Did I spot the next Senegalese superstar?

Michel Heitzmann

For three centuries, humans were exported from Gorée as slaves. No words can describe the thinking, the suffering, the horror.

The island is small. A shrine to the worst of humanity.

But there is also joy now.

Away from the history, behind the fishing boats, I found football. Kids in sandals. The ball was a deflated basketball. There were no goals. It did not matter.

I could have been in Rio, Paris, or anywhere else. The joy and the tease were the same.

It occurred to me that contrasts are fascinating. The heaviness of a place and the lightness inside it, existing at the same time. The tension doesn’t cancel either side. It holds both.

Is that what we’re all doing? Carrying the weight and playing anyway?