About me

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

My name is Fred Sagna, I’m tourist guide in Senegal specialized in the Senegalese Casamance and the Bijago Isles from Guinea Bissau… Two barely known paradises.

I speak French, basic English, wolof, creole, mandinga, diola casa, diola fogny, banjal and mankagne. I understand a little Spanish.

I live in Kafountine, a fishing village in Casamance. If you want I can be your guide during your visit through de region of Casamance and Bijagos Islands of Bissau and help you know Africa a bit better, as well as make easier for you all formalities you’re not used to, such as price negotiation or transportation at the gare routier. I can book the most typical African places to stay overnight or pick you up at the airports of Banjul or Dakar.

I was born in Mlomp, Casamance, South of Senegal. It is a lovely village of huge trees, no electricity when writing this text, where time has stopped. My family belongs to the ethnic group Diola Casa as well as other groups. I know well the Animistic, the Christian and the Islamic religion.

Apart from travelling and discovering the beautiful natural heritage of Senegal, I will help you find out, among other things, how to produce palm tree wine, or the rites and traditions that my family and neighbours still practice... We might be able see the Kumpo of the Casamance or the fearful Kankurang, together with the Samaye and the Niasse (which are the companions of Kumpo), or we might seek an audience to Sibilumbaye (the king of the Diola Casa). Depending on season, we will go planting rice with people from the region... And I will tell you what an “uninitiated” may know about the “holy forest” where many Africans become men. You will also learn what a fetish is...

Definitively, I can help you better understand my people and make your trip much more gratifying. You will understand more things. I might be your voice and ears in Africa, since with me you will hear and understand almost the same as an African.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

A week in Casamance

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

If you want, and you feel like it, these might be our route plan for the trip in Casamance:

First day: Departure from the Gare Routier of Ziguinchor in local taxi set-places direction Oussouye (we will try to travel and eat the most similar way Senegalese do). Arrival at Oussouye and accommodation at the Hostel du Routard run by a Senegalese family Diola Casa, a traditional impluvium. Lunch in a local road restaurant and trip to Mlomp to visit the Diola Casa and Animist culture Museum. Dinner at the hostel.

Second Day: Fishing day at the mangrove swamp with African people. Picnic on board. Dinner at the hostel.

Third day: Trip by bicycle to the Siganar bridge. Luch in a road restaurant and free afternoon. Depending on season and travellers’ priorities we might organize a course to learn climbing palm trees traditionally, go and plant rice or seek an audience to the king Sibilumbaye.

Fourth day: Trip to Cap Skirring. Accommodation in hostel by the sea. Beach and shopping day.

Fifth day: Trip to Kafountine and accomodation at the literacy teaching school. Walk around Kafountine. Dinner of African pizza. In the evening, depending of activities offered by local establishments, we might attend a djembé concert or maybe a Senegalese traditional fight...

Sixth day: Visit to the fishing port: the area of shipment and unloading of fishing, the smoked sector... Walk along the beach and bath in the Atlantic. Lunch at hotel Mama María. Free afternoon. Dinner at the village or at the literacy teaching school.

Seventh day: We may choose between a fishing day on board of a typical canoe (this means being at the port first thing in the morning) or rent a bicycle at the school and discover the richness of the natural environment. Lunch at the school restaurant. Free afternoon.

Eight day: Trip to Ziguinchor. 

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Cultivating the king’s land

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

In the rain season (winter) I go with my clients to plant rice with the Diola Casa women of Oussouye. Along the way we pass Sibilumbaye (at the photograph, wearing his red cap and his tunic, also red). He is the king of the Diola Casa of Oussouye. The people in the village cultivate their land following our tradition. In exchange, the king has his obligations with us. It is not a monarchy like the European. Sibilumbaye or “the one from whom animals come” did not become king through a hereditary way. He was chosen by the dignitary council of the village. From him it is expected to be fair and to intercede for the good of the village in his prayers to divinity. He does not work the land. He lives in the holy forest and deals with the most powerful fetish, establishes justice with his small broom and resolves conflicts arisen among neighbours. There are no prisons and no police. He is a respected man.

