It is nearly a year since I visited Senegal, the country of crossed diagonals. Some countries are built on elegant arches, some are built on strong straight lines, but Senegal is built on lines both crooked and straight, reaching and overlapping in entanglements of support.

It begins with the brush: jagged lines of crocked trees, thin lines of grass. And sand. A country of sand, of brown bits of abrasive earth that penetrate every constructed space, every interior, every attempt at resistance, gently softening the surfaces of everything it touches.

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