Dakar

I don't have a picture to post yet, but I am writing from the most hectic city I have ever been to. Dakar is hot, dirty, colourful, teeming with people selling all sorts of trinkets you don't need, and evidently full of overwealthy politicians you can't see.

I spent last night on l'ile de Goree, which is just off the coast of Dakar. It's much calmer, and really, really beautiful. Its beauty is all the more disturbing as it was the main outlet for the slave trade to America and Europe for 4 centuries. The musee de l'esclavage is also chillingly aesthetic. It's colourful, almost pleasant to be in, if not for the placards showing which room was for shoving young girls below age 12 into, assuming they survived that far.

A door give out onto the sea, which was nicknamed since 'la porte de la mort'. The sun glistens over a gorgeous coast through a doorway which saw 12 000 000 africans sold to slavery.

Am on my way to Joal now. Will write soon.