Ndar mornings

Every moment of the day has its charm in Ndar. Walking around the city is like opening your grandma's box of youth memories: things don't always look (or smell) all that good, but they're full of charm.

A bit of history here: although Ndar (name in Wolof) apparently existed well before Europeans arrived to this part of the Globe, the city was officially founded in 1659. It was then the first toubab-city of Western Africa, and became a very important node for the exportation of African gold, ivory, arabic gum and slaves. Due to its geopolitical importance in the colonization in the subregion, St Louis became the capital of French Western Africa and continued to occupy a key economic role until the late 1950s (more info in Wikipedia). Among other curiosities, the city hosts a mosque with a clock (apparently, to avoid bothering French settlers with the call for prayer), the Faidherbe bridge (wrongfully attributed to Eiffel in some tourist guides), and the Hotel de la Poste, where Mermoz spent some time before disappearing in one of his trans-Atlantic flights. This intense relationship with the colonial history in the region is written in each brick of the island, which was declared World Cultural Centre by the UNESCO in 2000 and is now undergoing an intense renovation of its built environment, slowly but surely.

And well, not all that is good here is a piece of the past: I was tempted to write an entry about the quality of the research work they do at the Université Gastón Berguer, but then I thought nobody would read it :o)

In any case: St Louis is full of pleasant surprises. From my window, in the morning, I see ...

... the light coming to Guet-Ndar, after the call for prayer wakes up people and roosters ...

... children inventing ways to float in the water, where they avoid all kinds of other floating things ...

 

... goats that eat can't keep up with the accumulated trash collection in the city ...

... and this is the sunset.