A Matter of Sharing

We three young women find ourselves in preparation for travel, or in transit to, three different countries in West Africa.  We met up last night for a final farewell.  While Hattie and I will be back for our respective fall semesters in August, Molly will soon sojourn in Sierra Leone for 27 months.

Before parting, we had a conversation on how we should keep up with each other's lives and share stories among ourselves and our friends.  We've all had some experience in blogging and we each planned, in some way, to communicate the happenings of our West African lives.  I asked Molly and Hattie for advise: should I send emails to friends and family, or run a blog or two? How much do I say? Will I want to say anything at all?  I feared that maybe I'd be speaking to a nonexistent audience--that I would be writing with the false pretense that my three months in Senegal were actually relevant to other people.

Together, we came to a few conclusions:
1)  We are lucky.  Simply put, we are lucky to have the opportunity to live and work abroad.
2)  A lot of people will never go to West Africa.
3)  We have to blog.  And maybe we should blog together.

This blog opens up a small portal into West Africa through the eyes of American women.  It's a unique perspective that comes with biases but I think I can say it will also carry the sincerity and honesty of our time in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal.  Here, we're taking advantage of our differing locations, goals and personalities to deliver an amalgam of micro-portraits of West Africa.

So, I blog here as a contributor to that gateway.  I blog to chronicle casual nuances, uncomfortable moments, serendipitous flukes, and the progress of my project.  I also blog out of gratitude for having been afforded the opportunity to return to Senegal.