Dakar airport, Senegal - Journal no. 1
17th July to 22nd July 2009
Meeting Deanne in Dakar
Just writing to let
you know how things are going so far. We arrived safely after a long journey
from Heathrow to Dakar, via Brussels, landing at about 3.30 p.m. local time;
after setting out from London Saturday morning at about 2.30 a.m.
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| National flag of Senegal |
It was a somewhat labored
process of passing through customs, although my real concern of having an open-ended
date of stay and a vague place of destination wasn’t an issue.
An excited Deanne was
waiting just outside the airport terminal in a fenced off area in the open air,
hot and sweaty. We were both clearly pleased to see each other. For her part, I
guess, a familiar connection with our past and the UK, for me the start of a
new adventure.
Apparently Deanne had
experienced a similar arduous overland trip; 12 hours shoehorned in the back of
a local bus from Casamance to Dakar, my
daughter Katherine will remember what
that's like!
Deanne looks great by
the way and has lost so much weight. She really appears to be in her element
over her.
Anyway we both piled
into a taxi, only after negotiating a good price, something that would be come
a familiar process, and proceeded to update each other on events both in
Senegal and the UK.
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| The city and port of Dakar, Senegal |
As a side issue Deanne
seems to be thinking in terms of remaining here indefinitely, from what she was
saying, apart from a possible trip back in December to sort out her personal
tax liability and re-letting her house. She's thinking of buying land here, an amazing
turn-around!
Deanne arrived the
previous day and befriended the restaurant owner at, ’Just4You‘, who allowed us
to store our bags there enabling us to tour the city unencumbered.
Dakar history and facts
Dakar is the
capital city and largest in the country of Senegal. Located on the Cap-Vert
Peninsula along the Atlantic coast, it’s the westernmost city on the African
mainland.
The country
virtually envelops Gambia to the north, south and east with the Atlantic Ocean
to the west the only alternate exit. Travelling across Senegal from north to
south one must pass through the neighbouring country.
According to
December 31, 2005 official estimates, the city of Dakar proper has a population
of 1,030,594, whereas the metropolitan area has an estimated 2.45 million
people.
The Cape Verde
Peninsula was settled, no later than the 15th century, by the Lebou, an ethnic
group related to the neighbouring Wolof and Sereer. The original villages:
Ouakam, Ngor, Yoff and Hann, still constitute distinctively Lebou neighborhoods
in the city today.
In 1444, the
Portuguese arrived on the island of Goree and founded a settlement there. By
1536, they had begun using it as a base for the export of slaves. The mainland
of Cap-Vert, however, was under control of the Jollof Empire, as part of the
western province of Cayor.
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| Map of Senegal |
A new Lebou village
called Ndakaaru was established on the mainland, just across the waters from
Gorée, in the 17th century to service the European trading factory with food and drinking water.
Gorée was captured
by the United Netherlands in 1588, which gave it its present name (spelled Goree, after Goeree-Overflakkee in Holland). The island was to switch hands between the Portuguese and
Dutch several more times before falling to the English under Admiral Robert
Holmes on January 23, 1664, and finally
to the French in 1677.
Under continuous
French administration since, Métis families,
descendant from Dutch and French, the infamous "House of Slaves" was built in 1776.
In 1795 the Lebou
of Cape Verde revolted against Cayor rule. A new theocratic state, subsequently
called the "Lebou Republic" by the French, was established under the
leadership of the Diop, a Muslim clerical family originally from Koki in Cayor.
The capital of the republic was established at Ndakaaru.
In 1857 the French established a military post
at Ndakaaru (which they called "Dakar") and annexed the Lebou
Republic, although its institutions continued to function normally. The Serigne
(also spelled Sëriñ, "Lord") of Ndakaaru is still recognized as the
traditional political authority of the Lebou by the Senegalese State today.
France abolished
the slave trade in February 1794. However, Napoleon reinstated it in May 1802, and
then finally abolished it permanently in March 1815. Despite Napoleon's
abolition, a clandestine slave trade continued on Gorée until 1848, when it was
abolished throughout all French territories. To replace trade in slaves, the
French promoted peanut cultivation on the mainland.
As the peanut trade
boomed the tiny Gorée Island, whose population had grown to
6,000 residents, proved ineffectual as a port. Traders from Gorée decided
to move to the mainland and a "factory" with warehouses was
established in Rufisque in 1840.
