Goree and Soumbedioune, Senegal Past and Present

Katherine, Alicia and Rowan, students in Senegal to volunteer with Maison de la Gare

Our first day in Dakar. Up early, we were off to the port of Dakar to catch the ferry to Ile Goree. As it is Sunday, the streets of Dakar and the port are less busy than usual. The day is relatively cool, and beautiful. The African sun is bright overhead, the sea air is fresh.

As the six of us find seats on deck, enterprising shop-keepers, on their was to work on Goree engage us, attempting to secure a promise to visit their boutiques. As we disembark, reminders are given, their names repeated, so we cannot forget that they will be expecting us.

Goree is a contrast of two worlds, and a reminder how the wonderful and the terrible can co-exist in any age, at any place. Today, a Unesco world heritage site, Goree is a bougainvillea and Palm  covered artist's paradise. Monuments and museums are scattered about the island. Schools train the next generation of artists. Galleries are ready, waiting to display their creative works. The museum housed in the old Fort describes the glorious ancient African civilizations that rivalled even that of the Pharoes of Eygypt, centruries before the first slavers arrived on the continent, before even Eygypt. It reminds us there was a time when Timbuktu was the centre of learning for medicine, science and enlightenment, more advanced than any other place in the world in that age. 

Goree's past is a horror. First developed by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, The French, then British, then again the French, all for the purpose of conducting the post transatlantic slave-trade. Human merchandise, captured from their families and homes from all over West Africa, were brutally herded to Goree. But, their misery to that time 

                                                                                                                                    

The colonial Fort, now a museum

was just the beginning, nothing compared to what was to come. "Slave Houses" covered one side of the island. Shackled slaves were taken to weighing and examining stations, then divided into groups of men, women, children, and infants. The weak or sick were released or sent to wok as maids for locals. Then, the groups were separated, mothers and fathers forced into separate cramped cells of 50 or more, while their children were put into different cells. They were unable to reach each other, but could likely hear each others' despairing cries. Anyone courageous and strong  enough to resist was locked in a tiny windowless cell, until broken.

A cell for children in Maison des Esclaves on Ile Goree

Eventually, slave ships arrived to carry the merchandise across the sea. People were herded out of the "Slave Houses" and onto ships, often leaving behind family members to be sent elsewhere on different ships, never to even hear their cries again. These doors through which the slaves departed African soil forever are known as "Door of No Return".

The Door of no Return

The voyage across the Atlantic, wedged into inhumane holds not fit for livestock, like sardines, was unimaginable misery for people who could not understand what awaited them, but only what they had lost. Of an estimated 20 + million slaves, approximately 6 million died enroute to their new masters in another world, according to French records.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade persisted for an incredible four centuries. A continent was emptied of its strong and its healthy, it's future. Thriving nations were reduced to waring, mistrustful groups of people who only hoped to remain invisible and survive. Local leaders, encouraged by slave traders to exploit and betray their own people could not be trusted, and society disintegrated. Occasional pockets of courageous resistance were brutally crushed by Western profiteers and their African collaborators, with their governments help.

Maison des Esclaves, on Ile Goree is a well preserved memorial to these terrible times. Inside a chilren's cell, one can sense the ghosts, hear the cries for mothers who will never come. Standing in the door of no return, one can feel the despair replacing the hope as it leaches from one's soul.

It was not easy shifting our thoughts and hearts back to the present day. But, we boarded the ferry back to Dakar, to tour modern day Dakar. 

Soumbedioune Beach and fish market

The fishing beach of Soumbedioune is a shock to the senses. I have been here before, but I was as overwhelmed as the first time by the explosion of colour of the hundreds of fishing pirogues lined on the beach, returning from the sea, and being launched into the ocean. The commerce of selling fish fresh from the ocean from heavy laden tables seemed relaxed, but efficient. As a new pirogue arrived at the beach, dozens of people would run up to haul it to dry land and help unload the catch. 

Some of these open boats will be out at sea for two weeks in search of a full catch. It is not easy to imagine a dozen men in these unsheltered  boats living and working together on the rough ocean for that length of time. How do they eat, and sleep? 

We wandered along the beach, the only tourists here, weaving in and out of the activity, trying to avoid splashes of fishy water. A few of us tried oferred mussels, fresh from the water, smoked on open fires. Delicious. And...so far, so good...

Later, touring the sites of Dakar, we were all struck by the effort and expense going into building large cultural landmarks, the National Theatre, a stadium to rival any in the West, a National Museum, the renovation of the Ancienne Gare to a cultural and art centre (all with the partnership of the Chineese). The mayoral seat, and the Presidential Palace were opulently impressive monuments of wealth. But, for regular people...very little.

This is a country of contrast, and of growing disparity between the rich and the poor. But, so it is at home.

National monument in Dakar