We set off. At first, the train rolls along the edge of old, colonial Dakar. A beautiful coastal city, pastel-colored, picturesque, laid out on a promontory amid beaches and terraces, slightly resembling Naples, the residential areas of Marseilles, the posh suburbs of Barcelona. Palm trees, gardens, cypresses, bougainvillea. Stepped streets, hedges, lawns, fountains. French boutiques, Italian hotels, Greek restaurants. The train, gathering more and more speed, passes this showcase city, enclave city, dream city, then suddenly, in the space of a second, it grows dark in the compartment, there are loud thudding, crashing sounds outside, and we hear blood-curdling screams. I lunge at the window, which Edgar, the young Scot, is trying unsuccessfully to slam shut in order to keep out the clouds of dust, garbage, and debris forcing their way in.
What has happened? I can see that the lush, flowering gardens have disappeared, swallowed beneath the ground, and a desert has commenced, but a populated desert, full of shacks and lean-tos, sand upon which sprawls a neighborhood of squalor, a chaotic and swarming district of slums, one of the typical, depressing bidonvilles that surround most African cities. And in this cramped bidonville, the shanties crowd one another, press together, even climb up on one another; the only open space for a market is the train tracks and embankment. It’s busy here from dawn. Women display their merchandise on the ground, in bowls, on trays, on tables — their bananas, tomatoes, soap, and candles. They stand next to one another, elbow to elbow, as is the African custom. And then — here comes the train. It arrives at full speed, unchecked, thundering and whistling. And then everyone, shouting, terrified, panicked, grabbing whatever they can manage to, starts to run as fast as their legs can carry them. They cannot move out of the way earlier, because no one knows for certain when the train will arrive, and, moreover, one cannot see it from a distance: it comes barreling out from behind a bend. Thus there is only one thing to do: save yourself at the last minute, in those seconds when the enraged iron giant is already coming at you headlong, rushing like a lethal rocket.
Through the window I see the fleeing crowds, the frightened faces, hands instinctively raised in a protective gesture. I see people falling, rolling down the embankment, covering their heads. And all this in clouds of sand, flying plastic bags, shreds of paper, rags, bits of cardboard.
It is some time before we finish rushing through the market, leaving in our wake a trampled battlefield and billowing dust. And people, who no doubt will now try to restore some semblance of order. We come to a spacious, peaceful, unpopulated savannah, on which grow acacias and blackthorn bushes. Madame Diuf says this moment when the train knocks down and, as it were, blows up the market is ideal for thieves, who are lying in wait for just this moment. Taking advantage of the confusion, concealed behind the curtain of dust raised by the train wheels, they pounce upon the scattered merchandise and steal as much as they can.
“Ils sont malins, les voleurs!” she exclaims, almost admiringly.
I tell the young Scots, who are on this continent for the first time, that in the last two to three decades the character of African cities has changed. What they saw just a moment ago — the beautiful Mediterranean-like Dakar giving way to the frightful desert Dakar — is an apt illustration of this change. In the past, the cities were administrative, commercial, and industrial centers, practical constructs, performing productive, creative functions. Typically of moderate size, they were inhabited only by those who had employment there. What remains of these cities today is merely a shred, a fraction, a fragment of the former cities, which even in small and thinly populated countries have expanded monstrously, become great metropolises. True, urban centers the world over are growing at an accelerated pace, because people pin on them their hopes for an easier and better life. But in Africa’s case additional factors came into play, which further intensified this hyperurbanization. The first was the calamity of the drought that descended on the continent in the 1970s, and then again in the 1980s. Fields were drying up, cattle were perishing. Millions of people were starving to death. Millions of others sought salvation in cities. The cities offered a better chance of survival, because international relief supplies were distributed here. Transport in Africa is too difficult and costly for such supplies to reach the countryside; therefore, the inhabitants of the countryside must journey to the city in order to take advantage of them. But once a clan abandons its fields and loses its herds it will not have the means to regain them. These people, now permanently condemned to depend on international relief, will live only as long as it is not interrupted.
The city also tempted with the mirage of peace, the dream of safety. This was especially so in countries tormented by civil wars and the terror of warlords. The weak, the defenseless, fled to the cities, hoping to increase their chances of survival. I remember the little towns of eastern Kenya — Mandera, Garissa — during the Somalian war. When evening approached, Somalis arrived from pastures with their herds and converged around these hamlets, which each night were encircled by a glowing ring of lights: it was the newcomers burning their lamps, tallow candles, torches. They felt calmer closer to town, more secure somehow. At dawn, the band of lights died out. The Somalis dispersed, walking with their herds to distant pastures.
That is how drought and war depopulated villages and drove their inhabitants into cities. The process took years. It involved millions, tens of millions, of people. In Angola and in Sudan, in Somalia and in Chad. Everywhere, really. Go to the city! It was an expression of hope, and also a gesture of despair. After all, no one was waiting for them there, no one had invited them. They came spurred on by fear, with the last ounces of strength, just to find a hiding place, to be saved somehow.
I think of the camp we passed leaving Dakar, of the fate of its residents. The impermanence of their existence, the questions about its purpose, its meaning, which they probably do not pose to anyone, not even to themselves. If the truck does not bring food, they will die of hunger. If the tanker does not bring water, they will die of thirst. They have no reason to go into the city proper; they have nothing to come back to in their village. They cultivate nothing, raise nothing, manufacture nothing. They do not attend schools. They have no addresses, no money, no documents. All of them have lost homes; many have lost their families. They have no one to complain to, no one they expect anything from.
The increasingly important question in the world is not how to feed all the people — there is plenty of food, and preventing hunger is often only a matter of adequate organization and transport — but what to do with them. What should be done with these countless millions? With their unutilized energy? With the hidden powers they surely possess? What is their place in the family of mankind? That of fully vested members? Wronged brothers? Irritating intruders?
The train was slowing down; we were nearing a station. I saw a throng of people dashing toward the train cars, desperately, as if a crowd of would-be suicides who in a minute would fling themselves beneath the wheels. They were women and children, selling bananas, oranges, grilled corn, dates. They pressed around the windows of the cars, but because their goods were laid out on trays which they held atop their heads, one could not see the sellers’ faces, only competing heaps of bananas, which were being pushed aside by stacks of dates and pyramids of watermelons and jostled by tumbling oranges.