Average customer rating:
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Our Grandmothers' Drums
Mark Hudson
Manufacturer: Grove Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0802112366 |
Book Description
Lush tropical forests, arid desert lands and the calm sway of charming fishing villages, The Gambia and Senegal will seduce you with a stunning array of sights, sounds and flavours. Whether you're headed for golden sand strands for beach bliss or want to get up close and personal with over 600 bird species, this guide gives you the inside information on the region's richest experiences.
ROCK TO THE RHYTHM - get set to swing to mbalax and sway to sensual zouk with our music chapter.
TWITCHERS PARADISE - ticked a little greenbul off your list yet? Our bird chapter will show you how.
EMBRACE THE OUTDOORS - from leisurely pirogue tours to clambering through mighty baobab trees.
TALK THE TALK - chat with the locals with the help of our indispensable Language chapter.
GO YOUR OWN WAY - detailed transport information and over 60 user-friendly maps show you where to go.
Customer Reviews:
Senegal and Gambia.......2006-07-15
I had to do a project on Senegal. And this book helped me a lot, even though I'd like most of the information to be on Senegal instead of Gambia. The book will really help you if you are a traveller going to one of the countries. The part about pickpockets was very interesting as it tells me about the best way to be robbed in Senegal. Overall, this book covers everything, from local slangs to foods eaten. It deserves a four star!
Excellent: condensed, useful, and great reading.......2002-09-23
In many cases, the coverage offered by Lonely Planet guidebooks may be hampered by the magnitude of the region they try and cover. This is why for example, in "Lonely Planet West Africa" (a bulky book which also covers Senegal and the Gambia), coverage of each single country is brief and not always perfect, and the reader is often lost among facts and information she or he does not need. Instead, in this much smaller and far more condensed guidebook, the author and editors have managed to put as much information and data as possible into it, about Senegal and the tiny Gambia. Coverage of both countries is excellent, providing up-to-date, accurate information and sensible advice, on anything from places to stay and eat, things to do and see, things to buy, and basically anything the traveller may wish to know. The coverage on culture, society, arts, music, and other information, is also excellent and wide, written in great prose and style. This is probably one of the best Lonely Planet guidebooks I have come across, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone travelling to those two countries. It will be an extremely useful tool, and will also provide great reading about the places being visited.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent guide, good detail!
- Birds of The Gambia and Senegal
- Too big to fit in pocket, text is good though
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A Field Guide to Birds of The Gambia and Senegal
Clive Barlow , and
Tim Wacher
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Lonely Planet the Gambia & Senegal (Lonely Planet Gambia and Senegal)
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Wolof-English/English-Wolof Dictionary & Phrasebook
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Senegal (including Gambia) Map by ITMb
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Gambia Map by ITMB
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The Rough Guide to the Music of Senegal and Gambia
ASIN: 0300115741 |
Book Description
This comprehensive book is the first field guide to the birds of The Gambia and Senegal, an area of West Africa popular with birders for its many tropical African birds. The guide provides full accounts of over 660 bird species and depicts nearly all of these in 48 beautiful color plates.
“A first-rate book that is a fine contribution to bird literature. For the birder who has everything, this makes a great gift.”—Roy John, Canadian Field-Naturalist
"A beautiful, succinct and very useful guide to the region's bird life."—Clay E. Corbin, Quarterly Review of Biology
Customer Reviews:
Excellent guide, good detail!.......2006-11-07
I live in Senegal and this is a fabulous book for someone who is living in Senegal or the Gambia. I travel some and have been using the Princeton Illustrated Checklist for Birds of Western & Central Africa - but it is nice to have a more limited list of birds that actually live here. (Makes it easier to identify them!) The illustrations are clear and I appreciated the raptors perched and in flight illustrations. What I also have enjoyed is the detailed info. about each bird in the back of the book - mating habits, flight patterns, breeding, etc. so that I really can learn more about the bird than just its name.
