DAKAR STATION (SENEGAL)

Dakar a riot of color

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Eishi Miyasaka

By Shoji Ichihara

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Every time a train arrives or leaves Dakar Station, the platform fills with brightly clad people. Just looking at a woman who was walking toward a departing train to sell the bananas she carried on her head impressed on me the vivid colors of her clothes and those of the people buying the bananas — Senegalese people dress extravagantly.

The train was painted yellow, green and red. In a film about the city, Youssou N'Dour, a world-famous musician from Dakar, said he liked trains painted in the colors of Senegal's national flag.

He also said he liked the station building, located as it is at the center of the city and close to the ocean and a port.

The station building, which has a colonial-style design and celadon patterns on its facade, was constructed during the 1910s.

The brightly painted station building has a darker history, which can be seen in the statues of a French and a Senegalese standing side by side in the station square. France conscripted Senegalese soldiers to fight in both world wars, and the soldiers were taken from around the country to Dakar by train, before being sent to war, often in ships to Europe.

The stationmaster, Khayar Thiam, 51, said the station's past should not be forgotten. He said conscription was like history repeating itself — the station functioned as the center of the slave trade from the 16th century — and that this was not so different from the soldiers forced into fighting in the 20th century.

Next to the station building is a vast market. Popular with the many migrant workers from neighboring Mali, it is known as Mali Market.

Walking from the station to the market, and onto the streets of Dakar, I felt dizzy, overwhelmed by the power generated by the unbroken lines of people and the vividness of the colors surrounding me.