Bonne Fete and Reality Check

African Dance

Happy Birthday! Celebrating 26 years with delicious mango birthday cake!

Behind bars - imagining living within the confines of this cell with 20-30 other human beings. The slave trade is a blight in our human history and we need to be looking at ways slavery continues even in the 21st century and what we can do to stop it.

The point of no return - this door symbolizes the starting point for the excuciating suffering African slaves would experience once in the New World. From this doorway and other doorways like this, slaves left their African homeland, never to return again.

I can say I've never celebrated a birthday like this before! An energetic rendition of Happy Birthday first thing in the morning from my fellow travel mates, followed by a work distribution in a tiny village in northern Senegal. There I got to dance with African women. What an amazing experience! Pots and pans turned into drums and the women started dancing, I got to join them in the middle of the circle.

Then a sidetrip to the Mauritania border (did anyone else have no idea Mauritania even existed?) followed by a great dinner and mango cake. A great way to turn 26.

The last days in Senegal were a blurr. Highlights: Goree Island – the point of no return for close to 3 million Africans during the Atlantic slave trade. A somber experience to say the least, but remarkable to share in the suffering and grieve the horrors committed in our collective human history.

Now once again it's time for real life. Back to work on Wednesday. Back to Canada. Back to the grind.