dear senegal, jērejēf

Dear Senegal,

Jērejēf. Thank you.

Thank you for teaching me gratitude. Thank you for showing me out of the dimness of pity, frustration, and dis-satisfaction and toward the light of looking around the world in gratitude. Thank you for the multitude of thankfulness lists I learned and was given space to write and for the courage to live them out daily and to share them with others. And thank you for the previously unfound, deeply-rooted joy in each day that such gratitude has shown me.

Thank you for the will and stubbornness you fostered in me, enlivened most heartily through bartering and determination to win a mostly-friendly competition to be the sole student of 12 who went the full six months without throwing up (there is only one other who stands between me and victory currently).

Thank you for the friendships you brought onto my path and for the ways in which you allowed them to grow into my life. Thank you for the acquaintances who became both familiar Senegal companions and forever friends. Thank you for the strangers who became teachers and family forms, challengers and sources of joy and laughter. Thank you for the ways you showed me of the need to cultivate, maintain, and cherish such friendships. Thank you for providing both challenging and joyous moments that taught me of the importance of relationship.

Thank you for teaching me to never, ever stop believing that it is possible to sweat more and for continually proving wrong my previous notions of to what length I am capable of going without a shower, of wearing the same dirty clothes, and of discussing bodily functions with others with shocking openness.

Thank you for the way you have grown my family. Thank you for the tears I have and will cry as this family re-disperses itself around the globe as these tears only show the love and connection you have fostered. Thank you for showing me the distances, differences, and unexpected encounters family can cross to grow in your life. Thank you for teaching me how to rely on and be relied on by family both near and far and teaching me to trust these lines of connection which have nothing to do with blood.

Thank you for the dancing. Thank you for the joy, the hip-shaking skills, the laughter, the connection, the confidence, the necessary free-spiritedness that your constant, life-filled dancing gave me.

Thank you for teaching me honesty and openness, for showing me what is gained not from saying “I’m fine” but from saying how you feel. Thank you for giving me opportunities to learn how to speak my truth, for growing in me the bravery to let others in, to take down walls, to be real.

Thank you for the tan lines, for the permanent dirt lines, and the new love of putting French fries and an egg on absolutely everything.

Thank you for demonstrating how one lives out compassion. Thank you for showing and reminding me of the compassion that lies within me. Thank you for giving me challenges that taught me how to practice limitless compassion, including toward the self and those who differ and are difficult.

Thank you for the occasional power cuts. For giving me an appreciation for what exists and an opportunity to extend my compassion, for forcing quiet, solitude, writing, thought, and honest conversation.

Thank you for the sunsets and sunrises. For their beauty, their simplicity, for the memories, the honesty, the reflection which accompanied them. Thank you for giving me an appreciation for this daily source of centering-calm.

Thank you for the French lessons, for the many kilos of rice I’ve consumed, for the animal slaughtering tutorials, for the strengthened immune system, and for the newly-acquired carefree attitude toward finding cockroaches in bed with you.

Thank you for the ways you healed me. Thank you for the space, time, and quiet you gave me to think, process, reflect, grieve, and remember more fully than I previously allowed myself.  Thank you for putting in my life people to ask questions, people to listen deeply, people to be present, even in silence. Thank you for showing the joys of life, and of life lived in community. Thank you for challenging me to grow forward, to live the day in front of me, to say thank you for the lessons and continue on the journey.

Thank you for the countless times you got me lost, in all literal and figurative senses of the word. Thank you for the many, many times you forced me to say “well, we tried… we’ll just have to try again tomorrow.” Thank you for the many, many times you forced me to laugh at how little I know, to be humbled by uncertainty, and to discover something new in the process.

Thank you for the abundant, heartfelt appreciation you gave me for brewed coffee and blocks of cheese.

Thank you for the challenges you put in my path. For the ways they pushed me to put my beliefs into practice, pushed me to redefine and to discover what strength I possess, pushed me to be open to vulnerability, to ask for help and trust in others, pushed me to have faith in goodness, in my self, in others, pushed me to breathe and let it be.

Thank you for strengthening some beliefs, challenging others, and allowing me to form those previously unrevealed to me.

Thank you for the joy you brought me. For the moments both of sidesplitting laughter and of calm, everyday contentedness. Thank you for giving my smile muscles a constant workout and my heart a new fullness.

Senegal, in 10 days I will be on a plane flying away from you, with no knowledge of when or if I will ever see you again.  Senegal, my six months with you have felt both incredibly short and incredibly long and yet all the same, they are coming to an end. Senegal, you have given me some of the most challenging and most joyous, most magical and most fascinatingly ordinary times of my twenty years on this earth to date.  Senegal, you have given me a lot, mostly in ways you had no idea you were giving and in forms quite intangible, but above all, Senegal, you have given me a sense of thankfulness and a desire to approach each day in gratitude and so really, Senegal, all I can say is jērejēf, merci, thank you.

In gratitude,

Callie/Daba Sarr