My trip to Casamance

Despite all the warnings from the editorial board, the people of Dakar and the canadian government, I still decided to travel to the south of Senegal, the separatist region of Casamance. Though the region is known for its 30 year-old internal conflict, the trip was quite safe. Here are some pictures.

Starting with the end: we were arrested for an irregular visa situation and spent the whole day in the Keur Ayib police station. Our bus left us behind, making the trip back very long and painful, but we finally managed to make it back last night (July 12th).

The Gambian boarder. Photo taken from the police station, July 12th.

The Gambia Crossing. The authoritarian regime does not allow photos and I got arrested by a transportation police officer (the man next to the white bus) for taking one. In the end, there were no consequences.

Gambia River

Gambia River Crossing

Oussouye, Casamance. There seems to be military personnel everywhere.

Fishing near Cap Skiring, Casamance

A small traditionnal community which was only accessible by pirogues.

Beach of Diembéring, Casamance, during a huvernage (rain season). This was a paradisiacal area, no humans around.

Fisherman near Diembéring

Rice plantation in the middle of the jungle, near Diembéring, Casamance

Old couple of rice farmers

La Brousse forest

Street of Ziguinshor, Casamance

Ziguinshor by the sea

Scrapped cars in Zinguinchor

Cemetary in Ziguinchor: a rare place where Muslims and Christians are buried next to each other

Self portrait in Ziguinchor, Casamance

Dakar University

Cheick Anta-Diop University (UCAD), also known as Dakar University, is among the biggest (and most well-known) universities in West Africa. Its campus is huge, majestic and... crowded.

“The number of students grows each year, but the infrastructure stays the same,” explained Omer, an undergraduate student who I met on campus. “People are so packed in those old and worn out amphitheaters, that only the lucky ones can be seated during class. People get to class as early as 6 AM [2 hours ahead of time] in order to have a seat,” said his friend François, a journalism student.

The classes are full, but it is nothing comparable to student housing. As many as 8 students usually share the small rooms, furnished with 2 simple beds. “I have not slept alone in a bed for 3 years,” admits Omer. "We all have brothers [read: friends from hometown] who have no place to sleep when they come to Dakar to study. We accomodate them in our room." Recently, the university closed five old housing buildings, causing a huge scarcity of housing... and anger among students.

"Everybody knows the issue here. A minimum of 8 students share a room in men's housing, and as many as 15 in women's," said Khalifa Diagne, the University's head of social services. "Students put a lot of pressure on us, but we wait for the government to build new buildings".

Furthermore, students own small businesses inside their rooms. In a single corridor, you could easily see hundreds of advertisements of any kind: photocopies, printing, photo-taking or even text-typing and hair dressing. “Everybody has their own business,” said Ibrahima, an owner of two small photocopy machines placed in the hallway. “The grant of 36 000 fFCA [$72] is insufficient. Also, I need money for my family, in the countryside.”

But his business might soon be closed by the University, who plan to erradicate all small illegal shops on campus. "For a long time, students thought everything was permitted," said Mr Diagne. Clearly, this is no longer the mentality:  "Recently, we cleaned up all the illegal cantines [food pits] on campus, and we now attack the businesses in student housing," said the official. The next step: the authorities want to regulate religious practices on campus. This will be a hard task, since dozens of religious organizations are seen - and heard - in or around Dakar University.

Couloir de la mort or "death corridor": a dead-end street where police killed a student during a proteste in 1968.

Literature faculty

Social sciences faculty

Philosophy class

Law faculty

Amphi

A student studying next to UCAD II (management and economics)

Student housing

 The whole campus can get pretty noisy due to constant prayers or other religious manifestations.

(notice the Marabout poster on the building)

 Pavillon A

A student praying next to a printing advertisement

Student housing corridor

COUD, the University's student housing department

Pavillon A, corridor. Notice the ad medecin des ordis, "computer doctor"

Advertisements are everywhere

Clients waiting in a student's room where there is a small printing business.

