2014-08-03
I started crying on the morning two days before I left Gale Neenang Dialamba et Babang Sori, the place I have called home for the last eight months and always will. “Wataa wulu, wataa wulu. A wuli. Yewni.” (Don’t cry, don’t cry. Alright, you’ve cried, enough.) My family, outside the kitchen, was telling me, waiting...
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2014-07-15
(Pulaar to English title translation: To Speak, To Understand) In February, I alone headed out to Dakar to meet my family as they arrived in Senegal to visit me. Being fourteen hours away by car from my host family, I called them on the phone and my host mother, Neena Dialamba, asked “A suusi lootade?”(Are...
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2014-02-23
I wade across the Gambia River, not bothering to roll up my pants because I know the water will eventually be higher than I can roll them. A cow leads the way across the river to where Sadou is in the garden on the other side, and I can see the red speck that is...
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2014-02-03
When holidays or special events arise, I view them with significantly more apprehension than excitement because for a whole day or even week, I have yet again landed in another world: different greetings are said, I am supposed to follow a course of actions everyone understands but me, we wear different clothes, and I am...
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2013-10-02
When I hear “Mariama(my name), ar nyameng(come eat),” from my host mother, Djalamba, I am immediately tremendously grateful for the opportunity to actively engage with my family members and community, even if I’m not really very hungry. Last week I was in my host site of the rural city of Kedougou and I was told...
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2013-07-18
On my trip to Guatemala with the Oakland Zoo, we released two parrots into a mangrove forest. Because they had not been properly rehabilitated, our guides suspected that there was a good chance that the birds would get caught again by poachers. The parrots did not know to be afraid of humans, which was demonstrated...
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