Gambian fanaal

In The Gambia small lanterns, called fanaals, used to be built and paraded informally each night between Christmas and New Year. They always depicted ships and were covered in intricately cut paperwork designs.

This photograph shows a fanaal depicting a tourist boat. It was built by a group called Guigi based in Serrekunda, an area to the west of Banjul the capital of The Gambia. (The word guigi means a baobab tree). It is small enough to be carried by hand.