First things first: disclaimer! Island of Gorée is NOT the Monkey Island but it features strongly in one of the most epic computer games of all times: Monkey Island series.
I managed to drag myself out of bed for the ferry at 11am, with a coffee on my way. The ferry costs 5200cfa return, goes every hour or two and takes 20mins.
It’s a pretty sight, Île de Gorée, former colonial capital, before Dakar took over. It’s small, 2 hours may be enough to walk it all through and picturesque, in better shape than Saint Louis.
It has many souvenir stands and I was taken to quite a few. I started thinking that the constant “what’s your name?” questions are a strategy so that I don’t refuse to see the shop. Shops are sometimes not more than single cabinets in a row.
So I did visit Nana’s shop, with some pretty jewellery. Nana lives with family inside the kastel, which is on a small hill on the South side of the island. She also warned me that she’s the one living here while “that other woman”, Hadidja, is from “downtown”.
I too went to Hadidja’s shop to see the little that she has to sell. I always use the same, true, excuse, that the journey is long and I can’t carry anything extra with me. Not sure anyone buys this argument. Later on I saw Hadidja again and she told me after I said “no” everyone else said no.
I also saw even poorer cabinet-shop of Monsieur Adama.
I tried to take a photo of a boy in beautiful yellow costume and he came up to me and said he was hungry and could I buy him food. His name was Antonio.
I took a photo of a street on which a women walked with a bowl of fruit on her head. Yes, the photo was taken because of that woman, dressed beautifully and she reprimanded me for that. She said I should have asked but she was even too far from me to ask. Then she demanded a gift for the photo. I should have just bought fruits from her.
I took a photo of some art, some of which I liked. The owner first got confused that I wanna take photo of him (he didn’t like it) but if it was just the art then it was okay.
I went to see the house of slaves, which is a bit less dressy affair than the ones I saw in Ghana & Nigeria, probably because it’s painted in colours. Still it is a depressing place.
I just read “Terre des hommes” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and there is a chapter about a slave, and that was in 1920s! The desert chapters of the book are beautiful.
Lunch I had in La Retrouvailles Chez Nene restaurant, just outside the dock, most possibly because it was the only one with prices on the menu outside and they were reasonable. Thiebou dieune was tasty, I peeped at other people’s yassa and it didn’t look spectacular. The restaurant also serves espresso.
Back in town I went for a beer in the bar on Place d’Indépendance. A man sitting next to me started talking to me about hard work and its fruits and how life is satisfactory when work is done well. Then when he found out I’m from Poland he said he always wanted to import powdered milk from Poland because Poland and Holland have the best milk! Even Malaysians that he imports cooking oil from wanna sell him Polish milk (he also mentioned importing garlic from China, green peas from Argentina and onions also from Malaysia). He said he doesn’t do business with Europe coz we’re expensive but just because our milk is so good. Then he asked me if I can help him to find someone willing to export milk, in 25kg bags, he needs five 25tonnes containers per week, especially for Ramadan, which is mid-May. Oh well. I looked up one of the dairy’s website (Krasnystaw) and there it is: powdered milk in 25kg bags!
We shall see, insha’Allah.
Coming back to Maman 