Saturday, February 22, 2014

The morning started earlier than planned so we could do the drive around Dakar that we had missed due to the airplane fiasco. We set off at 8 AM along the Corniche, the road the hotel was on and that paralleled the beach, passing the Magic Kingdom Amusement Park, the Supreme Court building, a small area with stone sculptures, Dakar's main jogging route and its own version of muscle beach. This was the first trip into the downtown center which was very quiet that early on a Saturday morning, apparently quite different than the usual workday. We passed one of the major markets, Independence Square, the "White House" where we stopped for a photo and were kindly allowed to photograph the guard standing at attention outside the front gates, some other government buildings, and then went on to make an ATM stop at Citibank. We went on to see the crumbling and non-functional railroad station. There is no passenger train travel in Senegal, only freight. The previous president had a master plan for building construction and renovation but only got as far as building a new national theater which is modern and good fit in any westernized city before he left office. There is a plan to hopefully restore passenger train travel which is needed in this country. Few people have cars and they must rely on taxis of the bus system. The buses I have seen are these brightly painted (although not necessarily fresh paint) sometime with ribbons hanging off the front that are a bit bigger than a large American van and seem to hold a countless number of people who at every stop seem to spill out and then refill the bus. The downtown does not have skyscrapers, but does have some large buildings, streets are mostly paved, and the goats are few and far between, but ever-present.

After this quick tour, we drove to the harbor to the ferry station for our visit to the Ile de Goree. We had a new guide for this day, Cherif, a friend of Abdou's, a local man from Dakar who was there with his teen-aged daughter Nobu. We boarded the ferry for the 10 AM departure and the ride was about 20-30 minutes through the port, the third largest port in West Africa.

As we approached the island, there appeared to be a round fort, a beach, and some brightly colored buildings ahead. The Ile (island) of Gorée lies off the coast of Senegal, opposite Dakar. From the 15th to the 19th century, it was the largest slave-trading center on the African coast. Ruled in succession by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French, its architecture is characterized by the contrast between the grim slave-quarters and the elegant houses of the slave traders. Once we disembarked our first stop was the slave house where slaves were held, often for months shackled to the wall before being shipped abroad. There were separate rooms for women, children, and men, and for young women < 60 kg. The young women were available to the slave masters, and if they became pregnant were set free as the mothers of the slave masters' children. The difficult to control prisoners known as recalcitrant were kept in small windowless cells less than four feet high, with up to 5 men in a room. There was the Door of no Return which opened onto the ocean and was used for loading the slaves onto the ships. If a slave attempted to escape through that door, he either drowned or was eaten by sharks. It was grim and disheartening place to be. Slavery decimated so many regions of Africa as all of the strong and capable people were removed. All the houses situated on the edge of Gorée were former slave houses. The assistant curator who explained the building to us pointed out that during the slave era a Christian church was built on the island and he could not understand how people could go to church and then treat the slaves in such a horrible and cruel way.

After leaving this building which is now painted in bright colors on the exterior surfaces, so discordant with its past we walked past some shops and stopped in a small open plaza area in front of the health center. In the middle of the plaza was a very large baobab tree, the Senegal "tree of life" and Cherif expounded on its many uses: the leaves can be ground to make medicine for dysentery, the bark can be used for clothing and ropes, the fruit, called "monkey bread", is edible, and full of Vitamin C, and the tree can store very large amounts of water and can be tapped in dry seasons. The trees are fire-resistant. They can develop large cavities which have been used as burial sites for humans and animals. When the trees dies, they become hollow and can be used as shelters. I peeked inside the courtyard of the health center and found public health posters on how to protect oneself from mosquitoes and diagnosed correctly with malaria (paludisme.)

Onward about 100 feet to an art gallery. In the center was the artist at a large table demonstrating his craft. He was making sand pictures, with the sap of the baobab as the glue and using sand of various tints of brown, ochre, and gray from various areas of Senegal. He applied the glue on this sheets of wood and picked up handful of sand and applied the initial color, letting the sand fall out of his hand. He repeated this with the other colors and when finished shook off the excess, having created another scene of African life. Many of us purchased one or more and he personalized them and signed them on the back with sand.

We then walked through the village, past the large Christian church, through the central plaza with a crafts market on one side. Benches were scattered about and on one was the Iman of the village reading the Koran; Cherif stopped to make the appropriate greetings. We then proceeded to the fort I had seen as the boat arrived which is the island's museum. The approach to the fort was through an open area which appeared to be the community laundry. Some women were washing clothes in basins. Clothes were on clotheslines and strewn over the plants lining both sides of the walkway up to the moat and small drawbridge at the museum's entrance. Many goats were wandering around, some eating from a pile of garbage that had spilled out of a container designated to collect it, but not living up to its appointed function. The museum had information about the history of the island and the local ethnic groups, but there wasn't really much time to explore it properly.

After walking through the galleries and climbing up to the second story and looking over the parapets, I descended to rejoin the group and we walked back again across the island to the restaurant next to the art gallery. Lunch was the usual fish, rice, and cooked vegetables. At one point I looked up and there was a huge pelican, about 5 feet tall walking through the outdoor patio where we were eating. It went behind people and then left so I could not get a picture. After lunch there were a few free minutes to walk through some of the village's streets and head back to the dock for the 2 PM ferry departure.

We returned to Dakar, dropped off those who wished to be at the hotel, and the rest of us went to the Village des Artistes, a collection of buildings with artists' studios, mostly painters, but some sculptors working with metal in the back. Many artists were present of the 15-20 studios that were there. I heard some women speaking English and it turned out they were American, one working for USAID and the other for an African non-profit. They wanted to know what I was doing there and I talked about AJWS. It turned one of the women had met Ruth several years ago in NY so I reconnected the two. Some people bought some small pieces of art. The work was all very contemporary, abstract, and generally connected with life in Africa. There was one painting only that I really liked, but at the time the cost was prohibitive (cash only) as was the size (it would need to be shipped). I took a picture of it so I could give it some thought and maybe go back when I return to Dakar.

After an hour there, we returned to the hotel with a bit of rest time. I walked over to the mall adjoining the hotel. I passed the large outdoor tent (not sure if it is permanent or had been put up for the special event that had been held as were told the King of Morocco had been staying at the hotel.) I never saw him, but others saw the security guards. The mall was small, had a supermarket, some upscale and very expensive stores, and was populated by about 95% white people. There was one store that was empty that seemed to designer men's Muslim robe, called (per Google) Dishdasha Thobe. Then back to the room to refresh for the short Havdallah service we had outside at the edge of the pool and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Jay was the journal keeper for the day and he was leaving after dinner so he shared his reflections on the day's activities. We all had our thoughts about the visit to Goree. For me, I was thinking about the workshop I had done in Los Angeles a week before leaving related to human trafficking locally, different in style, but a perpetuation of slavery and bondage.

We then piled in the bus to go to the Trip Advisor #1 rated restaurant, La Calebasse. The restaurant is large and wooden with dining on the third floor. The walls adjacent to the stairways are covered with African masks and there is an art gallery on the second floor. We were seated at a long table at the side of the dining room, learning that a wedding party was filling most of the central area. Dinner was again fish, vegetables, couscous and several items, with these sort of beignets filled with bananas for dessert. Food was good, but what was really fun was the entertainment, a terrific gospel group that did three sets with many American songs (Wade in the Water, When the Saints Come Marching In, etc) and a number of African songs. Toes were tapping, hands were clapping, and the children at the table next to ours were having fun dancing.

Time came for Jay to say good-bye and go off to the airport, and the rest of us piled in the bus to return to the hotel, another full and busy day ending.