Besides Hamidou, Khanata, and their darling kids, I had spent my trip alone, walking and wandering, grieving and marveling, so that the Dakar I saw was not so much a city of people but, like Gorée itself, a monument to the Last Stop before we were remade. It occurs to me now that I had come to see a part of Africa but not Africans. Indeed, almost every encounter I had with actual people found me, as I was back at Gorée, seeking out the solace of my own reflection. Toward the end of my trip, the limits of this approach were becoming clear. I began to feel there was something deeply incurious in
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