The colonial
authorities in Dakar allocated large public expenditure for infrastructure
development. The port facilities were improved with the construction of jetties;
a telegraph line established along the coast to Saint-Louis and the Dakar-Saint-Louis
railway was completed in 1885, at which
point the city became an important base for the conquest of the western Sudan.
Gorée, including
Dakar, was recognized as a French commune in 1872. Dakar itself was split off
from Gorée as a separate commune in 1887. The citizens of the city elected
their own mayor and municipal council and helped send an elected representative
to the National Assembly in Paris.
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| Gorée Island |
Dakar replaced
Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa in 1902.
A second major
railroad, the Dakar-Niger built from
1906–1923, linked Dakar to Bamako and consolidated the city's position at the
head of France's West African Empire.
In 1929, the
commune of Gorée Island, now with only a few hundred inhabitants, merged with
Dakar.
Forms of racial and
social segregation—often expressed in terms of health and hygiene—which
continue to structure the city today, marked urbanization during the colonial
period. Following a plague epidemic in 1914, the authorities forced most of the
African population out of old neighborhoods, or "Plateau", and into a
new quarter, called Medina, separated from it by a "sanitary cordon".
As first occupants of the land, the Lebou inhabitants of the city successfully
resisted this expropriation. They were supported by Blasé Diane, the first African to be elected Deputy to the National Assembly.
Nonetheless, the Plateau thereafter became an administrative, commercial, and
residential district increasingly reserved for Europeans and served as model
for similar exclusionary administrative enclaves in French Africa's other
colonial capitals (Bamako, Conakry, Abidjan, Brazzaville). Meanwhile, the
Layene Sufi order, established by Seydina Mouhammadou
Limamou Laye, was thriving among the Lebou in
Yoff and in a new village called Cambérène. Since independence, urbanization
has sprawled eastward past Pikine, a commuter suburb whose population (2001
est. 1,200,000) is greater than that of Dakar proper, to Rufisque, creating a conurbation of almost 3 million (over a quarter of the national population).
In its colonial
heyday Dakar was one of the major cities of the French Empire, comparable to Hanoi or Beirut. French trading
firms established branch offices there and industrial investments (mills,
breweries, refineries, canneries) were attracted by its port and rail
facilities. It was also strategically important to France, which maintained an
important naval base and coaling station in its harbor and which integrated it
into its earliest air force and airmail circuits, most notably with the
legendary Mermoz airfield (no longer extant).
During the Battle of Dakar, which took place off the coast of Dakar on September 23–25, 1940, the
British navy attempted to rally the colonial administration in Dakar to the
Allied cause and detach it from Vichy. In November 1944 West African conscripts
of the French army mutinied against poor conditions at the Thiaroye camp, on
the outskirts of the city. The mutiny was seen as an indictment of the colonial
system and constituted a watershed for the nationalist movement.
Dakar was the
capital of the short-lived Mali Federation from 1959 to 1960, after which it became the capital of Senegal.
The poet,
philosopher and first President of Senegal Léopold Sédar
Senghor tried to transform Dakar into
the "Sub-Saharan African Athens" (l’Athènes de l’Afrique
subsaharienne), as his vision was for it.
Dakar is a major
financial center, home to a dozen national and regional banks (including the
BCEAO which manages the unified West African CFA currency), and to numerous
international organizations, NGOs and international research centers. Dakar has
a large Lebanese community (concentrated in the import-export sector) that dates to the 1920s, a
community of Moroccan business people, as well as Mauritanian, Cape Verdean, and Guinean communities. The city is home too as many as
20,000 French expatriates. France still maintains an air force base at
Yoff and the French fleet is serviced in Dakar's port.
Beginning 1978, Dakar has frequently been the ending point of the Dakar Rally, bringing worldwide attention to the poverty of Senegal and Dakar.
Dakar to Bounkiling via a Peugeot 407 Estate
After wandering round
Dakar for a while (it's a typical decaying ex-colonial city) and an abortive attempt
by Deanne to extract money from an ATM, which cost her the card. We would later discovered that the wrong card
was inserted using the wrong pin number.
Anyway, to continue we
stopped at a little café, just off the main square, and enjoyed my first taste
of Senegalese food, leaving around 8.00 p.m.
