Mbawane Lake Comes To Live After 13 Years Panafrican News Agency October 25, 1999 by Matar Gaye Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - Senegal's Mbawane lake, situated some 80 km north of Dakar, completely dried up more than 13 years ago, after having been a one-time flourishing centre for fisheries and market gardens. In one year alone, the area has recovered a large part of its past glory, thanks to El Nina for the abundant rains recorded in the Sahel during the year 1999. Between the early 1950s and 1979 the lake, which was full of healthy-looking pythons, crocodiles and various fish, also hosted the Senegalese Army's engineering corps which specialised, among other things, in the construction of bridges. According to a retired officer, "Mbawane's water, exceptional for its calm, were then used as an ideal centre to teach new recruits the basics of river navigation and the techniques for the construction of rafts and landing platforms." Over the last 13 years, the lake's bed was so dry and cracked that covetous real estate developers had begun to eye for development. The inhabitants of the neighbouring community, however, have yet to get over their pleasant surprise after seeing it filled up once again. Already shrubs have come to life around it and the old- timers cannot help but feel nostalgic about this development. Mbawane is not an exception in the Sahel, though. Heavy rains were recorded almost everywhere this year, contradicting all the pessimistic forecasts on rainfall in this part of Africa. This situation also revealed that all bio-diversity sites, abandoned as a result of a combination of man-made and natural disasters, have made a quick come back to life, thanks to the good rainfall. These need to be taken stock of, classified and protected from the greediness of land speculators, environmentalists warn. There was a combination of factors very favourable to a good rainfall. "The 1999 rainy season was marked, in the Sahel, by a sizeable movement of air masses from East to West," Sory Diallo, Deputy Director of Senegal's National Meteorological Service, said. "This phenomenon, combined with a big monsoon favoured by a rise of the Saint Helena anti-cyclone and a fall of the anti-cyclone of the Azores, gave rise to heavy rains almost everywhere in the Sahel area," he told PANA in an interview. But is this situation exceptional? Does it on the contrary mark the return to the rainy years? Environmental experts in the Senegalese capital are rather cautious in their analysis of the phenomenon. They all talk of "the complexity of rainfall forecast models resulting from the variability of rains." This is besides the fact that heavy rains recorded this year in most of the Sahel countries, also highlighted the structural weaknesses of the means available to the administrators of forecast systems and, above all, of meteorological early warning. The absence of forecast and appropriate preventative measures, the violent storms which blew across the Atlantic coast of Africa, have claimed the lives of at least 150 Senegalese fishermen. Since the beginning of July, because of various weather patterns dubbed the "Dakar System", this phenomenon has given rise to the "Cindy" cyclone which ravaged the eastern coast of the United States in September. The lower valley of the Senegal river, which marks the border between Senegal and Mauritania, has been the scene of exceptional high rain and floods which did not spare the two states. The constant rise of the river which for several weeks now have veered off course, is a threat to the city of Saint Louis, Senegal's second city. The residents of the metropolis now go to bed with one question open, wondering whether the water levels would be higher or lower tomorrow? Elsewhere in the country, the paternal house of former Senegalese President, Leopold Sedar Senghor, in Joal, 100 km south-east of Dakar, bore the brunt of the stormy weather and strong winds that shook the entire "small coast," from the south of the Dakar to lower Casamance further south. The tragedy of these seemingly inevitable natural disasters is that they all took their generally defenseless victims by surprise. For those living around Lake Mbawane, however, the misfortunes of others due to heavy rainfall, has been a blessing indeed of a different kind as they await to see the return of fish so close to home. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 1999 Panafrican News Agency. Distributed via Africa News Online (www.africanews.org).