Island ghosts

While still in Umeå, I remember reading that an Anglican cathedral had been constructed on the site of the old slave market here in Stone Town. Yet, it is one thing to read facts in a guide book and a completely different thing to stand next to the altar that, highly symbolic, now marks the spot of the whipping tree and to hear stories of how slaves were lashed so that those who did not cry could be sold at a higher price. Climbing down into the small suffocating slave chambers below made me again question what we humans are capable of doing to each other.

In the end, I guess I am back with Sagan: “You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not”.