SAINTE-ANNE MISSION CHURCH

Built in 1889 in the Parisian workshops of Gustave Eiffel, the mission church was bought in France and brought in pieces by^Mrs. Bichet, who offered it to her son, then a priest at the Sainte-Anne mission. The architect Antoine, who came from France, stayed on site for the duration of the work, directing a team of thirty workers hired in Senegal. Once the work was finished, Father Bichet left for Paris, with the architect, in order to choose the ornaments of his church himself and at his own expense (statues, candelabras, sacred silverware, fine lace, gold embroidered silk, altar furnishings and priestly vestments). Overlooking the lagoon, the church, in a fairly good state of preservation, has a cross-shaped plan, like that of the Donguila mission in Ntoum. Passing behind the building, a path leads visitors to a majestic forest of bamboo trees that form grandiose vaults. The path can be continued to the village or it can be reached by walking along the riverbank over a makeshift bridge that children use in the morning to get to the mission's school. Nowadays, the mission is run by the Edith Stein Institute and is taught by West African teachers. Opposite the Sainte-Anne mission, Nengue Sica, or the island of Money, was a relay of the slave trade, hence its name. The commanders of the slave ships had their base there which they used as a transitional camp.