On our final day driving into Dakar for visas, we took a detour to the Monument to the African Renaissance on the outskirts of the city.
This is a huge and impressive, slightly Soviet-style statue of an African family; man, woman and baby.
Having climbed the steps and admired the view of Dakar and the Atlantic coast, we entered the museum which celebrates African independence, achievement and culture.
We took the lift to the viewing platform in the crown gracing the man’s head. From there we could look out across Dakar and down onto the woman’s face.
The statue faced some controversy for its patriarchal representation of the man being a king, holding up ‘his’ woman and baby and also for the stereotypical sexualisation of both the male and the female figures.
The museum guide told us it cost $30m and impressive though the monument is, we did wonder what that kind of investment could have done for the inhabitants of Dakar.
For us though it was the perfect way to say goodbye to Dakar before we headed south towards the border with Gambia via the Senegambia bridge celebrating its 1st anniversary.
Due South 
I’m enjoying hearing how you are getting on in Africa. Thank you. X
Who cares! I am in Raffles drinking Singapore Slings, lol xxx
Where we always expect to find you!
Oh, you really are in Singapore! I thought you were taking the piss, hope you’re having a great time with the slings and all. Zx
How have local people been with you…are they interested in where you have come from, what you are doing, what work do you do. Are they interested in your vehicle? Have you eaten mostly local food – managed to buy things to eat? Have you done washing and under what circumstances. Sending you both big hugs. X
Hi Pauline, it’s been a mixed response from people, a lot have been excited that we are visiting their part of the world and are keen for more tourism, some people are trying to sell us things, but most people pay no attention and are busy with their day-to-day business. We’ve eaten mostly local food, it’s been really good, loads of fish & seafood as we’re on the coast and generous portions, but we’ve done some cooking ourselves as well when we’ve been staying in apartments. We’ve had a couple of places with washing machines, or we’ve washed our smalls in the sink and some places where the staff have done our washing for us.
Have you heard from Ru how he’s doing in Singapore?
Hope all good with you in Devon.
Love Zxxx