This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Territory of less than 30 hectares, the island of Gorée reigns, majestic, outside the dizzying capital of Senegal and its millions of inhabitants, with the Atlantic as a diadem. Although she is listed in the registers as 19and commune of arrondissement, one breathes the oxygen of time there. It is a poem chained to the memory of the captive human being. Then released.
Gorée has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978, in universal memory of the worst slavery fracture in Africa. From the port of Dakar, we reach the island, not without a pinch, from a ferry – here a boat – in about twenty minutes. Ideally early in the morning, to capture its pastel shapes traced in the fog. On berthing, the first glance calms down on an inviting stretch of beach. A section of wall scratched with the proud “Lion of Teranga”, symbol of the country and its football team, just haloed with the title of the best team on the African continent.
Through Gorean prose
History is written over the steps on the ancestral cobblestones to the House of Slaves, place dungeon in 1776 of thousands of children, women and men savagely torn from the nourishing earth to be sent to the triangular abyss. The prison space casts the shadow of its bare spirits. Some visitors shamelessly dare to stage themselves there with selfies, under the dismayed gaze of the commissioner. Impossible to escape from the building, whose only maritime exit consists of an evacuation: that of no return.
Leaving the House of Slaves, in a small square a few meters away, an engraved quatrain, lively inspiration of the historian, man of letters and diplomat Jean-Louis Roy:
The one who told you that Gorée is an island
This one lied
This island is not an island
She is continent of the spirit (November 1999)
This plaque is embedded in the Gorean organism, like a balm on the human race, all colors of soul and skin confused.
In the surrounding passages stand colonial houses from the second half of the 18th century.and century. Family legacies, converted art galleries, lodges and hotels… these spaces harbor contemporaneity without ever blending in. Portuguese, Dutch, English and French, the four nations of former slave traders have left their outlines and architectural influences within these buildings.
Proud and set back, the most illustrious residence in Gorée is that intended for the Head of State. A pavilion on the sea made available to him. On its ivory walls, a dozen dusty closed shutters on a frozen, inanimate place. The last Senegalese president to have stayed there was Abdoulaye Wade in the years 2000-2010.
Everyday crafts
Life is woven here, simple and harmonious, by the creative gesture of its craftsmen. On light textiles or robust canvases, hidden in bottles, the touch of fairy tact. In the auditory frame, No woman No Cry rises to the clear sky. A break in the company of Rasta Bobo, the time to taste his famous natural omelet, to marvel at this free artistic decor planted around the baobabs. “We, the craftsmen, don’t need to leave Gorée, they come to find us there…” proclaims the laughing man, close to the Emperor Selassie.
Climbing the island becoming steep, Dakar in the distance seems submissive, almost laughable with its western-style buildings. Islanders listen and sing loudly the songs of the Mouride brotherhood to inflate their lungs. The work of maintaining the jewel occupies them on this Sunday noon, at the solar zenith. The environment and its vegetation — bougainvillea, leafy trees and palm trees — hide devastating waste and plastics. Gorée’s luster shines with purity.
The slow march beats the rhythm and harmonizes with the notes of strolling of the whole being. At lunchtime, after the discreet prayer at 2 p.m., a gourmet stop is a must At Uncle’s alias Djibril, the “crutch colossus”. A Gorée institution dating back to 1949, the restaurant welcomes foodies for a bite to eat. The star dish: ragout with monkfish meatballs in tomato sauce. A dominance of oil, broth of ocean pearls and its mound of local rice. Washed down with a Flag beer, the dish charms and makes a colony of cats salivate with envy performing a dance of seduction around their ankles. Black, white, blond or tabby, the Gorean cat has shiny hair and celestial eyes.
The hour of return has sounded, to the magnetizing setting sun. The imposing statue of the liberation from slavery stands on an extreme point, not far from the Fort d’Estrées. The work vibrates to the tom-tom of deliverance.