W.A.I.S.T.

I'm not quite sure how to describe the whirlwind week that I just spent in Dakar, but I'm going to start writing and hopefully create some sort of coherent posting. When I left Kaedi last week (with 13 of my region mates), we boarded a pickup truck for the seven-hour drive to Rosso on mostly paved roads. The next day, we all had a quick safety and security meeting and some softball practice before leaving early the next morning on a chartered bus to Dakar [aaah, Dakar...our promised land]. We arrived at the American Club in Dakar that evening where I found out that I would be staying the weekend with a American woman who works at the embassy and her son. Another volunteer and I went to their house where they served us a delicious homemade paella, let us take a hot shower and sleep in a real bed!
The next three days I spent on the softball fields at the American Club. I played four games for the Mauritanian Scallywags (we lost three and won one on a technicality), ate hotdogs and cheeseburgers, and drank enough beer to satisfy me for a long, long time. I met a lot of other ex-pats from Dakar as well as volunteers from Senegal, Gambia, Mali, and Guinea. I'm not sure if I can fully describe how amazing the weekend was: it was like going back to America without ever leaving the continent of Africa. The Mauritanian volunteers have a reputation for being the wildest bunch, and I think we lived up to that. Not only did our "A" team with the social division, but we did it with style -- dressed in pirate costumes, dancing on the sidelines, and having the largest cheering section of any group there. I can see why the second-year volunteers have been talking about this softball tournament since we arrived in June!
After the tournament finals on Monday, I took my time getting back spending a day at the grocery store (we spent two hours there!) and beach and another day exploring the markets of Dakar (the main market was just as overwhelming as it was the first time I took my family there in December). On Thursday, we spent 15 hours travelling from Dakar to Kaedi, which is in fact really good time!
Tomorrow, I'm planning on riding back to my site with the Peace Corps shuttle which is coming through for site assessments.
So that just leaves my monthly anecdote:
Tradition is that a lot of Mauritanian volunteers (girls and boys) shave their heads into mohawks for WAIST (the softball tournament). Since I didn't want to shave my head, I had one of my friends braid my hair into a mohawk:
It looked so sweet! And because it was really comfortable, I tended to forget about it. Like when I was having dinner with my homestay family in Dakar and discussing the cultural differences between Americans and West Africans and the impact that this has on development work, etc. And then the next day, I donned this outfit for the softball game:
If you have ever tried to catch a fly ball while wearing an eye patch and striped onesie, you'll believe me when I say that it's not easy...
Aaah, WAIST...