Scenes of Senegal - includes related information

SCENES OF SENEGAL

Senegal's best-known landmark, Goree Island, was once the departure point for millions of Africans destined for slavery in the New World. The Slave House, long empty, its lone seaward doorway forever open to the clean sweep of water, still stands as a mute symbol of a violated past. But Goree Island and the servitude from which it prospered in the past are only part of Senegal's extraordinary rich and complex heritage.

From the fifth through the sixteenth centuries, Senegal flourished within the powerful medieval empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. Islam, the majority religion, is a legacy of those years, the Grande Mosque at Dakar one of their enduring symbols. During the late 1400's, with Goree Island as a base, European powers competed for dominance along the coast. By the middle of the nineteenth century, France had pushed inward to secure an empire that would grow to include Mali and the Ivory Coast. The colonial architecture of Saint-Louis, the African continent's first French settlement and former capital of Senegal, stands as a reminder of more than 300 years of French rule, which finally ended when the country became an independent republic in 1960.

But don't go to Senegal looking only for the past. In contemporary Senegal, tradition and modernity mingle not only in Dakar the capital, but also in the industrious villages of the Sine-Saloum region and the thriving towns of the Casamance. There are first-class resort hotels in Dakar, in Saly (the new resort area to the south of the capital) and in the Cap Skirring region on the southernmost border.

Whether for holiday or honeymoon, Senegal is definitely for the romantic. You can glide through the Sine-Saloum delta in a pirouette (a needle-nosed traditional boat), visit a tribal village or take an overnight cruise on the Casamance River.

If you are staying in Dakar, a morning's drive will take you to Lake Retba, the fabled Pink Lake at Niaga. Retba is second only to the Dead Sea in salinity, and the locals harvest salt from the lake beds as if panning for gold, wading out waist-deep in the water, towing brightly colored plastic dishpans behind them. As we drove toward the lake, its surface appeared by turns pink, magenta, hot mauve - a trick of the light, my guide explained. Even at a distance, against that brilliant surface, the glowing darkness of the people's skin. the bright prints of the women's clothing and the floating chains of colorful pans piled high with salt were a startling and unforgettable sight.

The drive from Dakar to Saly, the Little Coast south of the capital, is about 50 miles, but side trips such as the one I took to Keur Moussa - where I attended Sunday Mass at a Benedictine monastery - can extend this brief journey into an all-day outing. In May, at the height of the dry season, the landscape of northern and central Senegal is mostly brown and gray; only the thick skeletons of the ancient baobab trees that sprinkle the plain and the orchards of dusty green, dense-leafed mango trees suggest the true fertility of the dormant land.

From Saly, you can take day and overnight trips on the Sine-Saloum River. Often hidden away in the dense mangrove forests that line the shore and the many islands, the thriving villages of the delta seem to have taken tourism in stride; as an industry, it ranks second only to fishing. The craft markets at the Moslem village of Niadia offer colorful handmade dolls, jewelry and wood carvings for sale. Vendors in the markets expect you to bargain, which is not my strong point (too time-consuming, too much like arguing). But after watching other tourists make better deals on the same trinkets, I was cured of my impatience and inhibitions.

Village life and craft markets are not the only attractions in the Sine-Saloum delta. The rustic camp at Djifere on the Sangomar Peninsula, with its individual thatched-roof guest bungalows, was the highlight of my stay on the delta. Nestled in a bungalow under pine trees, I was lulled to sleep as the Atlantic rolled ashore and the Sine-Saloum River lapped softly in the channel. The next day I floated lazily down the Saloum, spotting pelicans, storks and maribou in the thick mangrove forest, where oysters hang in the multiple roots of the trees. Harvested when the tide goes out on the delta, these small, succulent and sweet oysters are delicious. The Senegalese cook them over an open fire and serve them before dinner with a squeeze of lime and a cold coconut punch.

Senegal has an excellent network of low-cost tourist encampments along its coasts and rivers. Some camps, such as the one at Oussouye in the Casamance region, are built by young men of the village in the two-story multiroom mode of the Mandinka. Here you live almost as the villagers do, in dormitory-style housing. Meals - chicken and fish yassa (the national dish), fruit, cereal - are simple and characteristically well-seasoned.

It was in the villages that I most regreted my inability to speak French. The Senegalese reminded me so much of African-Americans in their diversity, I found myself trying to talk to them as if they were from the United States.

After experiencing the fullness of life in contemporary Senegal, you will want to return to Dakar and visit the Slave House on Goree Island. Don't go alone, however. The experience may be too deep to bear on your own. I was accompanied to Goree by Corine, a fellow traveler and sister from New York by way of Georgia. We took the ferry across a three-mile stretch of the greenest, clearest water we had ever seen. The island is still home to several hundred residents and the ferry from Dakar leaves every hour on the hour until far into the night.

The Slave House, on Rue St. Germain, is a walled two-story structure painted an earthy reddish color that is peculiar to the island and looks almost like blood. Its sunwashed courtyard is lined with empty doorways and vacant chambers. Here they measured womanhood by the length of the breast, manhood by weight. Rebellious captives were imprisoned in cells that reek still of the bestial squalor in which they were kept - despite quicklime and charcoal ablutions.

The ancient pier that ran out to the sea was pulled down long ago and a single seaward doorway opens to the clean sweep of ocean, safe now, so they say, from the sharks that once feasted on human flesh. There in the long room on the sea side of the house, where the only outlet is a terrible dark hall that leads to the door of no return, the spirits speak to you. Overwhelmed by our loss, Corine and I held each other and wept.

PHOTO : Above: Two of the friendly faces that welcome travelers to Senegal. Top: The archway to the Slave House at Goree Island. More than 20 million African passed this way to meet a living death in the New World.

COPYRIGHT 1990 Essence Communications, Inc.
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