                              

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

The oral tradition

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

“Pull, pull, pull strong like a lion” is the song that fishermen from Kafountine, the village where I live, sing in unison when pulling up fishing nets. Together with some friends I am trying to compile the African songs and legends. In Africa traditions have always been spread by word of mouth, nothing written. Now we are trying to capture tradition in paper, in films, in all kind of supports that allow our children better know where they come from. For this reason, when you contract me as a guide, you are as well part of this project, because you add resources we are going to use in this venture. And, of course, I will translate and help you understand all the songs you hear.

   

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Adult literacy

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

I live in Kafountine and I collaborate with the NGO Catalonia-Casamance (http://www.catalunyacasamance.org/index_cast.html). The NGO offers free literacy, English, Spanish and computer courses for adults. When I do not work as a guide and I do not work my brother’s land, I like giving a hand to the computer teacher and I do supply teaching. Jack’s effort and everybody’s who collaborate with the NGO is very important. If you travel to Kafountine you may stay in houses with two bedrooms, kitchen, dining-room and bathroom available at the NGO. Like that, your stay will help the NGO have enough resources for the literacy, and we may help a higher number of people.

Adult literacy centre
catalunyacasamance@yahoo.com · Tel. Senegal 00221 768640055 · Tel. Gambia: 00220 7666949 · Tel. Spain: 0034 606813636

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Military control

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

 

Coming back at night from Ziguinchor to Kafountine with some clients, on September 2011, our taxi is stopped by a military control. “You cannot go on. The road is closed. Orders of the governor” says the sergeant in charge. Nothing to do. The fifteen passengers of the van and I are going to overnight on the road. Behind us, thunders and lighting flashes predict a big storm. A boy approaches us and we ask him if he knows a place to sleep. “My grandma went on a trip and we have a free bed at home”, he answers. “Right, but we are three!” “Gonna see”. We wait and in a while the van driver comes back and says we have to leave; the military have changed their mind. An hour and a half later we are on the road again. Nobody knows why and I cannot reveal in this blog what really happened. It rained all the night long.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

The calendar’s girl

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

The woman in the picture saw my client with a camera and asked for a photograph. Just at that moment arrived, in single file and with the basket on their heads, the women that had been planting rice. “Don’t let him take you a picture! You’ll be on a calendar! Ask him how much the tubab (white man) is gonna earn from the calendar!” Many women and men prefer not to be taken pictures. Some have appeared in calendars or western TV programmes. Sometimes people who make calendars or postcards make a profit from their images and they receive nothing. For this reason, I always recommend my clients to ask before taking a photograph. If we are given permission, carry on; if not, we’ll find a better opportunity.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Let’s go fishing

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

 

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

If you wake up early in Kafountine you can approach the port and contract a fishing day in one of the boats that set sail every day. You may experience close up different fishing gears, longline hooks or purse seine, spend the day with the crew or discover that life is not easy for these men, whose working day goes sometimes beyond 10 hours. The day of the picture catch only reached to pay fuel spent on that day. Every fishermen came back home with four fishes to share with their families. Rice and fish, every day’s dinner.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Animistic museum in Mlomp

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

Jules teaches physical education at Ziguinchor and was born in Mlomp. With no governmental help, just his effort, one or two foreigners sensitive to the issue and some neighbours he got to found the Diola Casa culture and animist Impluvium Museum of Mlomp. There we can find pieces given or lent by neighbours: fetishes, lances, turtle shell and hippopotamus skin shields, vessels… All fitted in a building that recreates the traditional housing of Diola Casa: an impluvium. A circular structure with a roof made of straw and a hole in the middle, like a volcano. A hole in the crater area lets the light in, the smoke out and allows collecting water rain in its interior. No other windows in the walls. Fortress and shelter, in old impluvium lived whole families with their herds.

