I’d say it’s easy to fall in love with a place when the sun sneaks into your room through thin metal shutters at 7 am and the birds accompany it in song. When your instant coffee and breakfast baguette pair well with staring off into the sky carelessly. When walking down the street has become not a careless task but instead a parade of greetings and curiosity filled children watching your every move. When lunch makes your mouth water as soon as they start to prepare it and the tea served afterwards somehow never gets old despite the fact that you drink 6 cups a day. When the afternoon turns your house into a home and welcomes the neighborhood women and children for food, conversations, and connection. When Wednesday becomes the laundry day that no longer consists of two machines in a room but try two buckets in the yard and a line in the back. When Saturday starts earlier than any other day as every corner, every street, becomes packed with goods and you wake up to the sounds of people heading to the market. When Touba Toul isn’t a location typed on paper in your GCY file but now the location that pulls on your heart when you spend a day away in language class. When the language barrier shrinks after series of broken conversations that somehow pull you closer to new people daily.
When it could’ve taken me all 8 months to write this particular blog because as each 7 am ray of sun sneaks into my room I find new things to love about everything around me.
When I can already imagine myself purchasing another ticket to Senegal in a few short years as I can envision the everlasting imprint Touba Toul will leave on my heart by the end of this experience.
When I am already certain that saying goodbye in April will be one of the hardest goodbyes I’ve had to face in life.
Yeah…I’d say all that makes it pretty easy to fall in love with a place.
