Into the Wild Spaces

It's hard to imagine a river port town that doesn't have a certain buzz to it. Senegal's southern "capital," Ziguinchor, is no different. Call it the stronghold of the Casamance, the economic and political center of a region geographically separated from the rest of Senegal by the nation of the Gambia. But it's also well-situated at the mouth of the formidable Casamance river, and no matter what the political geography, its riverine geography makes it an important place.

The riverfront is commanded by an imposing set of concrete wharfs where the fishing boats offload their catch and where the Senegalese military maintains part of its flotilla for patrolling the Atlantic. Flocks of graceful cranes skim a few meters of the river water, white with black wing tips. In the afternoon light, they wade at the water's edge, picking in the grass. But the town itself, rows of two story stucco homes in colonial architecture and tiled roofs, shadowed by coconut palms and fronds of bougainvillea, does a brisk regional trade in the usual: packs of used clothing, Chinese radios, Pakistani butcher knives, plastic kitchenware (Chinese, probably, but increasingly from Ghana and Nigeria), and Taiwanese rubber sandals. There's a better selection of cellphones for sale than back home in Washington DC. Women with basins on their heads and children on their backs go about the day's chores, and trucks passing through on their way to Guinea (Conakry), Guinea Bissau, and Dakar (Senegal) rumble through clouds of acrid exhaust.

I have never felt ill-at-ease in Zig, and even appreciate its parrochial atmosphere. But it's a place with a long history destined to grow a bit longer. The Casamance has fought a low-level insurgency for over 30 years, and it picked up again just as I started traveling here. Never mind the growing hit-and-run banditry along the highway, the Casamance rebels (technically, the Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de la Casamance, MFDC) have effected increasingly daring runs against the military garrisons of the Senegalese army. They've been responsible for several deaths and a few kidnappings of military personnel, and the military has not hesitated to respond. There's another ghost in town, that of the Joola, a passenger ferry from Dakar that sank during the night in September 2002, killing almost all of the some 2000 passengers on board (officially 1863, but the Senegalese believe it was more; in any case the boat was only rated for 500). Even I remember the accident, and it was long before I had any connection to Senegal. The Senegalese say there isn't a family in the nation that didn't lose someone on that boat, and as far as I can tell, it's true. Down by the port, there's a monument to the victims. Meanwhile, the slow waters of the river pour out into the Atlantic, the fish stack on ice in the market, and the markets bustle. There's so much potential here, from the gorgeous Atlantic Coast of Cap Skirring, to the southern forests and the limitless exploration up and down the river. It's a shame to see it go mostly unexploited.

It's somewhat easy to feel like Zig is the capital of another country. Despite the trappings of northern Senegalese culture (the Wolof language, Islam), there are other cultures and languages here: Mankay, Jola, and a greater prevalence of Christianity. It's less arid than Senegal's Sahelien north: you notice the verdant, tropical ecosystem as the plane descends over the fields, and then there's that river, silent and powerful, and everything it represents. No wonder there's a buzz.