April 22, 2026
We were very pleased with our visit to Senegal. It’s said to be a third world country, and we were warned to be particularly careful, but we had no problems. We quickly learned that French is the principal language of Senegal, and we got a fast reacquaintance with our high school French. Here’s a photo of ladies who greeted us as we got off the boat.
As we rode through Dakar, we saw that it’s a modern city in many ways. The photo on the left is of a monument to a French soldier and a Black soldier who died side by side. The photo on the right is of the Monument to African Renaissance. It’s about 200 steps to the top. We admired it from the bottom.
As we rode along, we saw a couple of examples of Senegal’s developing status, the men hanging on the back of the bus, and the horse-drawn cart. To be clear, we only saw two horse-drawn carts in Dakar, and in fact, because we traversed the town so much, we might have just seen the first one twice.
There must be hundreds if not thousands of street vendors’ shops. They are very simply constructed, often with corrugated roofs held down with stones and old tires.
We visited the Our Lady of Victories Cathedral which we found beautiful.
We then visited the Museum of Black Civilisations where one of the museum staff was kind enough to pose for us. The museum has some fascinating exhibits about human evolution and early history. One was an exhibit on the forked stick. Simple, yes, but apparently with early religious and mythological significance.
Our next visit was to the Leopold Sedar Segnhor art gallery, the first we’ve ever been to with sand floors.
One of the paintings looked at first like a Jackson Pollock, but as we looked more closely, we saw many Africans in tribal dress. What do you think?
We next stopped to watch a craftsman (artist?) make a sand painting. He first dabbed what looked like Elmer’s glue on a board, then sprinkled several colors of sand on the board, then shook it off. Turned out he’d done a pretty skillful job of putting on the glue, and of sprinkling on the different colors of sand.
We went to the open market shown in these photos. It made us feel like we were really in Africa. Only to support the economy, Dottie bought a dress. Yes, they took Visa.
Although we were only in Dakar, we did see some African nature. This tree is a Baobob. Their trunks grow to incredible diameters and they are hollow. At one time, African burials included putting the deceased’s remains inside the tree. The photo at right shows a human skull at the base of one tree.
This really was a fascinating visit.
Next stop, Tenerife.
Dottie and Mal
