Already my second week in Dakar is behind me. Having come here as a Kiva Fellow to work with two local Microfinance Institutions (MFI) it’s been a little frustrating that I haven’t been able to get into a regular routine just yet. I have this one project I need to finish at one of the MFIs, which was started by a previous Kiva Fellow. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success in trying to arrange for the necessary meetings with staff members. The fact that their head office is in another city about an hour, an hour and a half from here doesn’t make things any easier. So, while going back and forth with my contacts to arrange for meetings this week, I had last week pretty much all to myself. I decided to play tourist and went to see the famous Island of Goree (Ile de Goree) which is a little more than a mile from Dakar and a 15-20 minute ride on the ferry.
Raby, my landlady suggested one of her sons accompany me – she said she didn’t want me to be bothered by street peddlers. We left home around 10 in the morning, were on the 10:45 ferry and got to Goree a little after 11.
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| Approaching the Island of Goree |
Goree is a tiny island – 900 m. by 300 m. (3000 ft x 1165 ft) with about 1500 residents. There are no cars and one can walk pretty much the whole island leisurely in about an hour. Tourism being its main source of income, a good number of artists reside there and the whole place resembles an open art gallery. Art for sale and souvenirs shops are everywhere.
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| Fishermen with the skyline of Dakar in the background |
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| A street in Goree |
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| Approaching the island |
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| An alley on the island |
The Portuguese were the first to arrive on Goree in the mid 15th century. Then the Dutch came and took it from them towards the end of the 16th century. There was a brief period of British rule starting in 1664. From 1677 until 1960, it was mainly controlled by the French. From the 15th to the 19th century it was the largest slave-trading center on the African coast. During that time, the number of total slaves who were put on ships going to Brazil, Cuba, the United States, Haiti and other Caribbean islands was put at 15-20 million by the Museum Director at the Slave House, who gave us a presentation.
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| The courtyard of the Slave House (no that's not me in the shot :-) |
The museum is not large and sits right by the water. It is completely bare… There are no furnishings just empty tiny rooms where women, men, young girls and children were kept separately. The slaves came into the building through a room called “the weight room” (Chambre de Pesage) where they would be weighed. Men had to weigh at least 60 lbs to be boarded on a ship destined for the Americas. Those who weighed less had about 3 months to put the weight on – the time it took for a sail ship to make the round trip to and from its destination in the West and come back for another load of cargo.
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| Men were kept in the room through the first door on the left |
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| The sign above the door of the "Weight Room" |
Walking through that empty space, peeking though each doorway into a room maybe barely 10 x 10 marked “men”, “women” “children” and “girls” gives one a very eerie feeling. Then, there is a doorway onto the sea called “the gate of no return.” Through that doorway the slaves were loaded onto rowboats that took them to the ships waiting out in open sea. Standing there, right at that doorway looking out at the infinite sea, one can’t help but wonder what it must have been like for all those men and women as they passed through it two by two attached to one another by chains.
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| The Gate of No Return |
Goree today is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Once we were done with the museum, we walked the whole island. Our guide was Abdullah, whom we had to engage to put an end to the endless stream of young men offering to show us around as soon as we stepped off the ferry. You really don’t need a guide on Goree but you soon realize if you don’t get one, they will not let you wonder around in peace. He was nice but didn’t really add much to the day. We walked the whole island in less than an hour.
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| That's Abdullah, our guide on the Island of Goree |
On the way, a woman I had chatted with on the ferry came running up to me and wanted to show me her little souvenirs shop. I had to of course buy something from her. She was very sweet and after trying to sell me everything she had in her little stand, we finally agreed on a little wooden elephant and a wooden boat. As I left after paying her 1/3 of what she had originally asked for, I was pretty sure I had still overpaid by quite a bit.
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| That's my friend from the ferry. Her shop is the one in the back with the blue bucket on top |
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| The whole island is one giant art gallery |
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| A view of the island from its highest point. That's Dakar in the distance. |
That was last Wednesday. On Thursday, I spent the day at the local branch of one of Kiva’s Microfinance partners here – U-IMCEC - getting to know the Kiva coordinator I am going to be working with starting in a couple of weeks. Yacine is a very sweet woman and we connected right away. She invited me to an opening ceremony one of the group borrowers of Kiva- AYADY - was having that afternoon. There, I met some 20 women who have formed a group enterprise to make cereal and soap to sell in their neighborhoods. The $1,500 loan that Kiva lenders funded allowed them to get all the supplies they needed to start the production of cereal. They had all their supplies out on display and were set to start production the very next day.
I actually wrote my first Kiva blog about their opening ceremony. It is scheduled to go on Kiva’s website tomorrow – Tuesday, the 16th – at 6 pm Eastern Time. If anyone is interested, you can log onto www.kiva.org and click on Kiva Fellows Blog from the list on the left and it should be the first one that comes up for at least a few hours - until another Kiva Fellow posts a blog.
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| This shot is for all those who are enjoying a nice cold winter :-))) |
Saturday, I finally got to go to the beach. Raby told me about this little private beach called Sunugal not far from the house - about a 20-30 minute walk. I had a very nice relaxing time. The sand is very fine and the water temperature just perfect. I was able to stay a good 5 hours or so comfortably because there is always a very nice breeze off the ocean. The heat never becomes uncomfortable. Just my kind of weather. After having a very nice lunch there, I was walking back home around 4 pm when I had an encounter that ended with my Blackberry getting stolen. It’s a long story and totally my fault because I let my NY guard down and became trusting for a few minutes. It cost me a blackberry.
A few days ago, I was crossing the street and stopped halfway at the median before crossing to the other side. Like a typical New Yorker, I was totally in my own world, not paying attention to this young girl standing right next to me. She must have been around 18. She looked at me and said something. At first, I didn’t understand. She repeated “Tu me salues pas?” (Why don’t you say hi to me?) I was totally taken aback and felt very antisocial. So, I smiled and said hello. After that experience, I promised myself that I was going to be more open to those around me and with that mindset I got my blackberry stolen from me on my way back from a very relaxing time at the beach…… Oh well…… C’est la vie…. Saglik oslun as we say in Turksih… I have to find a happy medium between being totally closed down and totally open towards those around me.
That’s all for now. This Wednesday is the big holiday – Feat of the Sacrifice or Tabaski here in Senegal – where every household is going to slaughter a ram or a sheep. They are for sale all over the city. Ours is waiting her fate in the yard. It is a very big holiday where every family saves for a long time to afford an animal for the sacrifice. Frankly, I am not looking too forward to Wednesday and I’ll let you know how I get through it. From my understanding, there is going to be quite a celebration at the house….
