Goreé Island

Zach went to Goreé Island last week on a field trip with the 8th grade class. I was a chaperone. The island is rich in history. The island is the most famous tourist attraction in Senegal. One of the most frequently visited sites is the Maison des Esclaves (Slave House), a poignant reminder of Goreé's role as the center of West African slave trade. Built by the Dutch in 1776, the slave house has been preserved in its original state. The island was colonized in 1817. As with Manhattan Island, the Dutch bought the island from a local chief for a pittance. Goreé became a way station for Dutch ships plying the route between their forts on the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and the Indies. The Dutch gave the island its name, most probably for "Goeree" Island in Holland, or more fancifully - according to some - for its sheltered harbor, "Goode Reede" (good harbor). Goreé changed hands many times. The British took it from the Dutch; The Dutch then recaptured it, but had to give it up again to the French during French maritime expansion under Colbert. In 1802, by the terms of the Amiens peace agreement, the island became French and remained so until Senegalese independence in 1960.

Goreé was the principal entry point off the coast of Africa for slavers and merchantmen flying the French flag. Thousands of Africans passed through this island fortress on the continent's bulge. After the abolition of the slave trade in France in 1848, Goreé was an outpost for policing the seas. As its role in trade declined, it became a stepping off point for French colonization of the interior of West Africa.

Below are some pictures of the day.


The island is steeped in idol worship. Above is one of the many idols that they sacrifice things to.

Here is the ferry that we took to the island.

Upon leaving these boys encouraged us to throw money to them and they dive for it.

The sign above Zach's head says "cellule de recalcitrants" - it was the isolation cell.

This was a lookout, now it is a home. How would you like living there?

Zach sitting atop one of the cannons. This cannon was only fired once and it sank a ship that still lies at the bottom of the ocean. When we went scuba diving we explored the ship wreck.

Here is our guide by one of many cannons still on the island.

It was a fun day. The island has about 1,200 people that live there. There are no cars or bikes. It is heavily Muslim with a slight Catholic population. Pray that their eyes will be open as new ministries are trying to be started with a storying group.

A few pics

Here are some of the kids playing football on the field after a rain!

Here is Zach hanging out the van window!

Heat and more heat

I officially apologize for not posting for so long. It was shared with me that people were officially over the last post! So, here is what is going on - the heat. It has been hot and humid most of the time, with lots of rain. The streets are muddy and alot of flooding in the smaller neighborhoods. The amount of rain has drastically affected the roads - there are HUGE pot holes (sinkholes) in the roads. It makes for interesting driving. Especially when they fill up with water, and nobody wants to drive through any water, so they drive all over the road, sidewalks, etc to avoid water. Some of the holes are dangerous, but most are harmless puddles and their amazing avoidance of all liquids are funny. Especially when the taxis are held together by duct tape and an amazing welder!



Our days are filled with planning, organizing and shopping for the dorm. We are settling in and hope to start back with our language study. We will be starting a French class that will be held at the school for staff. We are excited about that. It is important to be able to speak both French and Wolof and I have been mostly using my French when dealing with the National workers. Right now their wolof is too fast for me to understand, so much of the time they will say it in wolof and then I ask them to repeat it in French. But I know more today than I did when I started, so that is progress. We hope to continue to learn enough to be able to share Bible stories with those that we meet when we are out and about during the day.

That is all for now - much of our life is the day to day stuff of living in Africa - I will try to look for the humorous things and capture those. Here is a funny tidbit: while playing handball Saturday night, a rat (big like a cat rat) crawled onto the court and caused everyone to panic. They were encouraging it to go out one of the rain holes, with no luck. So one of the kids killed it with the handball... You don't see that everyday!

It's Official

It is official! I am officially over the rainy season. I know all the reasons that the rainy season is important and I am sure that when corn or some other yummy vegetable comes available I will be happy that we had such a great rainy season. But right now I am over it. Rain equates to mud and mosquitoes. I love watching they guys play football in the water and mud, but don’t enjoy the nasty, wet, muddy clothes!

With the rainy season and hot season have come power cuts. I am officially over that as well. Yesterday we had less hours of power than we had power. That is not fun. Trying to get dinner on the table for 20 people with no electricity - no fun! But we made the best of it and all were fed and happy.

At one point after several hours of darkness - I shouted "I am over this" - shocking, nothing changed. But I did feel better after sharing.

I am not sure what my official declaration means, but I felt I needed to share. Right now as I am typing this, probably to spite me, the power just went out. Ugh.

We are told this will only last until November. Every day I say, we are going to get a generator. But I say this as we sit in the dark yet another night - we don't want to spend the money for such a short period of time, but I don't know if I can hold out! Arrgghh!