Return to Website

The GTS BantaBar

The Banatabar is for you to ask questions or make comments about Gambia. Others can read your contributions and reply or leave their own ideas

If you have some great Gambia photos please resize them to around 100K and upload them to our on line Picture Album available from the BantaBar menu page

The GTS BantaBar
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
View Entire Thread
Re: tipping and other questions


Hi Paul

First I'm glad you had a good time in Gambia.

Tipping - Many people in Gambia have very low paid jobs and it is not just that the cost of living is so much cheaper.

Most ordinary workers will get about £1.00 a day wages.

Some will get paid travel to work expenses BUT most DON'T

Virtually none get holiday pay

Most are employed for 'the season' about 5 months.

Tipping should be appropriate, based on the time spent and if you asked for the service or it was pushed upon you.

Tourism has the awful affect of encouraging capable young people that the money made from tourists is better than proper work - hence the problem with so many youngsters hanging around the industry.



The local commuter taxis have fixed prices during the day - you can see the GTS Taxi map on our Maps Page. These are the Green and Yellow cars, if not actually on the course of a route, many will make themselves available for private hire. The price is negotiable - check it includes waiting time and is for the all the party not per person. Be prepared to pay half up front to buy fuel if it is a long trip. In general we have never had a problem, but these are not tourist taxis and we have heard of people paying all at once and the car is not there for the return journey, etc.

The white diamond cars (Tourist Taxis)tend to run from a taxi park near each tourist complex - they have boards showing the price and tend not to appreciate haggling.



There are always tourists who bargin to get the lowest possible price for everything on the basis that the locals simply won't sell at a price that is not good for them.

This is not totally true in the hand to mouth sort of economy that most Gambians are forced to work in, they suffer a cash flow crisis most days and when necessity demands will sell stock for less than it has cost them so their families can eat. Many going out of business because of it.

Also bear in mind that the whole purpose of GTS is to create and sustain full time employment and for that to exist then the prices for services provided will have to increase. If Gambia, the 12th poorest country in the world, is going to develop an education and health care system to meet the challenges of the 21st century and pay for it themselves, without constantly borrowing money, then their local economy needs your holiday spending money, so be sensible enough to discourage the bumster mentality but generous enough to help genuine people earn a proper living.



Francis

GTS UK

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Just come back from Gambia - Had a great time. (see guest book for comments.)



There are a couple of things I would like to have been clearer about before going, and I should be grateful for your comments for next visit!



Firstly, what is a reasonable amount to give as tip and what are the expectations around this. This felt confusing and difficult sometimes. We were only there for a week, and mostly in more remote areas. People were often helpful in showing us the way or telling us about things. Whether we tipped on not was a bit hit or miss, but we did not sense any bad feeling. Being new to the country it is hard to read what the expectations are.



In the more tourist areas - we stayed a couple of nights at Bakau - there seemed to be much more of an expectation for a tip in return for advice or help. I have no problem in giving a tip - after all as Europeans we have a great deal more money than most Gambian - and it seems a fair exchange for a service. We often felt awkward because we did not have small change or did not know how much to give.



For instance, what are your thoughts on this:

1) A man spends 30 minutes showing us all around the fishing harbour, telling us all about the boats, about the fish, about the fishing way of life. How much tip?

2)A man goes five minutes out his way to show us the way to the crocodile pool

3)A child goes half an hour out of his way to give us directions.



Not coming from a culture where tipping is common, I feel a bit awkward around it,not wanting to embarrass people by giving too little or too much. I guess with a little more time I would get used to this.



I did have another question. We got a bit confused around the ettiquette of town taxis. Whereas bargaining on buying goods was fully accepted (encouraged), bargaining on taxi fare (which we did a couple of times) seemed to be met with bad feeling. Is this the wrong ettiquette? Taxi fares seemed to be much more than suggested in Lonely Planet Guide (Published 2001) It could be out of date. Also there seem to be quite a lot of variation. Though we were working to quite a tight budget,at the end of the day taxi fares were hardly expensive and we paid what was asked first time in the end. But it would be useful to know how things work. (Bush taxis were good and the prices explicit)



Oh one other things. Everywhere we went we found large numbers of people, particularly men, in their 20 and 30s. We saw very few men over 50. I have read that the life expectancy in The Gambia is 50. I am guessing that childhood deaths will partly be responsible for bringing that figure down, but the absence of older people did seem noticeable. Is it that there are far fewer older people, or do they tend to be less visible for other reasons?



I should be interested to know more about this



best wishes



Paul