The Meat Market

Somehow in Brooklyn when we say fresh it doesn't mean this fresh! The village meat market hack it skin it, drain it and throw it on the spit for dinner. Goat goat and more goat, not much else going on in this Muslim Village.

ISLE DE GOREE "SLAVE MANSION"

The very emotional and thought provoking Isle De Goree, the slave island, home of the infamous "Maison Esclave", the slave house where so many passed through the door of "No Return".

Wall Street has nothing on these village stock brokers deciding the days commodity rates for the all important currency of goats out in the village central market. So much to learn and do in village life!

The Village Center

Kmart move over because they are having a big sale in Dakar right in the village central market!

DAKAR, SENEGAL

Yeah, I know its a year late but better late than never! My maiden voyage to the motherland was all that I thought it would be. Breath taking, emotional, confusing, passionate and fantastic. The people were rich, beautiful and animated. They quickly proved to me the need to get over the fantasy & beauty of it all and realize that to them my pilgrimage to the homeland was an American thing that black "Americans" go through; to them at best just more Yankee bucks to be earned, taken or swindled by any means necessary. Absolutely there were many genuine and endearing people but the overwhelming characters were the the street hustlers hawking their cheap Chinese made goods, much like the cheap wares you buy on Canal Street. There were so many people wanting to talk about visas and getting married. I didn't get a feel for the real Africa until getting out of the city and into the rural areas and villages. Once in a village the confused baffled sense of what to do or where to start set in and I felt like a kid separated from my mother the first time in a huge grocery store. I was not sure whether to run, cry or just sit and roll up into a ball. The first village drama was how to use the bathroom after riding 6 hours in the bush. Well seems simple enough until you pull open the door and realize that the African bathroom is a whole in the ground that one squats over, right before trying to figure out what to do about flushing, wiping and forget about washing hands or hand because it is a Muslim country. You are only supposed to use your left hand for cleaning and wiping and the right hand for eating and touching, but of course I knew this because of my trip research. Dinner was interesting, still not sure of what it was but it was dead, well cooked and mixed with rice that we all ate in a big circle on the floor out of the same pot only with our right hands and only after I ate first as the guest of honor. So what, I was scared as hell and worried about dying from eating who knows what that they got from who knows where! We ate and drank some kind of homemade drink and talked in to the night and then all of a sudden all of the women were gone and then the elders and then there were just a few men left and lets just say, I will be going back for the late night antics in November! I finally got to sleep under the hot and arid African moonlight feeling very peaceful!