The Rumors are True

For those of you who have seen my latest Facebook status, it's true: This weekend I became a Senegalese television star. I was at Goree Island, a fifteen minute boat ride from Dakar, for the annual Goree Diaspora Festival. (Historical side note: Goree was the point of departure for much of the slave trading in West Africa, although the famed "Door of No Return" does not actually lead to a potential ship but to a cliff face.) When we arrived at Goree, we found not a festival celebrating--well, frankly, I didn't quite know what a Diaspora festival would celebrate--but a festival mostly celebrating the island nation of Cape Verde and various other island nations, such as Martinique. Not important that Goree is not an island nation. In any case, the President of Cape Verde showed up to shake hands with the Ambassador from Venezuela in front of a picture of Chavez, so a good time was had by all.

To prove to the country that not only is an island made famous by a horrible tragedy F-U-N FUN, but also that white, non-French tourists also find it fun, my friend Sergio and I were stopped by a TV crew asking us to give an interview, but only if we were Anglophones. We were asked to describe the festival in one word. I chose "colorful." Sergio chose "fun," followed by "warm" (hi, it's Africa). Can you tell which of the two of us really cared about reaching out to the Senegalese population to show our love for their (Cape Verde's) culture?

The best part was that our efforts at stardom paid off. Both of us were seen on TV by our colleagues, who practically fainted as we walked down the hallways of our respective UN agencies and blew kisses at the adoring fans.

I would upload a photo as proof of my celebrity, but my internet is so bad that I have to load Gmail in html. What is this, 2005?

(Update: Okay, so it is no longer 2005, and I found some better internet.)