A month and a half have passed since I returned from my semester in Senegal, and in all honesty it has been somewhat of an awkward readjustment to the united states. At times the process has felt like has felt more like awakening from an extravagant dreamscape that a transition between two factual periods of time. The places and faces that became such an undeniable part of my existence were jerked out of my life the moment I boarded the plane for the United States, and maybe its in part due to that violent detachment that makes it feel as though everything I experienced was just the figment of a beautifully prolonged dream. Every day I wake up a little bit further away from the throng and calamity of Dakar, every day a little further from the heat and rhythms and smiles that characterized my time there. Yet as my mind drifts slowly away from that time of my life, it hasn't quite caught up to the me that once was. My time abroad taught me so many lessons, it broadened my understanding of friendship and family, it expanded my notion of home, it shattered my preconceived notions of cultural and religious tolerance, it humbled me to my core, and in the end it bound me forever to people and places I never thought possible. Not all the changes I underwent have become integral parts of my being, and no, I am not a completely different person than I was, but these changes and the sudden disconnect from Senegal have left me in a bit of a weird place.
I have tried to be kind to my friends over the last month and a half by putting all my memories and stories into nice little catchphrases, and have done my best to bottle up my incessant urge to talk them to death. Fortunately for them, I have largely succeeded in this endeavor and have forked up only the most crowd friendly tid-bits of my journey. But there is so much more to say, and I am afraid that if I don't share it somewhere then my time spent traveling will truly be little more than a dream whose effects ease away as supposed reality sets in.
One of my favorite quotes about memories comes from Edward De Bono, a 20th century Maltese writer. Bono said that "a memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen". My goal in writing this section of my blog is to provide an earnest account of those moments from my trip that haven't completely unhappened. Where I run out of words I will leave some of the pictures I took, when those aren't sufficient I will use other resources, and where I run out of both I guess I will just stop blabbing on. I hope there is something in my experiences that speak to you, if not you can just continue listening to the music and looking at the pictures on this site, but if you do find something worth discussing please leave your thoughts. Also, I'd really like to feature stories from other peoples' travels, so if you have something you'd like to share with people on this blog I encourage you to write it up and send it my way.
For this particular post I have left a few of my favorite pictures from the trip, an extremely short video, and a poem from the first president of Senegal, Leopold Senghor. Again, I hope you enjoy and thank you for taking the time to read this.
THE PRAYER TO THE MASKS (translated from French) - LEOPOLD SENGHOR
Masks! Oh Masks!
Black mask, red mask, you black and white masks,
Rectangular masks through whom the spirit breathes,
I greet you in silence!
And you too, my panterheaded ancestor.
You guard this place, that is closed to any feminine laughter, to any mortal smile.
You purify the air of eternity, here where I breathe the air of my fathers.
Masks of maskless faces, free from dimples and wrinkles.
You have composed this image, this my face that bends
over the altar of white paper.
In the name of your image, listen to me!
Now while the Africa of despotism is dying – it is the agony of a pitiable princess,
Just like Europe to whom she is connected through the
naval.
Now turn your immobile eyes towards your children who
have been called
And who sacrifice their lives like the poor man his last garment
So that hereafter we may cry ‘here’ at the rebirth of the world being the leaven that the white flour needs.
For who else would teach rhythm to the world that has
died of machines and cannons?
For who else should ejaculate the cry of joy, that arouses the dead and the wise in a new dawn?
Say, who else could return the memory of life to men with a torn hope?
They call us cotton heads, and coffee men, and oily men.
They call us men of death.
But we are the men of the dance whose feet only gain
power when they beat the hard soil.
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