Sensescape in Senegal and Gambia through Africamap

It’s rather difficult to understand the sensory issues at play in Africamap since a huge part of the sensory experience comes from actually being physically in a space. One can only imagine what is smells like on the Gambian shore or on the streets of Dakar, where vendors sell all kinds of international and native foods.

Street market in Dakar.  Source: http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/Cape-Verde-Peninsula/Dakar/blog-270570.html

After some extensive searching and thinking, however, I thought of a couple of ways in which Africamap helps address sensory issues in the landscape. It is, of course, difficult to ascertain the smell, taste, or touch of different things or places, but Africamap does provide a visual and auditory context for various locales. By turning on the Picasa feed and then searching for a specific place, you can automatically access hundreds of pictures that people have uploaded to the web. Alternately, by turning on the Youtube feed, one can access videos pertaining to a specific place. For example, if you type “Dakar” in the search box, you get this video with highlights from a weekend on a beach in Senegal. In this way, you not only have visual access to some aspects of the Senegalese landscape, but you also get to experience some of the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore or the kids playing in the sand.

PBT Train station in Dakar, Senegal

You have to use your imagination a bit to access your other three senses. For example, under the places tab, I searched for a railroad station and found that two are located in the vicinity of Dakar. One was in Bargny, Senegal, and the other in Thiaroye. After some preliminary research, I discovered that they are part of the same railroad line, through which operates the Petit train de banlieue (PBT) which runs regularly between Dakar, Senegal and Rufisque and serves over 25,000 passengers daily. In this case, one can imagine generally what sounds trains make. What is difficult to capture, however, is how this sound plays in with the rest of the soundscape.

Africamap: Red triangles showing the location of two train stations

Another search I did was for cemeteries. I found a cemetery on the coast of Gambia, called the Fajara War Cemetery. Since it is located so close to the beach, you can probably hear and smell the ocean. There is probably some sort of distinctive smell as well, perhaps of flowers or offerings that people bring to the dead. 

Fajara War Cemetery, Gambia. Source: http://jordanatherton.blogspot.com/2010/01/canadians-at-fajara-war-cemetery.html