Our first excursion started really early on Sunday morning, so we could miss the traffic. About 25 of us headed to Isle de Gorée. I can't do it justice in photos or words, but know that is the furthest place west in Africa, closest to the USA (about a 9 hour flight) and is the location of the holding pen for nearly 2 million slaves, before they were forced from Africa onto the slave ships.
If you get the opportunity to go to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH you will find great details and photos of the plight of the men, women and children who were shackled and penned here after their capture, to be exported like hogs.
I say hogs because slaves were sold by the pound, and were priced by their ethnicity. They weren't treated like people. Some tribes were more highly prized than others for their strength or fertility. Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye, chief conservationist of the Maison d'Esclaves told visitors in great detail about the plight of the hostages while they were housed on the island in very small adobe cells.
Young women were the only ones who could "escape" the capture and enslavement, and only by becoming pregnant with the children of the slave trappers. The women could be "married" to the slave trader until he tired of her. The French government(Senegal was a French colony) had a policy that all men must be married to African women, if they didn't bring their white wife with them. Further if the trader left Senegal, he must leave all of his African belongings to the govt or to his African wife, so if he died or left, he left an African woman with his belongings. Some were very wealthy, some not.
The Isle de Gorée was very poor, but the very rectangular buildings were very colorful. We arrived there on a ferry that took about 15 minutes to cross the bay. There were fabulous artists on this island, and if I went back I would be sure to take about 6000 CFA ($130) to buy some of the art. As it was, we did not have the right currency and couldn't negotiate the prices. It wasn't cheap, and I think it was well worth the prices, especially the quilted pieces found near the monument to the slaves, but we didn't have the right money so I didn't get into the conversation. These people are very poor, and pretty desperate to sell their wares. Any conversation is intense and better ends up in a sale of some kind, or there will be hard feelings.
We had lunch on the island that consisted of fried cornmeal balls for an appetizer, with cold beer or wine. The meal was fried fish, like a bass, served with a side of rice, followed by fresh fruit, bananas, watermelon and oranges. After lunch, we headed back across the bay towards Dakar (seen from the ferry, with the typical skyscrapers of a big city)and to a few more markets,
but the day was long, and emotionally powerful for me, so I was pretty tired.
One highlight was driving by the President's Palace.
