By Betty Abbah
Senegal is sedate, so sedate you never want to leave. The people speak in near whispers and are hardly in a hurry. The touch of undiluted culture is everywhere– in building architecture, arts, dressing, food, in everything. An arresting touch of Africa.
Senegal is not a rich country but there is peace in their peasantness, the widespread contentment with the little things of life, this living by the day compared to the choking pressures of materialistic metropolises further accentuated by high-pressured social media. And the multileveled pollutions of mega cities. Senegal is arresting in its peasantness.
Talking about pollution, horses, donkeys, camels and mules serve as major means of transportation in this West African country. Zero pollution in the age of #fossilfuels menace and a plagued planet. They are in all the cities, townships and country sides–Thies, Toubab Dialaw, even if not so much in the relatively busy city of Dakar.
The commercial horses known as sareetu fas with their ubiquitous carriage carts appear more popular with the masses than the commercial motocycles aka Diakarta, the Senegalese version of our okada. They carry passengers, they carry cargo, oh those silent, obedient animals and their equally sullen passengers on tranquil streets.
Senegal is sweet. Its people are generous. And not to mention Senegalese jollof, a cuisine on another level.
You can’t visit Senegal and not want to be back there in a jiffy to pure countryside tranquility. Senegal surely serenades…