The Place
Where everything takes root
The question everyone asks
Why the Petite-Côte, Senegal
Everyone asks us this question. Why here? Why not a capital city, a recognized creative hub, somewhere "logical"?
Because baobabs don't grow in cities. Because the Petite-Côte, between Somone and Joal, is a territory in transition — at the crossroads of small-scale fishing, tourism, family farming and a generation searching for its place. This is where the question of "living differently" is most urgent and most real.
And because Joan and Jacqueline, after twenty years of nomadic life across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, chose this place to put down roots — with their four children, their books, their mobile studio and their dreams.
The land
One hectare under the baobabs
Mélanzé sits on one hectare of land in Thiafoura, a village near Somone. Red laterite soil, centuries-old baobabs, silk-cotton trees and palm trees tracing the horizon.
300 m² of sustainably built spaces have already gone up: adobe walls (raw earth bricks), recycled wood frames, thatched roofs. Each building was designed with local craftspeople, respecting Senegalese know-how.
Completely off-grid for energy and water — borehole, rainwater harvesting, ecological sanitation. Nothing is connected to the mains. Everything runs on sunshine, rain and common sense.
The build
Building with the earth
Daily rhythm
Daily life
Here, we wake up to the muezzin's call and birdsong. We write in the morning, build in the afternoon, record in the evening. Village children stop by, craftspeople come to work, visitors settle under the great baobab.
The place hosts the activities of our Publishing House, the recording sessions of the Som'One Music label, and the community projects we run with local and international partners.
It's a place of work, creation and life — not a model ecovillage or a resort. A real, imperfect, living place.
Regeneration
When we arrived, the land was degraded — soils depleted by decades of peanut monoculture, trees felled for charcoal. This is the story of thousands of hectares across Senegal.
Since then, we plant. Fruit trees — mango, soursop, lemon. Fast-growing timber trees. Living hedgerows to fight erosion. The soil is coming back to life, the birds are returning, shade is gaining ground.
We apply the same logic to culture: plant seeds — a book, a record, a workshop — and let them grow. Regenerate imaginations as much as soils.
The long-term vision: for this place to become a replicable model of creative and ecological living in rural Africa.