Deanne had determined that we would have a late supper at
‘Just4You’ and then hang around until the early morning, catching an overland
taxi to Casamance at 4.00 a.m.
A great idea in principle,
however, by about 1.00 a.m. I
was struggling to stay awake.
‘Just4You’, an all
night bar and restaurant, happens to be a fabulous haven for music with really
good local talent mixed in with, we believe, various local celebrities making
an impromptu appearance.
At some point D (Deanne)
and I were feeling a little unwell, I guess the food, and determined that we
should leave earlier than planned, about 2.30 a.m. We organized a taxi to take
us to the outskirts of Dakar to the ‘Gare Routier’ (bus station and invariable
the home of many eateries and retail stalls).
My first impression
in the artificial low wattage lighting, it looked more like a huge scrap-yard for
transport that had seen better days than a major transport depot. Most of the
cars had clearly been used on a regular basis for stock car racing!
This, D informed me,
was the elected form of transport to get us to the Casamance region, to be precise
Bounkiling 300 kilometers south of the city.
Cooped up with seven other people, luggage and a driver, that looked
about 18, for 12 hours in a very old Peugeot 407, interesting!
Trip to Bounkiling, Casamance, Southern Senegal
Anyway, after a
ridiculous process of trying to negotiate a ride at a competitive price with
half a dozen locals and a change of vehicle we finally set off at about 4.00
a.m.
Two lessons learnt, foreigners are subject to both opportunism and discrimination based on an
assumption that we can and will pay a higher price. They hadn’t reckoned on
Deanne’s tenacity when negotiating the price, her ability to converse in French
and my sheer bloody mindedness when I think someone’s trying to take advantage
of me or in this case us. One final point the locals use the physcology of
overwhelming a customer, perhaps borne out of desperation, to get their way.
Anyway, because D and I
weren’t happy with the way that we were being treated we reneged on the first
deal and took a later vehicle.
The drive was as
interesting as everything else in this country thus far. We started off fine passing
through what I guess must have been the suburbs of Dakar hurtling along a perfect
section of motorway at 70 mph. Suddenly and inexplicable, the car slowed only to
decant onto a pot-ridden track.
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| Common mode of transport |
With my limited field
of vision squeezed in the back and in the comparative dark I assumed that this
was just a section under repair, how wrong could I be.
It summed up our
journey across the Senegal and the Gambian countryside either on an unfinished
road or dusty track, scattering all in front of us, pedestrian, vehicle and
animal alike.
Considering we had to
make three border crossings, pass from Senegal to Gambia and back again, a
short ferry crossing and two shopping breaks we managed to make the journey in
7 hours.
How we didn’t break
something or run someone over is beyond me, although I suspect that life is
cheap here!
Casamance, southern Senegal – history
Casamance (Portuguese: Casamança)
is the area of Senegal south of The Gambia and includes the Casamance River. It
consists of Basse Casamance (Ziguinchor Region) and Haute Casamance (Kolda and
Sedhiou Regions). The largest city of is Ziguinchor.
The Casamance was subject to both French and Portuguese colonial efforts
before a border was negotiated in 1888 between the French colony of Senegal and
Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau) to the south.
Though the Jola are the dominant ethnic group, they represent only 4% of
the total population of Senegal. The Wolof people make up the majority of the
nation as a whole.
The Jola's sense of economic disenfranchisement within greater Senegal contributed to the
founding of a separatist movement advocating the independence or autonomy of
the Casamance region, spawning the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance
(MFDC), in 1982.
The MFDC's armed wing was established in 1985, and since 1990, the
Casamance Conflict, a low-level insurgency led by the MFDC against the
Senegalese Government, has been characterized by sporadic violence and frequent
but unstable ceasefire agreements.
An illegal shipment of weapons hailing from Iran was seized in Lagos,
Nigeria in October 2010, and the Senegalese government suspected the MFDC of
having been the intended recipients of the weapons. Senegal recalled its
ambassador to Tehran over the incident.
Arriving in Bounkiling
We arrived in
Bounkiling, 10 kilometers from the village of Ndongane, at 11.00 a.m. minus
some items that Deanne had purchased along the way. We suspect that they there
were taken whilst we were in the passport office in Gambia. Apparently it's a
rare occurrence in Senegal not so in Gambia.
After a short taxi
ride along what can only be described as a donkey track that seems to follow at
times a dry river course, we arrived in the village of Ndongane to a very
hospitable welcome.
