This episode describes my continuing overland journey from Mauritania into Senegal as we crossed into the sub-Saharan zone. We travel to Dakar noting how the environment changes from wind-swept desert to the horizon, to grassy rangeland with the odd stunted tree and started seeing my first boababs and acacias.  Spending the Christmas week on Goree Isand was both a sobering and inspirational experience. Here I contemplate the history of the West African slave trade, imagining the horror of the practice and the reprecussions for families, both remaining in Africa and the ones that survived the horrendous voyages and life on the plantations in the Americas, to start new families over there.  I become immersed in African music, falling in love with the African djembe (drum) and the skill of the drummers playing each afternoon in one of the quiet alleyways. It spoke to a wild side of me as I soaked in the African culture and the atmosphere of the place and its locals, and I forever followed this music after this trip. It was a beautiful example of how music, song and dance lifts the soul and produces such positive vibes to carry on with life's fluctations. Don't be stopped by thinking people are judging you, be yourself and let what moves you come part of your life.  What I got out of this section of my journey was the realisation of how cruel people in history have been and the value of human beings in this world has changed at least in most places. The slave trade to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries changed the spread of the world population and the global genetic pool. How different the US would be today without their slave history and the history of their freedom fighters still fighting for equality today.  Slavery is still going on unfortunately in 167 countries in 2016 including Mauritania, Eritrea, India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Libya and Noth Korea being the main offenders. People are either born into slavery, become child slaves, sex slaves, have forced marriages or as forced labour in state-run projects, or become slaves from armed conflict. However, it is now an invisible issue. Even in the developed countries, slavery is known to exist, illegally of course but is still happens. I am one of the lucky ones to take our freedom for granted. However, many of these slaves are in low income-producing countries, where the cheap products that we buy come from these same countries and may be the product of slave labour.  Something to think about next time you are buying cheap goods.........  Music: Kwassa from Afrodrumming (https://afrodrumming.com/download-free-djembe-mp3-ax234k2kf3gg/) Photo: Goree Island by Geoff Weed on Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/155866837073578733/) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/justine-murray0/message