More Sights & Sounds From Senegal

A dragonfly appears as a symbol of wisdom and resilience in the face of change

Feb. 19, Dakar/Ile de Goree

I walk the now-familiar route to the beachfront strip in Almadies to find coffee, even though I know these are the overpriced places, the fancy ones, not unlike those I’d find in the U.S. or Europe. This is part of Senegal too, part of the “progress” and development of Dakar to have fancy espresso drinks and smoothies, oceanfront floor-to-ceiling glass windows and covered decks open to the ocean breezes.

It is still a mystery to locate the place, tucked away as it is far back from the street through the dirt lot, where roaming cats play peek-a-boo behind the plants.

I don’t have much time before Magueye, my host and guide, picks me up at my hotel to take me to Ile de Goree, aka, Goree Island. It is a must-see, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a poignant spot to commemorate the country’s unfortunate history as part of the Atlantic slave trade. I’m not sure what to expect, but Africa has already defied all of my expectations. There is never really any way to know how a place will make you feel until you are there, in it, feeling it.

The drive to the ferry in a taxi offers a quick peak at the major sights of Dakar: Le Monument de la Renaissance Africaine, a beautiful monument one can apparently climb 198 steps into to the top (which I don’t do), the minarets of the Mosque of the Divinity, and the Presidential Palace. I am not one for typical sightseeing, but it is nice to get a glimpse.

We wait hours for the ferry and finally board for the short trip to the car-free island. I knew only about the House of Slaves, but Magueye deftly ditches the large crowds milling around after disembarking and quickly makes his way down the narrow streets, surrounded by colorful colonial buildings, to the empty far end of the island, where art flanks the paths, where artists live and sell their work. It is so beautiful and wild here, I could imagine waking up here and wanting to create exquisite things. I buy a few small paintings, a common local style featuring bits of various fabrics, and a few small sculptures I can’t resist—light ones—putting off worry about how I will get them home.

Magueye stops me from obsessing over all the art I cannot possibly carry, and rushes me past beautiful spots I decide I have to come back to linger over longer sometime soon. I find out you can stay over in hotels on the island, and I begin to fantasize…But it is time to get in line for the tour of the House of Slaves when it opens and then get on the ferry back to Dakar.

I have a moment, standing on a hilltop seeing down over the island, across it and out to sea, to Dakar in the distance, that feels like I’ve been here before, a deja vu that feels strong and powerful before I descend the rocky stairs.

It has all been written. In the shadow of the tall pockmarked peace sculpture, a dragonfly danced around us and I laughed, trying to explain how my spirit animal had first shown itself to me at another pre-written moment in time, and over and over again at pivotal points.

The dragonfly, which I long ago tattooed on my leg as a symbol of personal change, in many cultures (including Africa) represents wisdom and resilience in the face of change.

It was fitting that we encountered a dragonfly just before we entered the Slave House, a symbol of the important changes and progress Senegal has made over time, what it has built and become, how its people respect and support one another and have elected leadership that people are hopeful about.

We don’t linger long and that’s ok. It was enough to pass quickly by the heavy ball and chain slaves wore, the cramped quarters where they were held, and to stand for a photo in the Door of No Return that humans were sent out of across the ocean into slavery (I balked but Magueye told me it was important to celebrate. “Slavery is over…” he said).

The horrific realities of history are important to see with your own eyes, to understand, to learn from, but to think too long about them…maybe not. There is so much beauty to revel in, to behold, to create! Better to celebrate artists like this one, sitting in his open-air studio just in site of the historic building with the next generation of his family working alongside him, using the various brightly colored sands of Africa to color his canvases.

I return to Almadies and eat prawns while watching the sun set over the sea. I find my way to a music venue but only after searching around town via three different taxis, just to end where I started.

I am tired and frustrated with the difficulty communicating without knowing French or Woloff, and the music takes a while to begin. It is good but I feel a bit sad not being able to speak to anyone in the growing crowd. I look up above the towering palm tree and am struck by the idea that despite how different I feel here, we are all of us underneath the same sky. The idea cheers me some, but still I leave early and head back to my hotel.

Feb. 20 - Dakar/Cambarene - I go in the morning to meet up with my friends Alpha, who made my Bongoma, and Aliya, who tries to teach me the different rhythms on the Bongoma.

We sit at the little coffee stand of their friend Mamadou and play, drawing dancing girls from the school across the street, a man who admires the instruments and sits down to play with us, and loads of passersby who stop on foot or pull up in their cars to have a coffee. It must be strange for people to see me sitting there, but everyone is friendly and warm so I can almost forget I am a middle-aged white lady (almost.)

Alpha replaces the wood piece under which the metal tines fit with a handle-less knife. Though he seems to be focused on this task, he looks up as I try to follow Aliya’s teachings and offers up the words, “tempo, tempo,” putting the parts of my instrument down to depict with his hands how I need to take it down a notch, breathing in slowly and dramatically and exhaling similarly exaggeratedly to make his point.

“Relax,” he might say if he spoke English. But “tempo,” in both English and French, signifies the speed or pace of a composition, the beats per minute. It is also an indication of the atmosphere the music creates and clearly here, by the side of the road in Dakar, we are looking to find an easy rhythm, a flow, like how the morning turns into the afternoon, and they ask me please to wait for them while they go to pray, and then to eat with them, “mange, mange,” they beseech me.

I wait, and then the metal container is brought and heaping bowls of rice and sauce are put out, along with spoons. I have no idea what it is, but it’s delicious.

I prevail upon my friends, through Google translate, to put me in a taxi to meet Samba, my djembe teacher, at his home in Cambarene. It is iffy, and I put them on the phone with Samba, who also later speaks to the driver, and by a miracle I get there, and we are on the beach once again, playing the rhythms.

Ba dap de dap be dap de dap, Ba dap de dap be dap de dap…over and over again until I think I might go mad or, really, until it becomes a kind of mindless meditation.

Afterward we go to Samba’s house and he shows me around, opening a door off the hall to reveal, quite surprisingly, an open-air “room” that houses a cow. Through the kitchen, where dinner is cooking on a low metal fire pit in the dark, Samba opens another door to reveal a similar roofless room housing sheep, many of them. It is a surprising revelation, the animals that live there with him and his family, side by side, but then so much has surprised me here, bits and pieces of information about how the Senegalese live revealed slowly, as I gain their trust and friendship.

Slowly but surely, I’m writing up my take on this wonderful adventure!

Next up: The overnight ferry to the Casamance region, my time in Ziguinchor by the Casamance River, and learning the Kora in Kafountine…lots of bits of beautiful music along the way! Thanks for reading!!!

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In peace and harmony.

XX

Steph