Dawady is a small town located 1h30 from Tambacounda, the largest city in eastern Senegal.
It takes an hour on the track from the main road to reach this isolated village.
However, Dawady is also an economic hub for a large number of villages, which are themselves several hours away by track, often travelled on donkey-drawn carts. In these outlying villages, subsistence is largely dependent on harvests during the “hivernage” (rainy season), when the vast expanses of desert are transformed into fields of peanuts, maize and millet.
Part of the harvest is stored on raised wooden racks in the center of the village, to avoid rodent attacks.
The rest is sold to traders, providing resources for the purchase of consumer goods and building materials.
Livestock farming is another resource that varies from village to village, depending on their ability to water and feed their livestock. Market gardening, meanwhile, depends on access to water, thanks in particular to the presence of functioning wells or boreholes.
Life in these villages follows a particular rhythm, with few exchanges with the outside world.
Wednesday is the only day of the week that breaks up this peaceful, autarkic life.
Indeed, several women from each village travel by cart to the Dawady market, which plays a central role in the local economy.
From Tuesday evening, merchants arrive to set up shop in the large market that stretches through the alleyways around the mosque. Pick-ups overflowing with goods, carts covered with metal crates worn by the years, and crowded buses, whose height is doubled by cargos cleverly strapped to the roofs, bear witness to the bustle of these exchanges.
Sellers are getting ready to meet their customers from these remote villages. For some, the trip to Dawady also coincides with a visit to the health center, thus optimizing the trip.
