Soccer and Slavery Part I

This weekend was filled with pre-planned events courtesy of my study abroad program. On Saturday, we went to Léopold Sédar Senghor stadium at 3:00 pm for the 5:00 pm game. I carpooled with Shelby and her very nice host sister, who negotiated wonderful taxi prices and resolved a minor ticket snafu for me. Though my conversational French has improved and I’m becoming more comfortable with Wolof, it still helps to have a native speaker around. We sat with our friends Isaac, Alicia, et al. and had a great time watching our first major-league soccer match against Burkina Faso. The Burkinabé players didn’t last long on the field, prompting a discussion about the value of acting in soccer. Senegal won 5-1 and will be advancing to the championships next year. I had gone to Club Olympique that morning, and after all of the yelling was exhausted. Just as well – I had to wake up at 6:45 Sunday morning for our excursion to Gorée Island.

After learning about the island’s slaving past (being near the westernmost tip of Africa, it was the main departure site for West African slaves) in Contemporary African Art last semester, I was pumped. But today was definitely one for patience. Though I had informed my host mother of my plans to leave early, the maid had to run out for bread at 7:30 am. I jogged a bit in my flipflops on the road to school in order to make the 8:00 am bus when I saw several of my compatriots calmly munching pastries in front of the gas station. When we arrived at school, we saw that everyone was still just standing around. It took an hour to distribute all of the sandwiches and load everyone on the buses, causing us to miss the 9:00 am ferry. Once we arrived at the dock, we waited another half-hour before boarding for the 25 minute ride. After a bumpy bus ride through the streets of Dakar and a none-too-gentle voyage, I was feeling quite sick. As luck would have it, our program assistant/activities director didn’t make it on the first ferry, causing us to sit around for 45 minutes.