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| Me trying to swing |
This past week was the West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST). It’s basically where all the West African Volunteers come together for a weekend of fun, for us to relax, chill, and share ideas and best practices, in theory. However it was a weekend of partying and just OUTRIGHT fun, involving lots of alcohol..
I went down to Dakar last Wednesday, an all day trip. I had a med appointment the next day. All the Senegal volunteers, that requested, got home stays, which is staying with expats, people that work at the embassy. They are soo kind opening their homes to a bunch of us, (as much as they can take for the weekend). My home stay mom was AWESOME>>SUPPER AWESOME>.
She took in 10 of us, all girls and opened her home to us. They were just required to give us a roof over our heads for the weekend and nothing else BUT mine went all out. First, she let me move in earlier, like two days before schedule, provided food for us, all the days we where there. There was no need to go out and eat in Dakar and spend a bunch of money we had it all at home. I only ate out for lunch as I was at the fields “playing” softball. Our house was soo conveniently located near all the madness, a 10miniute from all the fields and club Atlantique (we call it American Club). Which is like a recreational/YMCA, that has pool, tennis, volleyball, food court. etc. Americans use this club and pay for it but us volunteers get to go in for free.
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| Kolda Region Team |
So the only rule at her house is “make yourself at home.” Everything is up for grabs, expect dinner, that the cook prepares before it served. The first night there, I just had leftovers of fish brochette, rice, with a tomato sauce. It was yummylicious, I will take leftover there any day over food at site. The next night was cheeseburgers, with everything; I repeat EVERYTHING needed for a cheese burger, with onion soup. I don’t even like soups but Jean (their cooks) soups are AMAZING. The next night was taco night, AGAIN with all the right toppings. Another night was lasagna, carrot soup, then another night keeshe, chicken pot pie and yummy desert, and the last night was pesto pasta, with BIG ASS SHRIMPS. For breakfast I usually ate leftovers or cereal, with real milk.
SO she fed us, opened her pantry to us, even used some of her goods for a bake sale we had, with proceeds going to our women empowerment initiative. We used her washer and dryer, my clothes smell like Amerique once again. Funny story on that note another volunteer and I put the clothes in the dryer to wash instead of the washer LOL.. How shall we function back in the U.S. lol. HOT SHOWERS, with nice shower heads. Door-to-door services in a hummer. YES A HUMMER here in Senegal.
So for WAIST, Friday was All-vol, which is where all the volunteers got together to showcase what they are doing by region and sector, with each other and NGO’s and then in the afternoon, the NGO’s did the same. That night was a talent show and a club, open only to us.
The next day was softball, in which we all had different costumes by regions; my region was space corps. The games were fun as we were just playing for fun. We won two games in total and lost two.. My region has not won a game in years. The two games we lost were to a Senegal team, that took the games super serious and we had to play by the rules NOOO FUN.
Saturday was a party/auction at the Marine house. A couple of male volunteers got auctioned up to help SENGAD, which is our gender awareness aspect. The night was ended with partying and a lot of girls in rural villages would be sent to school.
The next day was more games and a party at a club called Oceanium, which was also just for us, Djed by our region. THAT WAS AN AWESOME PARTY… too much went down to even mention but all in the name of fun. The next day was a pool party at the American club, but people were too over partyed from the night before to enjoy. SO most people like I just went for a while and left; some did not even show up at all.
I ended my night/stay in Dakar, hanging out at the richest hotel in Senegal, maybe even West African…
HAHAHAHA wouldn’t you like to know what happen.
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| The Team |
BUT NOW I’m Back L to Maro (rice) tan (only).. and its soo much hotter down here than it is in Dakar.
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