And in Gambia they are called bumsters. A good word to know in international street-personnel scrabble. Or hangman. With imaginative names like Lewis Armstrong (sic) ‘cos ahm playin the trumpet’, but with second names such as ‘Jimmy Fixer, because I’m allays fixin tings.’ they can reliably single out ginger deloriens and foist local goods and services onto them.
First off, the bumsters, bumboys and bottomburps festooned illicit drugs on us. We were offered grass, and the opportunity to chase de dragon with our new rastafarali-gee friends.
No disrespect for the bleary-eyed bumalares, but their patter was a bit thin. I’m quite happy to agree that people on holiday need only a few very simple choices to grant them their own individual path to paradise, but to leave out chocolate ice-cream bars as one of the stepping stones is a heresy. I know when I’m on holiday when I’ve got a Magnum chocolate ice cream bar in my hand. But some people appear to need a lousy tape recorder with the ill-fated half scratched to death Bob Marley tape.
Go away you skanky bleeders, try some less cliched musac, and let us figure out for ourselves where we are. And the path to self-enlightenment does not always have to involve ‘Buffalo soldyas’.