Venice is definitely a city for one's bucket list

In the heart of Senegal, where the earth pulses like an ancient drum and the wind carries the voices of ancestors, stood a solitary baobab tree. Its roots reached deep into time, and its trunk was wide enough to shelter anyone seeking refuge. Beneath its shade lived Mamadou, an old griot who had stopped singing.

Once, Mamadou had been the voice of the village. He knew every story, every song, every name etched into collective memory. But after a fever stole his voice, he withdrew into silence. He no longer spoke. He no longer sang. He no longer told stories.

People believed his gift had vanished. Yet every evening, Mamadou sat beneath the baobab, eyes closed, hands resting on the earth. He said nothing, but his presence spoke. Children came out of curiosity, elders out of longing. No one knew exactly why, but everyone felt something.

Mamadou made no dramatic gestures. Sometimes he tapped the ground three times with his fingers, and the wind seemed to respond. He would raise his hand, and the birds would fall silent. It was as if the tree itself breathed with him.

One night, a traveler arrived from afar. He was weary, restless, searching for answers. He sat beside Mamadou and, after a long silence, asked: “Why do you sit here every day, without saying a word?”

Mamadou opened his eyes, smiled gently, and slowly traced a spiral in the dust. The gesture was simple, yet full of meaning. The traveler watched, puzzled. Then, looking at the spiral, he felt something stir within him — a memory, a sensation, a truth beyond words.

He understood that Mamadou had not stopped telling stories. He had simply changed his language. He understood that some stories are not told — they are felt. They are received in silence, like wind through leaves, like the heartbeat of the earth beneath your feet.

By 2025, the baobab had become a place of pilgrimage. Not for miracles, but for memory. People came to sit in silence, to be touched by the breath of the world. They discovered that spirituality does not live only in temples or texts. Sometimes, it dwells in the whisper of a tree, in the gesture of a hand, in the presence of a man who chose to listen more than speak.

Mamadou’s silence became an invisible song — one that taught the world that the deepest truths are not shouted, but received.