The Plastic Man, giving his speech in full uniform. [Image courtesy of Colleen Mahan] 
Boats lined up for a morning of local fishing in Saint Louis, Senegal. 
View of the intricately patterned Moroccan ceiling in the Great Mosque of Touba. 
The quiet streets of Saint Louis. 
Back patio in Saint Louis Senegal. Seating area and pool that look out to the water. 
Local painting that acted as an entryway to the “house of artists” that was near our hotel in Saint Louis, Senegal. 
Boat anchored near the Senegal River near our hotel in the Podor region of Senegal. River cuts along the border between Senegal and neighboring Mauritania at this section. 
Me aka Tim! On the bus after we stole our professor’s hat! [Image courtesy of Colleen Mahan]
A series of photos taken in Saint Louis, Senegal. Tim Donahue // Wavelength
By: Tim Donahue
Check out the first segment of Tim’s study abroad here: https://wavelengthwwu.online/2023/02/14/studying-abroad-in-senegal/
February 7, 2023
In Dakar, we were in real neighborhoods with real people, we loved how people in Senegal live and dealt with some harsh truths that tinted all of the local beauty. After a week, we traveled to the neighboring town of Saint Louis where we were in a resort with a French restaurant and a pool. In a day, we went from rats to the Ritz, and we stopped at a mosque to clean our accumulated filth along the way.
The great Mosque of Touba is the touchstone holy site for Muridiyya Muslims in West Africa, a great structure filled with prayer and history concerning one of the three main Islamic brotherhoods in the area, our visit to the Mosque was one of the highlights of our trip.
The library and the schools, steeped in the Islamic text of the Quran. The language, a script similar to Arabic called Ajami that predates the influx of English and French in the area. Intricate Moroccan patterns crossed across every wall and ceiling, and the people that weren’t busy staring at the group of white students walking through, were deep in prayer or chant or song. The silence was different under the Moroccan ceilings in the mosque, it echoed back and quieted the mind, it was like a forced meditation, or one that works behind the will of the front of the mind.
This whole trip has been a practice in the art of letting go. Between schedules and meals, traffic and classes, we’ve suffered from a lack of the same control that I’ve clung to all my American life. My control freak’s nature wanted to mold it all, to get my hands on each string of our schedule and my life back home, to maintain everything and force pleasantry even in the places where it cannot exist. Maybe it’s the language barrier, or the trust I have in our professor and the rest of our guides, but I’m learning—to my hard-dying mortification—that things will work out. We made it through the marble spectacle of Touba, and with the silence, the soft assuredness of faith on our side, it feels like we can do anything.
February 8, 2023
On Sunday, a nomad that covers himself in plastic, trekking the region and referring to himself as the “Plastic Man” visited us for a talk about plastic pollution in the area. He lectured in full plastic-clad costume, and three days later his point was proven when his example passed by the window on our way from Touba to our final destination of Saint Louis. The small villages were clean, though impoverished beyond anything I’d seen in America, and they were book-ended by fields of blowing plastic trash that accumulated on either side of what could have been the picture-esque African savannah.
Bags, more than I could even think of a need for, drifted in the wind like a falling leaf in the height of autumn. Shoved to the side and ignored by both the government and much of the population that the Plastic Man was trying to reach, it mixed with the dirt and hid even inside of the things that I took to be pure; a Baobab tree, a goat’s grazing area, a playground for children in the villages, everything was permeated like a dusting of poison with nowhere else to go.
February 9, 2023
Lots of downtime in Saint Louis. I finished one book and started my next, ‘A Moveable Feast’ by Ernest Hemingway, in anticipation of the week I’ll be spending in Paris when my time in Senegal is over. There’s been time here, a privilege that was not much allowed to us in Dakar, we read and I write, some tan and others explore the city. There’s a bar here and at night we order mostly French food along with wine or a beer or a cocktail—it’s usually a glass of red wine for myself.
