It's quite unnerving that a place can be stunning (in my opinion, the nicest place I've seen in Senegal thus far), yet boast such a heinous past. Such is the case with Île de Gorée, a small island off the coast of Dakar. It takes about 30 minutes by ferry to reach Gorée, and the architecture is a flashback to the French colonial time. Gorée Island played a role in the Atlantic slave trade, although not as major of one as some other places in West Africa. Nonetheless, this place is a sobering reminder of the horrors that groups of people can inflict upon others. When visiting a place such as this, I always come away with a brain full of question marks. How can something like this even happen??? I know all the pat answers (greed, superiority, money, arrogance), but those words don't even start to appease the emotions that come with trying to picture the actual men, women, and children that lived the history of the island.
