Defining Goals: Why Senegal?

Just four more days till I'm reunited with the AFLI crew, and leave for Dakar!

I've spent the last week staying with friends in D.C., preparing mentally, emotionally, and physically for leaving for Senegal. Perhaps it's having too much free time on my hands and being surrounded by friends who work, but I've been feeling a little lack of clarity lately on what exactly I'm doing or, more accurately, why exactly I'm doing this.

The benefits on the surface-level are clear: easier access to a field I'm interested in working in, stronger language skills, and learning about a part of the world I otherwise would know very little about. But there are other reasons I'm doing this as well, which manifest themselves as specific goals I'm hoping to achieve while in Senegal:

1. Learn how to make a traditional Senegalese dish (and be able to repeat it on your own)
2. Be able to have a basic conversation in Wolof
3. Obtain a 3 in French on the OPI by the end of the program
4. Make a Senegalese friend
5. Cultivate a close relationship with my host family
6. Develop an understanding of Islam in Senegal

More than anything, I hope to feel uncomfortable. In many ways, I feel I've grown very comfortable in my life in D.C., which is why I feel so reluctant to be uprooted. But that's also why I must leave it, at least for awhile. In periods of discomfort, we are forced to look at the world around us, but also, and more importantly, at the world within us. In Ulaanbaatar, I asked myself what it means to not have the creature comforts I'm used to, to be unable to communicate with the world around me, and to be with family. In Grenoble, I joke that I learned absolute shame resiliency. I spent every hour of every day messing up my French; people laughed at me, and I learned to laugh at myself too. In Rabat, I found a greater appreciation for and understanding of Islam, and questioned my own beliefs about feminism. After overhearing numerous debates and direct questions about my race, I started asking myself what does it mean to be biracial? What does it mean to be an American PoC abroad?

I am eternally grateful for the time I was able to spend abroad in Mongolia, France, and Morocco. Each experience shaped so much of who I am today.

I'm excited to meet who I will be after Senegal.