First we meet the kids school teacher whose has had the job at the international school for many years. She twinklingly suggests that Sheila come to read to the youngsters in class. An Australian story.
We drive through an increasing throng (inspired we are told by a friday tradition of lunchtime prayer) We creep towards the French cultural centre which shaded by a really big leafy tree. Perhaps the largest tree I've ever seen. Lunch is tofu again the first this trip in an excellent honey and ginger sauce. Washed down with a ditax drink, green cucumbery and refreshing..
We emerge in the hot sun to find the streets becalmed beneath the loud muezzin calls. Now the streets are filled with sill and bowing men with covered heads. Also the car is wheel clamped. Not that driving would have been possible. Our host pulls out his trusty phone and in minutes at prayers end two men arrive to remove the metal collar and we are again moving cool, this time to the port to catch a ferry to Goree.
The ferry is leaving as we arrive with little more than our sunglasses, phones, passports and money. the trip is mercifully short and wave less despite being on open ocean.
Our host reminds us as we leave him to return to work to visit the Maison des Esclaves
http://www.kassoumay.com/senegal/ile-goree.html
. I nod little expecting the horrors of slavery to be so vividly recounted and so passionately by the traditionally clad gentleman who leads 50 odd of us through a series of tiny rooms marked with hommes or femmes or enfants or recalcitrants, or simply the door of no return. Ghastly and awful treatment of fellow beings. Parts of history are somehow too awful to recount and yet need to be so as to prevent their recurrence and honour the victims. We all felt overawed and upset at the sight of the mouldering metals cuffs and leg irons. William Wilberforce I now intend to research as his name is everywhere linked to emancipation.
We bake in the hot sun and retreat after the exposition to a nearby cool doorway which turns out to have a wonderfully open hearted older woman selling drinks and art of all kinds. She brings me and extra stool and serves very very cold bottles. Cokes and water revive us. I struggle to asisit in the repair of the owners souris whose tail vanishes beneath a surprising large and fast screen into a festoon of wires and table legs. No luck. We move on down narrow paths filled with green vines and shadowed by again huge trees. Everywhere the sea is lapping digging the beats of drums and the un deux's of the stage set up team
For tonight is a festival night and we resolve after actually getting onto the return ferry to remain and stay the night. A large and air conditioned hotel room is found for us and our vegetarianism explained to the local restaurant owner. We miss buying the sticks used round here to brush one's teeth. The sun sets as we eat a large plate of steamed vegetables and rice and sip and cold Chardonnay, on the top of a wall overlooking a small bay between us and the brightly lit stage 100 meters away.
We dance to the music in a barriered off dust bowl with small children and back packers. The bands get increasingly more proficient and the tall red cloth covered seats are filled with VIP's. Our photographs are solemnly taken by a man in green overalls who then vanishes into the night.... as we do towards midnight to sleep in a vast room accessed with an upside down key and guarded by our wizened hotel owner who emerges after the power cut with matches to aid me retrieve the moustiche reppellant.
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