Gorée

Where to start? Goree is a small island 20 minutes by ferry from Dakar. It apparently has a population of about 1000 almost entirely negros (??). It was one of the main slave trading posts of the 16, 17 & 18 centuries, and is infamous for this reason. Illustrated by the old slave house, open for visitors, a very macabre building where the slaves were held, priced, punished, shipped and died. It has been likened to Nazi concentration camp, and holds a symbolic place in many black activists minds (Kunta Kinte of roots fame came from just down the coast in Gambia).

There is a limited amount of agriculture on the island, where apparently a wide variety of fruit and vegetables are grown, but we saw little evidence of this. There are a few goats and chickens but no other livestock, lots of cats though, and a few fishing boats called pirogues which are hardly a threat to fish stocks in West Africa. The ferry is very much a lifeline, daily delivering large amounts of bread, there doesn't appear to be a bakery on the island, rice, non perishables and drinks mostly coke and beer.

What do they eat? Fish balls in the spicy tomato sauce usually in the sandwich, are very good but I had 10 in five days, which like everything else, can be eaten with rice as well. Fried fish with chips and onion and tomato spicy sauce which is very good and very common, spaghetti with before mentions source, and for our last lunch we had a really really good meal of chicken in the lemon onion and garlic sauce with rice. Beignets, Pronounced bini come in two forms, sweet or savoury. The latter are small deep fried pastries with a little bit of fishy paste, served with the usual OTS source, and the sweet ones are really just small lumps of donut coated in sugar. Roast peanuts were the other treat but I'm sure with a little more time and money some variety could have been added, what we did it was usually very good.

To drink, apart from the obvious coke fanta and beer (gazelle or stork), they have a very elaborate tea ceremony which is the main event. It consists of however many people happened to wandering by at the right time, a fire, a small teapot stuffed full with some local tea, about 95 sugar cubes and plenty of time, there's always time for tea. The kettle is brewed up for about 15 minutes with occasionally some tea being poured into a glass, poured between that glass and a second glass to work up a froth, ideally pouring from a height, and then being poured back into the teapot. Eventually after variously adding large amounts of sugar, more water and tea the first cup is ready when it has been suitably frothed up by pouring from a height. Each helping is about the size of a liquer, with a good head on it. This process is repeated twice using the same tea leaves and varying amounts of sugar. The first cup is quite bitter the second very sweet and the third again is bitter. They say the first cup is like dying the second cup is like going to heaven and the third like coming back to earth (though I don't know why). The whole process is an excuse for a big social, and as no one seems to work for a living there's plenty of time for that.

We stayed with a dude called Lelou I'm ( I'm open to discussion about the spelling it's pronounced lee loo). Who supposedly made drums for living, but we never saw any hint of any work, or a workshop or anything vaguely connected in our five day stay in his home. Then in December he flies to London on business apparently. 100 pounds returned from Banjul in Gambia. He also plays the drums, the guitar, usually long into the night, the rattling duo balls, and various others and says he wants to start a music school on the island. He also claims to be swimming 4-5 kilometres a day in training for the Gore to Dakar swimming race , though I never saw him in the water once.

He either ate with us at our expense every night or at his mums, Mrs lilou, who had a cafe called Chez Tonton, with very good beigneits, 7 for 100 CFA, And he never had any money except what we gave him, there was always a plentiful supply of tobacco! The other tea party goers varied but perm any combination of; Mamadou Sanku, Who is a bomb man and a friend, and very good matey peeps, whose brother was beaten up and arrested on Friday night. His bar is Open All Hours, credit given, local rates and various friends and relations to stay with around Senegal.
Pop Amadou, spoke very good English, usually only around at tea time and opening and closing time, no job he admitted to but tonight talk us some Wolof which is the main tribe and language of Senegal.
Benna – One
Nyer – Two
Nyata – three
Nyanta – 4
Jouroub – 5.
Jouroub-benna – 6
Jouroub Nyer – 7
Etc etc.
Fucka – 10
Nangadef – How are you?
Mangiferak (???) – I’m OK
Nice – How’s it going/Fine/I’m allright/how are you/ etc etc
Cassoume/Cassoume Kep – A Cassomance version of How are you? OK…..

Ahmed, who lives in a cell in the US Doctors Courtyard, and who smoked, drank + was merry.

And one or two other Rastas and various girls too.

And the tea lady - Mrs Mamadou maybe?

Patrick. Born and bred on Goree, or French origin.

And a brief appearance of Louise, a VSO type who has been working in Sierra Leone and is on her way to UK for the first time in 2 years. We swapped books and i scored a Mossie net, some marmite, nice girl from Stevenage.

Basse. Alternative guy who hangs around, swims, drinks, goes to the flicks but no sign of any work.

Pregnant lady with unsmiling husband who ran the shop/cafe that was our usual breakfast/lunch haunt.

Didi, a sweet faced girl who it seems has been trained to smile at tourists and hold her hand out for a pressie, and it usually works.

The nice matey who sold necklaces.

Jacques, our adopted friend (or did he adopt us?), playmate, companion, pain in the arse.

Toothless 5 year old street kid who followed us around and was generally well fed and watered for his troubles.

The main past times, according to your age and inclination , are :
Swimming out to m,eet and dive off the ferry;
Ludo or cards;
Boule;
And a lot of football in the town swuare. The pitch has 2 x goals but there the resemblance ends. Trees, drainpipes, holes, buildings and a wall all features in various ways, and games are usually played between various bits of the island at different age groups, with a small side bet of milk (for the younger ones) to money. Although apparently completely unorganised, everyone seemed to know who was playing for which teams, when, what for and who against (The bush telegraph) with plenty of vociferous support.

Friday evening someone tried to shopw some films on a screen on the beach, about 1/2 the island turned out to watch, the kids were loving it, all free as well. But the local copper stopped it bacause no one had a permit or something, and because he was a reali little Hitler, being the chief of all 5 policemen on the island.

Other unusual residents of the island include a US doctor, a retired ambassador & Mark Gilby (of gin fame) who all have big pads on the island for various reasons, several hundred tourists on day trips from Dakar, a few overnight travellers and a few Lebanese trippers who come from Dakar at weekends - An intersting mix, along with the inhabitants and the BayFell community.

The fauna of the island, apart from the mosquito population, consists mostly of cockroaches, spiders, ants, hundreds of lizards and some large birds locally known as Epervien (?) that look like bustards (Do I mean buzzards EDs note?), brown feathered hunters, and some small bright red birds and starlings, as well as Tuna, carp (mostly eaten) and a very odd fish about 4 feet long but only 3 inches thick.

The island community of Bay-Fell (Barflies?) (see https://www.thecandytrail.com/baye-fall-musicia… for more information) are a sort of religious sect who wear patchwork quilts and carry ID tags + begging bowls. They seem to live a hippy like existence in the fort at one end of the island, mostly living in an old gun emplacement.

Note from my original notes, but on one day we decided to swim from the jetty across a corner of the bay (not very far) to the beach, as Lilou was a magnificent swimmer. Unfortunatley my swimming style is more a waterlogged butterfly and i really struggled, mostly as there was a bit of chop. Definitely a land lubber.Read more