Birds of The Gambia and Senegal.......2001-07-13
The authors and illustrators do a wonderful job on a field guide of the birds of two countries that are not visited very often by birders. Clive Barlow lives in The Gambia and has been the moving force behind the creation of birding conservation efforts in that country. He is the acknowledged living expert of birds of Western Africa. He is also a first-rate field birder. Shortly after the book was published in 1998, my son and I had occasion to visit both Senegal and The Gambia. In Banjul we were most fortunate to meet Clive Barlow and go birding with him for four days. He is one of those rare individuals who has both wonderful identification skills combined with the uncanny ability to locate hard-to-find birds. His obvious love for birds is clearly evident in his handy field guide.
The book is well organized and very tastefully presented. The illustrations are superbly drawn and handy maps let you see the bird's expected range. Mr. Barlow is at his peak in the birds of The Gambia and only slightly less knowledgeable about Senegalese birding--perhaps because The Gambia is generally a much better place to observe birds.
The book is one of my favorite field guides. It is, of course, a must for anyone birding in those two countries or neighboring regions. I wish every area of the world were covered by a guide of this quality. Its creators are to be commended for a very solid, readable, useful and enjoyable field guide.
Too big to fit in pocket, text is good though.......1999-02-05
I recently returned from one month in Mali, where I took the 1977 Collins guide to the birds of West Africa by Serle and Morel. That book could fit in my pocket, this book by Barlow is too wide.
I am new to birdwatching and am used to the Peterson guides with big pictures and pointers to fieldmarks and many illustrations for each species . This book crams 20 or so birds on each page, and puts all the illustrations up at front. It does give a few examples of male/female/immature differences, and it does show raptors overhead. In this it is better than the Collins guide. The pictures seem cartoonish though.
The text is quite helpful and I guess the names of the birds are more up to date. I did not buy this book because I was going to Mali, not Senegal or Gambia. But all of the 60 or so birds that I identified in Mali are also found in this book. The Collins guide did not give me enough help identifying the many small weavers I saw, so I used this Barlow book and my field notes when I returned to the US, and this Barlow book is clearly superior in this case at least.
The Collins book covers all the birds of West Africa, even though nearly half get less than 10 words and no picture. Still, it has to be my first choice for countries other than Gambia and Senegal, especially since it is more portable.
Book Description
Most women in the West use contraceptives in order to avoid having children. But in rural Gambia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, many women use contraceptives for the opposite reason—to have as many children as possible.
Using ethnographic and demographic data from a three-year study in rural Gambia, Contingent Lives explains this seemingly counterintuitive fact by juxtaposing two very different understandings of the life course: one is a linear, Western model that equates aging and the ability to reproduce with the passage of time, the other a Gambian model that views aging as contingent on the cumulative physical, social, and spiritual hardships of personal history, especially obstetric trauma. Viewing each of these two models from the perspective of the other, Caroline Bledsoe produces fresh understandings of the classical anthropological subjects of reproduction, time, and aging as culturally shaped within women's conjugal lives. Her insights will be welcomed by scholars of anthropology and demography as well as by those working in public health, development studies, gerontology, and the history of medicine.
Customer Reviews:
fascinating and funny.......2004-02-13
If you ever go to Gambia, this is the book to get, together of course with the ubiquitous Lonely Planet. Hudson, a young adventurer, spent 14 months in a Mandingko village, observing and commenting on the daily life. Amazingly, he was allowed to join one of the women's societies... so he followed them around, participated in their dances, field work and intrigues and documented this stuff in OGD. Hudson shows that African women are, although destined to a life of hard work, circumcission & mostly unhappy arranged marriages, far from helpless creatures. They are economically independent, they are free to choose their lovers, they sing and they dance:
"It was in the early hours of the morning before the dancing began in earnest, the figures of the women glowing as though golden in the light of the hurricane-lamp, as they came running towards the drummers, spinning around only at the last moment to dance. This was what they liked more than anything elese - the extremity of this total bodily exertion, this fervent, almost ecstatic unleashment of energy, in which every muscle, every last atom of their energy would be used. It was as though the rhythms of the drums..[...]... were touching something actually inside the women themselves, to which their frenetic shaking was an involuntary, though wholly pleasurable response. They called it dia - sweetness."
