Because of my interest in French, the countries that I ranked highest in my YES application were Senegal and Morocco. The YES Abroad program also provides scholarships for secondary school students from countries with significant Muslim populations to spend one academic year in the United States. At my interview for the YES Abroad Scholarship, because of my interest in Morocco, I was lucky enough to be introduced to one of the students from Morocco who was participating in the YES Abroad by spending a year in the United States. After expressing my nervousness about living in a foreign country and with a host family, he assured me that Moroccans were so hospitable and that everybody would treat me like a princess. So of course when I was awarded a scholarship to Senegal and not Morocco, I was ecstatic, but without having met a student from Senegal I was once again slightly nervous about what living in Senegal would be like.
In the three months since then, I've met both Senegalese-Americans and spoken with people living in Senegal. Both experiences have been wonderful, and I feel much less nervous about spending ten months there. A couple months ago, I met a Senegalese couple while attending an art festival. They were extremely excited for me to go there, which was so lovely. Even though they were in the middle of running a booth, they took the time to call their daughter who lives in Dakar so that I could talk to her (it was of course slightly terrifying when they handed me the phone and told me that she knows French and I could talk to her in that, but it went pretty well). She answered some of my questions about Senegal, and told me how beautiful it was and how much I would love it. Just after one phone call, her parents then told me that when I went to Senegal, I would have family there.
More recently, I met with a friend of a relative who is in a long distance relationship with her Senegalese boyfriend. She's even considering moving to Senegal, and we might even be going there at around the same time (I leave in about two and a half months, in early September). After talking to her for awhile about Senegalese customs, we face-timed with her boyfriend there in Senegal. He is actually a French tutor for high school and college students, and we had an encouraging conversation in French in which he also told me that I'll love the beautiful country of Senegal, and that I should try to speak as much French as possible while I'm there to improve!
In nine days, I'll be travelling to D.C for my Pre-Departure Orientation, where I hope to find out even more about what the next year of my life will be like.