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| Deanne outside her hut with some of the villagers |
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| Village transport to town |
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| Countryside at the start of the rainy season |
The
village of Ndongane - facts
The village is
divided into 12 compounds set in lush countryside, at the moment, surrounded by
farmland. The
compounds
are made up of traditional mud brick huts either rectangular or circular in
design with either a
pitched reed or zinc
corrugated roof over.
There are various
rooms off for washing and cooking, all surrounded in turn by a high wall either
of mud dried brick (with a little cement added) or reed fencing with a further
outer courtyard.
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| Deanne and children in our compound |
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| Locals with traditional house behind |
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| Covered cooking area |
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| Lunchtime with the children |
Compounds vary in
size from six to twelve huts with the more traditional compounds having a small
external covered area for cooking.
Water is pulled by
hand from one of five wells through a system that continues throughout the day;
young girls aged 10-16 take it in turns (break for schooling and mid day when
the sun is at its hottest).
The water table is set
at about the 30-meters below the surface. A meter high wall encircles all but
one of the deep meter and a half wide wells with a simple pulley and rope
suspend on a wooden framework over.
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| Local lads pulling water for a picture only |
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| Pounding a cereal crop for flour |
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| Its an hours ride to town |
Loos are external. A
large pit excavated, then covered with a wooden frame and earth over leaving a
small whole to aim for, this is then surrounded by a reed screen about two
meters high.
It’s not clear if
thought is given to the placement of the toilets or simply out of
convenience.
The school an
isolated structure, rectangular in shape with a pitched corrugated over has now
been completed, built by the villagers and paid for by a Spanish charity.
It comprises two
large rooms, with shuttered windows and double doors, hard packed mud and
concrete floor with a greying blackboard along the length of one complete wall,
with no chairs, desks, tables or any teaching aids whatsoever.
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| Local school of Ndongane |
The village is
surround by an extensive area of farmland where they grow maize, millet, rice,
mangoes, peanuts and cashews, mainly during the 4-month rainy season.
There are large herds
of goat, mainly for their milk, chickens and cattle, kept primarily as a status
symbol. As they are 95% Muslim meat is eaten only on special occasions with
dried fish and rice the staple diet.
The village would
appear to be reasonably self-sufficient, dependent on the success of the
growing season, only lacking in education, which D has made massive inroads to
improve, along with the sanitation, health and hygiene, combatted through her
own resources and that of others.
The local villagers
are generous to a fault and the children find D and I fascinating. In my case,
I guess, a difference in stature, colour, mannerism and the more recent
addition to their ranks.
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| Braiding the hair |
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| D posing with local villagers |
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| Trip to town for a drink |
D’s treated like one
of the village elders, highly respected and on call for advice and medical aid
throughout the day and night, which I think she loves.
There is a constant
stream of visitors to the guest compound throughout the day and at times it's like
living in a good fish bowl at times, a little overpowering.
There are
approximately 250 villagers, 145 of which are children aged between three and
fourteen years. D conducted both a head count and plan of the village at the
outset, necessary as part of the process of registering the village as an
official charity and for making an approach to charities or the government for
assistance.
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| Making fence panels from bamboo |
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| One of the older village elders |
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| Local child Howa posing |
Wandering
round the countryside
Walking round the
countryside the first day to explore the area I felt like the ‘Pied Piper’ with
twenty or more children following close behind.
They seem to have a
perfect community here, which is very refreshing, where everyone cares for each
other.
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| Curious local children where ever you go |
Most of the men in
the village have several wives, some as young as 15 years, however, the wives
are like sisters in each others company and there appears little aggression or
bad feeling amongst them.
The society can
clearly be brutal with a lack of adequate medical care, superstition, ignorance
and an oppressive male dominated ethos. They are largely Muslim spawned by the
conquering Moors who instilled a sense of fear and awe to control and rule the
populace, which still remains today. They are despite that hospitable, generous
and tolerant even of those that do not believe.
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| Locals posing for the camera |
If we were to apply
our principles and assume that we are unquestionable right clearly we would
take issue with many things still practiced across Senegal and most of Africa.
Doesn’t that suggest a sense of arrogance on our part, who are we to determine
that we are in position to sit in judgment?
There’s a willingness
to embrace outside help as the way forward, however, retaining a community
spirit and keeping up with local traditions.
