18. The Rise and Fall of the Dar Salaam Stick Bridge

I'm going to let the pictures do most of the storytelling here. 

So one of the things that my village is notorious for is the stick bridge that serves as a shortcut between a few dozen villages in this corner of the region of Kédougou (South of me, out towards Dindefello, Itato, etc) and the regional capital, Kédougou City. Volunteers in specific are frequently amazed by it.

Mamadou Minté, the Master Farmer in Dar Salaam was the main brains and brawn behind it's conception and construction, but building it was a group effort involving almost every man in the village.









It survived all of last rainy season with minimal damage and a few weeks ago was being used as an entertaining monkey bars course.

But then we had consecutive nights of 55 and 48 mm of rain respectively, following other long, heavy sprees, and the water started to rise quickly.

And rise.

And rise.

But it remained structurally sound, for the most part, even as it came to be underwater.

One of the craziest aspects of the flooding was that the trail from the bridge, toward Kédougou, was under almost 2 meters of water in some places.

Adema Camera Fords on. 

It was fairly surreal to do that backstroke where I normally ride my bike.

The bridge is actually a little higher than the trail, creating a trick of the eye effect from a certain angle.

At some point one of the middle support beams washed out.

Babacar crosses with his bike despite the bridge being under a foot or two of water.

Making the trip with Bassirou and Mamadou.

When the water finally receded, and there was no longer any buoyancy supporting the damaged beams, the middle section collapsed.

But that didn't keep these kids from helping me cross it anyways.

Anyways, the people of Dar Salaam and a few other villages have had some meetings and are going to attempt to repair the bridge as soon as possible, following any lull we might have in rains. I be they will have it back in action very soon.

Update: While I was in Dakar, some Dar Salaamians, and other concerned people from nearby villages got together and implemented what is at least a temporary fix for the bridge. They essentially rebuilt it as a bamboo suspension bridge. It is much harder to cross like this, but is much more resilient in the face of high water. 


Here is the repaired bridge I encountered upon my return from Dakar, and Babacar helpfully transporting my bike across it:

Then the water rose again. But this time the bridge held, thanks to the ingenious suspension bridge design.

This situation made for some cool pictures, with people continuing to utilize the bridge as a thoroughfare, despite it being under several feet of water. 

 Bassirou, one of my best friends in Dar Salaam.

This incident really illustrates what is for me one of the dominant characteristics of the Sahel: Drastic fluctuation. What you get here is flood or drought, with very little moderation. Places like Kédougou get the heavy rains of tropical Africa for half the year, and the bleak drought conditions of the Sahara the other half of the year. This creek was completely bone dry for almost 2 months during the last dry season.