Unique Places in Senegal

1 more image

The Sine-Saloum delta is a vast labyrint of creeks and islands wich you can find in Western part of Senegal just above the Gambia.
The best way to explore the area is by boot and on foot.
This is the place to practise your fishing or to spot birds, monkeys or reptiles.

Here you find a list of(some of) the mammals you can find in Niokolo Koba National Park.
Red colobus
Giant eland
Roan antelope
Wild dog
Buffalo
Lion
Patas monkey
Hyena
Leopard
Hippopotamus
Green monkey
Chimpanzee
and so on

Niokolo Koba National Park is one of the biggest national parks located in West Africa, if not the biggest. Niokolo Koba is located in the South-east of Senegal along the banks of the Gambia River and has a surface of 9130 square km. In the south the park integrates the Park of Badiar and the listed Forest of Ndama located in Guinea. The gallery forests and savannahs of Niokolo-Badiar have a very rich fauna. There are about 80 species of mammal, 330 species of bird and 30 reptiles

Palmarin is great. Here you can relax on the beach and hardley see another person (apart from the people that you are staying with of course...) It is a great place to stay for a day or two, it is also very close to the larger town of Djifee.

Next follow the gifts to me and Isabelle, we both get a real African dress. Wilfried gets a sheep and Dirk a violin.
And finally Isabelle, Wilfried and I are granted honoured citizenship of Bantancountou.
I have never been so happy with any other diploma before then the one that is offered me now.

Close to 2:30 pm a big pan is brought into our cabin. Rice, onion and chicken; a fork.
Oh great! We are so hungry!
The brother of Seckou is joining us as he has a stomach disease and is dismissed to practice the Ramadam. Children and elderly also are allowed to this exception



A little later after lunch, we will have our interview with Seckou Kande.
We talk about an hour and a half : about the illage, the country, the world.
The same thoughts popping up again : these are people who think in main topics and are not bothered by details. Subjects of big congress meetings and conferences ; paper absorbing reports ; mass attention : they all swiftly pass by.
I encourage myself to ask him the straight forward question I was wondering about last night : ? What if you had the choice : electricity or a good road ? ?
Une route, bien-sur. Il faut prioritiser. Le village doit quitter l enclavement .
A road of course. You have to put your priorities. The village urges to be enclosed, get out of its isollement .



We learn he rather had studied. However he felt the responsibility to become chief of the village when his father- the previous chief - suddenly deceased.

The meeting of the village chiefs took two hours. We are now packing or stuff and people wave goodbye as we drive away.
Wilfried shares with us that the chief told him that he had have many visitors in his village already, but that “les Belges” for sure will leave an empty space when they are gone

And then, it is my turn. “Madame le maire”, Madame the mayor, is granted speech.

I read out loud the French text I had prepared during the siesta.

I start to thank them warm hearted for the hospitality, for the food and the hotel room they gave me. I describe the conversations we had. Séckou Kandé is moved and he nods his head in affirmation about me telling of the faming that might strike down over the village, about our willingness to search together for new techniques and crops, about the road that will take the village out of its isolation.

When I donate my colleague-chief the present we brought from him from our village Mortsel, I embrace him. (Afterwards I get to know this is very unusual. “Men and women never touch each other”, Wilfried informs me).

Then follows the translation of my speech in Woloff, but 5 times different.
I notice by the expression on the faces of the village chiefs I have touched the right strings.

Oef.