Senegal News Blog @newzblogz.com

MINDELO, Cape Verde Virtually every aspect of global migration can be seen in this tiny West African nation, where the number of people who have left approaches the number who remain and almost everyone has a close relative in Europe or America.

Migrant money buoys the economy. Migrant votes sway politics. Migrant departures split parents from children, and the most famous song by the most famous Cape Verdean venerates the national emotion, Sodade, or longing. Lofty talk of opportunity abroad mixes at cafe tables here with accounts of false documents and sham marriages.

The intensity of the national experience makes this barren archipelago the Galapagos of migration, a microcosm of the forces straining American politics and remaking societies across the globe.

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When a pineapple grenade exploded in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, shrapnel ripped through Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Angel Melara's leg, forehead, neck and lip.

Melara, a 2003 graduate of Douglas High School, was treated for his wounds and awarded a Purple Heart. In January 2005, he came home to Gardnerville Ranchos for some rest and relaxation. Since then, he has served another tour of duty in Iraq, re-enlisted in the Marines and, in January, he graduated from Marine Security Guard school in Quantico, Va.

"I recovered to the point where it is hard to tell I was even wounded," Melara said Saturday in an e-mail from Dakar, Senegal, where he's among the Marines responsible for the security of the American embassy. "I am planning on making the Marine Corps a career. My main goal is to become a commissioned officer."

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Amadou Gallo Fall didn't even have the cliche "cup of coffee" in

the NBA as a player.

That was fine with him because becoming a professional basketball

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North of Baghdad, in a warehouse converted into a detention center, George Driscoll stood in front of a man he considered a terrorist.

"What are you thinking right now?" Driscoll, a U.S. Navy reserve commander, asked the man through an interpreter.

"I'm wondering how I can get that pen out of your hand and drive it into your eye," the man replied.

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INDIANAPOLIS - Garrett Johnson isn't one to look for excuses following what he called a bad day.

But any athlete participating in the USA Track & Field Championships would be hard-pressed to come up with a better reason than Johnson, who finished seventh in the shot-put finals Saturday. The former Florida State athlete and 2006 NCAA outdoor and indoor winner in the shot put just finished his first year at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.

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