Circling the Baobabs: Where I go: Finding places

I've been finding place here in Senegal. Places where I belong, where I'm expected, where I'm known, where I know the rythm and I play it, play it along with everyone else. And it becomes my own. I used to celebrate awkwardness, because I had nothing else to do. Knowing that each and every situation I would get into I would feel strange, somewhat out of place, I was bound to say or do the wrong thing. There was this mild transition period and then suddenly -- was it a month ago? two months? after I got back from the States? -- I felt at ease. What I expected was what they expected. I started just being, just like that.

Places I've found:
-Laying on my sisters' bed talking about boys, texting our friends, watching Sex and the City
-Resting with my host mom in the salon talking about n'importe quoi (nothing in particular), but relishing our chatter, our laughter, my foolishness, and our silences
-Being totally chill at Chez Gabi. Alhumdulillah for Chez Gabi. Sitting in the hammock staring at the trees above. Creating boite magique and music and peace. Making food especially fruit salad, grilled fish, and grated vegetables, and AND French-pressed real coffee grounds (big BIG alhumdullilah, merci bon dieu).
-Chez Aminou with the ataya, Mouridullilah talk, and laughing at Stephanie :-)
-And really the place that brings it all together: Plage Mamelles. Breaking the surf, going out far beyond the waves, getting stung by jelly fish, doing the "Bryan and Stephanie" in water, hurting my ears trying to touch the bottom, long freeing talks with Stephanie, being goofy. Getting trop lashed by the waves and the rocks coming back to shore, but slowly learning how to read the water and escape the beating. The "quoi" boys in all their glory bringing us food and robbing us later, quoi. And just loving to "reposer" (rest) from Dakar, clear my head, just as everyone does. We'd all be lost without the ocean clearing.