About seven months ago, I was paired up with a Senegalese girl to be my sitemate. My first thought after finding this out, was how hard it was going to be to communicate with someone from a different country. I kept thinking about how I probably would have to teach her how to speak Chichewa and I was worried about this. What worried me most though was the cultural difference between the two of us, would I be able to truly be myself around this girl? Would she judge me? I quickly learned to be around her and started to forget all my worries.

It wasn’t all easy though, I sometimes found myself being compared to her on my site by community members. I started to worry that maybe I wasn’t good enough and maybe everyone loved her better because she was nicer than me. My fears would have easily turned into resentment and jealousy if I hadn’t learned to fix my attitude. I decided to try to understand her better because I didn’t understand her. 

I saw how much she was struggling with our language and I kept wondering why in the world anyone would put themselves in such a situation. I decided to do what a normal person should do. I asked her why she left her home and came to a strange country that she’d have to struggle in. She told me that development in one African country, meant development in Africa and we are all one, I found this very beautiful. 

Getting to know my sitemate has been one of the best things I’ve gotten to experience, she has taught me a lot about Senegalese cuisine and I have learned to eat food that I normally would have considered strange earlier this year she has grown to become more like family than a friend and I am grateful to CorpsAfrica for pairing me with her. Because of her, I have considered doing what she is doing. Sokhna has grown to become someone that I look up to and someone that inspires me and I cannot imagine how I could have managed to survive this experience without her. I have applied to be an Exchange Volunteer with hopes of leaving my country to go and work in a foreign country just like her.