Everyone's gone home

Anyone who wants to see the effect of rural to urban migration in developing countries should go to any capital city during a religious festival - in the main, they're deserted. This street normally has stalls, dirt, rubbish, lots of people and the occasional horse and cart trying to negotiate the thoroughfare - for the past 3 days it's been like this.

On Tuesday, hundreds and thousands of people left Dakar and went back to their village to see their families for Tabaski. Tomorrow they're coming back to the city to try and earn a decent living by selling things like hand sanitiser and plastic kettles (a seemingly strangely popular product).

This internal migration is massive across Sub-Saharan Africa as people search for a better life because they're unable to sustain themselves working the land; and the mass influx means that 70% of urban dwellers in Africa end up living in slums...

At least the people on this street have the chance to go back and see their families - there's a phrase in the local language: 'we're going to Barcu or Barci' - which is used to describe the hundreds of people who pay to take a small fishing boat across the Atlantic and try to get into Spain for work. They're either go to Barcu (their deaths) or Barci (Barcelona)