Virtual Pioneers Middle Passage Experience

Last night the Virtual Pioneers visited Middle Passage Experience at http://slurl.com/secondlife/SolipCISM/217/246/22. We were hosted by builder Tamsin Barzane. This build is designed so visitors can to pretend to be Africans being enslaved through this journey. It's just the sort of thing VSTE looked for a year ago for Black History Month and could not find.
First we landed in a beautiful spot where we heard the sounds of African birds and other creatures. Then we began to notice monkeys, elephants, and lizards. Once rezzed boxes appear which have free clothing in them. They are marked with African names, five male, five female. We each chose one and wore the clothes. These were the traditional clothes one might have worn who lived in Africa. The most important item in the box however was our identity. We received a name, tribe, and story.
As we proceeded through the tour we were to find our new, slave clothes, on another box, and change into them. There was a costume to wear later which may have been our daily wear once put to work at our destination. Our story continued and we learned our fates. I happened to pick Nzinga, who ended up in Jamestown, Virginia, the mother of four children forced upon me by my master.
Along the journey there is a slideshow and at the end there is information about the Underground Railroad and its conductors. There is a clip from Amistad on the slaveship, a sales block on land, and several exhibits about early slave live in America nearby. This was a very moving experience.
VP is so popular that is was crowded and difficult to focus attention and see everything during this meeting. I will return with a few friends and take more time with it later.