GARDEN OF MEMORY

Mozambique has experienced the full force of the disasters of slavery. Today, this garden is a place of memory of the slaves and is open daily. It was created in 2007 by Antoine Millerieux, the owner of the Escondidinho guesthouse, with the help of funds from Reunion Island, on the site of a former slave trading post whose door has been preserved as a symbol of a departure without return. It opens here on the sea, of a deep blue, just like on the island of Gorée in Senegal. Arranged in an arc, like the contours of a ship's hull, portrait busts have been erected as a tribute to the men who disappeared between the ^17th and ^18th centuries in the clutches of slavery. Reunionese academics, but also sculptors, participated in the realization of the garden of the Memory, because of the strong links which unite them with the topic of the slavery: Reunion was not inhabited at all before it became land of immigration from the end of the ^XVIIth century and in particular of forced immigration with the sending of Malagasy or Mozambicans. A little further on, a small scenic space surrounded by a few benches has been created to be used by the locals, in particular to practice capoeira, this choreographic art of combat invented by the slaves of Brazil, or to try out theatrical experiments. A project initiated with Unesco has allowed the creation of a simple and pedagogical information path down into the cistern, the "Slavery Route"(Rota da Escravatura).