Senegal’s first pro female surfer makes waves all over the world. Khadjou Sambe started surfing as a 14 year old, the only local woman to do so in Dakar. Now she trains the next generation of young black girls to defy social norms and hit the waves.
The only Senegalese woman in the World Surf League, Sambe has spent the last few years training around the world. From Southern California, to Sierra Leone and Japan for the 2020 Olympics. She now trains beginners in her home town at Black Girls Surf, a surf school for girls and women who want to compete professionally.
Khadjou Sambe: Olympic ambitions
After years of being the only black woman surfing in the waves of the Senegalese Atlantic, Sambe moved to California to train. Her goal: to become a professional surfer. Rhonda Harper, the surfing coach who founded Black Girls Surf, facilitated the move in order to train Sambe for the Japan Olympics.
Harper found Sambe when browsing through pictures of locals surfing in Dakar. After a two year online correspondence between the two, Sambe finally made it to San Jose, California. Upon meeting, Harper knew they would do great things together: “both of us had these huge grins on our faces. The first thing I thought was, ‘This is my sister right here,’” she says.
Sambe now trains to represent Senegal in the Paris 2024 Olympics. In 2021, she traveled to Cape Town as part of her training program for the Africa Surf International contest. Whilst there, she coached the new intake of Black Girls Surf athletes.
Khadjou Sambe: a life on the waves
Sambe grew up on the island of Ngor, which featured in the film Endless Summer that first brought surfing to the island. Part of the Lebou ethnic group that traditionally live by the sea, her family didn’t make it easy for her to surf. For two and a half years they banned her as a teenager, saying it brought shame upon their family.
She remembers catching her first wave, and how it felt: “you are so happy that you scream so that everyone can hear you—because you are content to have stood up and stayed standing,” she says.
Being the only girl on the waves invited suspicious looks and questions. But Sambe didn’t care. Her grandmother also encouraged her to follow her passion: “All the time, she tells me to go, go, go,” Sambe says.
Khadjou Sambe: surf school
With the backing of her coach Rhonda Harper, Sambe now focuses her energies on lifting up other young black girls. Harper set up Black Girls Surf (BGS) to redress an imbalance in surfing.
BGS is now a global phenomenon, with chapters in the US, Jamaica, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa. Sambe heads up the Senegal division, now training 42 girls, with 5 in an elite category of surfing.
Sambe does not want to keep her passion for herself. “I want it for black girls, all girls, not just me,” she says.
Follow Sambe on Instagram for all her latest news.