Sandaga market

What the Internet tell about my neiborhood, Rebeuss?

I found an interesting description of the Sandaga market on reddit. The thread, by the user jchapstick, has made it to the website's bestof. Here is an excerpt of the story :

"So we're in downtown Dakar, Senegal, "The Capital of West Africa", a huge, smoggy metropolis where there's desert sand in the streets and goats with saggy teats tied up on the sidewalks. Minarets mark the skyline, and many men dress in robes. With all the tourism, Dakar is also the home of the most persistent, pestering hustler kids in the world, the legendary faux-types ("foh-teep"). They follow you like crazy, hoping for a bit of change, or more likely, a finder's fee from whatever vendors you might visit in your travels. [...] My appetite whetted, a few days later I decided to brave the central market on foot."

I had already experienced two attempted robberies on the street in Dakar, so this time I left everything of value at the hotel, including my wedding ring. I went out in thin shorts, busted trainers and a t-shirt, with only a record cover in my hand to show what I was looking for, because my French stinks. No surprise, the second I left the hotel I was followed and hounded by a young faux-type, who would never leave my side until I returned to the hotel hours later. The money was in my shoe, 30 bucks or so in Senegalese currency.

After a long walk in the insane heat, we reached Sandaga market, found a CD seller, and showed him my album cover. In American-accented English, the CD seller said smoothly, "Oh, for that kind of thing you have to go to the Black Market." But he looked at me like I was an idiot for wanting records in the first place. Good sign. Imagine. This is a street market in central Dakar, Senegal, a city where the vast majority lives in tin-roof slums with open sewers. In this market there's total chaos in every direction, thousands of people buying and selling everything from a live chicken to a translucent toilet seat. Nobody's paying taxes on any of this informal commerce, and yet one of the sellers tells me to go to the "Black Market"!?!?! I'm like, 'If this guy calls it the Black Market, it must really be the Black Market.' So I am a little scared, but the hustler kid shows me the way.

We walk another ten minutes through the heat, trash, livestock and traffic to find it--a whole city block of shanty buildings and narrow alleys oozing grey water, little kids covered with mud, a totally fucking horribly scary shithole. [...] Salle des Ventes, I think they called it.

We approach the entrance and I am just mobbed by young, loud, dirty, stoned and/or drunken crazy-looking dudes, asking me what I need, literally shoving each other out of the way to get my business. I show them the record cover and they start bickering over who's going to get what part of the sale, who's going to lead me around, what size of a cut my faux-type is going to get, etc. Heated discussion. I lean on a car to wait for them to figure it out. Eventually, what I guess is the Main Dude of the Black Market emerges from out of the spooky entrance, a cigarette in his mouth and an ice-cold look in his eye. He looks me up and down, tells the other guys to lay off and leads me into the center of the block, which is like the freakiest walk I have ever taken.

There's broken and salvaged crap everywhere, scrap re-bar and wood with nails sticking out, cast-off plastic parts of old appliances, dirty piles of cloth, whatever. There's no electricity, so everything's dark except where the sun peeks in. The odor is noisome, as probably dozens of people live and defecate here. The place is like the Senegalese version of a thrift store, where various private scroungers hawk their used furniture, used washing machines, you name it. But this being a country that's 95 percent Muslim, there's also a little baby mosque in there, and guys praying.

We get into the inner sanctum, which is a furniture factory of sorts, where the Main Dude has a crew building couches and coffee tables. It's actually kind of nice in the middle there, with all the new furniture to sit on. And it's great to get out of the insane heat, but still my senses are screaming for me to run out of here and never look back. I have definitely given my self over to forces beyond my control. Everyone is yelling at each other, looking at me like a piece of meat. The Dude offers me a cigarette, which I refuse politely. He sends someone to get me a stick of gum and proceeds to roll himself a thin joint. He doesn't offer, but I am in no mood to be stoned, anyway. [...]"

To read the whole story.

What the market actually looks like: