Marsassoum

New landscapes in countries unknown to us can be like dreamscapes. Sometimes, at first, we’re so busy deciphering the basic things, or worrying about our relationship to it all, that we don’t see much of anything. But then suddenly we’ll begin to see. …

One morning in southern Senegal, I stood waiting to cross a wide stretch of river to the village of Marsassoum on the opposite bank. The ferry I was waiting for had run aground and couldn’t start up again until the tide came back up the river. Waiting with me was a scattering of people. There were two men with their bicycles, a woman with a large basket and a baby, several young boys, two or three pickup trucks, and a tired old car carrying an extended family to a funeral. I’d been dropped off at the ferry landing after a long drive from the town of Bignona. It was hot and there was no shade, no place to sit. The salt-whitened bank of the river was dotted with the stubs of drowned trees.