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Dakar, Senegal

2. Panorama, Dakar.

3. Seascape, Dakar.

I have heard it said that Dakar took its name from dakhar, the fruit of the tamarind tree that the Egyptians used to darken the faces of their mummies. In the city which I saw for the first time in 1984, I recognised Ryszard Kapuściński’s description: ‘A beautiful coastal city, pastel-colored, picturesque, laid out on a promontory amid beaches and terraces, slightly resembling Naples, the residential areas of Marseilles, the posh suburbs of Barcelona.’1 The sea was limpid, the air pure, the gardens lush with billowing bougainvillea and hibiscus flowers, golden yellow and ruby red. On the seafront at sunset, lone figures, silhouetted against the skyline, sat gazing at the ocean, seeking solace or space, soothed by the rhythm of the breaking waves. The warmth of the welcome, combined with the elegance, grace and charm of the Senegalese people, made a deep and lasting impression.

In 1902, when Dakar was still only a settlement of four hundred buildings, it replaced Saint-Louis in the north as the capital of French West Africa. Following an outbreak of cholera in 1914, the French colons moved the indigenous population from the airy Plateau, the old neighbourhoods, down to marshy flatlands around the bay of Soumbédioune. The new quarter, called Medina, where Youssou N’Dour was born, was laid out in geometric grids, creating streets with numbers and no names. Senegalese from various ethnic groups lived in wooden houses, which would later be replaced by concrete structures. Dakar became the capital and administrative centre of Senegal in 1958.

In the years following Senegal’s independence in 1960, life was for living sénégalaisement. On Sunday afternoons, citizens packed picnic baskets and strolled through the streets of Point E and the residences of Fann on their way to the Corniche and the beaches of Ouakam, Yoff or Ngor. Gradually, as severe drought hit the Sahel region, the economic landscape changed and more and more people migrated from the countryside to the city. In 1986 the entire population of Senegal was 6 million; by 2006 the same number of people lived in Dakar alone and the population of the country as a whole had risen to 12 million.2

There are currently some 16 million people in Senegal, 60 per cent of whom are aged twenty-five and under, and the once placid, airy capital city has, in the space of thirty years, become overcrowded and polluted. As the centre of Dakar known as the Plateau grew more and more congested, developers moved down the peninsula towards the Pointe des Almadies, the westernmost tip of Africa, and then further along the coast. In the name of progress, access to the seashore has been blocked by a modern dual carriageway, while luxury hotels and shopping malls interrupt the sea views. The once fashionable bungalows at SICAP Amitié, Baobab and Liberté are being razed to the ground and replaced by high-rise apartment buildings, offices and shops. Swish bars and nightclubs on and near the so-called ‘millionaire’s mile’ on the Route des Almadies attract night revellers, including international footballers and trendy young jet-setters, while the outer suburbs of Dieuppeul, Derklé, Pikine, Guédiawaye and Parcelles Assainies are already overpopulated. Back in the city centre, at Dakar’s Place de l’Indépendance and close by cool ice-cream parlours and the Marquise patisserie, disabled beggars take up their positions outside the main banks. Then there are the barefoot street children, scantily clothed and underfed, who can be seen with their tin cans, waiting for customers at the petrol station in Ouakam. Sadly, the money they earn goes straight to their marabout masters.

The word ‘marabout’ is derived from ‘El Morabbatim’, which in Arabic means ‘the one who lives in a monastery’, and the term is mostly used to describe Senegal’s religious leaders, whose followers are called talibés.

The topography of Medina has changed over the years as the area has become increasingly cosmopolitan. The first immigrant families moved to Senegal from French colonial territories like Syria and Lebanon. They settled in regional towns such as Kaolack or Diourbel to trade in peanuts, a cash crop introduced by the French in the 1840s, and then they came to Dakar.

Today wealthy Malian and Guinean families, who prefer to invest in Dakar rather than in their home countries, own high-rise buildings financed by the money they make working in Europe or America.

4. Street children in Dakar.

On Gorée, a small island just off the Dakar coast, where Portuguese, Dutch and English slave traders set up trading posts, the original House of Slaves, built in 1776, is preserved as a sad memorial to the millions of Africans who passed through its ‘door of no return’ on their way to the Americas. It is a place of pilgrimage, especially for African American visitors, who feel at once the anguish of their ancestors described by Maya Angelou as ‘the legions, sold by sisters, stolen by brothers, bought by strangers, enslaved by the greedy and betrayed by history.’3

When in January 1974 Michael Jackson travelled to Senegal to perform with the Jackson Five, he visited Gorée. The plight of those slaves, some of whom could have been his ancestors, and an appreciation of their background and bravery, made a definite impact on the young star, who later wrote, ‘It was a visit to Senegal that made us realise how fortunate we were and how our African heritage had helped to make us what we were. We visited an old abandoned slave camp at Gore [sic] Island. We were so moved. The African people had given us gifts of courage and endurance that we couldn’t hope to repay.’4 Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela have visited the island, and in June 2013 the President of the United States, Barack Obama, was photographed with his family contemplating the ocean at the symbolic spot where slaves took their last look at Africa.

5. Traditional house in Medina.

The island retains vestiges of its colonial architecture, but many of the buildings have fallen into disuse. Some finely restored houses with sea views are owned by wealthy families such as the Schlumbergers, bankers and film producers from France. The island’s small Catholic church was the location for the marriage of film director John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) to actress Akosua Busia (The Color Purple), daughter of former Ghanian president Kofi Busia.

6. Gorée Island.

Gorée is well known for its art and textiles. It became home to the sculptor Moustapha Dimé and the painter Souleymane Keita, both of whom have now sadly passed away. Mody Kane, whose mother made the island’s first commercial dolls, signs his contemporary glass paintings ‘Le Nègre de Gorée’. The Cape Verdean seamstress works upstairs in her garret while women gather to gossip in Bigué’s curiosity shop, and others pass their days working coloured skeins of thread on pure white cotton to produce the embroidery designs that are typical of the island. Behind burnt ochre walls draped with hibiscus fronds and bougainvillea are secret gardens, balmy with jasmine, which open up to the public once a year during the art festival Regards sur Cours.

As well as the historic House of Slaves, a museum dedicated to Senegalese women is approached through a quiet alleyway. Named after Stanislas de Boufflers, French governor of Senegal from 1785 to 1787, the Chevalier de Boufflers hotel and restaurant, distinguished by its terracotta red exterior, overlooks the harbour where small boys duck and dive to retrieve coins thrown into the water by visitors arriving on the ferry from Dakar.

The overall atmosphere is one of peace and tranquillity, for there are no cars or bicycles on Gorée. At night, after the last ferry has returned to Dakar, the swish of the ocean waves is broken only by the sound of residents chatting on their verandas in the cool of the evening.

7. Bigué Ndoye in her curiosity shop.

8. The House of Slaves.