Oooh lala lala. I’m quite frazzled right now. It is nearly 8 am….I woke up at 5 am… we are leaving for our spring break backpacking tour through the south of the country. The regions we are visiting are supposed to be both stunningly beautiful and ridiculously hot. But there will be mountains! And hopefully some opportunities and exploration of the country’s largest wildlife park, the Parc Nationale de Niokola Koba. We are leaving in all of ten minutes but I will write as much as I can until then as I promised I would make up for lost time and I am now about to embark on a ten day bush adventure where I will be totally incommunicado.

Below is an entry I started a few days ago but never got the chance to finish up between packing and planning for this trip:

I’m in the midst of a small identity crisis.

My Dad came. Then he left.

The one week he spent in Senegal just flew by and in the end, it’s only a seven-hour flight (if you go from JFK to Dakar…I however took a more circuitous route) that divides us. For some reason I just can’t get my mind around that reality and thinking about it is quite jarring, disturbing even.

A little speck of a plane lands on the airstrip here and deposits its passengers, delivers my dad and his whole entourage of juice friends (more on that later) effusing Americanness. And I stay in a luxury hotel with my dad for a few days and live amongst the Americans ….my Senegalese palette diminishing as I gorge myself on restaurant meals of pasta and pizza. I register all of their initial shock with the readily apparent problems (trash everywhere) and cultural differences (an immediate warmth and acceptance towards all) and am reminded of my own initial shock, my own struggles along the endless path of transition. A glowingly healthy group of Californians, they all maintained a somewhat healthy diet while here and my Dad (not a Californian…or particularly health-conscious for that matter) marveled at my consumption of anything and everything put before me while he picked at his food. Known as the Food Police (for an affinity for ridding the cabinets and fridge at my dad’s NH farm of all food with the slightest semblance of peakedness or expiration dates that put it past its prime), I have now thrown all caution to the wind and ingest the tap water, salad, unidentified heavily spiced hunks of who knows what…..I guess I’ve changed a bit—in both those small tangible ways and some inexplicable ways as well, ones I myself cannot even identify.

For the week that he and his friends were here, I almost felt as though I may as well have been in America and experienced an absurd conundrum, two equal and opposite forces pulling and pushing—a longing for my life back at home, and a longing to immerse myself even further, even deeper into this culture…..

I don’t know. I am so very confused and tired and would love to extrapolate, but time does not allow.

Sorry to be abandoning the blog again.

Until next time.

Today’s Parting Shot:

My dad, me, and Youssou N’Dor (Senegal’s beloved musician and star of the concert I attended with my dad and his pals)