Eurofrican Dreams

***Eurofrican Dreams***
(#StorytellingSalemStory #999,988 out of 1mil:)

🎶So I’ve been travelling across the country—
town to town/city to city/State to State;
sitting down in random locations—
across this Nation— with a whiteboard in my haaand;
I’ve been asking pplllll:
“What’s Yor Story?”🎶

But this time, I wasn’t in America at all!
I was in Dakar, Senegal, (Western-Africa;) sitting at the edge of a sand-swept soccer field just before sundown; where the Atlantic breeze carried the smell of grilled fish and warm dust. Drums thumped somewhere in the distance—steady n slow, like a heartbeat coming up from the earth.

A young man in his early twenties, with calloused feet, a green tank top, and a ripped-up- wet-sandy-soccer-ball tucked under one arm, jogged past, noticed the board, then came back, kicking sand behind-him- with every step. He wiped sweat from his brow, smiled wide (with a smile that could outshine any star;) and said with a rhythm in his Wolof-tinged English:

⸻

“Ahh—my story? You have time?
I will tell you one that’s true. You’ll see.

When I was a boy, my brother was faster than me. Stronger, too.
He could juggle the ball a hundred times—left, right, head, chest, left again. People clapped for him all over Dakar.
Me? I tripped over my own laces. All the time.

But I watched him. Every day. Until the day he left for Europe.
He said he’d send money. Said he’d play for a team in Marseille.
He never did.
Two years later, we heard nothing. Three years, still silence.

So I trained. Alone.
I kicked rocks when I had no ball. Practiced footwork in the dark.
And now? I teach my little ones. (I have three.) I coach them in this field you see.
No grass. Just sand and European dreams.

I wear his number on my back every day. Not because I want to be him—
But because I want to remind people that he was real. I tell them that he was fast enough to outrun the Desert; & strong enough to swim past the Mediterranean.

Sometimes I still look out at the ocean and think maybe he made it.
Maybe he’s playing somewhere right now. Still fast. Still strong. Still climbing.

But even if not—
I play.
Every single day.
And when I score? I shout his name.

Loud enough to reach Marseille.”

⸻

He spun the ball once on his finger, let it drop to his foot, then tapped it forward and broke into a sprint—vanishing into a game already in motion, laughter and shouting rising like music behind him.

🎶And iii?
I stayed on the sideline with my whiteboard across my knees, still asking:
“What’s Yor story?”
waiting for someone else-
to pass a story by my feet🎶

(#StorytellingSalemStory #999,988)