The Door of No Return

2005-11-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

In June 03 I was fresh out of Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN where I earned a Bachelors of Science in Agricultural Sciences with a concentration in Plant Sciences. I lucked up on the opportunity of a lifetime to go on a LIFE ALTERING study abroad program to the Senegambia (Senegal and The Gambia) to study Western Africa agriculture. I thought it was going to be scary and I feared the Unknown due to all the images that the American media bombbards us of African countries. Hunger, drought, poverty and civil unrest were the only things I knew of any African countries. The only other tiem you wuold hear something good about African countries were if there was some type of American interest (oil, gold, uranium etc.). Little did I know that those images would soon fade away and be replaced with realities that would change my life forever.

This is one of the images that basically changed my life. The picture to the left was taken by one of the students on the Study Abroad Program. A white girl from Iowa saw me standing in this door and it moved her so much that she capture the picture and mailed to me when we got back to the United States. I have never cried so much in my life. So many emotions go through you all at once when you are standing in the Door of No Return. I will post picture later from all angles so you can see what I saw. There is about a 3 foot drop and then only about 3 feet of rockey shore before you have nothing but an endless horizon of water. The only way you left out of the door was to be loaded onto a Slave ship headed to the Americas or dead. If you looked carefully at the ocean while there you can see sharks circling near the fort. When a slave died or was murdered his body was throw out of the door. So many bodies were tossed out the door that it was said that the sharks changed their migritory pattern and left bodies half eaten due to the abundance of food supplied to them.

This image is equally as powerful to me, because I am one of the few members of the African Diaspora in the United States of his own free will to reenter the door of no return. There is a feeling that you are getting a standing ovation from your ancestors that one of their decendants came home and walked through the door that they left out of in shackles. The Older gentleman that manages the Fort today made a comment that made me really think about my life. He said " Africans view American-born-Africans as the elite, because they are the product of the best and strongest that was stolen from the Continent. They are the product of those that survived rapes, beatings, disease and starvation and the long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. " It was what he said after that which left a lasting impression on me. He said "It saddens him to know that young American-born-Africans are not living up to the struggles and sacrficies that their ancestors endured."

Not all the images that I encountered took me on an emotional rollercoaster. The same white girl from Iowa seem to love to take pictures of me. She was hidding around the corner when i was looking to see where a sound was coming from and the camera flash went off. She capture this black and white or me looking rough. This one of her favorite images as well as mine. It showed that I was comfortable and happy.

I have not yet developed the 13 rolls of film that I t ook while in The Gambia and Senegal but when they are developed and scanned know that more images will soon follow. Better late then Never Right? I have learn from that so next time around I will take a digital camera to capture all my images instead of a traditional camera.

The Introduction to ME

2005-11-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

I have always been thought of as unique, as uncommon or even strange. I think I am pretty normal~as normal as Myke Johnson can possibly be. Growing up I had all the love in the world, from family especially my two loving parents who shaped all of who I am today, and my to knucklehead sibblings (my younger, independent, always making moves little sister and my hardheaded and sometimes misunderstood older brother). Family and the few people that I call friends that have taken the time to understand me for the oddity that I am. I would call myself the scholarly, southern gentleman next door, but I am sure that others might use some more agressive or passive words to describe who I am. This blog is a small look into the simple but sometimes complex person who is Myke Johnson. Alot of the things that I like and have a passion for will cover the pages in the hopes of sharing the things that make me tick. Some will be good, some bad and some ugly. I will not paint an angelic picture, cause I am human and I am bound to fall from grace a few times in my life

Under The Baobab

The Door of No Return

The Introduction to ME