"I did not think of scary American death, of hospital rooms and white sheets, ambulances or funeral parlors.  Death made sense in this world of dust and heat and flies and disease.  It was large and incomprehensible like the stars, the baobab trees, or the ocean, and somehow comforting.  In America it is so bad to die, as though someone cheated.  In Senegal, it is much easier.

from Under the Neem Tree by Susan Lowerre