Sitting with a Gawlo in Labé’s Highlands

Field Notes from Labé: Where Stories Keep Time Book V – Part II There’s a point on Elena’s road through West Africa where, for the first time, she isn’t interviewing anyone, recording anything, or proving she has a right to be there. She’s just standing at the edge of a village square in Labé, listening….

Hollandé – When the Fouta Highlands Borrow Your Home’s Name

On the dusty road into Guinea’s Fouta Djallon, a battered Peugeot and a smiling taxi driver quietly weld Elena’s Dutch past to the West African highlands. When he calls the mountains “Hollandé” in Pular, the word suddenly makes her feel less like a foreigner and more like someone whose old home and new road have collided for a moment in the same name.