating ‘bumbaclot, bumbaclot” over and over again to the delight of his giggling bath mates. That’ll be the MTV influence then - Serahoule’s also favour big satellite dishes!?! 24th Nov: We are now working our way along the North Bank – towards the main port of Barra, on the Gambia River - after having crossed the Gambia River with the donkeys and cart. A picture story all on its own! Coming over the next couple of blog entries! More soon from Jones, Florio and the Short Walk Team xx

    Image: A Short Walk in The Gambian Bush expedition team celebrate reaching the village of Koina, The Gambia West Africa - half way home on their 930km walk! L-R: Momadou, Janneh, Samba, Florio, Jones (foreground)

    Blog Entry: Monday 23rd November, 2009

    The team reach the most easterly village in The Gambia, Koina (Senegal just over the border) - 463km walked to-date! celebrating with Alkalo’s family, drinking atayah green tea with lots of sugar!! Crossing The Gambia River on a flat-bottomed paddle boat with donkeys, gear, cart, team and all for D75 (1.70GBP/$2.70USD)! And a little Jamaican influence in The Gambia….

    We reached Koina, at last. The last village in at the Eastern tip of The Gambia.

    The villagers of Koina are from the Serahoule Tribe, who make up about 9% of the Gambian population. They are known as the entrepreneur’s of The Gambia - dealing in property development and diamonds, amongst other things. Their village’s tend to be very ‘modernised’ in the respect that they use a lot of concrete to build their houses and corrugated iron for the roof’s. Also, we noticed that despite having a lot of space, they build their houses back to back in their villages, creating narrow streets, almost like walking through a souq - a devil to get the donkey and cart through actually!!

    The women are often beautiful adorned with large dangling gold hoops in their ears, necklaces and hair beads. The men also like to show off their wealth, wearing gold rings and often you will catch the odd flash of gold in their beaming smiles.

    Due to the fact that Serehoule tribe’s prefer concrete over the traditional mud huts and sandy pathways, we found it difficult to find a place to pitch our tents as they also like to pave their compounds with concrete too. No soft tent-peg-friendly sandy ground here! However, a solution was found (as is always the case with the ever-resourceful Gambians), the alkalo’s son, Chima Gumaneh, and his family found us the only non-paved section of his compound - the rubbish dump around the back, by the donkey stables. Hey, its not the first time, we’ve camped on rubbish tip on the journey and we are ever grateful for a place to pitch our tents after a long days work! However, they very industriously set to work, swept and cleared a large area for our tents. Our donkeys were given fresh groundnut hay and stabled alongside the rather boisterous village donkeys. That move soon had to be changed when we turned to see (p)Hadley (our extremely head-strong and independent little donkey) kicking his back legs at the Alkalo’s donkeys snout!! Could have been messy. As it was, there was not that much room to move our donkeys much further away from the Serahoule’s, so we had to hitch them almost on top of our tents. I don’t know how many of you have had much experience with donkeys but they like to chomp on food, very loudly, all night (Flo and I we often pondered on when they actually slept?), heehaw to each other (whether its mating or fighting talk!) and, oh yes, lets not forget their rambunctious farting!! The word cacophony springs to mind.

    Suffice to say, not much sleep was had that night.

    P.S. the Serahoule’s also favour enclosed concrete ‘bathrooms’ which, in actual fact I was particularly grateful for -  my first truly private bath (still with a bucket of water - but I’m not complaining) of the journey. However, I could hear the village kids in the next stall, laughing and joking in Serahoule, which I can’t speak let alone understand at all, but I had to burst out laughing when I heard one of them practicing his best Jamaican accent by repeating ‘bumbaclot, bumbaclot” over and over again to the delight of his giggling bath mates. That’ll be the MTV influence then - Serahoule’s also favour big satellite dishes!?!

    24th Nov: We are now working our way along the North Bank – towards the main port of Barra, on the Gambia River - after having crossed the Gambia River with the donkeys and cart. A picture story all on its own! Coming over the next couple of blog entries!

    More soon from Jones, Florio and the Short Walk Team xx