Ngor Island

Plage de Ngor is actually a beach across from the island of Ngor, a tiny spit of land perhaps two kilometers long, and five hundred meters wide. Jordan and the rest of the team share a three-bedroom house a few meters from the main beach. The island is crowded with houses, and narrow lanes form a bewildering maze allowing residents to get from one end to another. There are two beaches, with the rest of the island’s coast made up of sheer cliffs and rocks.

Ile de Ngor has a dark history. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries this portion of Africa was dominated by French, Portuguese and English slave traders. The Europeans would trade guns, ammunition, and various other valuables to local tribes in return for slaves captured from wars. The slaves would then be taken across to the Americas, where they were traded or sold for tobacco or other colonial goods. These goods were then taken to Europe, where they were sold for a tidy profit. Part of this profit was used to buy more guns, which were then brought back down to Africa for more slaves. The advanced European weapons fueled inter tribal warfare, which fueled the slave trade, which increased production in the Americas, which increased demand in Europe.

It’s called the Atlantic Triangle, and I don’t know if they still teach it in schools, but if they do, they should stop teaching it as this horrible accident of history and start teaching it as a lesson in ethical economics and what happens when consumers demand goods without understanding where they come from.

Ile de Ngor and many of the other islands surrounding Dakar represented a regional hub for slave traffic out of West Africa. When the slave trade was abolished, Ile de Ngor and the places similar to it continued to serve as trading hubs, though severely diminished.

Today, Ile de Ngor is nearly entirely owned by none other than the rapper Akon. There is also a small military base, which as far as I can tell exists only to sell beer to the tourists staying at the surf camp. Many Senegalese make the island their home, and most of those are fishermen, who spend their days plying the coast in their beautiful multi colored pirogues.

The night of my arrival Jordan and I had made our way through the nearly empty streets of Dakar to Plage de Ngor, the beach opposite the island. When I asked how we were to get across roughly five hundred meters of open water, he laughed, pulled out a cell phone, and spoke some rudimentary French. A few minutes later two Senegalese youths appeared out of the night like wraiths.

We shake hands. In Senegal, and most of West Africa, you must shake hands while greeting someone. It’s considered rude not to. Handshakes have thus become sort of a way to get a feel for a person and the social situation. Most Senegalese will clasp your hand, switching over to a (and I have no good way to describe this) arm wrestling style grip and sometimes pulling in for a hug.

I watch Jordan do this, and imitate. His rudimentary grasp of French astounds me: neither of us knew any before coming to Senegal. Now he’s greeting people and holding a decent amount of conversation.

“Ce va?” sounds like ‘Sah-Vah’ and basically means ‘how goes it’”

“Ce va bien.”  ‘It goes well’

Through French, English, and a few words of the regional lingo, Wolof, Jordan negotiates our passage over to the island. Everything in Senegal must be negotiated, there are no fixed prices for anything. We overpay, but due to the late hour don’t make any noise about it.

When we’d shown them the color of our money, one of the youths produced a surf board and dived into the ocean, paddling towards one of the pirogues tethered just beyond the reach of the tides. He climbed over the side, started the engine, and to my surprise accelerated the craft away from the shoreline.

“Watch this,” Jordan said, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

The pirogue turned around about a hundred yards from shore and the driver gunned the engine, sending the tiny wooden craft rocketing over the black waves at terrific speed. He gunned the engine to the last second, and catching a fortuitous wave, the craft was carried up onto the beach, crashing to a halt half in, half out of the water. It was my introduction into how to get from the island to shore, and I would experience it nearly every day I was in country.

Once on board, Jordan told me to hang on as we rocketed over the waves toward the island. The driver slowed down as we approached, using the nearly full moon to look for rocks exposed by the low tide. Using astonishing accuracy and knowledge of the local waters, he guided the pirogue through a gauntlet of sharp outcroppings, and gunning the engine at the last second, deposited us on the beach safe and sound.

We made our way up the beach to the OAR Northwest house, dropped my bags and caught up for a few hours. Eventually I pleaded exhaustion and fell asleep to the sound of the waves. 

-Doug