Day 7 - Goree Island

Today we went to another island, this one was called Gorée.  It was significant because the island was an important landmark for the slave trade in the …. Slaves were kept in captivity in small building on the island, in cramped quarters sorted according to gender and age, before they were forced into even smaller spaces in the galley of boats as they made their way across the Atlantic.  The worst part was their version of solitary, to punish slaves who did not obey.  They were either put in extremely tiny rooms, or they were thrown into a room covered in salt, which burned them since many of them did not have much to wear for clothing.  The island today seems to be a much happier place, although there are a lot of hustlers there since it’s considered a tourist attraction.  The hustlers do sell a lot of cool stuff though, it’s hard to resist sometimes.  We did go to one legitimate shop, where we got to see a man making pictures using sands which came from different countries.  He was really good at what he did, it only took a few minutes to make a pretty nice-looking picture.  It was really cool, the majority of us decided to buy one of his pictures.  After the tour, we ate lunch in a restaurant on the island (more of a tent with tables and chairs) and were serenaded by some of the local musicians who were looking to make a bit of money.  It was pretty cool, I took a short video that I’ll share when I get a chance.  The instruments they were using weren’t like any I’d ever seen before, one had a coré (spelling?), which was kind of like a cross between a mandolin and a cello, and the other was using these small balls attached by string, which functioned kind of like maracas.  Several of the students on the trip bought a set of those.  We gave our project presentations at the restaurant after eating, and then headed down to the beach.  There were a ton of jellyfish in the water.  Our professor had actually told us it was safe to swim there, guess he didn’t know about them.  Thank god none of us felt like swimming since we only had an hour before we needed to be on the ferry back to the mainland.  When we got back to Mermoz (the neighborhood we are living in) many of the students decided to meet up at a local bar so that we could work together to write a 2-page paper on the island that’s due tomorrow (Thiam’s being a bit of a slave-driver this week).  Bars here aren’t anything like in the U.S.  I’m pretty sure there are less options (although I wasn’t drinking tonight), and there weren’t many people there.  Many people in this country are Muslim, and their religion forbids them from drinking, so I don’t think anyone here ever drinks to get drunk the way Americans do.  There are also noticeably less random articles of clothing in the streets than you would find in American city.  Maybe that’s also a drunk thing…