One of the excisions I took part in whilst in The Gambia was the 'roots' trip. This trip takes you on a journey of Gambian slave Kunta Kinte, starting at the village he lived in 'Juffure' and then travelling by small canoe boat to James Island, now re-named Kunta Kinte island.
Since returning from The Gambia, I have begun reading the book 'Roots' by Alex Haley. Haley is a descendant of Kunta Kinte and after learning of the family history from his great grandmother decided to write it into a novel.
Whilst at James Island, our tour guide began telling us of the Baobab tress on the island and that they are many hundreds of years old. When we reached the slave yard he said, "If trees could talk, the stories that they would tell..."
This stuck with me for the whole trip and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. It is so true! If they have been there all of this time, how much have those trees witnessed. What would they say if you could speak?
After that, I began photographing the island in a different mind set. When looking at the island from the main land, whilst travelling over on the boat and even being on the island itself - it is SO idyllic! Huge green and brown trees, sand, bright blue sea as far as you can see out, sunshine and happy smiley faces all around ... people journey there and think 'wow' its beautiful - I know I did when I first arrived there.
But, look deeper into the history and the truth and it is no idyllic, it is not beautiful, it is so far the opposite. It is shocking.. and to be honest it brought me to tears when the realisation sank in.
On my blog that I kept whilst in The Gambia I wrote this about the day - 'James Island is a bit of an interesting place - it's beautiful views, idyllic are juxtaposed with the horrors of what happened there ! 'If trees could talk' was a phrase our tour guide repeated. The baobab trees there are the same ones that were there at the time kunta kinte would has been a slave on the island ! Insane ! '
