McMansions

All around the suburban area outside Banjul near where we stay, we see a construction boom. Big, impressive, Romanesque, Moroccan or California-style stucco houses seem to be sprouting up everywhere behind high walls. Gambian friends have commented that many of these houses are being built for Gambians who have gone abroad (especially to America) to work. Local salaries rarely fund that kind of construction. It doesn’t really matter what kind of work they do abroad. Even if it’s what we consider menial labor in the U.S., enterprising immigrants are able to save enough that when they return home they will be kings of their new castles. Another sign of this phenomenon are the numerous Western Union billboards, encouraging people to use their company to send back the money that is made abroad. Foreign remittances form an important fuel for growing the local economy.