SEN/DK/2004

Gorée Island

The small island of Gorée is only 2 km at sea from the city of Dakar, Senegal. There are no cars on the island and literally everything comes by ferry.

My family used to live in Dakar between 1979 and 1986 and when I was a kid, Gorée was a great excursion destination where we used to go a few times a year, especially with visiting people from Europe. Great memories are associated with the island; the journey by boat was exciting and there was great playing potential on the island 😊

During the 17th century, the "House of Slaves" on Gorée with its "Door of No Return" served as a holding center for enslaved African people who were to be exported. Despite some controversy about the real importance of the place during the slave trade, it is today a museum and memorial. Since the publication of Alex Haley’s book “Roots” in the seventies, lots of tourists (especially African Americans) visit the place.

The French installed on the island a huge canon during the second world war and the underground fortress labyrinth offered interesting exploration possibilities to youngsters. The last time I checked the canon didn’t move one centimeter and was still rusting.

The few pictures I have from Gorée are from 1998 (analog material that I digitized, so forgive the non perfect image quality) and a few newer digital pictures from 2016.

There is really not much space on the island and playing soccer is a bit of a challenge on Gorée (did you know that a standard soccer field is 105 m x 68 m = 7’140 m²). On the photo you can see that the old “Baobab” tree is unfortunately in the middle of the soccer field. But with some imagination it is possible to blend this obstacle out and play quiet well even under these circumstances. That’s Africa 😊 I love it.

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