The sad waters of Gorée
A visit to the port full of tears
The sea breeze in Gorée is warm. The smell of salt and tide filled Benedita’s lungs as she looked at the horizon. Her eyes wandered to the small island west of Dakar, Senegal. She had chosen to visit the port from which the slave ships that took her great-grandparents by force to the waters of Bahia de Todos Santos departed. There they were enslaved and sent to plantations at the beginning of the last century. They could only be nobles of their tribes — after all, where could the little girl born in the favela do Pinto, in Rio de Janeiro, get that queenly posture? Since I was little fearless, stubborn.
The voyage to the port of Gorée was a bridge to the past, with the screams and whispers of the pain of being ripped from their land, with the pain of the lash that cut the skin on nights when the boat danced on the ocean. She walked the alleys of streets on foot, from the city created by the wealth of slavery to look at the sea and try to feel the waters that her great-grandmother once shed tears and blood.
A dynasty of female warriors — that could only be the explanation for that fierce gaze. So different from so many other black women and men used to having their heads down, to the screams of the big house. Benedita, the great-granddaughter of those who left Dakar, was born in a slum where all the descendants of those ships went. They were wooden houses with zinc, which heated in the summer cooked their bodies. The very accentuated curves of her body were touched without her authorization and will as a teenager, her loves — oh who cares to love when food is lacking! Benedita would wake up smothered by the heat of the poorly nailed boards of her walls, run after the chickens for lunch and fold the clothes that her washer mother had to deliver.
But the girl from the favela was not there in Senegal to see the blue of the sea and honor her ancestors only. It was a painful return, like being born backwards with her body returning to her mother’s belly. From there, a kaleidoscope of memories and anguish, all the tears came down and returned to the sea. The girl, the wife, mother and grandmother, all the memories of that slave ship. Probably the only descendant of all those hundreds of souls to return to the tiny island of Gorée.
Benedict takes a deep breath. She looks out to sea again. She wipes away her tears and smiles, the kind we shed after a victory. She shows her teeth, adjusts her burgundy hair and hat, readjusts her white and pearl suit. His driver waiting with the open door of an official car bearing the flags of an embassy. It’s more than an official visit. On the way to the pier, a girl crosses her path and offers her flowers. She might have been her granddaughter if they hadn’t taken her ancestors from that place by force. The girl smiles not knowing that she is a survivor, which tribe of hers survived the trade in bodies and souls.
Benedita walks to the car and leaves the village, in the video of the car the shadows of the houses are reflected and parade like in a movie. And children run to offer flowers and ask for help with outstretched hands following the car. And her eyes soaked with tears say goodbye to the port, to the past. The city disappears through the window of the plane on that flight that flew over Dakar to Rio de Janeiro. Benedita looked at that endless sea and saw boats shrinking until they turned into black dots. By disappearing like stars in the sky.
In that stretch between Senegal and Brazil thousands of bodies disappeared, thrown by slave traders — the story goes that almost half of the ships would die of hunger, thirst, disease or torture. Benedita flew over a month-long journey in a few hours, but she closed her eyes and felt all that pain, all the anguish. She came home, hugged her husband and grandchildren, showed the photos as a trophy. She had returned to her origins and returned in peace, praying for souls and feeling gratitude for overcoming so many difficult inheritances.
Her body rested on the bed as she looked up at the ceiling as her lover’s hands tenderly touched her arm — are you okay? asked Antonio. I said it would be tiring, but you are…. stubborn.
Benedicta smiled. — My tiredness is of tremendous peace. Now I know where I came from — and there is the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.