"Hear the sound of these drums!
Our own drums!
Here the sound of these drums!
Our grandmothers' drums!"
Hudson shows that African life can be strange beyond our imagining. The pragmatic and relaxed attitudes towards the body and sexual activity; the separatedness of women and men, who get together pretty much just for sex; the ancient initiation formulas and rites, the pragmatic interpretation of the Muslim religion mixed with animism and, above all, the aliveness of these people get through in this book really well. These Mandingko use their bodies for pleasure in a way which makes Westerners look like hollow emaciated specters lost in our greedy little calculating minds. There is much fun in African lives and much sadness - sadness that we have forgotten about.
We need to learn from Africans about how to inhabit our bodies and about how to live in the present moment and this book gives us first hand information on these topics. Highly recommended.
OUR GRANDMOTHERS' DRUMS.......2003-09-09
This travel book does not move from the village of Dulaba in the Gambia but it uncovers a truly fascinating web of social life,customs,intrigue,obligation, initiation, sex and much more - it takes you to the heart of Africa . A MUST for anyone heading for the 'dark continent'.
Average customer rating:
- Fastastic Voyage
- tougher critic
- Funny, Inspiring, Thrillseeker's Dream
- Magical prose reflecting on excellent adventures
- Sail away! Sail away! Sail away!
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Adrift on a Sea of Blue Light
Manufacturer: Afro-Indies Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Gambia & Senegal
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Similar Items:
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Gone to Come Back
ASIN: 0976139707 |
Product Description
Peter Muilenburg has lived in the Virgin Islands for almost 40 years, building boats and sailing his gaff-rigged ketch throughout the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and along the African coast. Here are his true tales, many previously published in magazines such as Islands, SAIL and Reader's Digest. Peter's passion for the sea, the stars, his family, his boat and the islands themselves is mirrored in his sensuous prose, his ear for dialogue, and his talent for transporting the reader to the place and time of his Caribbean imagination, and to his wondrous insights into island (and everyday) life. * * "DELIGHTFUL . . Muilenburg has the enviable ability to write as if he were talking with a friend . . immerse yourself in the world beyond, and a life lived simply but full of riches." SAIL, 12/05 *
"SEAWORTHY . . During their adventures, Muilenburg and his wife, Dorothy, find themselves building boats, raising two sons . . and narrowly escaping would-be disasters . . Many of the 32 stories are full of intriguing encounters . . With his self-deprecating humor and zest for life, Muilenburg's collection is an entertaining read that will make you want to set sail." ISLANDS, 06/05 *
"I don't know when I have enjoyed a book of stories more than 'Adrift' . . The tales revealed are warm, human, poignant and hysterically funny . . The accompanying black and white photos . . lend a dreamy and exquisite aura to the pages . .This book is a wonderful way to get away from it all and I cannot praise it enough." ALL AT SEA, 07/05 (see below). *
"The author . . has the generous outlook of a seasoned world traveler . . [A] book I would heartily recommend to all cruisers and armchair sailors . ." CARIBBEAN COMPASS, 10/05 *
"[This] incredible book . . is probably one the best books to come out of St. John, ever." St. John Sun Times, 5/20/05. *
"Read this book . . Muilenburg deserves an A+." Paul Leary, The Daily News (St. Thomas), 3/22/05.
Customer Reviews:
Fastastic Voyage.......2007-03-06
While the stories captivated me and Muilenberg's pacing kept me turning page after page to find out what happens next, the passages that gripped me the most were his descriptions of the natural beauty of the Caribbean. His astonishment at the colors and awesomeness and the astounding beauty of the natural world resonated with my own experience, although I could not have described it as poetically as he has. I read this book in St. John and so could observe directly some of the sights he describes; reading his stories deepened my own pleasure in being in that special part of the world. A superbly enjoyable read.
tougher critic.......2007-02-02
I found Peter's writing wonderful, and enjoyed his sailing stories. My reason for three stars is that more than half the stories center around his dog, saving his dog, his dog's bark, etc. etc.
