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.
Recently, a friend who also writes, and who has also had a year of seeing life through broadening lenses, reflected on the past twelve months of learning and discovery in pictures. As many words often do, it spurred my own thoughts, caused me to look through delightful photo memories, moved me share. A year agoContinueContinue reading “365 days full”
As I pulled out my suitcase yesterday and began to fill it for my upcoming travel to Kenya on Saturday, I thought about all the places we have been together. Together, we have made five trips to four countries in four years. It’s safe to say I’m in love with my suitcase. Not only isContinueContinue reading “an ode to my suitcase:”
I’ve been thinking about fear. I’ve felt fear in my life. I’ve felt true, full-bodied fear. The day of September 11th, as a confused 8-year-old questioning if Indianapolis was going to be attacked next. Sliding on icy roads with children in my car. The first time I went to visit a child in the ICUContinueContinue reading “fear”
A week and some odd minutes ago, I was landing at Indianapolis International Airport, walking through the same entrance terminal to terminal B that I walked through 6 months previously, that time ‘departures’ this time ‘arrivals’. Since then I have filled my days with pots and pots of coffee, chunky sweaters and wool socks, naturallyContinueContinue reading “inconclusive”
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 theContinueContinue reading “dear senegal, jērejēf”
Today, I am sick. Today, I am stressed. Today, I am a ball of emotions which fleet through my mind and heart a mile a minute. And so when I got home today after a coffee-fueled afternoon of paper writing and apartment scrambling, I could have just gone to bed and taken a nap. ButContinueContinue reading “the sun it rises, the sun it sets”
When I consider my life in Senegal overall, it can essentially be divided into fourths: – ¼ part: deep, personal, growing, reflective, change-the-way-you-approach-every-day life moments which from moment to moment big and small can be both entirely challenging and entirely enlivening and of which I write and speak often. – ¾ part: moments where youContinueContinue reading “3/4 joyous uncertainty”
Sometimes you are knocked off-guard. We’re sitting squished in a bush taxi, heaps of baggage, literally heaps of bread, tea, coffee, sugar, butter, choco-pain, sardine paste (all the necessary fixings for a stand up Senegalese breakfast) are piled on top of us. We are traveling to the village of Ngueth outside of Palmarin outside ofContinueContinue reading “clementines”
Reflections on transitions from and toward a year: ——– The new year – moving toward mindfulness, thinking toward thankfulness. One step at a time. Always moments for good, for beauty, for gratitude. In the year ahead, I will pass time, be amongst, laugh with, sit aside, hold, listen to and be heard by, family inContinueContinue reading “pelicans in flight, returning”
I’ve been busy. Busy with early morning trips to the market where the women know me only as Daba Sarr and I speak only Wolof, busy with walks through now-familiar streets to run errands or pick up something sweet to eat, busy making plans with sisters and meeting up ‘at that one corner where weContinueContinue reading “a compilation”
Last Saturday we made the journey to Touba to visit La Grande Mosquée; as we bumped along the sandy road, I looked out over the vast Senegalese landscape dotted with sturdy Baobab trees and thought about what it meant to be on, what is for African Muslims travelling to this spiritual center, a sacred journey.ContinueContinue reading “in this i believe”
Walking home, it’s sunset. I meander down the road in the cool breeze, hear enlivened Wolof all around me, greet familiar neighbors. When I reach Papa he happily greets me, makes a joke about my favorite song, tells me so like family he’s going to the gym and will see me later. I walk towardContinueContinue reading “coming home”
I got stressed, I got overwhelmed. I got bogged down in negativity and frustration. I got lazy in my soul and self-work, losing for a minute my constant striving to live out my beliefs. I forgot what makes this holiday important to me, forgot how much I appreciate this day for stopping us, centering us,ContinueContinue reading “saying grace”
I spent the past week in Richard Toll, a small town in northern Senegal as a part of my “Senegal River Valley” class. We spent the week visiting various agricultural projects taking place in what is one of the most fertile region of otherwise flat, sandy, and dry Senegal; we learned about sugar cane andContinueContinue reading “a week of grace”
“Being able to hold a conversation is one of the greatest talents a person can possess,” my Grandpa told me. I have thought about those words, and Grandpa, every day that I have been in Senegal. Until he was put in hospice care in March of 2012, my Grandpa was just my Grandpa. He livedContinueContinue reading “holding conversation”
We sat in the closed room, each in our own space that at times coincided with the space of others, and we cried and we laughed and we took deep breaths. We sat on the rock, bracing ourselves individually and as one clump as the waves crashed down upon us, and we cried and weContinueContinue reading “we cried and we laughed and we took deep breaths”
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”
There are times when I feel powerless in Senegal. Much of the time, this powerlessness centers on gender. I feel powerless when I am told the only thing a woman can do when a man harasses her on the street is to keep walking, any sort of counter-remark or telling off by the woman wouldContinueContinue reading “powerlessness”
Written 24 September 2013: Today was a hard day for Sarr family here in Sénégal. During the summer of 2011 my Kenyan sister Winnie lived with my family in the US. Toward the end of her stay, the D-H family had a hard day. And I remember so clearly her telling me that she wasContinueContinue reading “being here through it”
callie daniels-howell 