"Toubob"

Everywhere I happen to walk, without fail, I will get the term “toubob” shouted at me by, mostly children, but even the adults like to hurl it in my direction. The term is a reference to a white person. When first I was exposed to this, being from America, I was immediately defensive, as my experience would like to infer this comment as offensive be it only spoken to white people, but I soon discovered, through cultural learning, that it’s not a racist term; I now believe most of the Gambians barely have a concept of racism.

It’s not exactly known how the term originated, but it is suggested the relationship is from the colonial days of British rule with British money of the sort “bob’s,” some coins given out by the visitors to the villagers. Apparently they gave them “tou.” This however, caused the present experience of going through a village and getting a choir of voices and running children shouting, at the top of their lungs, “Toubob, Toubob!” hoping the “rich white people” will toss them money or pencils or mintis (any candy ranging from Werthers to blow pops.) It was flattering all about 2 times, now I rather throw my shoe at them.