OUR FAVOURITE ELEPHANT IS CALLED GOREE
The year is 1999 on the Island of Goree, just off the coast from Dakar the capital of Senegal, West Africa.
My wife and I had an English Language School in the fishing town of Palamos in Catalunya, north of Barcelona. Most of our students were school kids but that year I had a great-fun adult class. There was the owner of the local Ford dealership, a teacher who lived in the lighthouse, a historian who was trying to establish a museum of fishing, a fifteen-year-old boy who was a great kid but a bundle of bother in the kids’ class and there was Jose who was marketing manager of a group of hotels. It was a lively class and the grammar theme often drifted into other topics especially travel.
At the time, the Paris-Dakar Rally was very popular as it passed through Catalunya. While the teacher from the lighthouse was telling us about her trip to Machu Picchu, the menfolk were all abuzz with the rally. I mentioned that we were looking at going to Dakar, just for a visit, but that flights were expensive. A week or so later, Jose, the tourism professional, mentioned that he’d received a fax message about a special offer that Iberia had on teletext.
That night we, rather doubtfully, switched on the TV and hit the teletext button. Sure enough 25,000 pesetas each for the return flight. (150 euros). We booked by phone with credit card and the tickets arrived by mail. That’s snail-mail not email, except it was actually express and they arrived two days later. I don’t remember where we found the hotel but it was booked by exchange of fax messages.
We had a good trip, our first to “real” Africa. We’d already been to Tangiers in Morocco and a one-day cruise stop in Alexandria in Egypt when we were firstmarried.
Goree Island is just a short, 3 km boat-ride from Dakar. It was a holding warehouse for slaves between the 16th and 19th centuries. There is some controversy about how many of the millions of slaves were actually transported from Goree. Nowadays it is a museum and memorial. It was very quiet and calm apart from the souvenir traders, gathered round the docking bay of the ferry.
One trader had a kind of shop, set back from the bustle, and some of his carved wood animals caught my wife’s attention. She really liked one elephant in particular but it was heavy. There was a bit of friendly banter over the price but it was the weight, rather than the price, that was the obstacle. We left it to take a walk round the small island and then come back for some lunch.
Sitting, having lunch, an hour or so later, we were aware that the seller of the wooden ornaments was keeping an eye on us. We went for another look but again it was the sheer bulk that made us hesitate. Meanwhile the ferry had returned and it was time to head back to Dakar. The vendor was still haggling as we got on board and by now all the other traders were watching and laughing. As they started to untie the ropes, he tried one more time with a little bit off the price. My wife and I looked at each other, nodded and produced the cash. I nearly dropped the elephant because of the weight. As the ferry edged away, the vendor ran after us holding a little plastic bag with two white tusks. Then he turned round to a cheer from the other traders.
Well, Goree has sat on a ledge at the bottom of our stairs for 25 years. Just checked and he weighs ten and a half kilos (about 22 pounds). Coming home from Dakar he occupied my whole backpack and my wife had to stuff all my things in her bag. But he sits there, in pride of place, admired by everyone. The grand-kids have knocked off a tusk a couple of times but they’re stuck back on.
We’ve taken a few crazy souvenirs home over the years. Perhaps the craziest were two metre-high furry, wooden-framed camels from Cairo, fifty years ago. We gave one to my niece. The other one got pushed down the stairs of our house by my kids when we still lived in Scotland. It had one of their friends sitting on its back. He was OK but the camel was a bit wrecked.
In this story, I have mentioned faxes and teletext and it occurred to me that many younger people reading this will have little notion of what they were. So one of my next stories will be, “From candle power to AI in 75 years”. You’ll be amazed at the changes I have lived and worked through.
