Stepping Stones

It's the 1st of October, the beginning of a new month. I'm a little over a quarter of the way through my time here. I can't help but think of this day as a time for reflection..so, if you are reading this with someone, you might want to hold hands and sing a little Kumbaya. (Which, according to trusty Wikipedia, is associated with "human and spiritual unity, closeness and compassion, and it still is in many places around the world." Appropriate, right??)

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Being here is all about time for me. Time has come to define everything, on every level of my daily life as well as in the grand scheme of things. Getting ready every morning, I think about how long I have to get to eat breakfast, get to class, talk to friends and teachers. Every day in class (the boring ones) I think about the minute I have left before I can leave, or (in the good ones) I ignore time for as long as possible because I don't want to leave our discussion. Just like life at home, there are periods of rest where nothing is happening, then it picks up again and time rushes by as I get more busy. The time I experience here is the same as when I was at home, nothing really goes by faster or slower. But living here has given me a better sense of two juxtaposing concepts of time, for it is at once more infinite than I can ever imagine, while finite and defined at the same time. The wicked sense of homesickness which is always hovering in the back of my mind finds that sense of infinite time and makes me feel like an eternity will pass before I can see my family and friends again. --"What do you mean I can't punch my brother for another YEAR?"--But always a little more powerful than my homesickness is my curiosity and need for discovery, making the minutes rush by and making me think I will never see enough of this wonderful culture. I still have 3/4 of my year to go, and my homesick self sees a looming wall in front of me that will never be climbed; but still, I can look behind me and see this landmark as a huge stepping stone on the way home.

This day also makes me think back to my reasons for coming to Senegal (rather than France) and for a year (rather than a term). Only 10% of University-level students study abroad, a vast majority of whom participate in programs in Western Europe. 40% of these students study for a term, 4% for a year. I basically embody the tiniest possible statistic known to man, which is nice, in a way. And it's exactly what I wanted. I wanted an experience that no one else I know would relate to. When I say "no one else I know" I mean my family and most of my friends. Though I love them, I am the youngest, everyone does the cool things before me. So, that, coupled with a sense of competition and genuine interest in a culture completely different than mine, I felt bound to find a study abroad experience that only I could fully relate to. This tactic has worked out well for me in the past...and once again it payed off. I have found a place, fellow students, and a culture which stretch and defy all of my assumed norms. In this, I have fulfilled my most profound goals.

Yet, being away from home has had the inadvertent affect of making me realize exactly the things I find the most precious about my family, friends, and yes, this is going to be lame, but Oregon as well. And though Senegal has brought to me more knowledge, epiphanies, and memories than I ever knew were possible, I have come to see my sense of home is one of the things I treasure and cherish the most.

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D.H. Lawrence