Salt

I would like to talk more about the benefits that we gain from our river.  One of the benefits is salt, which is produced during the dry season before the beginning of the rainy season.  Since I was born I've never seen them producing or making salt during the rainy season because when it rains everything will dissolve.  Mostly women who are living in the countryside of the Gambia near the rivers are engaged in producing salt.

Huts to rest in.

I will now tell you how salt is produced.  This is something I have witnessed and I am going to mention each step that they normally do.  The first thing they do is to go into the forest, cut some palm tree leaves and some sticks, strong sticks for that matter, to build small huts.  This is because they are going to work under the sun, so whenever they feel tired they will go and relax in the shade of the hut.  At the same time they cut some short sticks, which will be used to make a bench.  Four of the sticks will be placed standing in a square or rectangle shape, and then each pair of sticks will be crossed by another stick.  Then you will place the remaining sticks parallel to each other on top of the other sticks, so that whenever you put anything on top of it, it will stand.  So if you don't cover that bench and you pour water on top of it, it will drip down through the gaps in between the sticks.  They make up to five or six benches like this.

Filtering the dirt through a bowl placed on a bench.

Then after that, they look for some bowls, big bowls for that matter, which have holes in the bottom.  They also look for hessian potato sacks or empty sacks of rice because both these types of sacks have small holes in them.  Place the sack inside the bowl covering the holes in the bottom so that whatever you put inside the bowl will not to drop out.  Or if you want you can put the sack on top of the bench and put the bowl on top of the sack.  Then after that, they go to the riverbank, and find a place where there are no footprints of human beings or animals and the mud has dried and is encrusted with salt.  They will use sticks to remove chunks of dirt from the ground.  That dirt will be collected in a bucket and then put into the bowl which is on top of the bench until it reaches the top of the bowl but not above the top.

Gathering salt-encrusted dirt.

They will do the same thing to all of the remaining benches.  Then they will look for some big containers, and put them under the benches and leave them there.  Then they will go to the river and fetch salt water and put it inside the bowl which is on top of the bench, and fill that bowl with water.  And that applies to all the other benches.  So the water will drip through the sack then to the container which is under the bench.  So guess what this sack does?  The sack helps in terms of filtering so that the dirt will not drop into the container.  When the water has finished dripping from the bowl while the container is not yet filled up, they will add more water to the bowl until the container gets filled up.  So that water from the container which was under the bench will be put back into the bowl three times.  And then the dirt in the bowl will be removed and thrown away, and they will add more dirt.  Then they will bring that same water from the container, put it into the bowl, and start filtering again.  All this will be done up to three times.

Pools for making salt.

Finally, they dig a hole on the riverbank.  It depends on you how you make the hole.  If you like, you can dig a circular hole or a square hole.  The depth also depends on you, as deep as you want it but not too deep.  I advise you the best way to do it, you can use the dirt that you removed from the bowl to build a circular wall and then look for plastic bags which are clean and cover the hole with them.  After that you pour in the water that has been filtered.  When you pour the water, the plastic bag will hold the water which is inside the hole.  Then from there, it will start to make salt while it is exposed to the sun.