Geri & Maurice found their way to The Gambia after undertaking an inquiry into what they wanted the essence of their working lives to be. After careers in senior management of Social Services what they knew was working with people – this time they wanted to be working with people having fun! They noted that when they had the most fun was when they were on holiday, but they both had difficulties around tourism and the way that it often undermines local culture and creates the kind of places that nobody wants to go to. Typically, they decided that if they did not like what was happening, they should develop something different.

Their model of something different is to develop a place where the normal dynamic of tourism is changed from local people being in the role of performers and servants into teachers and mentors and where the visitors become participants rather than voyeurs. They believe that this will bring a form of tourism that promotes more dignified encounters between hosts and guests in a world where tourism is the planet’s biggest industry and is growing fastest in developing countries. It has the potential to build bridges of understanding between cultures. At present it is largely creating divides where two groups are gazing at each other; often misunderstanding each other. With each misunderstanding, the two move further apart.

After 10 years turning the fate of Safari Garden from a run down little hotel into the author’s choice of all the hotels in the entire Gambia in the Lonely Planet guide, getting to know the culture and arriving gently, they are at last realising their dream of opening the eco retreat and learning centre in Kartong.