For as long as I've looked at the "Africa" plate in the atlas, Senegal has
drawn my attention, and in particular, that point in Dakar where the land
stretches westward into the Atlantic, drawn into a point. It's the Presqu'Ile
of Cap Vert, better known as Dakar, and it's as far west as you can go on the
continent of Africa. It's the end of the world, or the beginning.
In my imagination, Cap Vert was low and sandy, somewhat desolate, with broad,
watery horizons on all sides. I was way off. Much of Dakar rises above the
Atlantic in rocky cliffs, with steep escarpments and broad promontories. Very
little of it is sandy. Furthermore, it was clearly volcanic in a prehistoric
time: deep cuts into the earth's surface reveal dark stripes of volcanic ash,
and all the rocks have a "cooled lava" look to them. Perhaps oceanic currents
spilling along the coastline pulled the sand out along the point now called Cap
Vert.
Dakar's western-most point isn't far from our home, and we can be there in
minutes. It's called Pointe des Almadies. What's the "end of Africa" look
like? There's a clutch of restaurants set around a cul-de-sac, and a view
westward to a lighthouse set on rocks, at the edge of roiling currents over the
reef. Here's where the African day comes to an end.
The name Almadies is a bastardization of Al Mahdi (approximately, "the prophet"
or "the chosen one") Apparently, the man who carried Islam to Senegal from the
Maghreb settled near here, and the French transformed the word into the name
for the region, pluralizing it in the process. The blend of Arabic and French,
Islam and Christianity, the beginning and the end of Africa. This is our new
home.
