Shell Village

Bird Sanctuary Countryside Dakar Fulani People Goree Island Islam in Senegal Pink Lake Saint Louis Salt Harvesting Savannah Shell Village Touba

Shell Village

Joal - Fadiouth

the Cemetery Village Animals

 

the old bridge

The reason that Joal-Fadiouth is on the tourist map is because Fadiouth, the second half of this excitingly duplicitous town, is perched on an island that's made almost entirely of clam shells. This, coupled with a strong Christian influence, makes Fadiouth a slightly off-key destination (for Senegal at least), and even more interesting is a second clam-shell island, linked to Fadiouth by a second bridge, which is home to hundreds of Christian graves, each marked by a cross and a pile of shells. In such a predominantly Muslim country this whiff of Christianity is not only bizarre, it's positively welcoming.

 

town on an island

 

washing the horse

 

fishing boats

 

all supplies to the town come across the bridge in these carts

The island itself is an island with a small town cramping its style and a bunch of clam shells crunching underfoot. It genuinely isn't anything else; it has atmosphere, but most of that is provided by the decomposing rubbish that gets dumped on the island's long-submerged beaches.

 

at low tide

 

street consists of shells built up over the years

 

largely Christian community

 

the rules

 

the people

 

a main street

 

school girls

 

craft market

 

at the community gathering tree

 

intense interest in the game

 

health care

 

church in the background

 

 

waterside

 

bridge to the cemetery

More Photos of the Cemetery

The cemetery is interesting though, if only because it's crammed with graves, a lot of them quite recent additions. From the cemetery island's modest hill you can see the town's food store – a bunch of huts perched on stilts in the lake to make sure that fire can't destroy them – and the large crucifix on the crest of the cemetery almost manages to pull off an atmosphere of colonial times gone by.

Text adapted from Travel Writer Mark Moxon's description

 

the market

 

mosque in the background

 

seafood drying


the Cemetery Village Animals

Bird Sanctuary Countryside Dakar Fulani People Goree Island Islam in Senegal Pink Lake Saint Louis Salt Harvesting Savannah Shell Village Touba

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