How Do You Say Hello?; 13

Back to the last few days in the car I have seen countless people in the street buying animals buying sheep and others and leading animals along with a rope. The way you might have a dog on a leash. What is going on in the car with the sheep. The Muslims are preparing watching what is to be asking. First of all what are the Muslims celebrating. To Muslims right of our this is the old biblical story of Abraham who was to sacrifice his son and who later sacrificed a sheep to the people themselves sacrificed sheep them but if they cannot sacrifice a sheep which are at that place. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in cooperation with the United Nations Children's

Fund presents. How do you a series of radio programs by Charles winter about children of the developing countries how do you say hello today from Senegal tree. Brothers or sisters. As with many countries when they go is trying to preserve folk our culture. One of the places in which it does this is a place in which Victor and I are standing now.

What is the name of this place is this place. Of course someone thinks so the arts and crafts of Africa Senegal included one thinks of African masks. We are in front of a group of men who are sitting before a huge pile of logs and they are doing just that they are making African masks. What kind of wood is this wood. This would be very bad. I'm interested because the man to one side here is polishing the masks with a very familiar household object he's using it in a black shoe polish issue Polish usually used. How will he polish the mask afterwards but the polish on it and oh so it's really just like doing a pair of shoes you put the polish on the mask you rub it well and take another brush and you shine it up. They have professional mask polishers here than in the artist's village. Do these masks have

any importance. Do they mean anything. It's a sort of magic I know magic is not generally believed in Africa now but in olden times when these masks were used what would the people of believed like you say what we say and as a maker what does it say. So if I had wanted to wage war with you a hundred years ago I might have taken a mask and sacrificed to it and then listened for advice from the master decide whether to fight you or not. I wouldn't have caught your promise. We have been in all corners of this artist village and it's not a small place by any means. There are all kinds of thatched huts with all kinds of workmen working at various crafts that belong to Senegal. We have seen the most intricate gold work silver

work we have seen shell beans we have seen leather work it is extremely well done and we stop now in front of a stall with the rarest and most exotic of musical instruments I guess I've ever seen. What is the instrument called. Chorus Oh yes. They almost look like like a dried melon to me is that you know it looked like a melon. It does kind of us. Well these are calabash on top so it's half a calabash semicircle of Calabasas with an animal skin stretched on top. And how many strings has it got 1 2 3 4 5 6 12 strings. I think yes I think yes the 12 strings go down a long wooden spoke inserted in the end of the Calabash who would play it as a true troubadour. You mean when you played as used to it you would likely sing as well.

Yes. Can you play and sing it. I can't see it. Would you perhaps ask the man here if he would play a little bit for us. Yes. You didn't if you could. Could he sing a song with him. Victor what is the official language of your country.

He's French. Do you speak other languages yourself. Yes I speak Spanish. You speak any African languages. I speak. What is not again. All of one of. My. I want to say someone. What I said. Say that again. My. Not. My my yes. All right. Let's have something simpler for somebody like me who is just learning. How do you say hello. I say you. Get up. All right. Suppose I wanted to say thank you. If I want to say thank you I say yes.

Something simple how what I say no. No yes and something even the simpler how what I say yes. Wow. Wow what a delightful way to say yes. Wow again thank you. For my language. You're a Jeff. Jim's been where. He started to. Public Health and Social Welfare of the Senate. Mr. Bennett I wonder if you would first of all tell the girls and boys a little about the country of Senegal. A very small country people seem to be under four hundred thousand inhabitants. The capital of Dhaka. The

green yellow. A good many of the several millions of the citizens of your country are obviously children. You have 21 people so the population is very young have the opportunity to attend school don't attend school because we have no schools here so social centers.

Are such a center somewhere that we make on business. Coming up. This is the center at that. Thank you very much. Victor and I are in the car. Here is the part of the car an important part thought of looking around the harbor I see a good many different kinds of for example those very small wooden boats over there and over on my right. Those look like almost like. We are not aboard for this ferry to talk about the harbor.

We're here for a different reason where we're going. If you're standing in a very pleasant sunny courtyard here in the island of Goree where in the courtyard of a quite substantial and quite handsome house are really there are two curving staircase going up to the second floor and directly ahead of us there is an open arch going to the ground floor the level at which we stand. Pleasant sunny warm and peaceful. But just to my right as I talk over one of the staircases there is a large metal chain with a circle of metal at the end of it that must be six inches. High and it looks very forbidding indeed. What is this metal piece. A leg shackle. With that I think you should tell the girls and boys where we are standing

now. There sonny. The slaves House the House of slaves in the island of Gori which suggests that though it's calm and peaceful now perhaps it wasn't. At one time the House of slaves obviously was a place where slaves were kept. Where did they come from. They come from other countries. West Africa. When the slaves have been brought to the house of slaves here in the island of Gori in West Africa where would they go next. How long ago. Would this have been you know 50 to 200 years. So it's safely in the past now. But you're right we go inside the house of slaves. Yes. Good let's go. Hi. We are standing in one of the main rooms of the slave post here on the ground floor. It would be a room that I would guess would be about one third the size of an ordinary

classroom. What was this room used for this room was used for the sleighs men the male slaves were kept in this room is where were the women and where were the children or where their women and children and children was actually. On the other side of the corridor. Yes there is a church doctrine was not kept say was killed. I see on the wall over here its semi-circular markings about halfway up they wouldn't be much more than 10 inches between each marking. What were they for. As a. Shows the face of a man. Each one of those small spaces was for one man. Yes. I said that it was about one third the size of a normal classroom. How many men would be kept in here at one time. When hundreds. They didn't allow much space or else the slaves were very small. Which was it.

