The farms of West Africa
November 13, 2025
She’s young, ambitious, and owns a farm that speaks several languages at once. Not just Wolof or French or English—but the languages of soil, season, sweat, and shared work.
Everything she knows about farming, she’s learned along the way. But what she’s built is more than a farm—it’s a community built by staying true to herself and growing from there.
In my memoir, "The Purpose of Getting Lost", I wrote, “Belonging, I've discovered, isn't a destination to be reached but a way of life.”
Walking her fields and talking with her and her team, I could see exactly what that looks like in practice. Belonging here isn’t abstract. It shows up in the work, the trust, the shared effort—in the way they move around each other without needing the same first language.
As I look ahead to my "The Geography of Connection" project, these are the kinds of moments I want to capture: how women lead, and how this one woman experiences connection and builds community through shared work—no matter who’s doing it—here on a farm in Pambal.
November 14, 2025
The land might look brown and dry right now but in a few months, it will be bright with the colors of freshly grown legumes and aromatics.
Today I had the pleasure of visiting another farm. But this one had one critical difference from the one I visited yesterday.
It’s a farm cooperative where land was given to an organization for the purpose of teaching and producing sustainable farming.
With a Director, Asst Director , and financial administrator to teach and assist and a President who is elected as part of shared governance, more than 75 women share four plots of land to farm for their families, both food and money.
They work together in this endeavor nine months out of the year and in doing so build their own community, financial freedom, and confidence. The goal is less about growth or world dominace but rather to pass farming down to future generations.
Later after the farm, I silently visited an oyster farm among the mangroves. And with that, I’m taking a break from research for a few days as I head on the road in my continued search of myself.