Na Nga Def--"hello" in wolof

Today was another fantastic day in Senegal. This place is living up to my high expectations that it would be an incredible place to visit. I think the Senegalese people are so warm and gentle. This was certainly reconfirmed after Else & I spent the day on the Ill de Goree with our new Senegalese friends, Abdu & Ali. These two lovely men who are brothers showed us around West Africa's biggest "House of Slaves"--a slave market from the beginning of the Portuguese trade (1557ish) until 1849 when the French ended slave trading.


Here is Else in a room where more than 20 men would be held for at a minimum 3 months until the ship could return to take them to the West to be sold.

This is the interior of the slave house with the masters quarters pictured above. It was a remarkable experience to be one of only two white people in this incredibly moving place while the tour guide explained its history to several classes of 10th graders from Dakar. Despite this opportunity to make us feel outrageously uncomfortable, these Senegalese teenagers were gracious and had a sense of peace about them.

This is the height contest we had during our day. :) Let me tell my friends, with my 6 foot tall travel companion, Else, and all these tall Senegalese, I will always lose this game. (Ali, Abdu, Else et moi)

Else & I have decided that plane travel is for wussies and that we are going to travel overland to Uganda instead. So, this is our rig that we will drive over the continent to Kampala...I wish! This is our friend Daniel's truck who is headed to Lake Tele.