Birds wake me up. Chirping, drilling, meowing, flute-ing, cackling, yoo-ing. It is alien; I might have heard something like this on TV. It takes me a second to remember where I am. The sunlit military-pattern of the tent is familiar, but I forgot that I’ve arrived in Senegal.

It is still so early. Nobody is awake but the birds. I crawl out and walk along the long, white, empty beach. Nobody is coming but the waves.

The beach and the sea look like something in the travel magazines I saw growing up: white sand, light blue water, deep blue sky. Empty. It is strange to be here, in a place that seems to be taken from a middle-class travel fantasy but in an age where travel magazines are not really a thing anymore and travel itself is not as innocent; the saturated colors contrasted by what we know about all the pollution, fragile local economies and ecosystems undermined and bent by the whims of rich tourists. Hell, just the pollution caused by flying; the fields flooded or left in drought in other parts of the world as the CO2-balance in the atmosphere off-sets more and more-

I belly-breathe and rein in my thought. That is not how I got here. This is not what I’m doing.

I leave my clothes hanging on a branch along with plastic trash and wade, naked, into the cold water. It receives me. I lay on my back and it lifts me easily and I listen to the eerie underwater-clicking and let my hair float, spread and tangle around my head. Uncovered; bare belly looking up at the sky, arms drawing slow circles beneath the surface. Water pushing against the cells, sky slowly changing color. Timeless.

By the time I hear people approaching I have already dressed. Fishermen going to their boats in the early morning. Our eyes meet. They nod to me.

I spend the day looking for a way to get to Dakar. The rising sun starts heating, mercilessely. I talk to the woman in the reception again; she is still cold and curt. I ask her if she could give the malefha to the man working in the kitchen who was so kind to me yesterday evening when I arrived. He could maybe give it to his wife.
“You still have to pay for the meal, you understand that?” she says. Her eyebrows tighten.
“Yes, I know,” I reply. I refuse to let her sharpness touch me now, but I know I will probably dwell on it later.

She arranges a car to take me and two other guests to the capital, visibly annoyed as I struggle to understand all the if:s and conditions. But at least it is underway.

When did it become easy to ask for help? In Nouakchott my friend Hadmine arranged everything for me, asked for information and favors on my behalf with an air of unquestioning certainty and after we had parted I just continued asking with the same air, as if I was him asking on my behalf, expecting the same unwavering, immediate response. As much as I cursed and suffered on my way here, struggling with the insistent men, no guilt or shame about taking up anybody’s time has touched me yet. One way or another, calmly and insistently, I get what I want or need.

I take a second swim at noon to cope with the heat. It feels so strange to walk around in a swimsuit and have the skin on my arms and legs as well as my hair showing after all this time of covering. Strange white limbs moving in the sun. And the sea and the trees are so different from the desert. It is as if I’ve landed in a different reality. Hard to imagine that all it took was about six hours on the road.

I am heading to the capital where I have arranged a host, and after that I am heading to a farm where I hope to be stable, to work with the body and become strong, gain a routine and live in nature. Learn what creatures and plants live here in Senegal. What sounds they make and what their names are in the local languages. The insects, birds, creatures and trees. Discover the local customs of the people. Have weeks, maybe a month of peace and calm. A space to write. Learn French. Dance. I weave the anticipation into my breath. I am still in the midst of it: of movement, uncertainty, instability. The breathing is as important as ever. It is all I have.

The water keeps on rocking me. I breathe out flashes of fatigue and frustration. It’s over now, I am here, I did good. I breathe in. The sharpness of the woman running the campsite dwells in me, her energy running, annoyed, behind my eyelids. I breathe it out, too. Those are not my feelings. I breathe in, fill my lungs for my future self.

I am making every mistake for you, so you won’t have to. Or, well… How should I say it, so you can grow stronger and more stable and grow that thicker skin on your nose. Every difficulty that you’ve overcome is added to the difficulties that no longer scare me. Perspective, distance, all that… Today I am doing the work for you. Wherever you are, know that I am doing the work for you.

…

(This story told in pictures.)