It was very small and a man was squeezed together. I can imagine they must have been two of a hundred men in a room this size with each man a lot of about 10 inches around the wall. Victor I think of myself as six feet tall and one hundred eighteen hundred ninety pounds and I think too of being crowded in this room with ninety nine other men I'm quite certain that I would become violent if I were kept here very long. Did this happen with slaves. Come on show you. The picture has led me to a room that word is much too good for the place we were in really. It's a small opening under one of the curved staircases we stood beside outside. Do you said you would show me the place where violent slaves were kept. Is this it. Yes. How many slaves would be kept in this small passageway that would be four feet across four feet high and not more than eight or nine feet long.

And then. I couldn't imagine I would be any less violent being kept in this small cupboard like space with nine other men. Would I not try to escape if I were in here. Wouldn't I try to get away. Because they would be changed totally. Victor and I have come right through the House of slaves now to the very back of it. And as you can hear we are standing at the water's edge and the water is storming over the rocks below us. Victor why is this large opening at the back of the house here. Well she brings into a house. So this then was the way the slaves were brought in to this place. Yes. When they had been sold with the slaves to be taken back out this

way taken by small boats to transport large numbers of men to larger ships offshore. What happened to a slave who became sick or who died at stake. On our travels about the car we have dropped in at the sound of the BOP that Mr. Ben Lomond and I'm speaking with mispronounce he was of the directing staff of the Center for the girls and boys. How did it begin as a medical center to still do medical work.

But at the center among the population we realized very quickly that this was perfectly insufficient and would not lead us anywhere nor people. Immediately we started women's work. And immediately after the medical way into work we started a club for young people and these young people we discovered it. By knowing what their particular needs were such as how to finish a school cycle so that the boys who started out started schooling somewhere in for family reasons or unhappy circumstances could not finish finish the school cycle and through this enter into the professional training cycle. Because if you have more than once used the word we. Who are you. Where did you come from where do you get the equipment. How does the thing run.

British German I thought it Dutch who is quite a collaborator and was and is a strangeness. Strange organization because most of the violence comes from churches and the churches. Canadian churches for the. Games for the children football basketball and even a car in order to help us around groups outside the center. All this is from Unisys which has made a great difference to us during the last three years. Can you think of any specific instance or instances where a girl or a boy has

been changed by coming. To some sort of bop member of the boys and girls. Come to the center over many years the center has been existing for the last 12 years so you can imagine that we have already seen one generation grow and it is very interesting to see them in their professions than unease the mothers of families. They come to us as friends and take a great interest in the general running office and give us their common members response members of the association. Are your doors ever closed. You said you live here your stuff lives here if I knocked on your door at 11 o'clock tonight asking for assistance could I get it. Because you live in order to be available to be free to said to people because this is one of the principles

it is something very African if you come to an African home today you will be well received. So people understand it perfectly well and expect the same thing from us. What subjects do you study in school French or. English. We do geology does not interest you. Spanish. So you actually speak four languages French English well I think you're learning Spanish as well. I think of. The letter but. I speak French. What do you do after school. I

do my fams. I like swimming. I like you're a horseback rider. Do you ever jump for jump. Are you any good but like Spanish you're learning are you. It is almost impossible here in the car in Senegal to get out of sight or sound of the sea. Victor and I have come west now from the car north and west and were again on the coast. If you find us West in Africa what is the name of this place. Good that sounds to me like a name we have read in history

books bank in Canada Cape Verde where the early explorers from Europe. By this point is a name comes to mind when I think of Cape Verde. If I could go west by boat I wonder what land I would hit. You will come to Brazil to Brazil so straight west lies the continent of South America north of that North America the sea is swirling all around us. I suddenly had an idea. I wonder if in these rocks at our feet we might find a bottle somewhere. Shall we look. Yes. How do you say yes and well. Wow let's look. I found one. Let me have it. Let me have it. All right now I'm going to take my notebook here. And suppose you take my pan and on that note book I would like you to write

your name. A name spell your last name and eat and your address place each. Number and read and the number six hundred sixty and I will Dakar Senegal. One more sentence. That's right. How do you say hello on the paper. How do you say hello and let's underline the you. How do you say hello. Yeah. All right now suppose you rip that sheet of paper out of the notebook. Tear it out. You know what we're going to do with this. We're going to put the paper in the bottle put a plug in the

bottle and throw it in the seat and we'll hope that somewhere in North America or South America or further down the coast of Africa it will come to shore and somebody will find it and write you a letter. You think it's a good idea. Not yet. Wow I do too. OK fold it up. And we put it in the box. What do you think some seaweed for a plug. Let's put some seaweed in here to plug it up right now. Ready take the bottle and toss it in the water. Go ahead. Somewhere somebody will find that and I hope you get a million. This has been a bottle in the sea by the program and a radio series by

Charles winter entitled How do you say hello. Produced on location by Bill Shaw for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and UNICEF the United Nations Children's Fund. We would like to thank the people of Senegal for their hospitality and assistance. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.