All posts tagged: west africa

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Lili Lopez

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“2013, I was traveling across West Africa with my mom visiting family. Car rapides after car rapides, making key stops here and there, rediscovering our country like we’d never been here before. We curiously roamed with a different set of eyes, with a different sense of purpose. From Mali to Senegal, a little bit of Gambia, our trip quickly turned into a month. We now had 2 weeks left and Guinea-Bissau was our last stop. I could spend 10 more hours describing the village that welcomed us, but instead I’m just going to jump straight to the ending of this trip. For 10 days, they fed us, gave us a place to sleep, shared their bed, prepared “Ataya” for us, and taught us expecting nothing in return. “Let’s buy a cow for the village before we leave,” my mom said. To tell you the truth, even 10 cows wouldn’t have been enough to make up for their level of hospitality. The chief declined our offer at first, he is not the “give to get” type …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Jessica Scott

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“When I was 26, I traveled to the African continent for the first time. Since then, I have lived, studied, and worked in different African countries for varying amounts of time and though I have spent time on many continents, it is the only place I consider a second “home” outside of Appalachia. My first time, I landed in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was a place I loved for many different reasons, though the evidence of recent conflict was palpable and heartbreakingly visible in the shattered infrastructure of the city. As someone who lives in a country where “wars” have not been fought on our soil for many generations, I had to keep reminding myself that almost every person in the country had lived through conflict because it was just that recent… All of the travel books at the time said that women traveling to Sierra Leone should bring tampons with them since they were not readily available and, when available, were very expensive. So, I had stuffed a bunch of tampons into my suitcase. …