2013-04-23
There are nights where I wake up in a lukewarm sweat, still saturated with the dream that doesn’t let me sleep. In this nocturnal vision, I am back at home in my room, or somewhere in San Jose, California, and I am looking for a way to charge credit on my Senegalese phone to make...
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2013-04-23
My greatest insights are revealed to me in the tomato field. Knee to chest, hands to ground, root to soil, I spend my mornings alongside what I confidently call my friends, sixteen Senegalese seeds themselves that, through struggle and effort, now bear the fruits of laughter and companionship. Together we plant row after row of...
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2013-04-23
Words here in Senegal are a valuable commodity. The wisest people string the neatest webs of words, and a new word learned in Wolof is a new tool to use. However, since the beginning of my time here, one word in particular has followed me wherever I go: Toubab. As you walk down the road...
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2013-04-23
It’s funny how we look at things over the passing of time, the way our minds once saw something a certain way but one day see it again, as something else completely different. How what was once a judgment becomes an understanding, how insecurities turn into pride, and so on. I came to find this...
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2013-04-23
I can become fluent in Wolof, I can wear the exotic clothes, I can cook ceebu gen bu suff (rice and fish that is tasty), and I can get myself a Senegalese husband, but there is one thing I cannot do. I cannot change the color of my skin. I’ve even asked if there are...
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2013-04-23
When I arrived in Boussoura on October 2, 2012, the Souare compound was a fully functioning family of 9. One dad, two moms, 2 little girls and 4 little boys all under age 11. I wanted more than anything to be a part of this family. For the first month, I wasn’t. I was a...
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2013-04-23
Dindefelo lacks a certified M.D., let alone any sort of therapist or psychiatrist. Thus, I take it upon myself to access my own mental health condition. Diagnosis: Frantic Socialite Syndrome Frantic Socialite Syndrome is a type of anxiety disorder derrived from assimilating a social and cultural code but lacking the ability to default to said...
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