海角大神

Here in the Monitor newsroom, we talk a lot about what we put on the cover of our magazine. Editors choose stories we hope will expand readers鈥� understanding of places and people, illuminate shifts in thought, and highlight moments of joy and love and humanity that are happening every day, around the world.

We also hope to give you really great stories to read.

So, when Africa editor Ryan Lenora Brown reached out about a piece that reporters Colette Davidson and Essouly Diedhiou had brought back from West Africa, we saw a chance to hit all these goals. Colette and Essouly traveled to Senegal and to part of the Canary Islands off the western coast of Africa. In this week鈥檚 cover story, they tell the wrenching story of young people deciding whether to leave their home country in search of a better life 鈥� and of the Senegalese elders trying to convince them to stay.

This question of staying or going, and the forces underneath that decision, run through other stories in the magazine this week. From the United States, writers Sarah Matusek and Victoria Hoffmann explore the question of what constitutes a nation鈥檚 border in their story about the U.S. Border Patrol expanding to inland American cities. Pieces from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland show how residents are grappling with what 鈥渉ome鈥� should mean. And reporter Patrik Jonsson looks at the timber industry in Georgia and examines what happens when local identity and economy are whipsawed by large, external economic forces. It鈥檚 a situation that, if one peels back the layers, doesn鈥檛 appear too foreign from the one facing young Senegalese fishers half a world away.

I love how Monitor reporting illuminates these sorts of connections. We hope you, too, will read and feel closer to the other humans who share this beautiful world.