4 December 2022

Senegal

This Sunday night blogpost was pre-empted by England's victory over Senegal in the last sixteen stage of The World Cup in Qatar. We beat them by three goals to nil and now have the daunting task of playing France in the quarter finals next Saturday.

Senegal is a country of some 17.5 million people situated on the west coast of Africa between Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau with Mali to the  east. The capital of Senegal is Dakar with a population of 1.1 million.

I had a good look around Dakar courtesy of Google Streetview and I was surprised at the amount of modern development and the sense of economic well-being that the imagery exuded.  The average life expectancy for Senegalese citizens is 67.1  years, ten years behind Algeria and ten ahead of Somalia.

A former French colony, 97% of Senegal's population are Muslim. The country's economy is mixed with significant parts played by fishing, mining, agriculture and tourism.

There is so much more to be said about the country - its cuisine, its music, its pre-colonial traditions, cultures and languages. This blogpost is just the tip of an iceberg of knowledge though of course icebergs have never drifted off the coast of Senegal in recorded history!

Finally a note from Margaret (USA)  giving her impressions of the country - "Senegal is rich in its culture and food traditions. Yassa poulet, thibu djenn, mafe and many other wonderful dishes. I especially appreciated their teranga, a welcoming and friendly attitude. I felt safer there than I do in many American cities. Visiting the southern area of the Casamance was particularly fascinating. My older daughter was doing PhD research there for a year and had formed many familial and close relationships that I got to profit from as well. It's a beautifully lush part of Senegal."

Random images of Dakar snipped from Google Streetview:-

Route de la Corniche Estate

A wall in Dakar

Sometimes you get visual aberrations like this in Streetview

The National Stadium in Dakar

24 comments:

  1. Senegal is rich in its culture and food traditions. Yassa poulet, thibu djenn, mafe and many other wonderful dishes. I especially appreciated their teranga, a welcoming and friendly attitude. I felt safer there than I do in many American cities. Visiting the southern area of the Casamance was particularly fascinating. My older daughter was doing PhD research there for a year and had formed many familial and close relationships that I got to profit from as well. It's a beautifully lush part of Senegal

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    1. As you can see, I have added this to the main text Margaret. Thank you.

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    2. That's very kind of you!

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  2. I actually tuned into that game, or perhaps a replay of it, for maybe ten minutes before my eyes glossed over and I fell asleep. It was nil to nil during those ten minutes.

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    1. Good heavens young man! How could you fall asleep during a gripping World Cup encounter?

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    2. I blame my lack of the male sports gene.

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    3. Never mind. Embroidery can be very satisfying.

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  3. More of us should take a few minutes and look up stuff that we didn't know about.

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  4. I'm sure Margaret can give you an up close and personal intro to Senegal. My hubby watched parts of the game, when he could wrest the TV remote away from Jack.

    It's been a long day, two sick men in the house and one grumpy old lady.

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    1. No man should ever have to surrender the TV remote. I cradle mine like a dove.

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  5. I haven't been keeping up with the soccer so have no idea who is winning and where. Dakar looks hot and dry.

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    1. Argentina 2 Australia 1... so now Australia are out. They did really well against one of the top national teams in the world

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  6. Thank you for this bit of armchair travel, much to be preferred (for me) to really travelling so far, with all the inconvenience involved.
    Maybe the car is a special model and the unusual arrangement of wheels is not actually a graphics hiccup.

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    1. I guess six wheels are useful on those bumpy Senegalese roads.

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  7. I thought Senegal were trying to park the bus and go for extra time and penalties but England ground them down and victory prevailed. They will need a Stuart Pearce like defender to mark Mbapp'e out of the game when they play France.

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    1. Kyle Walker - a Sheffield lad - can run faster than Mbappe. It will be incredible if England beat France. I might have a small dry sherry to celebrate!

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  8. It is pretty amazing how good Google Streetview photography can be! I enjoyed this tour of Dakar. I didn't go to Senegal when I visited West Africa and I've always regretted that. There was a street sign near the town in southern Morocco where I lived for two years that showed the kilometers to Dakar -- so close and yet so far!

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    1. You could have hitch-hiked down there on a camel.

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  9. The only thing I know about Senegal is that there was, or maybe still is, a Car Rally that ended in Dakar. Thank you for this interesting information to broaden my knowledge of the country - I shall peruse it further on Google Earth at my leisure.
    I believe that some of our street and beach traders come from Senegal.

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    1. Perhaps you could become a beach trader in Senegal. I don't know what you would sell.

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    2. Sea shells on the sea shore.

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  10. Perhaps Senegal isn't the place for a female to visit. I have just been reading about a female who was beaten, knocked to the ground and kicked, in parliament! Not the sort of behaviour to encourage tourists!

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    1. I would love to watch punch-ups in their parliament! Come to think of it, I would also love to see Boris Johnson beaten up by Jacob Rees-Mogg.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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