Spending the summer in Africa was a crazy, life-changing experience. I know that sounds totally cliché, but there’s not really another way to describe its effect on me. It was amazing and it totally changed my outlook on everything.
I flew into Dakar, Senegal on an extremely hot and humid July morning. The second I stepped from the plane, the heat hit me, almost knocking me off of my feet. I was told it would be hot and everyone knows the saying “It’s as hot as Africa,” but I didn’t realize how true it would be.
After spending a few days in the capital city of Dakar, I was quickly falling in love with Senegal. But my time there was short-lived and along with my group, I was bused to a small village a few hours from the city, nestled right on the beach.
The second we pulled into the town, the villagers came running from all the shops and houses to greet us. As we stepped out of the bus, they reached for our bags to carry and gave us each a hug accompanied by a huge smile. It was extremely overwhelming, but comforting at the same time. To be rushed by this huge crowd all at once was a little nerve-wracking, but it was also a relief to see all these friendly faces so eager to meet us. We were quickly brought to meet our host families and settle in for dinner.
My family was composed of a mother, Virginia, a father, Gabrielle, two host brothers and a sister. None of them spoke a word of English and I don’t speak any French, so it was easy to tell that communicating would be difficult.
They showed me to my room and helped set up my mosquito net. The youngest siblings, a boy and the girl, helped me get situated. They quietly bickered in Wolof while listening to Rihanna. Right before they left my room to wash up for dinner, the boy looked at me and tried his best to say “I hope you will be happy here” in English. I knew right then that he would be my favorite. And over the course of my stay, this proved to be true.
Many Seneglase men are very forward because they want to marry an American and get a visa. It is also a very male-dominated society. Polygamy is legal, and they feel they can do whatever they want to women, especially foreign women. It was common for me and my other fellow female travelers to be groped and cat-called. However, my brother, Jean Francois, always seemed to be around to come to my rescue. On many occasions he would chase men away and yell at them to protect me. We also shared a special bond over our love of Rihanna.
For the few weeks we spent in the village, we worked on building the foundation for a classroom to add on to the local high school. Every day we would show up in the morning and spend most of the day digging sand and mixing cement. It was extremely hard work, but we knew we couldn’t complain once we saw how hard the local men that were also helping were working. It was Ramadan while we were there so they were fasting every day, which means they couldn’t eat or even drink water. These men worked all day in the heat like this without even taking breaks. I have never seen harder workers. The best part was that they did it all with a smile on their face. Even though none of us spoke the same language, we all had fun trying to teach each other words in our own language. This trip taught me that you don’t need to speak the same language as someone to become friends. I really connected with so many people I met there and we found ways around the language barrier to communicate. We used hand signals and acted things out, which was a lot more fun than just talking and led to some funny situations.
The unforgettable experiences I had in Senegal are endless. I will always remember cooking with my host mother, swimming in the ocean with the kids, chasing the pigs through the village with my host brother, watching soccer with my host father and sharing all of these experiences with the other people in my group. This trip opened my eyes to a place that I never knew I could love so much. I went on this trip expecting to have a great time and meet great people, but it was so much more than that. I fell in love with everything about Senegal. I learned a lot about myself as well. I learned that I can do without a lot of the comforts and resources I have at home and be just fine.
In fact, it was really nice to disconnect for a while. My entire group was so sad when it was finally time to leave our host village and head home. A woman in the group quoted something from her favorite book that really stuck with me about the end of our trip. She said, “The depth of your sorrow reflects the depth of your happiness.” I really like this because it summed up our trip so well. We were so sad to leave, but that just proved how amazing our stay there was. I will never forget the people I met or the things I did in Senegal, and I hope I can return someday.