By Will Flagg

I was especially excited to visit Senegal this year. After toiling all demonstration week, I was ready to free my mind from calculus and  Descartes, and balancing chemical equations for one week. I was so exited to get to the airport.

Everything was going smoothly. It was the easiest time with TSA I had ever had, no pat downs or anything. Our flight to New York went off without a hitch. My travel group of more than ten was separated from the rest of the larger group of a little of twenty. The other group was a bit ahead of us and had already boarded and was en route to Senegal. Just as my hopes were highest, our flight got delayed. Mr. Alter, Kalea Moore, Anson Huang, and I sat watching the departure time get further and further away from what time it was right then in increments of ten minutes or so. It was soul crushing. We had to stay in New York for two days.

For those who have never been to New York, I would like to illustrate a picture for you. Imagine miles and miles Of brick concrete and glass all stacked up high enough to blot out the sun. Think of a place where trash piles high on both sides of the road, where you have to push, squeeze, and snake through crowds of bullish people all trying to get to their destination as fast as possible. For most places it is not recognizable as a place on planet earth. The plants and animals are extremely sparse, only allowing for the most extreme conditions. These animals survive on trash and refuse where nothing else can. This is the direct opposite of what I am used to; wide open skies, cornfields, tall grasses and pine forests, pass ponds and deer herds, among other things. To anyone else, New York would be stunning— and I guess when thinking in that mindset, it was a little pretty seeing all the lights. 

But New York City does make sense. Things are not where they are supposed to be. All over New York are large monoliths to human greed. Wether it be a multiple sorry floor dedicated to Harry Potter, a huge multi story complex with abolished nothing inside but a viewing deck, multiple of the same brand shops next to each other, or countless cheap printed t-shirts being sold for fifteen dollars at target, New York is a constant flow of consumption. The “rat race” rings true here, where each person is isolated and competing with everyone else to make the most money. While most of these are minor, the horror time square does not compare. Miles of advertisement screens stretched upwards replacing stars. Looking up came at a price— with multiple different companies trying to take your attention away at once. There were many different people doing side walk attractions such as dressing up on stilts while dressed as lady liberty or drawing people’s attention to a drawn out gymnastics routine by shrieking like a wounded animal. I am told the whole place smelled like marijuana. It was all one big attention trap, with meaningless consumptive garbage. Come to think about that there’s a lot of that in cities. There’s a lot of random attractions with no need or basis. 

We eventually made it to Senegal, which was an absolutely refreshing breath of fresh air. When our mini group got to a fishing lodge in Niokola-Koba national park it was the exact opposite. Everything happened for a reason. First it was the simple stuff, birds chirped back and forth in a call and response, cicadas, grasshoppers, and crickets sang in a symphony of communication, tilapia chased minnows because they were hungry or protecting their nest, each event here had an equal and opposite reaction. Finley Caise, Davis Bugg, and I learned this the hard way, when we accidentally angered a colony of bees and got stung a collective twelve or thirteen times all together. At dinner that night, I realized it was not just nature— but almost everything and everyone was there for a reason besides, “it looks good,” or “we just felt like it,” or “it makes us money,” or even because something “feels good.” People in rural Senegal did not put video billboards up advertising for TikTok and create a viewing deck to pay to see ads for TikTok like in New York.

People in Senegal derive meaning from religion, nature, spiritualism, and tradition. You eat and greet people with your right hand because your left hand is for cleaning yourself. Most take a break during midday because it’s the hottest time of the day. Instead, in New York, you stay up all night and ignore natural human impulses because it makes you the most money. 

Perhaps this is why more people in large United States cities have less of a sense of purpose or meaning. In these setting you strip down whatever feels natural or human and perversely change yourself to make money so you can buy mostly useless things that will not will holes in your life. Conversely this may be why people in Senegalese villages are happier. Many of them make money and are great at it. However they often share what they have to help others and have connected communities that derive their purpose not for the pursuit of novel goods or attractions (mostly) but for the improvement of quality of life and living in accordance with God, nature, and themselves. 

While writing this I was listening to a Senegalese artist named Youssou N’Dour who puts this perfectly, “I have lost my soul, I am upside down. I was a country boy, now I am a city man. So many troubles, bring me down… if you want to grow, there is a price to pay. Do you need to go, where I am today? I was a country boy, now I am a city man. So many troubles, bring me down.”