The Trip Back Home

Obviously throughout this trip we have all learned a lot about the culture and lifestyles of people who live in Senegal. We have seen how the country operates and how much city life is different from rural life. We have experienced the religion of Islam up close and personal on multiple occasions and have eaten some of the most famous Senegalese dishes (despite not everyone favoring all of them). We received a well-rounded experience of life in Senegal by staying with a traditional family and mimicking their lifestyles. However, something which may not be as obvious, especially for people who have never traveled to a place with a totally different culture than their native culture, is how much this trip has made us learn and realize certain aspects of our own society in the United States.

Our group has heard on multiple occasions that we have not finished our learning from this trip; that it will continue for months to come. This is in part due to slowly realizing the differences, whether they be good or bad, between the cultures. As expected, there are some very obvious differences I began to realize as soon as I stepped foot into John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. For nearly a month the six of us have stuck out in Senegal like a sore thumb, mostly due to being some of the few white people walking the streets but also part due to our lack of knowledge of their culture and doing things in different ways. I felt strange walking through the airport terminal and not being stared at by the majority of people passing by. Not seeing goats and donkeys running around or smelling diesel fumes is now a strange feeling.

Along with slowly realizing the differences between the cultures, I think we will continue to learn about Senegalese culture by reflecting back on our time spent there and finally realizing what certain things meant or what the significance of an event or gesture was. By realizing the lack of these events and gestures I think I will soon begin to miss having them as part of my everyday culture. Specifically I will miss the greetings everyone receives upon walking into a room or when another person joins in on a conversation. I will miss having a conversation with people an entire afternoon event which usually was accompanied by tea. But above all, I will miss the sincerity people give you when they are carrying on a conversation with you or saying their farewells to you.

Obviously I cannot predict what I will realize down the road about culture in the United States, but even in the few hours I have spent back in the U.S. I have already begun to notice subtle differences which I would not have noticed had I not gone on this trip. As my flight made its departure into the New York Airport I couldn’t help but notice how planned out the city appeared to be. Houses and buildings were evenly spaced apart, streets didn’t weave in and out randomly and despite my poor eyesight, I didn’t notice any sand streets or rather any unpaved streets at all. As the plane descended even closer to the ground I noticed that the neighborhood we were flying over appeared to be rather luxurious and that over half of the homes had sparkling blue swimming pools in the backyards. While this itself did not catch my attention but what did was the lack of lower class homes scattered throughout the neighborhood. It became the norm to be walking through Dakar and see a very nice two or three story, newly constructed home with multiple shacks less than twenty feet away from it.

While the physical differences between the two countries may not be hard to become adapted to, one thing that I think will be difficult for me, and possibly the five others who accompanied me on the trip, to accept back in the United States is the understanding and interest in our trip from other people. I know for myself, and again probably for the five others, this trip has been a life changing experience which I will never forget. Naturally I will want to share every minute of it with people around me but as veteran Senegalese-American Sarah Hanson put it best, other people do not understand the experiences we shared and will therefore not be as interested in it as we would sometimes like them to be. Not to say that nobody will be interested in our time spent in Senegal, but that people may not know what questions to ask about the trip and that we may not be able to  describe the full image of everything we had the opportunity to take in, which could be frustrating. However, while others may not understand or be interested in the last three weeks of our lives, I know that I have five great friends who I will be able to share the memories with at anytime who will be just as excited to relive the moments as I will be. And on top of the five people I had the honor to spend three weeks with, I have countless others such as the Hanson family and the Stadtlander Family who helped make this trip and unforgettable time of my life. So to all the citizens of Senegal and everyone who helped make this trip possible, thank you from the five Wartburgers and the instructor who helped hold us all together.

Ethan