Shell Village
Joal - Fadiouth
the old bridge
The reason that Joal-Fadiouth is on the tourist map is because Fadiouth, the second half of this excitingly duplicitous town, is perched on an island that's made almost entirely of clam shells. This, coupled with a strong Christian influence, makes Fadiouth a slightly off-key destination (for Senegal at least), and even more interesting is a second clam-shell island, linked to Fadiouth by a second bridge, which is home to hundreds of Christian graves, each marked by a cross and a pile of shells. In such a predominantly Muslim country this whiff of Christianity is not only bizarre, it's positively welcoming.
town on an island
washing the horse
fishing boats
all supplies to the town come across the bridge in these carts
The island itself is an island with a small town cramping its style and a bunch of clam shells crunching underfoot. It genuinely isn't anything else; it has atmosphere, but most of that is provided by the decomposing rubbish that gets dumped on the island's long-submerged beaches.
at low tide
street consists of shells built up over the years
largely Christian community
the rules
the people
a main street
school girls
craft market
at the community gathering tree
intense interest in the game
health care
church in the background
waterside
bridge to the cemetery
The cemetery is interesting though, if only because it's crammed with graves, a lot of them quite recent additions. From the cemetery island's modest hill you can see the town's food store – a bunch of huts perched on stilts in the lake to make sure that fire can't destroy them – and the large crucifix on the crest of the cemetery almost manages to pull off an atmosphere of colonial times gone by.
Text adapted from Travel Writer Mark Moxon's description
the market
mosque in the background
seafood drying
