The Senegalese students enriched the program tenfold. At this point, I have trouble imagining the program without them, especially given the nature of our studies. They made the practical application of what we were studying far easier to grasp. In discussions about cultural heritage and preservation, I really felt as though it was not my place to speak, but to listen carefully. Similarly, with the African Literature presentations, they added another dimension to the material, making connections to their own (and our own) lives in Yoff.

To be honest, at this point, I have trouble looking at the Senegalese students on the whole as I now know everyone involved in the course as individuals and can pinpoint how each person, regardless of nationality, enriched my time here and those quirky characteristics I have come to appreciate…but making generalizations is a bit tricky. I have learned that there exists a tenuous balance between highlighting our differences and letting us just be as a group.

I will say that the Nder fieldwork just simply could not have been nearly as successful as it was, or maybe taken place at all, without the Senegalese students. Their role went far beyond that of translators; I would speculate that the villagers, in observing the level of familiarity that existed between the “toubabs” and Senegalese, were able to see that we weren’t as foreign as we may have appeared. I also felt as though Nder, more so than Yoff, was conducive to strengthening the group on a whole. For the first time, we were all out of comfort zones, leading lives that were different from those in Yoff, and making the adjustment to Nder life became a collective process.