The main language is
Pulaar with French the alternate spoken word. I suspect that I’m going to have
a problem with the language especially as D would like me to teach, we shall
see.
Life
in the village
Deanne has been
brilliant thus far, as I say, she is on familiar ground and her command of the
language has been invaluable in getting around, I only hope that I am able to
absorb what she has learned thus far.
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| Happy Ndongane village ladies |
Occasional D and I
would make our way to town to buy a cold beer or two and food to cook on the
single gas burner. Its amazing what you can drum up when needs must.
Most mornings either
the girls from the village or I would top up both the bathing and drinking
water from the well for D and I. We opted to sterilize our water as a matter of
course; most water is filtered through a muslin cloth and stored in a large
clay pot in the centre of one of the houses.
In mornings I would
place my simple thin mattress, cover and pillow on the fence to dry out
saturated the night before by my sweat. It’s that hot here!
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| Party time for the locals |
Because of the dust and
heat everything becomes dirty in no time so mornings is a time to catch on
clothing washing. I start and then one of the young village girls would
invariable insist on taking over.
There’s no running
water, electrical appliances other than a radio/CD player driven by a car
battery charged in the local village (1½ hours away) or lighting. There are a
few plagiarized solar panels that produce some lighting on occasions.
What else can I say,
life is very relaxed at present I think I have managed to catch up on lost
sleep, despite a necessity to switch huts with D at one point early one
morning.
There appears to be a
family of field mice that have burrowed through the concrete and mud floor into
D’s hut and given D’s aversion to mice or rats it seemed the gentlemanly thing
to do. We put some stuff down to kill them hopefully that will sort things out.
Volunteers
compound – a little history
I managed to catch up
on how things have changed since Deanne first arrived in the village some
months ago.
Deanne met a guy
called Blake at the *‘Festival au Desert’ in Mali and he suggested
that she come back to the village of Ndongane, a place that he had stumbled
across some years previous. Apparently he works in one of the private schools
in Sherborne, Dorset, co-incidentally one of the places I visited whilst
working for Country Holidays. Small world.
By all accounts he is
quite an accomplished guy, multi lingual, he travels round the world during
holiday breaks providing aid or teaching.
Anyway, prior to
Deanne arriving in Ndongane (pronounced Dongane the ‘N’ is silent) the
villagers decided to build a visitor compound, which was very forward thinking
of them.
I know that Blake had
visited the village previously as had a couple of Spanish people who
subsequently set up a charitable interest for the village, perhaps the
motivation for the compound came from them.
‘Festival au Desert’ in Mali
Next festival 10th,
11th and 12th January 2013
All tourists must purchase a Festival Pass. The
Festival Pass entitles the owner to enter into the Festival site and to attend
to all events: concerts, conference, games, etc. and to use all facilities: restaurants,
craft shops, toilets, etc.
The Festival Pass DOES NOT include
lodging and food.
The Festival Pass can be bought online: you will
receive a receipt that you will have to present at the site entrance of the
festival to get your Bracelet. Alternatively, you may purchase your Festival
Pass at the site of the festival, though at that time you will pay the full
rate.
The cost of a Tour with a Partner Travel Agency
usually does not include the Festival Pass.
If you are alone you can search on our Forum to try to
find a partner with whom organising your travel. Remember: it's a moderate
Forum and no commercial or professional advertising is allowed.
Tickets available June/July. Web site - www.festival-au-desert.org
Tickets available June/July. Web site - www.festival-au-desert.org
Visitor’s
accommodation
It comprises two
circular traditionally built huts each with a small room off, supposedly the
kitchen and invariable used for showering (using the two bucket system). The
two huts are set opposite each other and enclosed by a 6’ high wall, with a
compacted earth and cement based courtyard, partially covered (it is incredibly
hot in the height of the summer here). Double wooden door opens out
onto a further enclosed and gated area.
The circular huts are
large but basic with a single window, with wooden shutters, and lockable wooden
door.
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| D posing outside her hut, its raining |
Deanne, at her own
expense, had two single bed bases made out of bamboo, probably about 3' in
width. The loo is a short walk away!
Trip
to the Kaufountine beach
We are off to
Kaufountine tomorrow the 23rd July;
a) For the mango,
which are in season
b) To have a swim in
the sea
c) To send this
E-mail.
I hope that you are
all well, all the very best until next time.
