Swingset

Today is officially the halfway mark of my semester in Senegal. I left January 16th and will be returning May 16th… so March 16th—this is it! Recently I realized that by the time I make it back to the States I will have spent 5 out of the past 12 months living in Africa. I like that.

With summer job plans beginning to settle in, there’s been lots of talk lately among the American students of going home and what that will be like. Common concerns include:

Actually having to do work and be on time to things.
As women, we’ll actually have to work for attention from the opposite sex for a change.
We won’t be able to make smart comments in English in front of people because they’ll actually know what we’re saying.
We’ll actually have to have manners at the dinner table.
We’ll actually HAVE a dinner table.

But to be perfectly honest, any time the subject comes up, I find the quickest way possible to change it because it’s something I just don’t like to think about. I have had my occasional bouts of homesickness (more so familysickness), but those are usually fairly easily cured. Mostly, I’m just trying to soak everything here up while I still can.

My little sister Rose and I have made a habit of going to watch my brother Issa and Pap (dad) play soccer on Friday nights. The game starts right around sunset at a field overlooking the ocean (also just across the road from my school). There’s a playground there where Rose and I sometimes like to take swing breaks from watching the game.



Last week I brought my camera and we took some pictures of our little play date. I love just about any swing to begin with, but these swings are particularly incredible because if you swing high enough, you can just see over the bushes and out into the vast blue ocean shimmering under the sunset. When you reach that highest point in the air, the swing lingers a bit, and for a moment you’re suspended in that unbelievable beauty.

Of course, gravity eventually pulls you back, but the promise of even a glimpse of that wonderful view keeps you pumping your legs to return to that one spot.

That’s Senegal to me. I know I’ll eventually be pulled back to the reality of my hustle-and-bustle American life, but for now, I’m enjoying being suspended in the beauty of it all… and when my semester here is all said and done, I know I will continue to stretch to find ways to return to Africa.

It’s too wonderful a place to be away from for long.