Photograph of the interior of the Diola Casa culture and animist Impluvium Museum of Mlomp

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Hanging bottles from palm trees

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

 

To produce palm wine it is necessary to climb a palm tree that is about to flower. And not all palm trees belong to the same species. After making an incision just under the future fruit and with the help of a funnel, we place a bottle at the cut. First juice to come out will be sweet and without alcohol during some hours. Suitable for children. But it starts fermenting naturally with high temperatures. On the third day, the must reaches a high alcoholic graduation. After three weeks, the palm tree will stop giving wine. To marry, a Diola Casa man will have to give a dowry of a pig, a goat and sixty litres of palm wine, which are going to be drunk by neighbours. Wine palm is consumed in all Diola Casa celebrations.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

The Siganar bridge

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

The Siganar bridge is one of the few structures preserved and still used nowadays. The aridity of the dry season, the insects, the heavy winter rains, the humidity… are all decisive factors when preserving art and traditional objects. For this reason, just a few thing from the African history reach our days.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Fetish

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

When a Diola Casa man dies, his belongings are placed on top of the family fetish. The spirit of the dead will collect the belongings in a nonmaterial way and will take with it the spirit of the objects. If during life he was a good person he will reincarnate in somebody else, maybe someone from his own family. If he behaved badly, he will become a revenant and will wander aimlessly until hyenas or misfortune takes his life.

Photograph of the Diola Casa culture and animist Impluvium Museum of Mlomp

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Shark fin soup and sea turtle protection

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

When people in Europe or Japan eat shark fin soup, they are consuming a negligible part of the shark and the rest is left to decompose (see picture taken in Kafountine). Apart from that, out of the seven species of sea turtle existing in the planet, five are reproduced in Senegal. If you travel to my country, please do not eat turtle; it is an endangered species, world heritage.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Good fortune horseshoe

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

The cañandú is the tool used by the Diola to work the fields of rice. It is similar to a paddle and at its end it has a kind of metal horseshoe. With it, it is easy to cleave the wet land and make furrows and plots where women will plant the rice afterwards. If while walking along a field of rice you pass an abandoned cañandú horseshoe, do not pick it up as a souvenir; somebody left it there to give his family strength.

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

A photograph, please

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

We asked Helen (the woman in red) if we could take her a picture while planting rice and accepted. My client, grateful, told me he would send me a printed copy. Now, during my next trip to Oussouye, I will give Helen the picture my client sent me to the Kafountine school. I hope she likes it!

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Richness

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

The same as in modern cultures, among my diola Casa ancestors people needed symbols to demonstrate their social position and richness. Small shackles (handcuffs for feet) I hold in my hand represented the head of cattle the person wearing them had, or his slaves. The small plaits made of rice fabric and the chains… well, regarding chains, I let your imagination wonder. All this and more can be learnt by visiting the Diola Casa culture and animist Impluvium Museum of Mlomp

Photograpg taken at the Diola Casa culture and animist Impluvium Museum of Mlomp

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

A holy tree

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

The fromager in French or ceiba in Spanish is a leafy and spectacular tree that may reach 60 metres high. Its trunk is smooth, and can be easily recognised by its enormous buttresses overhanging winding from its base, like this one in Mlomp. With its wood people manufacture Cayucos, impluvium doors and kitchen utensils. It is considered a holy tree and we can find it in the centre of many villages, where it is the host of many parties and popular ceremonies. As well, from its fruits, an oil to manufacture soap is extracted. It is usual to find big fromagers in the centre and surroundings of villages, being the biggest the one from Abene.

Photograph taken at Mlomp square

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423

Kasumai, Kasumai Baré

Collection: Secrets of the Casamance (Senegal)

lee este blog en español http://frederiquesagna.blogspot.com/
lisez ce blog en français http://guideencasamance.blogspot.com/

  

Good morning, how are you? Is the family ok? In good shape? What about work? Have a nice day! For us, in Senegal, it is important to spend some time greeting. If we have just met, we need to explain who we are, where we come from and who our family is. This is something that usually surprises my clients. We first say hello and we recognise each other, then we explain the reasons why we are there or share meals or accommodation or… If you travel to the diola country you may choose to greet using our traditional way. You must say: Kasumai. To which your interlocutor will answer: Kasumai Baré if he is diola Casa, or Kasumai kep if Fogni… A great diversity of languages!

If you want to contract me as a guide you can contact me by email at
frederiquesagna@gmail.com or by Tel. of Senegal 00221 774484423