How are Saint-Louis du Senegal and Segu, Mali represented on the Web?

Saint-Louis du Senegal Aerial view

Do a quick search of Saint Louis du Senegal or of Segu, Mali and you will mostly come up with a number of websites geared toward promoting the cities as tourist destinations. I've posted a few choice examples throughout this blog (please enjoy! and let me know if you know of others).

Each city boasts an international festival of music. Saint Louis holds an international jazz festival in May or June and each February http://www.saintlouisjazz.com/, Segu holds Le Festival sur le Niger http://festivalsegou.org/new/en.html that features big names in Malian and West African music. Beyond music, websites in English and French generally showcase historical and cultural aspects of life in each of these West African cities. Websites posted and maintained by local residents such as youth groups, religious organizations or business groups can be harder to come by.

Saint Louis du Senegal http://www.saintlouisdusenegal.com/ maintains a fairly slick web presence that features tourism information along with general local news items, stories about the environment (such as a feature on the white pelicans of the wetlands in nearby Djoudj National Park), political campaign advertisements (Senegal is holding a hotly contested election on Sunday, Feb. 26) and real estate listings. 

The tourism aspects of the site emphasize its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/956; the city based on a narrow island in the Senegal river having once been a base for French colonial ambitions in West Africa.   

Here’s a cool video tour of the city by a French-speaking journalist. If you don’t understand French, it still gives a good feel for the place.

One interesting aspect of St. Louis’ cultural history is the annual parade of the Fanal each December; a centuries old tradition that is said to have begun with the signares, wealthy, often mixed-race female merchants. The tradition reportedly began with a procession of these wealthy women to Catholic mass at midnight on Christmas Eve, preceded by one or more porters carrying lanterns. For local spectators, it gradually became a question of who had the most abundant, colorful and large lantern displays. Over the years some of the “lanterns” became large, colorfully decorated float-like constructions of wood, light, and brightly colored-paper as much as 16 feet tall! And of course, it was always a bit of a fashion show, in which each signare displayed her fancy clothes for the occassion. 

A group of Saint Louisiennes celebrating Fanal. from saintlouisdusenegal.com

As mentioned in an earlier post, what today is the city of Saint Louis du Senegal began as a formerly uninhabited island where the French built a fort in 1659.  In looking at the map of Saint Louis, it appears that the government building is located in the same general spot where the French trading fort once stood. Facing it is the Catholic church, which is naturally a focus of the Fanal cultural procession in December. In traveling onto the island from the mainland, these would be the first two buildings drivers, cyclists and pedestrians would pass.

Segu

Le Festival sur le Niger has become the focus of an effort of local leaders to make Segu a major cultural destination for foreign and national visitors—as well as an important boost to the local economy. The festival takes place on the first weekend in February (the 2012 event just happened but I have as yet had up to the minute reports!) and features lots of music, film, theater and dance. http://festivalsegou.org/new/en.html

The work that the festival does in February in raising the profile of Malian culture continues all year round through the Centre Culturel Kore, a recently opened local arts institution that holds educational and cultural events throughout the year. A link to their website can be found on the Festival on the Niger website. Open to the Segovian public, the Centre Culturel Kore invites local authors, scholars and griots to make presentations on aspects of the city’s history. 

Segu is the birthplace of a few well known Malians, including Adame Ba Konare, historian and former First Lady of the country (she is the wife of Alpha Umar Konare who served as president from 1992-2002) and Bassekou Kouyate, an internationally celebrated player of the ngoni, a traditional Malian string instrument. Ba Konare is a well-known activist on behalf of Malian women and created one of the few museums dedicated to women’s history in West Africa. It is located in Bamako. http://www.museedelafemme.com/presidente.html

Headquarters for Groupe Kasobane in Segu. It's made of "banco" local mud in a style resonant of regional history

The building's architectural style incorporates designs that also appear in Bamana textiles and in wooden masks. It is located in a very visible location aside a national highway from Segu to Mopti

In recent years, Segu has also been growing in importance as a producer of Mali’s famous “mudcloth” or bogolan, as it is known in  the Bamana language. Segu is not traditionally the home of “authentic” bogolan, whose uses have been deeply involved in aspects of Bamana lived culture. However, a couple of innovative studios have appeared that produce contemporary design versions of the cotton cloth that is colored using an acidic clay.   These studios Group Kasobane http://www.africancrafts.com/artist.php?id=groupekasobane and Soroble, located at opposite ends of the city, teach the craft to young workers and well as expose tourists to the traditional dyeing and cloth-making techniques of the region. 

Here is a map of one of the sites.

And a picture of another Bogolan factory Soroble located on the banks of the Niger river. Both Soroble and Groupe Kasobane employ local artisans in creating contemporary textiles using traditional dyeing techniques from the region, thereby adding to the economy and giving old traditions new life. 

The entrance to the Soroble bogolan factory, also constructed in "banco" and located on the banks of the river Niger.