The flight to Dakar was uneventful.
We were assigned personnel from the US Embassy in Senegal who escorted us in each bus and gave us a warm welcome. While Senegal is familiar stomping ground for Africa.com, for many on the plane, it was just another stop, and they were just starting their background on the latest city in their non-stop global jet setting.
When asked by one member of the press what one would do with one free afternoon in Senegal, the reply the Embassy staffer provided was disappointing to me. The staffer suggested that she visit a nearby beach where the surfing is fantastic.
As the head of Africa.com, my mission is for people to understand Africa the way one would understand any other part of the world. Every informed person knows that when in Senegal, one MUST visit Goree Island, designated by the United Nations as a World Heritage site. Goree Island was the largest slave trading center on the African Coast, and a site of much significance for its “Door of No Return” through which slaves were sent to the new world. Suggesting that someone visit Senegal and not see Goree Island is a bit like going to Auschwitz, and not seeing the concentration camp. Oh well.
Senegal and US Flags fly on Goree Isand as locals prepare for President Obama’s visit.
Photo credit: Arnold Lewis
After checking in at the hotel, we went to the Press Filing Center, which is a temporary command center for the media. There were long tables set up with chairs and power strips to plug in all of our computer equipment. A large screen TV with CNN running in the background was set up in front. Whenever a story came on about the President, everyone would stop and watch, to see how CNN is covering the story.
We all worked for a good hour or so, and then, a group of people went to Goree Island who were either a) doing advance work for the President’s visit the next day or b) curious to learn about this important historical site.
Our senior photographer, Arnold Lewis, and I went on the Goree Island visit. We traveled there in one of the buses that had picked us up at the airport. This bus was no luxurious affair. It broke down several times along the way, but managed to keep getting itself started again.
When we arrived, we had just missed the boat. They leave only every hour and a half or so, and with the busy agenda we had, most people would not have been able to wait for the next one. Very kindly, the Senegalese authorities who manage the boats that ferry passengers to and from Goree Island recognized that they had about 30 press from the White House, and arranged for the boat that had just left to return in order to collect us. Very nice.
We hired a local guide who walked us around the small island. I had visited the slave castles in Ghana before, which was a highly emotional experience. While Goree represents the same set of circumstances, it is an inhabited island, where about 1,000 Senegalese live and work today. There are numerous markets where artisans sell their goods, and the usual tourist hustle of “come see my shop.” All of this life on the island diluted, for me, the gravitas of what occurred there. After touring an art studio, visiting a market shop with lovely dresses, and being shown handmade jewelry, we finally arrived at the “Door of No Return.”
We spent a good half-hour touring the quarters in which slaves were held, peering out the door, and wondering what it must have felt like to be pushed through that opening, to never see the land of your birth again, separated from friends and family, to endure the middle passage in conditions not suited for an animal, and if you were lucky, to arrive in a new land where you would be subjected to slavery for the balance of your life. Needless to say, the emotions ran deep.
Senegal’s Presidential Palace gets fresh coat of paint ahead of Obama’s visit.
Photo credit: Arnold Lewis
We skipped the bus for the return to the hotel, and instead hired a driver who took us around Dakar, where our photographer took at least one hundred photos of the people of Dakar preparing for the arrival of President Obama. Please see the slideshow for these spectacular images.
When we returned to the hotel, we were invited to a brief gathering with the White House Press Secretary, and then we spent the balance of the evening in the Filing Center, uploading images, editing blogs, and ensuring that we were providing the most up to date and complete coverage possible.
At about 3 AM, we called it a day.
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