Help Sam Go To Senegal

Hi, my name is Sam Glover and I am a Junior at Middle Tennessee State University. I am currently on a dual degree path with one of my degrees being in music with a focus in Jazz Studies and the other being in French and Francophone Studies with a minor in Geography. I have recently been presented with an opportunity to travel to Senegal in West Africa this Summer. The purpose of this expedition academically is for two reasons. The first one is to do research for my final thesis that I must do for my music degree. The overarching idea of the thesis is to examine the origins of what became to be known as Jazz music in America. To do this I will use this trip to Senegal to examine musical and cultural elements that were brought to the American South through the slave trade. I will be taking a deeper look into the influences that these tribes and cultures brought to the US including musical aspects and language. As for the second purpose of this trip, I will be doing a French course in tandem with the other course. I will be taking this opportunity to study and experience the French language in a Francophone environment outside of Europe. As a former French colony, French is still widely spoken and used in Senegal and this experience will give me the opportunity to study the language in depth including accent differences, grammatical differences, and vocabulary differences as opposed to French from France. I also will be studying the influences of local culture and language on Senegalese French which will give me a broader understanding of how the language has evolved there. Overall I am very excited about this trip but need a bit of help financially. I have never left the United States before so this opportunity is a big leap for me, and I know it would broaden my worldview and perspective of the world tremendously. I appreciate any help that anyone gives and am very excited to be able to take this opportunity.