Au Senegal! How little credit we give to memory of the senses. Our sense of smell is, supposedly, that most strongly connected to memory - how true this is. I had forgotten the faint smells escaping the women’s kitchens and the incense that wafts from their bedrooms, the dusty, wooly goats, the way the breeze off the ocean is clogged with diesel fumes, and after the rains, the wet earth smell mixes with whatever else mingles in the sandy roads. It would be a lie to say I didn’t panic, somewhere between Madrid and Dakar, surrounded by so many incomprehensible tongues, and it was the first time I asked myself, what am I doing??? (I saw the magnificent Sahara from the sky for the first time! It looks not like sand, but like very rocky terrain, where giant boulder-like formations cast strange dark shadows, breaking up an otherwise desolate and monochromatic landscape. This is what I caught from quick glances over a leathery old man in the window seat.) Whatever nervousness I had was calmed on the ground. It was good to be back, at least I can say, it smelled the same. Our taxi moved down the long airport road at about a mile an hour, penetrating hundreds of men, women, and children dressed in long white garments, going to or coming from their masjid (we were in a largely Lyon area; Lyon is a sect of Sufism). Kind of surreal, then again, a lot of things have been seeming like that ....

It’s weird when you spend some time, six weeks, in a place, and you get into a little groove, and coming back, you think you’ll fall right back into place, but you don’t. It’s a funny feeling being somewhere so familiar and foreign at the same time. That’s why it was great to see my host family. We were all so happy! Lots of shrieking and laughing over photos. Well truth be told, my brothers didn’t really pay me much attention, nothing new there. It was terribly sad leaving them last summer because of course I didn’t know when I would see them again. I arrived during Ramadan which is a really interesting time to be here, observing everything. Everyone seems a little tired, it’s so straining on the mind and the body (and unfortunately many people who fast are already poorly nourished), but it is also very rewarding spiritually. Fasting would be hard to do on your own; I think it would not feel as special if you didn’t have a family to break fast with every night. In Senegal, there is a funny balance within the society where people are very, very pious Muslims, but religion is at the same time relaxed. Or else, religion is not so disconnected from life-as-usual as it is in America ...... well but that’s a whole other story ...

The people at work are wonderful, and I’ve had a good time getting to know some other volunteers. Everyone has an endless amount of stories to share, also opinions, ideas, friends, food... Right now I am living and working in Yoff, a little on the outskirts of Dakar. This weekend I should be moving to Thies, where the main Tostan office is located. I’m ready to jump into work, but things in Senegal operate at a different pace; as they say waiting is like the national pastime. Nonetheless I will be sad to leave this dear, wacky city with its rooftop reggae, its funny mishmash of keur coiffures, sidewalk marabouts, junky animated car rapides .....

In the meantime I’ve been trying to get Wolof - something I regretfully didn’t do so much of last year. I think the idea of comprehending something so obscure in the span of six weeks seemed a next to impossible, but now all I want to do is hear it and decipher it. Ndank ndank ... slowly but surely.