l'Île de Gorée

Last week we went to the l'Île de Gorée.. and I'm just now getting around to writing about it. I know.. I know.. I'm lazy. I'm just daunted a little by this post because the experience is still a little raw.

Gorée is an island just off the coast of Dakar which was one of the most important slave holding ports for West Africa. All of the colonial powers which had control of Senegal used this island mainly for the slave trade. Now, the island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and several buildings have been converted to museums. Many of the islands inhabitants are direct descendants of the families who lived on Gorée during the slave trade. Interestingly, the island is also home to the best all-girls high school in the country. The high school sends their students abroad to Harvard, Yale, and other ivy-league schools on full scholarship. It's pretty impressive. A couple of the girls in my program have their internship directed by the headmaster of this school. The island is home to about 1,000 people whose income is entirely dependent on tourists who come through, while the other shop vendors have homes on the mainland but still take the ferry there everyday. It is forbidden to build new buildings or modify the old ones, so a lot of the people live in old colonial houses. We shifted gears from students to tourists and all went to the island for the day. We toured through the Maison des Esclaves (Slave House) the Musée des Femmes (women's museum) and wandered all over the island.

The Maison des Esclaves was the hardest part of the tour. The slave owners lived in the upper levels, and the slaves were kept in cells in the basement. The windows were tiny slits in the wall, and one of the rooms was about 6' x 6'.. where they crammed in about 20 men. There were separate holding cells for men, women, children and young women (those who were thought to be virgins, and who were periodically raped by their masters). These young women, when they got pregnant, were sometimes freed and given a little better treatment. But this came with the price of being rejected by their own people, and raising children caught between two worlds and considered bastards. A lot of the mixed race people in Senegal can trace their families back to this area. Besides the holding cells, there were punishment cells as well, where they put people who rebelled. these were about 3' tall, 2' wide, and 5-6' long. They could get 4 people in those. The slaves would be let out in turn once a day, but never all at once. If nature called in between that time, they had no choice but to go in the cell. Their hands and feet were constantly shackled, and some chose to jump into the ocean rather than be deported. On the ocean-side of the building, there was the door called "the door of no return" because once someone went through it, they went straight to a ship (usually bound for Louisiana).

I've heard of how the slaves had been treated, we've all taken history classes. I know that slavery exists today under similar conditions. I knew that to take responsibility for it is not my place because I had nothing to do with it. I knew that I was atypical just for being there and hearing that story, that what I want to do with my life will (hopefully) have a part in fighting slavery and suffering this world. I knew all of this, but it was incredibly hard to stand there and hear of such immense suffering and be completely blown away. I was in the same, the same damn place as truly evil people who did truly evil things. And in that moment I felt useless for having not prevented it. Which is ridiculous, and I knew that, but it's how it made me feel. I felt guilty for being white, for coming from wealth, for having a happy childhood--basically for my whole existence. It was awful and overwhelming. And I felt even more awful because I knew that all the things I was feeling were taking over the things I knew. So, my solution was to find a corner and cry a little. There was nothing I could do about it, and to be honest, it made me feel a little better. But my friend Fatou (my Fatou twin) found me and made me feel so much better. Being an African History major, as well as an African herself, she basically gave me the run-down of all the things I've already mentioned-all the things I was trying to tell myself but which were being smothered by my emotions. It felt good to hear the same things from someone else, especially someone who comes from a culture which has legitimate reason to hate my race. Not gonna lie, it was definitely a good/bad/terrible/bonding moment.

The rest of the tour took us through the rest of the island, and the Musée des Femmes. The Musée was really cool, and pretty much highlighted influential women in Senegalese history. Some were active in abolition or some in women's rights, etc. There were also several rooms which showed how women lived and their responsibilities in pre-colonial societies.

Lunch on the beach was a surreal reversal from the Museums and stories of suffering from La Maison des Esclaves. Confession: the rabies shot was a good idea, because Rachel cannot resist kittens the size of my palm who already know how to beg for food during lunch. I will probably get some kind of disease. Sorry Travel Nurse, you tried to warn me. After lunch we went to the beach on the island, and to make that sound less stupid, there IS only one. The rest is a cliff-like coastline. The waster was so clear that when I looked down I thought I could still touch the bottom when I was in 20 ft water. 40 ft was the same, I could still see fish swim under me. So cool. And apparently it was school field-trip day because there were at least 200 kids between the ages of 4-12 or so who were playing in the shallow water. Fearing a minor sewage disaster zone, we swam out really far. On our way back, however, we were cornered and basically turned into tubaab jungle gyms. One girl latched onto me and I (literally) couldn't get her off. So I played splashing games, dancing games, silly face games, and escaping games (which I lost) for about 30 minutes. Finally, I was exhausted and kind of fed up with all the salt water being thrown into my eyes and the in-fighting among the kids to climb on us. At the time, I had a girl on my shoulders. I told her in French that I had to go and tried to lift her off. Her legs tightened like flippin' pincers and she went into I'm-going-to-be-your-third-limb mode. Fine. Wanna play rough little girl? I walked a little deeper, so the water was about at my chest, grabbed her feet, and levered her off ejector-seat style. But I was tricky, and twisted as I did this, which almost removed my bathing suite top, but I managed to grab her before she sank. I think she didn't know how to swim, or she was in shock. Either way she was not pleased with me, and used her brown eyes as lazer beams. Feeling a little guilty now, I apologized and finally wrangled a smile and a hug out of her. Whew. I made peace with my people. Spending so much time playing in the shallows had stripped me of sunscreen, so I am now officially a rather crispy tubaab.

On the ferry back, my friend Fatou presented me with a multicolored shell bracelet she had bought on the island. Through some miscommunication, I finally realized she was giving it to me. I haven't taken it off since. Teranga in this country really is amazing.