The desolate scrub land of the Sahel stretches for more than 2,500 miles, from eastern Africa to the Atlantic. There, for nearly 500 miles, the ocean laps at Senegal. The vistas, for the most part, are not idyllic. Most of the beaches are worn and littered with trash and natural refuse from the sea gills, shells, fish heads, seaweed. Peasants use the shoreline as a latrine.
Thieves ply the beaches looking for tourists to rob.
At first glance, it's hard to believe that this bleak coast is the source of life for more than 50,000 Senegalese, who troll the waters for seafood. Every afternoon, seven days a week, in crude seaports up and down the coast, thousands of poor people wade into the ocean to haul fish in plastic and straw buckets from the arriving boats. Slip-sliding in the water and on docks slimy from fish oils, they scurry from the boats to the ice trucks, which deliver the seafood to cities and outlying regions. For their toil, they earn less than a dollar per bucket, a small wage that at least keeps families afloat. But the sea that so graciously gives also can take away.