One evening in February of 2014, as I was leaving Senegal after a complex, and full, and growing, and straight-up difficult six months as Callie Daba Sarr, I sat on a rooftop and I wrote a thank you letter.
I recently found myself again on a rooftop, this time in Kalamazoo, Michigan and felt a need deep beneath my sternum to again say thank you.
Last Monday morning, I printed, hole-punched, bound, and turned in to my advisor the 172 pages of my senior thesis. I began thinking about this project five years ago,before I even committed to attend Kalamazoo College, as a prospective student excited and intrigued by its possibilities. I began to consider its subject four years agoContinueContinue reading “172 pages”
This trimester, in addition to writing my senior thesis on the intersections of compassion and poverty in care for ill and dying children in Kenya, in addition to transitioning back into life away from Kenya, in addition to learning how to walk peacefully through life’s unexpected gusts of wind, I am taking a creative writingContinueContinue reading “poetry”
It’s been one month and twenty-five days since I left Senegal. It’s been one month and eleven days since I returned to the United States. It’s been two weeks and two days since I’ve been back at Kalamazoo. I have felt amid a whirlwind of transitions. Sometimes scary, sometimes sad, mostly exciting, all challenging inContinueContinue reading “lists”
I have always been a sentimental person. I have always been someone who attaches great meaning and emotion to the things around me. I have always been the person who hid my favorite pair of childhood shorts from my parents because they wanted to give them Goodwill and I wanted to put them in aContinueContinue reading “les gris-gris”
In many ways, my life and its surroundings are in transition. In many ways, my life is just smoothing out after eighteen months of constant transition. A list I’ve been making as I reflect on adjustment(s): 1. This is the first time I’ve at all slowed down since before I left for college. Really, sinceContinueContinue reading “transition(s) and adjustment(s)”
I want to write.I am about to commence the last week of classes of my sophomore year of college. In the past two days, I have written twenty-six pages of final papers, research papers, academic papers, explanatory and persuasive papers. Tomorrow, I will write twelve more. By the end of this trimester, I will haveContinueContinue reading “i write”
callie daniels-howell 