Funny, Inspiring, Thrillseeker's Dream.......2006-11-29
WOW! I only wished I had boarded Breath on my recent visit to St. John. I am speechless. Your stories, your life, your finishing of your mast, even your skipperkee. Smelling the Lignum Vitae and sensing it smelling of wood but responding/sounding like stone. I am now another devoted and enlisted friend. Remarkable, how you have come to tell the story, brilliant story-teller, by the way. Loved your writing style. Funny, inspiring, authentic and thrilling all in one.
The stories..I loved each and everyone of these. Of course the story of Denton Bridge and survival and your dog Santos had to be the most amazing of all. Also of Dorothy's commitment as a partner, spouse, mother, teacher who allowed you to live out your dream and to keep you grounded and supported, albeit, not always to her liking.
This is real life on the seas. Thanks for sharing and caring.
Magical prose reflecting on excellent adventures.......2006-10-13
The first time I picked up Peter's excellent work I flipped open to the middle and began reading about guerillas in Venezuelan mountains, and thought to myself, "This isn't something I want to read about." I laid it back down. Shame on me! I almost missed a real treat. Recently, I was given a copy as a going away present before moving back stateside from the Virgin Islands, and from the time I opened it on the ferry ride from St. Thomas to St. John I scarcely laid it down, save to sleep. I found myself totally mesmerized by Peter's magically descriptive prose that indelibly imprinted on my mind's eye scenes of the excellent adventures he shares here. His unique perspectives on life aboard his homebuilt sailing vessel, Breath, sailing around the Caribbean and beyond,from the miraculous recovery of his boat dog, Santos, after losing him at sea, to raising his sons on a boat had me alternately laughing out loud and then in tears. The lively manner with which he shares his stories, as if talking to a close friend, captivated me, and his anecdotes re-conjured for me the essence of the sea faring life that I have so loved. Thank you, Peter, for sharing your sojurn with us all.
Sail away! Sail away! Sail away!.......2006-07-15
I thoroughly enjoyed ADRIFT ON A SEA OF BLUE LIGHT. Peter Muilenburg's writing style, and the very words themselves drew me into the boat and onto the sea with Peter and his family. Sometimes I would read the chapters to my husband, prefaced with "Listen to how eloquently he words this!" or "Listen to this story!". My husband jumped on board, reading the book himself, enjoying it equally. We had our own Book Club!
We have ourselves enjoyed a few visits to St John (camping at Cinnamon Bay, Maho, and Concordia) and were therefore able to picture some of the scenes about which Peter wrote.
For those of us land locked souls, the book takes us to sea, and alas, I was sad when the last page was read and our voyage with Peter and his family came to an end.
Product Description
Folded road and travel map in color. Scale 1:350,000. Distinguishes roads ranging from primary paved roads to other roads/tracks. Legend includes distric boundaries, National Parks, ferry routes, rialroads, international/national airports, aerodrome/landing fields, bus stations, gas stations, points of interest, ruins/archeological sites, forts/castles, museums, lodging, campsites & (RIT) huts, resthouses, churches/missions, customs posts, Embassies. Includes inset of City of Banjul.
Book Description
30 Maps
Customer Reviews:
Very useful.......2000-11-11
The most comprehensive travel guide I've seen. Hundreds of useful practical hints, explanations of cultural background and important things to remember for "whites" in order not to hurt or offend the traditional, mythical or religious beliefs, which are all very strong over there. I have travelled in West Africa myself, before reading this book, and found that it really shows the most important details to consider. Framed boxes in the text make it easy to find the essential tips. It is also valuable, that it shows how to travel cheaply, nothing about the luxurious hotels, more of the budget type of stuff.
Excellent!.......1999-06-04
I would also have to agree that this book was very well written, with a great deal of relavent information on The Gambia. I highly recomend this book.
Excellent and up-to-date Senegal/Gambia guidebook!.......1999-04-04
Highly recommended! We just returned from our fourth trip to Senegal, and we found the Lonely Planet guidebook to be highly accurate and easily usable. It is well written and includes much helpful cultural information in addition to all the necessary facts. Don't leave for Senegal without it!!!!
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