Quake-hit Haitians start new life in Senegal

Senegal is one of the poorest countries in the world with its GDP only marginally higher than Haiti’s, but that has not stopped the government from going ahead with a plan to offer a new home to 163 victims of the catastrophic earthquake.

The young men and women stepped off a plane to a raucous welcome yesterday, including dancers who pounded the pavement in costumes made of cowrie shells and traditional praise singers who shouted accolades into megaphones.

Senegalese students waited by the dozens holding up signs that said: “Welcome to the home of your ancestors.”

The 163 students are the first batch of arrivals from Haiti in a grand scheme that began when President Abdoulaye Wade saw images of the devastated Caribbean nation following the January quake.

He was moved to help, arguing that Haitians are the sons and daughters of Africa because their ancestors were taken from the continent as slaves. French is the main language of Senegal, while Haitians speak French-derived Creole.

He initially offered free land to the quake victims, and the attempt to help them has become one of the main planks of Mr Wade’s larger goal of creating a global African community, which includes a proposal to unite the continent into a single country.

He was criticised at home when he went so far as to say that he would be willing to hand over a region of Senegal if a large number of Haitians were to agree to relocate there.

The project has since been scaled back and the students will receive free housing – not land. They will also be offered scholarships in a nation where the campus of Senegal’s largest university is frequently paralysed by strikes because of the late payment of scholarships.

The students walked out of the airport wearing baseball caps and T-shirts that said: “Thank You President Abdoulaye Wade.” They were led on to tour buses that drove them through the neighbourhood of Almadies, the westernmost point of Africa which juts out into the Atlantic.

The bus climbed a hill overlooking the ocean, and let them out at the feet of an enormous statue pointing west in the direction where they had come from.

“Your ancestors left here by physical force,” Mr Wade told the students. “You have returned through moral force ... When the slaves embarked on the ships, this is the last piece of African earth they saw ... Dear students, it is on this point of land that sticks out farthest into the Atlantic that we have chosen to receive you.

“You are neither strangers nor refugees. You are members of our family.”

The students said they felt overwhelmed by the welcome. Peterson Paul, a 22-year-old sociology undergraduate from the destroyed Delmas 19 neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince said he lost his house in the quake and was living under a tarpaulin when he learned of President Wade’s offer.

He filled in an application and went through two rounds of interviews before being selected for the trip.

“It’s true that Senegal is not that much better off than Haiti,” he said. “But our educational system was rocked by the earthquake. It’s in a precarious state. I think it will be better for me here ... and I had no idea that they would do all of this for us.”

Masses of people crowded on the tiered staircase leading to the 160ft bronze statue. They banged djembe drums and clapped when the students arrived. Their welcome was broadcast to seven neighbouring African nations, and besides Mr Wade, the president of the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau was there to greet them, as was the prime minister of Niger.

“This is a historic day,” said airport security guard Abdou Salam. “But it’s a little weird. We’re chartering a plane and giving them free scholarships, and yet we know that our own students can sometimes go six months without seeing their payments.”

Last year, students angry at not receiving their scholarships seized municipal buses as they entered the campus of Cheikh Anta Diop University in central Dakar. They blocked roads and were beaten back by police.

The university’s dorms are so overcrowded that rooms made for two often house four or more, forcing students to sleep in spoons on twin-sized beds.

Others say that Senegal’s poverty – where nearly half the working age population is out of work and where even those that do have jobs bring home around €90 a month – is in fact the reason it should be helping Haiti.

“We are giving the rest of the world a lesson in humanity. Senegal has shown that it’s in the hearts of the poor that you can find the gift of generosity,” said historian Iba Der Thiam, currently vice president of the National Assembly.

“A country that is neither rich nor developed has agreed to share the little it has with its brothers.”