By Yunus S Saliu
One of the most recognized and maintained platform in The Gambia where people meet to relax discuss about their lives, home, and community is called Bantaba. It is also a place where men in particular pass their spare time playing local games or discussing issues of concern.
This popular place of assembly can be found in every community across The Gambia though not a specific place can be pointed out in the capital city, Banjul as a Bantaba.
The Mandika called this traditional assembly as Bantaba while the Wollof called it Pencha, whatever name you can call it Bantaba is the most common name among all the languages in The Gambia.
A Bantaba is an easier place to recognize in any community you find yourself in The Gambia because it is made up of a raised wooden platform which in some areas covered with straw mats, palm leaves or fronds to make it more comfortable for people to sit or lying down under it. Among other reason that makes it easily recognizable is that it is always located in the middle of the community or village under a huge or nearby tree that provides shade from the sparkling hot sun.
However, many compounds have smaller renditions in the front yard where occupiers of such compound and people from the neighborhood can sit to relax and chat.
Giving an in-depth comment about Bantaba, Hassoum Ceesay, a historian disclosed that in recent times Bantaba is seeing as a symbol of laziness despite that it provides a forum for the village elders to discuss important issues that affect their lives.
Among importance of Bantaba is that it is a symbol of unity, consultation and understanding in rural areas and as well serves as venue for social gatherings and political rallies.
So, “Pencha in Wollof or Bantanba in Mandika is basically a traditional public space in the Gambia, like in western civilization there is park where people come together to discuss issue, relax, touch base, build network and so on. In African civilization and in Gambian culture in particular we also have the Bantaba it is really like a public sphere where people from different age groups come, gather, intermingle, discuss community issues, chat, jokes and even eat together there,” Historian Ceesay said.
“So it is one of the old traditions of assembly that we have in The Gambia,” he added.
In the urban areas, some of the old villages like Sukuta, Busumbala, there are still places called Bantaba “despite the fact that now they are urbanize as people live in wall homes surrounded by tall walls or fences and so on. But in all the traditional villages even in Bakau there is still place called Bantaba because it is like the centre or meeting point to meet a VIP that just arrives or visit the community,” he explained.
It is good to know that any communities in The Gambia, you will always find interesting thing about the Bantaba ‘because the Bantaba spirit is still very strong in the villages you can have three or four Bantaba in a village. That’s to say in some villages you can have a Batanba for the unmarried; another one for the middle age; you can have another one for the elders which I have found very interesting so you can say that the Bantaba is even segregated by age.”
Meanwhile, in some of these communities, before the advent of television, newspaper, radio or mobile phone, the Bantaba was like a place you must be everyday to get the latest news in the community and beyond as regarding current affairs; health; agriculture; social advisory among other activities.
It is now modern world where there are modern things like electricity and technologies whereby people have power in their houses to operate electronic and other modern technologies like radio, TV, mobile phones which is now making the “Bantaba spirit dying out slowly in the urban areas but still very active in the villages,” Hassoum Ceesay noted.