Bolong

The bolong is a Chenal of salt water, characteristic of the coastal areas of the Senegal or Gambia, close to Estuaire S.

These arms of the sea - sometimes transitory, sometimes significant and indexed as of small affluents - are particularly numerous in the Sine-Saloum and in Casamance. The sea water mingles with it with that with the rivers (Saloum, river Casamance).

Terminology

The word bolong is borrowed from the mandingue.

This term of Hydrologie is hardly used in-outside sénégalo-Gambian context. It is defined in the French-speaking universal Dictionnaire (Africa), but absent from the majority of the great reference books.

Nevertheless the president-poet Léopold Sédar Senghor largely contributed to make known the bolong apart from his country. The editions of its Poèmes define the word to light the reader, when it thus evokes this universe and the powerful capacity of suggestion of the language:

“since I should be explained on my poems, I will confess that almost all the beings and things which they evoke are of my canton: some villages sérères lost among the tans, wood, the bolongs and the fields. It is enough for me to name them to revive the Kingdom of childhood” .

Ecosystem

The bolongs are generally bordered of Mangrove S with Palétuvier S, covered at least partially with high tide, which explains the presence of the Tanne S - extents of ground salted, naked or little vegetalized - and the mobility of a labyrinthian landscape of small islands and more or less stagnant water levels.

One generally observes there a large variety of species of birds. According to the season, the Moustique S can also appear there. Some small Mammifère S also lives there, for example Singe S or Hyène S.

The local population practices fishing there. In Casamance the majority of the villages are built at the edge of a bolong.

Present in several national parks and reserves of Senegal, the bolongs play moreover a considerable part in the development of the Tourisme, since one moves there easily in Pirog or Kayak. Campings are established on the banks, favourable with the relaxation and the ornithological observation .

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