I write to you from the very European city of St.Louis. Looking out the shuttered window of this air conditioned cyber cafe, I see dusty red walls and second-story balconies. I'm reminded of Barcelona.

Just returned from my second village stay, this time in the Wolof village Keur Demba Kebe, 9km outside Thiès. Once again, a blur of contradictory experiences...

True Senegalese Teranga. Our oversized white bus (aptly named the 'Toubab'mobile) pulls into the center of the village, where we find every woman and child from the surrounding villages waiting to greet us. As we exit, cheers and laughter errupt; we are quickly led to a circle of benches. The seeming Queen Bee of the village orchestrates the shifting bodies of hundreds of villagers around 14 students. Under her flawless direction, we are soon packed in tight with smaller children filling the 'comort zone' spaces that we white students inadvertantly leave between us.

The village chief arrives. Flanked by two elders in fez and sunglasses, he delivers a hearty welcome while seated in a plastic lawnchair (an oft-coveted item in the villages. As a guest of honor, I was given my own lawnchair for the duration of my stay). "The village sees this as an opportunity to share with you and to learn from you", the chief says, "One day, our children will come to stay with your families." The women begin to cry and clap. "Thank you for coming."

My name is called. A woman across the circle runs to me and embraces me. Her smile is contagious. My little Wolof establishes that this beaming, blue and orange-clad woman with gold earrings and white, white teeth is Umi Ndong - my new mother.

At dinner time I eat not once, but three times, under the light of the stars and moon.

I initially gather with the elders around their bowl. It is too dark to see our dinner, but the taste is familiar: ceebu jen, (rice and fish... the national go-to dinner... the Senegalese equivalent of highly celebrated meatloaf). Just as I have eaten my fill, a woman yells "Ndaye Mbay!" (my new name). I obediently follow the cry, which has come from another dinner gathering. I am told to sit and eat, and I do. "Ndaye Mbay!" Another dinner, with another section of the ever-expanding family. One child stands next to this dinner crying and vomiting on himself. No visible response comes from the family, other than to hit the child when he gets too close to the bowl.

The village holds a dance and dresses the students in traditional Senegalese attire. We look very, very silly. I am wrapped in several miles of lime-green material. Head to toe. Then, along with the beating of drums, the cheers and suggestions of women and children, the laughter of fellowToubabs playing dress-up, and the orchestrations of the Queen Bee, I dance. Lumba lumba lumba la!

A trip to the field reveals a startling fact: my village grows all the produce that they consume and sell (peanuts, bissap, millett, limes...) in sand.

An afternoon is spent shade-hopping; tracking the suns movements by the movements of our woven mat as it follows the dark patch beneath a tree. The women sift through rice, carry buckets of water on their heads, wash laundry, pound millett, cook dinner, and shell peanuts - all with babies strapped to their backs. The young boys play with two marbles. A toddler dances. The men return from the fields with the goats and carts. All wait anxiously for the sun to finish setting so that the regae tape can be played on the portable radio while we break the fast with bread, tea, and bissap. A Ramadan day is coming to a close.

I didn't bring a time keeping device with me, instead I left it up to the family rythms to format my day. Village life is slow in a way that I haven't experienced since the summers of elementary school...On day one, each moment feels eternally long. The following days pass without warning or reason, far too quickly. Nothing ever 'happens' and nothing needs to; outbursts of laughter or the passing of a car punctuate the days.

Umi Ndong is one of the most incredible women I have met in Senegal. Radiant, intelligent, and eternally capable (3 vomiting children and a dinner to cook? No problem.), she spent her days slipping quickly and gently between daily activities...never hurrying, but always productive. She looked up often from her work to make eye contact with each of her children in the surrounding area: a non-verbal check-in. She would smile at me and thank the Lord for the day...for the dinner...for wellness...for my presence. Others couldn't help but gravitate towards her soulful, grounded way of being.

Umi cried as I left and I cried too. I gave her my earrings (which my mumsy in the U.S. gave me...somehow the exchange from mother to daughter to mother felt fitting. She looked beautiful in them.) She gave me a hand-sewn handkerchief and a peanut-corn cake.

Teranga. Alxamdulilla.