The Pink Strangers

If Gambia's Prime Minister, Sir Dawda Jawara, K.B., had peered out a window of his seaside residence a few days ago, he would have seen a fat, nude 75-year-old Swede standing on his head. Shocking? Not a bit, for over the past four years the residents of this tiny West African nation have shrugged off the sight of Swedes--nude or clothed --who each winter desert their frosty homeland for a gambol on Gambia's beautiful white sand beaches. As a travel brochure puts it: "If you like, you can swim nude alone--so huge are the beaches and so few are the tourists."

To most Swedes, that sort of lure is irresistible--though it does present problems for the locals. The chamber of commerce plaintively requested Swedish tour directors to curb nudism on beaches near public thoroughfares: "It distracts drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. This is dangerous."

Nudism may have its perils, but it has proved a gold mine for Swedish tour operators and for Gambia too. Every two weeks, from November through April, a chartered 707 swoops into Yundum International Airport, disgorges 150 pink newcomers, and then hauls 150 bronzed Scandinavians back to icy Stockholm. At Yundum's terminal, things get hectic, for the building is only 40 feet by 20 feet. Still, officials of Gambia Airways (which has clerks and baggage handlers but flies no aircraft) cope magnificently. Once tucked into one of Gambia's three hotels, the tourists head for the beaches. The weather rarely presents a problem. If one millimeter of rain falls during the day, the tour operators will pay each tourist $200, half the price of the packaged two-week stay. So far, they haven't had to pay off.

For Gambia--a minuscule former British colony with 316,022 people and 340,000 head of cattle--the tourist business represents what may be the country's only chance to diversify its peanut-based, peanut-size economy. The locals catch on fast. As soon as the tourists arrive, bar, food and taxi prices zoom. The Atlantic Hotel charges an extra $1.50 a day to turn on one's room air conditioner and 50-c- for a daily shot of mosquito spray. Toast for breakfast? One must make a personal request to the manager.

Beyond the beaches and hotels, Gambia offers little in the way of action. Bathurst, the capital, has a scattering of rickety bars, and there is a discotheque, located on a rusty hulk moored to Bathurst pier. The bars draw a splendid selection of the local layabouts, who cadge drinks off the Swedes, and there is hot competition these days for a waiter's job at one of the hotels. Only last year, it seems, a strapping Swedish gym mistress selected one of the Atlantic's diminutive waiters as a husband.

For the tourist who has had enough skinny-dipping, there is always the tour of the Pool of the Sacred White Crocodile at Bakau. On a recent Wednesday, one Swede reported the following dialogue:

Tourist: Where is the Sacred White Crocodile? Little Boy: He come Friday 2 o'clock. Tourist: Then why is the tour on Wednesday? Boy: 'Cause, Master, that's when the big tour ship come. [Pause.] But if you give me shilling, maybe crocodile he come now.

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