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Yesterday, after a hurried soles and bowls session, Amistad’s crew, along with Capt. Bill Pinkney, Quentin Snediker and the German movie crew boarded the 60-foot ferry Amistadt (yes, with a T) and journeyed for two hours up the Sierra Leone River, past mangrove swamps, to Bunce Island, one of the oldest slave fortresses in West Africa. The island lies at the end of where the river is navigable by ocean-going vessels, so it became a hub of trade for gold, ivory and slaves, which were brought from the interior by much smaller boats.
Being present on Bunce Island was an odd experience for me in many ways. Walking along the path through the jungle, passing towering trees whose trunks were surrounded by buttresses of roots, clambering into a cave-like storeroom that was filled with bats, were all very different from anything else I have ever done, making the whole place seem oddly exotic Landing on the beach where boats once carried human cargo onto slave ships was deeply moving. Walking to the cemetery, filled with graves of those whose deaths gave the name “White Man’s Grave” to this part of Africa led me to reflect on the lives of not just the Africans who were enslaved, but also of the Europeans who left behind their friends and families in search of wealth, but who found only sickness and death.
Thinking of all those whose lives, both black and white, who were destroyed by the slave trade set a somber mood for the day and led me to ponder the systems of exploitation that exist in today’s world, where the victims are dehumanized by the oppression that they meet on a regular basis and where the perpetrators also become victims because of their participation in or aquiescence to injustice. I think of the white South Africans who participated in apartheid, of the Germans who followed their government blindly in its efforts to exterminate Jews, of straight people who deny gays and lesbians the right to marry the ones they love, of people who ostracize others or deny them employment because of the color of their skin or the country in which they were born. The world in which we live demands that we pay attention to the way our lives impact others and that we look beyond our own desires in order to ensure the welfare of others.
This morning, the crew turned to, readying the ship for our departure from Government Wharf, where there was a huge celebration to see us off. Though we were all shipboard, it was amazing to hear the musicians and to see the traditional dancers as they offered us their blessings for our voyage. The celebration concluded with the lowering of a huge Sierra Leonean flag and the raising of the US flag in its place and the ringing of the ship’s bell 53 times in commemoration of the lives of each of the 53 captives aboard Amistad in 1839. After the sendoff, we traveled about a mile or so and anchored in Aberdeen Bay, where we have been spending the rest of the day getting the ship ready to sail on Wednesday.
It looks like there will be 11 of us on the trip to Dakar, including three additional Sierra Leoneans, who have been working with us over the last several weeks. We’ve got Vincent from the Navy, Sia from the Port Authority and Samuel, who was one of the AKAL Security guards who has been looking after the ship and who really went above and beyond the call of duty in helping out with the crew’s work on board. Tomorrow will be our final day of preparations and then we raise the anchor and set sail at 07:00. We’re all looking forward to going sailing and to arriving in Dakar in about a week’s time.
Next week is my son, Ian’s 12th birthday and I’m getting a bit homesick thinking about missing his celebration. I’ve made him some videos for his birthday, but haven’t been able to send them off to him because of email problems, so happy birthday, Ian! I love you – and your mother, too! I’ll contact you when I can.
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