The Christian Science Monitor

Gambia's diaspora helped oust a dictator. Now they're asking: What's next?

Malanding Jaiteh, who, like other members of a Gambian diaspora,has returned home, stands inside the house he's building for his family in the outskirts of Banjul. 'I want to actively participate in the rebuilding of The Gambia,' says Mr. Jaiteh, a scientist who moved back from New York last year. 'I see my position and my abilities as an opportunity.'

Fatu Camara was in the middle of one of her live-streamed, midnight shows on Jan. 21, 2017 when she interrupted regular programming to break the news: Gambian strongman Yahya Jammeh was fleeing the country, after 23 years of repressive rule.

“I had thousands of people listening to the radio that night,” says Ms. Camara, a Gambian exile living in the United States. “We were all crying, it was so emotional. Jammeh was the only president we knew; we grew up when he came to power.”

For Camara and her listeners, some of the tens of thousands of Gambians who fled during Mr. Jammeh's repressive regime, it was a life-changing win – one they'd contributed to from afar. But even as they celebrated, many emigrants' thoughts turned

Watching, working from afarA new chapter begins

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