A Night on an Island

Summary: Dom visits Île de Gorée, a tiny island just off the coast of Dakar. Steeped in history, most of it painful and shameful, it was my final stop in Senegal.

With one full day left in Senegal, and my original plan completely altered due to SN Brussels losing my bag, I decided to take the advice of the many Lonely Planet forum users who said that the little island off the southeast coast of the Dakar peninsula called Île de Gorée. While the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Senegal, it was the French who managed to take control of this small island that became a serious piece of history. At just under an 1/8 of a mile wide and a 1/3 of a mile long, the island is now home to 1,200 permanent residents including a number of ex-pats, but was once an important clearing house for the hugely profitable slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries. While locals get to hop on the ferry for around CFA300, tourists pay CFA5,000 for a return ticket and with ticket in hand, I stood at the entrance to the waiting room which was full of people waiting to get on the next ferry. With a small bit of luck in my pocket and a reservation at one of the few hotels on the island, I managed to get on the next ferry and was able to completely relax for the 20 minute journey. Being back on the ocean was comforting and while Semester at Sea definitely gave me the bug, worry not, you won't be hearing tales of me becoming a sea captain any time soon.

Upon arrival, you're met by a number of the local guides who are hawking their services around the booth where every tourist must pay a CFA500 tourist tax. While the tranquil nature of the island is nearly wholly unlike the hassle of Dakar, it would be unrealistic to think that you could completely leave the touts behind. My tout was named Ahmed. I'd weighed using a guide and decided it could be helpful, so I engaged him and negotiated his services for the day and the next morning for CFA5,000. If you plan to go, feel free to explore the island without a guide; it's completely do-able and there are plenty of people to chat to to get the inside story without having to pay a guide. At 50 years old, Ahmed seemed tired and sadly desperate, but was knowledgeable about the island having lived there all his life. He spoke fluent English and German having lived in Germany for 17 years and disliked French tourists as they never purchased his services. After helping me to my hotel, the Auberge Keur Beer, which was no more than 200 yards from where I'd disembarked the boat (this is a really small island), we walked another 150 yards to the Maison des Esclaves. Built by the Dutch in 1786 as residence with storage for slaves on the ground floor, the importance of this building is often inflated by locals who claim that hundreds of thousands of slaves were transferred through the island. The truth is that as few as 300 slaves per year were likely trafficked through this house, but the garish conditions and shame of slavery are still glaringly awful. Having spent enough time there to connect with the horrors of more than two centuries past and to get chills, I left the house to meet up with Ahmed. He was nowhere to be found, but as the island was small, I continued on my own up the hill on the South side of the island. Built as a fortified castel by the French in the 17th century, it continued to be of military importance up through WWII as evidenced by the massive guns that sit atop the castel. Walking around the tranquil island that, today, has no other industry than tourism, it was hard to imagine that this was one of the most fought-over pieces of real estate in West Africa. I wondered how many Dutch, English and French had died in the pursuit of the financial bounties of enslaving the peoples of West Africa and marveled at how much pain the era had produced.

Ahmed and I parted ways just before dinner as I was tired of his pitching his friends' and family's wares to me rather than being a guide. As the sun was low in the sky, I climbed back to the top of the castel and picked a spot to watch the sunset. Later, a local dog came to sit with me and watch the sunset. Though this scrawny pooch was dying for some attention, I wasn't so caring that I was willing to get fleas and was eager to get rid of him. As the sun set, I snapped a number of photos and made my way back down to the port area for a bit of poulet yassa, a couple of Gazelles and some more writing. In a move of pure classlessness, the waitress came during the middle of my meal and tried to sell me some of her necklaces and bracelets. Though offended, I was polite, and took a minute to look and then said “no, merci”. Sulking, she walked away and I went back to my delicious dinner. Satiated, I stood up ready for the lengthy 100 yard walk back to the Keur Beer. As I walked up the stairs the owners wife was there with two other women and her 2 year old son who seemed keenly interested in my copy of Lonely Planet. I gave it to him and then thumbed through the pages like a fan; playing with kids is so simple, but so rewarding. A loud, rambunctious little devil, he kept trying to open the doors to the guest rooms and would yell at random intervals, embarrassing his mother who kept trying to buy me an out by explaining to her son that I was tired; a half-truth. I fell asleep that night with good thoughts floating around my mind and slept the whole night through; the first night I'd done so since arriving in Senegal.

The next day, Ahmed met me again and we made our way to the last remaining attraction on the island. As it wasn't to open for another 30 minutes, we waited outside in the rubbish strewn sandy walkway where a kitten was desperately calling out. I ignored the cries for a few minutes before I had to investigate. Deep inside the leaves of one of the yucca plants that lined the walkway up to the Fort d'Estrées was a small, dirty kitten with a grotesquely infected eye. There was no doubt in my mind that the eye was gone and without some help, this kitten would be dead by the next day. With my knife on me, I was torn between having to endure the cries of an animal in pain and to let nature run its course. I debated for a few minutes, taking into account how it would be perceived for a tourist to dig into a bush, extract a kitten and take it to the edge of the road and end its suffering, and made the difficult decision to leave nature be. A few minutes before 10:00am, the Fort d'Estrées opened and Ahmed and I went inside. A circular fort at the North end of the island, the guns have been replaced by exhibits which chronicle the history of Senegal. As Ahmed walked with me, he paused at one of the exhibits and claimed that his grandfather was one of the close advisors of Blaise Diagne, the first black African delegate elected to the the French national assembly in Paris. Given Ahmed's general apathy, this could have been true or just another tasty exaggeration for the tourists. I moved quickly through the Fort, partially due to everything being in French, partially for it being hot and also that I was ready to rid myself of Ahmed. As I returned to the Keur Beer, Ahmed returned to sit in the port and wait for another group of tourists; his only meal ticket. I felt bad for him, but also felt that he had little passion for his work and was at least partially to blame for his circumstances. As I boarded the 12:30pm ferry back to Dakar, I saw him chatting up a new group of tourists and hoped he might get his fare for the day.

Upon arriving back on the mainland, I grabbed a cab and headed straight for Aeroport International Leopold Sedar Senghor for my flight to Bamako. Checking in was easy as was immigration and a cute Senegalese girl working in the duty free flirted with me and sprayed me with nice cologne and said she didn't want the girls to like me as I was hers. I bought a couple bottles of Absolut for my birthday celebration and made my way to the waiting room which was filled with travelers heading to Abidjan and Bamako. In typical African fashion, nothing was clear and I just followed the crowd. Eventually, I made it only the plane to find my seat taken so I grabbed another one and mentally sealed the chapter on Senegal. It had been a hell of a start to GlobalTrek:Africa and as I peered out onto the tarmac, I wondered what would await me in Mali.