We haven’t had a true excursion since we left Dakar for Saint Louis, and our assignments are ramping up as our tourism winds down; two essays and a creative project loom only about a week in the distance. This has all felt so much like an experience, so unlike my traditional thought of “school” that I fear I’ve forgotten my ability to remain academic in my essays and reflections during the trip, though I also suspect that I know more than I realize thanks to our hands-on experience with the studied material.
If my brain does manage to work then this shift should come as a welcome sight to all of us, especially in comparison to Dakar where we had two or three things to do almost everyday. Our lungs are caked in smog and there’s a collective mental and emotional drain that has settled over the group, myself included.
All that being said, we’re getting a tour of the city later today. I said the tourism was winding down, and it is, but we still have lots to learn. It’s a strange feeling, especially on the heels of our experience in Dakar, to have resided in a place like Saint Louis for almost three days without knowing much of anything about the history that is so obviously around every corner. There’s a great bridge built by the same man that constructed the Eiffel Tower in the distance, such famous French handiwork has been looming in the distance all our time here. It’s the handiwork of those—the French—that colonized this area, and yet I look at it and, in my lack of true context, all I can see is a bridge. I hope to be less ignorant when I write here next.
February 11, 2023
This is our last complete day in Saint Louis before we head to the Islamic brotherhood of the Tijaniyya’s holy village of Alwaar. After staying there for a night we will head to Saly; a predominantly French beach town that projects to wind our trip to a restful conclusion. I’m sitting on the back porch right now, watching the water and the fishermen as they float by, and everything seems so quiet. The only sounds are the waves and the typing of my keyboard.
We had two separate flat tires on our way to a bird sanctuary yesterday: One on the way out, and one on the way back, it turned our excursion into a whole day affair. We ended up having to taxi the rest of the way home while our driver wrestled with his third spare tire of the day. I’m so relaxed right now that even thoughts of yesterday’s stress seem to roll off my back, but at the time—10 hours into our rattling, off-roading, tire-popping bus ride—nobody was quite so zen.
February 12, 2023
Alwaar was another long bus ride away, though the bumps had been paved over and we lucked out with a grand total of zero flat tires this time. It was our first real glimpse into the villages, the world of Senegalese life away from the bigger cities like Dakar and Saint Louis. The car ride was expansive, and the countryside a mix of joy and discontent. The same children that seemed to be having the time of their lives along the sides of the road, begged desperately for money and food whenever we stopped the bus. They smiled and waved, though if we slowed down enough they would gather in mass with expectant hands outstretched. Something permeated the Senegalese countryside in a way that it hadn’t in the Dakar and Downtown Saint Louis, the desperation was intensified and not only did the sight of our bus seem like an opportunity—for the kids, especially—it was beginning to seem like the last one coming for a while.
Alwaar itself was magic. The birthplace of Al Hajj Umar Tall, one of the main religious and political figures in the area’s history, his descendants gathered in matching deep blues to welcome us and the coming opportunity to sing his praises. They answered our questions, fed lamb for lunch, and led us on a tour through their village through the Mosque. They took us through Umar Tall’s study spots, his place of retreat, and their graveyard. Though nobody knows where Al Hajj Umar Tall died—or disappeared, as many of his Tijaniyya followers believe he transcended death due to his lack of a grave. The air was heavy with a presence, a depth of faith, that was beyond anything I’d ever experienced as a half-assed agnostic still holding our hope for cosmic assurance.
We met the elders and the descendants of Al Hajj Umar Tall, and I asked a question about his commitment to education. Someone else asked if they liked to dance and everyone laughed. The oldest, the cousin of Tall, had this beautifully strained smile. It was as if it took all of his 88-year-old’s strength to stretch his face that far. He had blue eyes that glowed against his dark skin and matched the outfit that matched the rest of his family. He smiled, and everything—all generational, religious, and cultural distances evaporated.