“Damay ñibbi” = rough translation of “I am going home” in Wolof.
My last week in Senegal was extremely eventful. I spent the first half writing all of my reports and formatting my presentations. On Wednesday, we spent 10 hours at school doing all of our final presentations; with 10 students who each had three presentations set to last 10 minutes each, it took us a while. Thursday, we went to school and ate lunch with all of our host moms. Friday, we said goodbye to the center staff and then went shopping at the market for souvenirs.
On Saturday, the last morning of my full day in Senegal, the other students and I all woke up at 6:30am to watch the sunrise at the beach. We sat on the rocks and then held hands in a long line as we ran into the ocean. The cold plunge was frigid and the perfect way to start our last day. The rest of the day, I hung out with my family and then said goodbye to friends who were leaving that day. As I hugged people goodbye, I was struck by the fact that there is a very real possibility I may never see these people again. I felt tears prick my eyes as my friends got in taxis and pulled away.
I went back home. Just as I thought my day was wrapping up, my host brother Mouhamed asked if I wanted to come to a Senegalese wedding! Even though it was 9pm, I was leaving the next day at 7am, and I still wasn’t fully packed, of course I said yes. When else would I get this opportunity?! I attended the pre-ceremony reception at the wedding, full of speeches and shared dinner and music and dancing. I said goodbye to my family and then took a taxi home.
At 7am, everyone in my house was still asleep. I left quietly, taking my bags to school where I was meeting a few of the other students. We took a bus to the airport and then flew to New York, where my connecting flight to DC promptly got canceled because of snow. My out-of-this-world amazing dad and sister drove up four hours to come and get me. I slept the majority of the drive and returned home around 4am.
Today is my first day back in the U.S., and I am so happy to be home but I already miss parts of Senegal. I feel different—changed, even if just slightly. I feel a desire to share my food with everyone I meet and I pick up everything with my right hand. I feel SO cold in the chilly air. The fact that I can fill up my water bottle in a water fountain is shocking and I’m surprised when I see toilet paper.
And now I’m home! At least, one of my homes. Maryland is my first home, but Colorado and DU are my homes too. Paris, where I lived for five years when I was younger, is also a home of mine. Now, so is Senegal. I can picture everything so vividly and I will absolutely be returning someday; it’s just a matter of when and how.
Only 3% of students who study abroad choose to go to sub-Saharan Africa. The only region chosen less is the Middle East. There were 10 students in my program in Senegal as compared to the dozens or hundreds of students who are studying with my friends that chose to study in Europe or Japan or New Zealand.
Some of the students in my Senegal program would tell you studying abroad in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t that different from elsewhere, and we shouldn’t be told we are “brave” or that our families are “proud” of us for studying here. And it’s true; I did have a lot of amenities and similarities between my program and my friends’ programs in other countries. I lived in comfort and safety and could live relatively similarly to my life in the U.S.
But let’s face it: it is different. Objectively, studying abroad in a sub-Saharan African country is different. Most other students studying abroad didn’t have intermittent diarrhea for over two months. Most always have access to a working toilet. Most don’t take bucket showers every night. Most don’t live with a host family who speaks a language they have just begun learning upon arrival in the country. Most don’t get proposed to by men on the streets nearly every week. Most have AC when the weather surpasses 100 degrees. Most don’t get stranded for three hours when the driver they’ve already paid for decides to pick up another group before them. Most don’t come home to a random sheep in their kitchen. Most don’t wear pants over their shorts when leaving the house to play frisbee because their host mom won’t let them wear shorts. Most don’t get called “Toubab” and asked for money wherever they go when they are the only white person within view. Most don’t call their boyfriend in tears because some random man in the street grabbed her hand and now his hand isn’t the last one she’s held.
Now, I don’t want to scare anyone off from studying abroad in Senegal, or another sub-Saharan African nation, or another more atypical place. I have had amazing opportunities I think very few other students have had in their abroad experiences, and I would take that over traveling around Europe any day.
(Take this with a grain of salt too—I did have an opportunity to travel around Europe with my family when I lived in France during middle school and the first two years of high school. I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I already have visited nearly every place I see my friends in Europe posting about on Instagram. I have visited 25 countries and now have lived in three. If this is an experience you want and you haven’t had yet, go for it!)
But if you do choose Europe or somewhere else “easier,” let it be a conscious choice about the experience you want. Decide that you want to travel where it’s safe and easy, that you want to see numerous countries and try new foods, that you want a whole myriad of languages in your experience. But make that choice. Don’t choose Europe by default; choose it because it’s what you actually want to have that study abroad experience. Even for a moment, entertain the idea of doing something different. If you don’t choose it, that’s completely fine, but at least actually consider it. My best advice is to consciously choose where you want to go based on the experience you want to have.
I wanted to have the experience that I knew I’d get if I went to Senegal, and boy did I get it! It’s been a crazy almost four months, and I am so beyond happy this is the study abroad experience I chose. So as my experience is so fresh in my mind, I’m going to finish my Senegal blog series with a list of what I’ve loved, appreciated, and already miss about Senegal.
- Hearing the call to prayer from my neighborhood mosque five times a day
- Eating dinner around the bowl with my host family every night
- Speaking in Wolof with my host family’s housekeeper and expanding the subjects we can talk about as I learn new vocabulary and grammatical structures
- Every time I greet someone on the street in Wolof and they smile and go, “oh, you speak Wolof!” after I’ve only said a few basic phrases
- Getting clothes made in exactly the style I want with fabric I picked out for approximately $10 a piece
- Having a beach day/afternoon whenever I want
- Watching movies in French at the movie theater
- Participating in the Muslim holiday Mawlid (called Gamou in Senegal) until nearly 5am
- Learning how the Senegalese marriage process works in both a civil and a religious sense while at my internship
- Taking the train by myself
- Speaking French every single day for four months, oftentimes speaking in English for the first time all day when calling people back home
- So many long walks to see all so many neighborhoods in Dakar
- Children giving me hugs after I wave to them
- Taking classes in French about subjects I’m interested in
- Comparing Senegalese and American cultures when talking with my host mom
- Getting to do an adventure every day
- $2 taxi rides
- 60 cent ice cream
- So many delicious pastries
- The absolute kindest people. So many genuine, immediately friendly people that were welcoming as soon as I said “Salaam maalekum”
- Telling my family, friends, and boyfriend back home about all of my experiences and hearing their reactions
- Going to a party at the African Renaissance Monument, the tallest statue in all of Africa
And for the last time…
Ba ci kanam / À bientôt / See you soon,
Caitlin
